We talk a lot at Walmart Labs about the large-scale stage we get to play on as the world’s largest retailer. But it’s good to humbled and there’s nothing like Facebook scale to do that to anyone who thinks they have a big on-line userbase. Early this month, it was my pleasure to attend a presentation by Al Urim and Jeff Morrison from Facebook’s mobile web team at Sid Maestre‘s Bay Area Mobile meeting in which they share their experiences maintaining Facebook’s mobile website. I thought they’re be enough interest in the topic to post my notes publicly; hope you find them useful.
The presentation started by re-iterating the numbers Facebook released back in October: they have 604M mobile active users with a quarter of those (126M) being mobile-only over the course of a month. They didn’t break out the number of mobile web users but they did re-iterate their previous statement that their mobile website has more users than their Android and iOS apps combined, which doesn’t clear up the recent contradictory speculative numbers posted by Benedict Evans who claims Facebook mweb is smaller than either Android or iOS. Perhaps the answer is that Facebook mweb double-counts users (e.g., iPhone users tapping on Facebook notification email links and getting to mweb) whereas perhaps Ben Evans’ numbers assume zero sum math.
Regardless, I’m confident we can all agree that this is one popular mobile-optimized website.
One Mobile Site
In mobile, we often talk about the challenges of maintaining native apps and mobile websites in parallel. Facebook had magnified this challenge further by maintaining two separate mobile websites: one for feature phones and the other for modern smartphones. One of the presenters, Al Urim, had some visceral pain from this experience: he had to port the ability to “like comments” to both of these stacks.
To solve this problem, Facebook has unified these two mobile websites into one. To simplify the challenges of coping with diverse mobile device capabilities, Facebook uses an XML-based abstract component framework to encapsulate the details of presentation layer rendering. They shared an example of a button, which they suggested would be written as this in their markup:
<m:button>…</m:button>
(Yep, that appears to be XML namespaces; it’s making a comeback!) That markup is then rendered in diverse ways, such as an <input> on some devices, a <button> on others, etc.
They claimed that this mark-up language covers 80% of the functionality of the mobile site, with the other 20% being custom HTML/CSS/JS code for specific devices. They cited taking advantage of CSS3 features and GPU acceleration as common reasons to write this custom code; there was also plenty of grousing about the challenges of supporting lousy Android Gingerbread-era web browsers.
At this point, the presenters emphasized that their number one priority is moving fast; they don’t tolerate architectures that make it difficult to rapidly iterate on new features. They also enthusiastically endorsed the productivity boost of this approach; it really does take away a lot of the pain of supporting a very fragmented mobile web landscape.
Optimization Lessons
The topic next moved to optimization lessons that they’ve learned:
- Consolidate resources into the lowest number of files you can. Put all your images into image file (i.e., sprits), consolidate all JS into one file, etc. This is pretty standard advice as it minimizes the number of disparate connections required to load images (pipelining notwithstanding) and the cost of establishing a connection on mobile is even higher than desktop. (Incidentally, when I inspected m.facebook.com on my desktop Chrome browser, I saw it actually contains a crap-ton of individual JS files and images. But, when I changed the User Agent to masquerade as a low-end mobile device, I saw the consolidation they were talking about. My guess is that they added special features to support modern mobile browsers and whoever did that didn’t take the time to optimize the specialized JS and other assets used for those features.)
- Caching. Turns out mobile browsers don’t have very useful caches. They indicated their site uses App Cache as a work-around and said they were looking at using Local Storage in the future. (I didn’t see either of these getting used much by their site when inspecting with the browser dev tools, for whatever that’s worth.)
- Manual asset reordering. They talked about manually tweaking your HTML file so that the UI elements and data that the user cares most about will render first and the rest of the page elements can load in asynchronously.
- Use CDNs. Akamai, et al. are your friends! This is especially true for Facebook as their one application is used throughout the entire world. There was a lot of discussion about macro- and micro-latencies (i.e., latency establishing connections to local cell towers versus latency crossing the Pacific). Put your static resources as close to your users as possible. Incidentally, my friend and seatmate at the event, Will Lowry, is a former AT&T exec and shared with me that the connection from the cell tower to the backhaul is a big source of latency as it’s usually just a T1.
In summary, some useful tips but nothing you haven’t already heard if you’ve been paying any attention to Steve Souders throughout the years.
Architecture
While their mobile site is mostly server-side rendered, they want to increasingly shift to a more client-centric model. Their current approach uses modern frameworks like Backbone and CommonJS/AMD modules to render the chrome of the mobile website on the client and then they request server-rendered content to display within that chrome. Moving forward, they want to explore building out sections of the site to be entirely client-rendered; that will happen in pieces. Older devices fallback to an entirely server-rendered experience; they use WURFL for device detection.
They talked about their desire to move to an architecture that enables seamless conditional rendering of content on either the client or the server; when I asked them for details, they said this was just in conceptual stages. (At Walmart Labs, we’ve been exploring this concept as well; we’ve been calling it “conditional tier rendering.”)
