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Facebook Developer Garage Cyberjaya February 2010

I recently attended the Facebook Developer Garage Cyberjaya (FBDGC) held on Saturday 20th February 2010 on behalf of UrekaLabs, with Nicholas Nuing. The topic of the event was "Monetizing Facebook". This is the second Developer Garage to be held, with the first one being held last year May 2009. There has been quite some time.

This program interested me for one reason alone.

On the event page, the event was said to be held in conjunction with MIMOS PHP COE. This surprised me as I did not realize that MIMOS had setup a PHP Center of Excellence.

I wanted to find out more.

MIMOS PHP Center of Excellence

I found that the MIMOS PHP COE was recently setup as of late January 2010, with a memorandum of agreement with Zend Technologies. Yes, the Zend.

Apparently there are a total of 10 MIMOS COEs, but I couldn't find out more information. I had a few more lingering questions about the MIMOS PHP COE:

• How can I help?
• How can I be updated?
• What is the objectives of the MIMOS PHP COE?

Hopefully over the next few months as the COE goes underway, I can have the answers to these questions.

Monetizing Facebook

So the topic for this Developer Garage was about monetizing Facebook. How to make money from Facebook?

Some of the speakers for the day:

• Nasrul Amri of (@nasrulfb)
• Uzaidi Udanis (@uzaidi)
• Abdul Khafie

The general discussion was about making money through:

• Advertisements on Facebook applications, such a games or quizzes
• Selling virtual goods with Facebook games
• Using Facebook as a sales leads through the use of your profile page, groups, and fan pages

I don't think I learned much from it, but met some people.

Some facts:

• The event was sponsored by MDeC.
• There were around 35 people attending.
• Break and lunch was served.
• Decent wifi.

Where is the Developer Oriented Stuff?

I wondered what the "Developer" part in "Developer Garage" meant, so I took a gander at Facebook's Developer wiki on the subject matter:

Facebook Developer Garages are just like they sound – a place to explore, get gritty, tinker, experiment, and test out ideas for Facebook Platform. Being in the Garage is all about participating, getting your hands dirty, and exploring fresh ideas and solutions. Garages should encourage community involvement and incorporate presentations by participants.

Well there is nothing about coding. Plus "Facebook Platform" is so vague. Perhaps locally, I'm just not the target market. Or my mind related the word "Developer" to "Programmer".

My Tweets During The Event

• At the Facebook Developer Garage Cyberjaya event in MIMOS PHP Center of Excellence. #
• Facebook Developer Garage "Cyberjaya" held in Technology Park Malaysia. Good job Cyberjaya! #
• MIMOS has a MOA with Zend, for the MIMOS PHP COE #
• @bytebot don't know, going to find out soon. in reply to bytebot #
• Rizatuddin Ramli is on the stage! #mimosphpcoe #
• Now seems like a good time to clean up my inbox! #
• @razlanshah yes yes I'm scouting in reply to razlanshah #
• Facebook Developer Garage Cyberjaya current topic: Using a Facebook Fanpage to increase your businesses online presence #fbdgc #mimosphpcoe #
• About 35 people here at the Facebook Developer Garage Cyberjaya #fbdgc #mimosphpcoe #
• @ishafizan would like to know more about the MIMOS PHP COE, can we meet up later and talk? #
• @nasrulfb of @xadira is speaking at Facebook Developer Garage Cyberjaya about social gaming platform Xadira http://www.xadira.com/ #fbdgc #
• I'm taking over the twittersphere this morning. I guess no one else is awake, or I stopped following some twits. #
• correction hes generally talking about fb games Restaurant City, Farmville, Pet City, etc #fbdgc Now onto making money from Virtual Goods #
• discussing revenues of Zynga games #fbdgc #
• @uzaidi is going to speak next #fbdgc #
• @ishafizan great talking to you, would love to learn more about the MIMOS PHP COE #
• @uzaidi wrote his presentation this morning #
• #fbdgc should be streamed live via ustream #
• @alphaque not so sure, going to try to dig for more information later in reply to alphaque #
• @uzaidi says "You Must Be A Media!!" #
• from @uzaidi "If more people talk about you in the web, the more relevant you are in the current internet world .." #
• damn after @uzaidi I want every one to think my shoes are cool! #
• @uzaidi talks about the term "Facebookonomics" #
• @uzaidi knows his daughter better through Facebook, if thats the case I think you are having communication problems with your daughter. #
• oh congrats RT @cerventus: Facebook Makes Small, Strategic Acquisition of Malaysia’s Octazen http://bit.ly/bJu2lx via @myentrepreneurs #
• oh @xadira is going to be on stage #
• #fbdgc @xadira talking about the "The Making of Dragon Master" #
• #fbdgc I like @xadira's art direction #
• #fbdgc lucky draw time! #
• #fbdgc first lucky draw prize is a cinema ticket! #
• #fbdgc last prize is an ipod nano! #