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‘Send’: a brand new plugin to integrate Facebook with your website

May 2, 2011 By admin

Since my last blog post ‘Live, ‘Like’ and Learn – how to integrate Facebook with your website’, the lovely team at Facebook HQ have come up with two new important plugins: Send and Comments. In this blog post we’ll look at Send, later in this series we’ll look at Comments.

It’s always exciting to see the potential we already know exists in this burgeoning social media behemoth. It reminds me (strangely) of the free-spirited ‘Where do you want to go today?’ slogan of Microsoft in the mid-nineties. Where do you want Facebook to take you today? Let’s share all and every piece of content we desire through its gigantuous metropolis of servers.

Send takes elements from the Like/Recommend and Share buttons and allows you to send a web page link to another friend on Facebook, or a Facebook group or even to an email address. The dialogue box (where you input this information) opens seamlessly on the page where the button is situated. It’s all very nice. Crucially, though, nothing is displayed on anyone’s Facebook newsfeed. So, it’s very much private sharing and you won’t get any further exposure, unless the person who receives the link then goes on to share or Like/Recommend it.

The Washington Post is one of the first publications to get on board. It says of the Send button:

‘This new Send button takes sharing to a different level: a more private level.’

Leslie Walker on blogging site About.com says:

‘If the social networking giant gets its way, for example, “Send” will soon enter our popular culture lexicon as shorthand for sharing Web content with friends, not just mailing letters or zapping off emails.’

It’s easy to set up too. I first set up the Send button on this blog in a matter of seconds using a WordPress plugin. (I then realised Facebook lets you take the code straight from the Facebook Developers page, as I usually do to ensure full configuration ability and freedom from bugs.

According to the rumour mill you will soon be able to further integrate your Like/Recommend button with your Send button to give people a more immediate choice of how they wish to share the content on your website. That will also unclutter the clutter of many social media button parties at the bottom of many pages/posts and articles now.

This blog series is still to cover many more aspects of Facebook integration, so do share. No, actually, Like/Recommend and, if you must, just Send!

Filed Under: Websites Tagged With: Facebook, Facebook Developers, Open Graph Protocol, Wordpress

Live, ‘Like’ and Learn – how to integrate Facebook with your website

April 12, 2011 By admin

PART 1: Like, Recommend or Share?

You may notice on some websites a proliferation of social media buttons. It can be a confusing array of options. From Facebook it’s likely you’ll see just two (Like/Recommend, and Share) – hopefully now just one (Like/Recommend). To clear up the confusion, Like and Recommend are essentially the same button, it’s just that the developer of the site can choose the verb.

In the early days of Facebook integration it was the Share button that dominated. You see a page you want to tell people about, click the button and you’re taken to a Facebook ‘holding’ page where you can choose to write a comment and/or choose an image scraped from the page’s DNA (the tech term is metadata). Of course, you can still do this. The Share button is still available to integrate with your site – but only by remnant independent plugins, not directly from the Facebook Developers site. However it has some serious drawbacks, now that Facebook newsfeeds are so full of rich content and an increasingly crowded arena. Facebook spokeswoman Malorie Lucich tells us (with a perhaps unintentional, but all the same ironic, concluding line) that while they’ll continue to support the Share button, Like is the “recommended solution moving forward.” (via Mashable http://mashable.com/2010/09/09/facebook-like-share-button/). In short, if you want your page or product to stand out in a plethora of competing posts, you need to make sure you configure your buttons (if you pardon the expression).

The problem with the Share button is this: it’s more work and time. You manually have to choose a featured image to go with the post. You are taken to the holding page, which takes a few more seconds to load. Furthermore, you the page owner (where the Share button is situated), don’t have as much control. If there’s more than one image on your page, then the person who Shares, may not choose the image to post which is what you want to appropriately illustrate the content it’s associated with. That’s important. I’ll show you an example below.

The good thing about the Like/Recommend (or LR for short, now) buttons is that you can do a whole load of configuration, not possible with Share. As mentioned above, dropping a post into a Facebook newsfeed is like playing pooh sticks on the rapids. It may get drowned in a plethora of competing content. You need to really make sure that what you’re letting people post is as rich and appropriate content as you can make it.

So, how do you choose Like or Recommend? It’s really up to you. The convention appears to be (but isn’t set in stone) that if it’s a serious news article or more formal document, then you would tend to Recommend it. For everything else, the default tends to be Like. The verb is very easy to change in the configuration.

