Facebook from Five Thousand Feet presents an inferred conceptual Data Model of the Facebook platform as a way-finding map of what has become an extensive system. The visual data model is of the various facets of Facebook -- Groups, Events, Messages, Pages, Apps and so forth -- and mapped down to the descriptive level of the individual data fields as publicly documented in the Graph API 2.0.

While filling such a visual gap is particularly useful for app developers, it is an approach open to every reader who wants a better understanding of the four corners of the Facebook platform and what it has to offer, beyond one's current usage. A spinoff benefit of the visual approach is that it also provides an effortless introduction to Data Modeling, around a subject domain (i.e. Facebook) that just about everyone on the planet is familiar with to some degree.

About Steve Goschnick:

Steve Goschnick is an educator and a problem solver in Information Systems. He has over 30 years' experience in information modeling, database design and application analysis, design and development. In 2003, he developed the then new Masters level subject Information Modeling and Database Design, teaching and refining it over the next 10 years at the University of Melbourne, to graduates from the far corners of the planet, holding diverse undergraduate degrees from across the spectrum (Arts, Science, Humanities, law, Business and Music). Today it remains a Foundational subject to a number of Masters programs at the University, including the MIT (Master of Information Technology_, the MIS (Master of Information Systems) and the MBIT (Master of Business Information Systems).

Steve holds a degree in Engineering, a Masters degree in Computing and has researched an information modeling related topic (Software Agent meta-models) for a PhD -- the thesis to be submitted in 2015. In an ongoing quest to help make computers and the creation of apps more accessible to everyone, he founded the International Journal of People-Oriented Programming in 2011, of which he remains Co-editor-in-Chief with long-time colleague Professor Leon Sterling.