[1] http://urx.com/
In addition to their meta tags, Facebook also released an API that lets developers send Facebook a request with a URL to receive a response for the equivalent deeplink. This solution works best for deeper native integrations and those who want to go through Facebook to get this mapping. Fortunately, URX omnilinks already support Applink tags and don't require any code-level integration for developers to start linking to other apps.
Basically, the tags are open source (good), much like URX's working proposal [1], and the implementation of using the tags goes through Facebook. Facebook requires a native integration and does get around browser flashes, but is much more difficult to integrate than omnilinks, where you simply put urx.io/ in front of any weblink.
No, it doesn't. You can use the SDKs without any dependency on Facebook.
Omnilinks are cool. I hope we can all work together to make mobile better.
Look forward to discussing further and seeing how we can work together here to connect the webs.
I think omnilinks and applinks are both cool. Anything that can get us closer to a pseudo-standard for intra-app linking is a win.