Depending on how you set up your LR buttons you should be able to allow people to comment on the content they’ve just Liked or Recommended. It is the default option, unless you choose to shrink your LR button area to below a minimum threshold. It’s all explained in the notes Facebook provides with the button pages on its Developers pages.

Coming up in Part 2: How to get the right featured image configured (with the Open Graph Protocol)

Later: Linking your Fan Page to your website and other useful Facebook social plugins and insights.

Filed Under: Websites Tagged With: Facebook, Facebook Developers, Featured Image, Open Graph Protocol

Blogtastic – how to write good blogs

April 2, 2011 By admin

According to the latest figures from BlogPulse there are over 156 million public blogs in existence. So, how can you stand out from the crowd? This step-by-step guide will lead you through the process you can take to give you the edge, and help you to refine your technique. Here’s a good starting point:

The Spark. What grabs you – what do you have to say today?

Refine it to a specific concept. Again: what are the key points you want to get across. It’s too easy to be vague and meandering.

Think of the context. How timely will what you say be? What does it relate to in the news, or a trend on Twitter/Facebook, or just generally makes it relevant, interesting or worthwhile?

Be clear. How will you communicate it coherently and with most impact (getting across any unrefined enthusiasm)? It’s often the case that the best ideas are the ones that need the most refining.

Search. Look for quotes/articles to back you up and provide depth and richness to your piece. Copy and use the URL for hyperlink referencing, and consider bookmarking it for future reference or for an idea to be stored for later.

Plan (if you can). Make notes of some or all of the points you wish to cover in your blog. Even if it’s just a few scribbled notes on the cover of the newspaper you have with you on the train. Planning can save a lot of editing.

Write. Just go for it. If you’re following some sort of plan, and you’ve already bagged your quotes and URL references you’re well on the way. Aim for a catchy opening – that’s essential. Don’t forget paragraphs and hyperlinks! Your readers’ first, overall look at your post can determine how much they read. If it looks verbose, that may be it – ignored. Also avoid going off on an ultimately unnecessary tangent. Stick to your focus. Time is short for most people – and there are a lot of blogs!

Don’t ignore your headline. Try to conjure up some pithy, catchy headline for your post. It’s a crowded marketplace with lots of cliches (like this). What would make you see the post in a Tweet or on Facebook and actually click through to read? There’s your answer.

Check through. The boring part, but crucial. The odd misspelled word may go unnoticed, but what about facts and figures? Not so helpful to get wrong – particularly if this is the key part of your argument. Also check the links work – they sometimes don’t.

Add Facebook and Twitter buttons. Integrating with social media platforms isn’t essential, but… no, it is essential! And it’s easy too. Either your blogging interface allows plugins to do it for you, or you have to just go onto the Facebook and Twitter sites, so be it. Whack the code in. And if you’re using an image or two in your blog, don’t forget to configure the Facebook Open Graph Protocol in the header of your post’s code. It’s amazing what featured images Facebook can randomly pull from your blog page – often the wrong ones. You can test what image is drawn from your blog using the FB Linter.

Publish and share. Post a link on Twitter and Facebook. But, remember, if you’ve written it and posted it at some ungodly hour your followers/friends may not see the link. You can use something like Tweriod for this – a tool for assessing when most of your Twitter followers are online and active.

Analyse. Use Google Analytics, or your host’s own, to monitor the dissemination of your blog. It can be both rewarding to see who’s read it, as well as useful to see how it compares to other blogs you’ve written – helping you to write better blogs.

Keep writing. Chances are, if you’re writing great blog posts, you’ll be picking up expectant followers. These are the people who’ll be helping to spread your posts, so don’t leave them hanging for months on end. They’ll find something better. Commit yourself to at least trying to put pen to paper on a regular basis. But that’s entirely up to you. It’s your blog. Tell it, use it, live it. You never know who may be reading…

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: API, blogging, Facebook, FB Linter, Featured Image, Open Graph Protocol, Twitter, Wordpress

“Emily, is everyone okay?” – Twitter and Facebook meet a tsunami

March 12, 2011 By admin

Kerry had written on Emily’s Facebook wall very early that morning. I woke up early too, I just felt wide awake. The first site I opened was Facebook, and there it was: ‘Emily, is everyone okay?’ The message had a bit more to it than just ‘Are you OK?’, which I think is a pretty average Facebook comment that you’d see most days.

