Facebook F8: New services for devs, including ads, in-game gifts, analytics

Today in San Francisco Facebook kicked off its annual conference, F8, and announced a swath of new features. You can read about all of them over at Facebook, where a dev blog drills down into them. But here, we've broken out some of the more game-dev relevant ones:

Analytics. Facebook now offers a comprehensive analytics platform for apps, which allows you to track how users use your game across multiple devices. It includes features to track event-based metrics, segments, ads, and more.

App Sharing. Facebook has revamped its app sharing tool, in order to "do better job building the sharing tools developers need in order to provide a clear, predictable experience in their apps." Users can share your game to groups and on Facebook Messenger. Alongside this, there's a new App Invite system, too.

LiveRail. Facebook acquired this mobile video ad platform last year, and now you can use it for delivering ads within your mobile game.

In-Game Gifting. While the company admits its desktop gaming segment is shrinking, it still has a lot of users. The company has added a new tool that lets players gift premium items to their friends, to help increase sales of virtual goods.

News on other announcements from F8 (including updates to its APIs and Parse, among other potentially relevant updates) can be found over at Facebook's developer blog.