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The expansion of Facebook's Open Graph program Wednesday, which lets apps like Spotify and RunKeeper publish their users' activities to Facebook, will be a publicity boon for many apps. When a user's activity gets published to their profile on the social network (with their permission), the app gets exposure among the user's friends.

But for other apps, the expansion of the program is much more profound. Ticketmaster, for example, is using the feature to develop an entirely new sales channel on the social network, one that it intends to take as seriously as its growing mobile channel, Kip Levin, Ticketmaster's executive vice president for e-commerce tells Fast Company.

That's because the Open Graph program, which was announced at Facebook's f8 developer conference in...