For me ‘Is everyone okay?’, has alarm bells written all over it. And so it proved. Little did I know how much time I’d be spending on Facebook and Twitter during the rest of the day following the events that unfolded in the mighty Pacific (mostly on Twitter, but I’ll come on to that).

Emily is a mutual Facebook friend living in Japan. What had happened, I wondered? I presumed there’d been some sort of natural disaster or maybe a terrorist attack. Next stop BBC News online. You know it’s bad when the homepage dramatically increases the size of the top story; even more so when it pushes a story like ‘Libya’ down to into second. This was big.

“A 8.9-magnitude tremor has struck off the coast of Honshu island at a depth of about 24km, 400km (250 miles) north-east of Tokyo.

It was nearly 8,000 times stronger than last month’s quake in New Zealand that devastated the city of Christchurch.” (BBC News Friday 11^th March 2011)

Then it was to Twitter. I knew from previous events (eg Haiti earthquake, Egypt/Libya etc uprisings, Iranian election protests etc.) how Twitter comes into its own when its 140 character tweets are so virally proficient and increasingly accessible (see Google and Twitter launch Tweet Speak). Actually, I use a Twitter interface called TweetDeck, which allows me to have a great deal of control over what Tweets I can follow. First I wanted to find out which hashtags were best to follow to aggregate – what was soon to be – millions of Tweets on the Tsunami. What The Hashtag revealed that #prayforjapan was top, with #japan and #tsunami also trending strongly.

As events developed, so the collective concern grew and was evident on both Facebook and Twitter. What on earth can I/we/anyone do to help? I sat in front of my TweetDeck feed with resigned curiosity. But soon a stream of tweets, from my less aggressively updating All Friends column, started to reinforce the truly stunning communication tool that Twitter has become. Early on I saw, and retweeted (like many others), news that Google has launched a brand new People Finder, to help Japanese citizens locate friends and loved ones. Then there was a BBC map showing estimated times when the tsunami would hit the shores of other Pacific countries – I used this to alert friends. All this alongside the most diverse range of blog, video and picture links I could wish for as a journalist.

“Social communications, like Twitter, and social networking sites, like Facebook, are at their best when big news is breaking,” said Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at Technology Business Research.

“They are the means available to almost everybody to broadcast information, to communicate one-to-many,” he said.” And, in some cases, they help get around bottlenecks in one-to-one communication.” (Computer World, Friday 11^th March 2011)

As for Facebook, well… compared to Twitter, it seemed a timid, quiet noticeboard, awestruck by the power and efficiency of its social networking stable mate. But, 24 hours on, it’s playing to its strengths again as people post blogs, articles and prayers with nicely displayed featured images. For me it’s a much nicer interface to access. Compare it to someone whispering to you that your favourite sports team has won the World Championships (Twitter), but then being able to read all about it in technicolor, with nicely displayed pictures and updating comments all under one roof (Facebook). Still, I do wonder about the future of Facebook, as strong as it is now. I think it needs to evolve and to learn from recent Twitter experiences like this one.

So, it seems fitting to end this blog with a Tweet – on a day when social media met a tsunami:

@worldviewmedia Some say ‘I don’t do Facebook or Twitter. I have a life’. Others say ‘I have a life, because of FB and Twitter.’ http://bit.ly/eej4ey #japan

Posted by Andrew Horton

Photo credit: BBC News

March 14, 2011 08:05:19

UPDATE:

We’ve heard from Emily (via Facebook). She’s fine. Everyone’s ‘okay’. But she says she couldn’t have survived without Facebook and Twitter as THE only communication tool when phone lines went down.

According to Harry Wallop in the Daily Telegraph on Sunday:

‘ [...] mobile phone carriers were limiting voice calls on congested networks, with NTT DoCoMo restricting up to 80 per cent of voice calls, especially in Tokyo. Softbank and Au, rival phone companies, were also affected, with Tokyo residents unable to send text messages to friends and relatives. Skype, however, continued to work well, as did Facebook and Twitter as well as Mixi, Japan’s most popular social networking site.’

According to What The Hashtag, #prayforjapan is now currently the second biggest trending hashtag on Twitter, three days after the earthquake that caused the tsunami.

As well as setting up an immediate Person Finder resource, Google has put all its help under one roof with an Online Crisis Center. It has sections for alarms and warnings, disaster message boards, a donations box for the Japanese Red Cross, a map of the earthquake, the latest related news, and live information on the planned blackouts.