Front-end Team Structure
Their mobile team has structured their development teams into two groups: a core platform team and “product developers”. The core team maintains the framework mentioned above and delivers capabilities to the product developers, who in turn create the end-user experiences. They said they have a very collaborative relationship between the designers and developers; some designers write code, and some developers have a lot of room to implement from high-level design direction.
They also mentioned that they have a dedicated mobile data team that analyzes their massive pile of metrics and help interpret results from A/B tests.
QA
The team didn’t claim any special cure for the QA pain everyone in mobile experiences. They do a lot of manual testing, but they also have some automation: an internal Node.js-based framework that runs unit tests and web driver tests. Their framework-centric development approach helps a great deal too as that core layer is extremely well-tested. They also mentioned a flip-side to this framework goodness: memory management pain. It’s really easy to run into memory issues with two or more components that each try to load large datasets.
Wrap Up
There was Q&A, but I’ve mixed in the answers I captured with the content above. Incidentally, my friend Will asked when they were going to open up a Facebook Graph Search API, but they didn’t have an answer (“If you are interested in that, please let us know and we’ll pass the feedback up the chain”).
Kudos to Facebook for sharing some of the details of their web app and stack and for hosting the event. We’ll have to do something similar at Walmart Labs soon.
Ben Galbraith 
what was the thing that struck you the most?
Facebook gives a new exciting phase this year.
Great and informative article, thanks!
Facebook is an online social networking service, whose name stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other.^..
With kind regards
<http://beautyfashiondigest.com
hello
good
hiii
A standard website very seldom translates well to your mobile platform. The mobile version of your website must be much simpler than much of your website-your menu structure may wish to be redone completely, and you might want to eliminate many of the graphics that this main site contains. Still, depending on the mobile device getting used, the visitor may choose to see your standard site, so give them the possibility if their smartphone can easily accommodate it. Provide a simple and readily-accessible toggle change so visitors can simply select the version they prefer.`;-.
Head to our new online site as well
<http://caramoanpackage.com/index.php
If you are starting out with no knowledge and nothing to market and sell, the 1-2-3 Power System has
everything you need to earn instant internet income.
You strongly need the ability to stay motivated day
in and day out when you are not seeing any results yet.
For more information about the features and trial version of All – Proxy
Lite follow the site:.
Great topic. healthy discussion. Thanks so very much for taking your time to create this very useful and informative site. I have learned a lot from your site. Thanks!!mobile repairing course in hyderabad
Hello there! I culd have sworn I’ve been to this blog befopre but after lookinhg at a
few of the posts I realized it’s new to me. Nonetheless, I’m definitely happy I found
it and I’ll be bookmarkingg itt andd checking back regularly!
Great article! This is the kind of info that should be shared across the web. Shame on the search engines for no longer positioning this submit higher! Come on over and consult with my site . Thank you
Great post. I was checking continuously this blog and I am
impressed! Very helpful information particularly
the last part 🙂 I care for such information a lot. I was seeking this particular information for a very long time.
Thank you and good luck.
One of his dad’s favorite stories is the three of
us walking past a television in the Castro district of San Francisco and
Evan yelling, ‘Hey, that’s Mary Martin. Ask yourself, “when was the last time I took a walk on the wild side. He’s on (or over) the edge, bordering on rude and doesn’t seem to give a damn about anyone but himself – what exactly do women see in a guy like that.
Their mobile team has structured their development teams into two groups: a core platform team and “product developers”. The core team maintains the framework mentioned above and delivers capabilities to the product developers, who in turn create the end-user experiences. They said they have a very collaborative relationship between the designers and developers; some designers write code, and some developers have a lot of room to implement from high-level design direction. buy book reviews
Howdy! I just wokuld like to offer you a huge thumbs up for the
grat info you’ve ggot here on this post. I’ll be comihg bac to your blog for more soon.
In mobile, we often talk about the challenges of maintaining native apps and mobile websites in parallel. Facebook had magnified this challenge further by maintaining two separate mobile websites: one for feature phones and the other for modern smartphones. One of the presenters, Al Urim, had some visceral pain from this experience: he had to port the ability to “like comments” to both of these stacks. weight loss
The presentation started by re-iterating the numbers Facebook released back in October: they have 604M mobile active users with a quarter of those (126M) being mobile-only over the course of a month. They didn’t break out the number of mobile web users but they did re-iterate their seo singapore
Turns out mobile browsers don’t have very useful caches. They indicated their site uses App Cache as a work-around and said they were looking at using Local Storage in the future. (I didn’t see either of these getting used much by their site when inspecting with the browser dev tools, for whatever that’s worth.) singapore accounting software
Ben is Vice President of Global Products at Walmart.particularly those from the losing boat HCG drops
Ben is Vice President of Global Products at Walmart.It seems to me that much of the excessive outrage against him is generated by the fact that he doesn’t wear a white collar and he didn’t perform his actions for white collar reasons. eye exam portland
Check out the USP Labs Prime Reviews out there to get a feel for what people are saying.
