I want to build a mobile application that allows end users to sign up and participate in events (like parties, seminars, conferences etc..). Instead of building a CMS from scratch for an administrator to manage events, is it possible to use Facebook Events as the CMS? Then my mobile application will pull information about these events via the Facebook API.
Any one know if it’s better for me to build the CMS from scratch or to use FB events? And what are things I have to consider in making this decision?
Let’s say events are authored by users of the system, and if we go the FB CMS method, then users MUST have a Facebook account.
This is certainly possible with the events Facebook api. If you wanted all the events associated with an account you own, you could embed an access token into your application. If you want people to accept your event or host the event under their own account you would need to prompt users for permissions to manage events on their behalf.
It’s pretty subjective question whether this is a good idea and it depends on what you are trying to achieve. The biggest upside is that its already built for you and designed to scale and wouldn’t require servers, etc. The biggest downside I see is that Facebook changes their API and its not always the most reliable (see the always growing bug list they keep). Also, users may need an account depending on how you decide to implement the functionality.