Twitter was indeed as busy as I suggested. According to Tweet-o-Meter, three hours after the earthquake there were 1,200 Tweets per minute coming out of Japan. The micro blogging site was also vital too, with users across the world (myself included) sharing estimated times when the tsunami would hit the rest of the Pacific shores (with Hawaii the most imminent concern).

There’s not much that Twitter of Facebook can do to stop the latest threats to the country’s nuclear plants (facing meltdown), but they are no doubt being used to alert people to the dangers – and keep them updated. Some people still have a life, because of Twitter and Facebook.

Posted by Andrew Horton

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Facebook, japan, tsunami, TweetDeck, Twitter

Social Scripture – Easter(LIVE) 2011 and similar projects

March 10, 2011 By admin

As I write this, the Easter(LIVE) 2011 project is gaining momentum tweet by tweet. I’ve set my Tweetdeck columns to notify me when every #easterlive and @EasterLIVE tweet comes through, so the last 36 hours have felt like a prolonged but welcome attack of mini submarines! It’s great to see so many people enthused about the power of DIY social media. I’m really looking forward to seeing all the Passion Plays as they are told over Twitter, collected and showcased on the Easter(LIVE) 2011 website. As part of the Library of resources we produced, I put together this news review of some of the main projects which are in a similar vein. We start with last year’s Easter(LIVE) which I wrote the base for and then had the pleasure of seeing each part taken and re-written in each unique character’s style. And if you’ve not signed up to this year’s Easter(LIVE) – do so! It’s easy and fun, and most of all let’s inject fresh life into the Easter story again.

EASTER(LIVE) 2010

www.eauk.org/easterlive

The original Easter(LIVE) in 2010 told the Passion Week story through nine eyewitnesses, each tweeting as if they were at the scene of bustling 1st Century Jerusalem. The idea was to bring the ancient tale to life – seamlessly dropping into timelines and newsfeeds in realtime. Andrew Horton, its creative director, said: “Easter is a powerful story of scandal, betrayal, torture and hope that has captivated people for centuries, but with fewer people going to church, it is no longer one of the best-known stories of our culture. Social media provides a wonderful opportunity to re-introduce people to the thrilling tale hiding behind the chocolate, the bunnies and the telly.” In October 2010 the team won two Jerusalem Awards (recognising excellence in religious media).

THE NATWIVITY

www.natwivity.com

The Natwivity set out to revisit the most famous Bible story of all, and give it the greatest of makeovers. With wit, humour, and sensitivity, over 10,000 followers shared the doubts, despairs and joys of Mary, Joseph, Shepherds, Wise Men and others over Advent 2010, through Facebook and Twitter. An idea conceived by Huw Tyler in 2009, its re-working (with stand up comedian Paul Kerensa, and playwright Katherine Maxwell- Cook) took realtime Twitter-storytelling to a new level. Huw Tyler told CBN News: “We know it so well through the Bible and how we explore it in church. But this actually gives us an opportunity to engage with [the story] on an emotional level.” Natwivity is now being made into an official resource for schools.

TWITTURGIES

www.twitter.com/twitturgies

In March 2009 the website Church Solutions declared on its website: “Quick, write the shortest devotion you can! Such is the latest trend, which has created a new church- world portmanteau: ‘twitturgy’… The phenomenon makes e-mail devotions seem so passé.” The post was in response to the introduction of Twitturgies – a fresh way to engage with Christian liturgy on Twitter. Its daily Tweets from Gerard Kelly go to around 3,000 followers. Gerard, is a widely published author but he’s now becoming best-known for posting his pithy, poignant prayers.

BIBLE SUMMARY

www.twitter.com/biblesummary

Since August 2010, Chris Juby has been summarising the Scriptures on Twitter – ‘one tweet per chapter, one chapter per day’. Pushing 18,000 followers it’s proving far from being a gimmick. Chris, from King’s Church, Durham City says: “It is perhaps regarded as a bit of an oddball thing to do. I hope in doing the summary, it will inspire people to read the Bible for themselves. My summaries are no substitute for the real thing.” All the tweets are archived and filed in a growing list of completed books. But we’ll have to wait until November 2013 to read the final tweet from Revelation 22 (the calculated time for completion of the project with all 1189 chapters of the Bible condensed into 140 characters).