Warming up the right way is important when trying
to increase muscle mass. So more you eat the foods with
high proteins, better it is for your body to gain natural muscle mass.
The presentation started by re-iterating the numbers Facebook released back in October: they have 604M mobile active users with a quarter of those (126M) being mobile-only over the course of a month.Furthermoreforskolin for weight loss
The presentation started by re-iterating the numbers Facebook released back in October: they have 604M mobile active users with a quarter of those (126M) being mobile-only over the course of a month.The Egyptian revolution was preceded by one in Tunisiaspartagen XT
hello
This is the kind of information that should be shared across the web. Shame on the search the learning lab engines for no longer positioning this submit higher! Come on over and consult with my site .
The presentation started by re-iterating the numbers Facebook released back in October: they have 604M mobile active users with a quarter of those (126M) being mobile-only over the course of a month.Greens leader Christine Milne noted that Moylan’s actions were part of a “long and proud history of civil disobedienceroyal jelly
Hi, I log on to your tarot blog like every week.
Your story-telling style is awesome, keep up the good work!
Forte School of Music is providing Music Lessons howick, New Zealand. Forte School is best in Music , Singing , Guitar and Piano Classes. Contact us now 09 534 2223
Hi
Adzet is the world’s leading Marketing Platform – providing marketing strategy and business development strategy to small and medium businesses worldwide
Facebook Zero can be accessed only via default internet browsers on handsets and above mentioned versions of Opera Mini. fb.com mobile site
Barbecue beef brisket is the national dish of the Republic of Texas. Here’s the recipe for how to cook it the way the BBQ champions abd BBQ restaurants cook it. Learn how to grill Brisket steak in best weather now!
Barbecue beef brisket is the national dish of the Republic of Texas. Here’s the recipe for how to cook it the way the BBQ champions abd BBQ restaurants cook it. Learn how to grill Texas brisket steak in best weather now!
Yes i agree with you in some points like FB mobile and team…. Today FB is a big social website and a huge number of community attach this website. Overall Stair Handrails Systems i really like your stuff.
I am really love FB because it keeps me attach to people I wouldn’t normally talk to them the time – like family . It is just news news information for me as well. The only thing I don’t like about FB and social media in general is how people claim things there are not – bragging and such. I don’t do that. I just post what’s new, what’s on my mind or a new website post.
A good lesson for new user of facebook mobile.
In this time FB is one the big social website and it has many benefits. Anytime anywhere Embankment Stair we can connect to each other. I think the FB team take decision right way.
This trip was really for you something special, it really is! All the same, you know how to choose the right place!
Thank you for sharing.
I am just commenting to make you understand of the incredible encounter my friend’s daughter went through studying your web site. She figured out a wide variety of issues, with the inclusion of what it’s like to have an ideal helping mindset to get other individuals with ease comprehend selected grueling topics.
I am just commenting to make you understand of the incredible encounter my friend’s daughter went through studying your web site. She figured out a wide variety of issues, with the inclusion of what it’s like to have an ideal helping mindset to get other individuals with ease comprehend selected grueling topics.
Hello, According to my point of view, Facebook is an online social networking service, whose name stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other.
And about Quinn’s book, last week I went out of my way to visit a bookstore I’d never been to before, and her book was right on the corner of the first table as you come in the door. Almost got it just to reward myself for being there. 🙂Marketing Kona
it sounds like a perfect getaway! Your photos are too good – and I haven’t ever tried halloumi before – it sounds like quite a wonderful experience.lisa
Thank you for the information you give is very helpful and we thank you very much need you give us small businesses the opportunity to comment.fethiye rodos feribot
it sounds like a perfect getaway! Your photos are too good – and I haven’t ever tried halloumi before – it sounds like quite a wonderful experience.Lexington Distillery District
Haha that is awesome. Yes, I’m glad I could save you money. Also, if you just use a baking pan and line the cupcake cones in the pan, and are very careful not to tip them, you can get away without the fancy pan at all.jasa pembuatan patung fiber
I would never outbid you Keith. Thank you for another informative posting. I never posted when you wrote this on June 23; as I figured the blog would soon be overran by “person who shall remain nameless”. It would appear there is finally a moderator; I am totally appreciative. Stopped coming this blog because of a tsunami of off-topic verbiage. Guess I can stop by more frequently now. Thank you, whoever.mobile pokies
I really admire your willingness to share what for me would be such an expose of my most private self. Its apparent that a great many writers fall into this broad category of introvert and it is some comfort to hear about this. I have had a blog site half-way up on the internet since May and struggle with putting my first post up . I am sure it sounds silly to you all who blithly blog about so much. But it does help to hear writers I admire talk about their own fears.RotaRadar Blog
Thanks for Nice and Informative Post. This article really contains lot more information about This Topic. We have read your all the information some points are also good and some usually are awesome. Great post I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this interesting.network cabling company near me