Facebook to offer more help to outside programmers, crack down on abusive applications

Facebook to offer more help to outside programmers, crack down on abusive applications : Facebook Inc. is introducing more tools to help the software applications fueling the online hangout's popularity and is promising to intensify its efforts to weed out programs that violate its rules for protecting users' privacy. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's precocious chief executive, outlined on Wednesday the steps in a programmers' conference that underscored the growing influence of the Web site that he started 4 1/2 years ago in his Harvard University dorm room. A crowd of about 1,500 programmers turned out to hear Zuckerberg discuss how he hopes to make it easier for people to share information and entertainment wherever they go on the Web. Zuckerberg, 24, is counting on programmers who are not employed by Facebook to play a vital... [read full story]