Implement Open Graph Protocol in my web application

Question

I am interested to implement Facebook way of link sharing feature in my web application. In FB when we paste a link it shows the content of link as thumbnail,few text etc.

• How can I do that?
• I know its Open Graph Protocol but how to implement it in my web application(based on spring MVC)?
• What are the technology needed for this? I am a java,jquery guy.
• Is it necessary to use facebook for this?

Answer 1

Open Graph isn't a library or a script you can use to build an application that is capable of doing what you want. Open Graph is a Protocol that follows a set of rules that provide a convinient scheme of building social applications.

By doing so, it's made sure that there is a standarized way to work with that data.

So the short answer: OG does not provide such a functionality, you have to build it by yourself (though there are pretty good links and scripts that make your life much easier: http://ogp.me/ scroll to the very bottom). Instead by using OG, you make sure that every application that works with OG (facebook and google to name a few examples) can work with your data properly.

It might not be the answer you searched for, but I think it should give you a little information on what OG really is.