TWS – THREE HOURS IN NEW YORK

www.twitter.com/twspassionplay

On Good Friday 2009, a New York Episcopal church spent three hours tweeting the Easter story to its followers. Jesus, Pontius Pilate and others appeared to give updates on the story, thanks to the efforts of Trinity Church on Wall Street (TWS). The idea came from the church’s passion to use new technology to spread the Christian message. It proved to be a groundbreaking crossover of the traditional physical reenactments of Christ’s final week, with the storytelling potential of social media platforms. Linda Hanick, vice president of communication and marketing at the church, said, “What we are trying to do at Trinity Wall Street is to communicate the story of Christ in as many ways as we can.”

DIGITAL NATIVITY

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA&feature=fvst

For Christmas 2010, Portuguese digital developers Excentric produced that holy grail of web phenomenons – a viral video, which spread and spread. At just 2 mins 58 seconds in length we see the story of the nativity re-told using everything from Google Maps to iPhones, Facebook, Wikipedia and Foursquare. Most of the press coverage it received contained few words; it didn’t need them. Bloggers, tweeters and nodding journalists simply posted a link to the Youtube video – which has had nearly 10 million views across the site. Excentric’s catchline for the video was straightforward: ‘Times change, the feeling remains the same.’

Written by Andrew Horton

(Part of the resource library for Easter(LIVE) 2011)

Follow the hashtag #easterlive

Follow @EasterLIVE

Filed Under: Projects Tagged With: API, easter live, Twitter

New Dawn

March 5, 2011 By admin

Today is the launch day of the new Worldview Media website. The WordPress content management system I used to make it really is second to none. Yes, there are rivals (eg Joomla, Drupal), but the extent of the WordPress community’s expertise, plugin availability, and general ease of use make me convinced this is the CMS to beat.

I guess all this resonates strongly with the ethos of Worldview Media. What we’re trying to do here is to cut the corporate flab from the media production industry and bring back the fun, creativity and empowerment. WordPress is so easy to use, that I recommend learning it, if you have the time and inclination. You’ll find a whole new world at your fingertips (that’s an awful cliche, but this IS a time for hyperbole, trust me!). Many people are still talking about the concept of Web 2.0. Why?? To class this as the way we’re now interacting with the web, rather than simply using it as an encyclopaedia, is dated in itself. No, we’re now able to CHANGE the way the web works, not just interact with it.

For example, I’m currently working on a very exciting Twitter project, where we’ve got right into the guts of Twitter and created an API tool (a means of harvesting data from users of Twitter who sign up and agree to be part of the project). We decided to push the boundaries, try and stand out from the competition, and make a positive difference to people’s lives at the same time – why not?! I wonder if the community spirit shown in parts of Twitter, Facebook, WordPress etc. really is as strong as traditional communities were – pre-Internet. That may be woolly anthropology, but what I do know is that, now, it’s just a brilliant time to be living, accessing and changing the very guts of the Internet – in community. Hell, I wasn’t going to, but…. this is Web 3.0.

Filed Under: Websites Tagged With: API, Twitter, Wordpress

Remotely Interested

October 17, 2010 By admin

We gathered, we obeyed

A little late into the inaugural Christian New Media Conference this morning, the first thing I noticed was the hashtagged live Twitter feed playing out on a wide screen TV in the auditorium. #cnmac10. Oooh! that looks like fun, I thought.

Having had little sleep in the preceding 48 hours I was in somewhat of a post-post-tired stupor. And I couldn’t get my Mac to connect. Apparently you needed a special login sticker when you arrived. Nope.

After listening to the talk, and frustratingly trying to hatch some sort of hack into the network, I approached the speaker, busy un-attaching her mic amidst the outflocking crowds.

I first met her on Twitter. Now it’s face to face. ‘Hello, I’m Andrew… Worldview Media.’ I thought I’d throw in my handle early on. A bit like introducing yourself to a new neighbour ‘…from next door.’ We chatted for a bit. Small-talk really. Just short comments, to and fro – with mini-awkward pauses as if we were expecting each other to hit ‘Tweet’ at some point.

Eventually she posted a thought in my mind. Where do we go with this fledgling, realtime, real-interaction relationship? I know, I thought. I’ll dig out a business card. I’ve got AMAZING business cards (if I do say so myself). Just the job. But something wasn’t right.

Is there any place for business cards at a new media conference?

Is there even any need to exchange phone numbers with someone you want to keep in contact with? You’ll either remember their name, or if you don’t remember their name, you’ll remember something they said about something they do – or somewhere they live. Or you remember they know someone you know, so you can find them in that mutual person’s friend list on Facebook, no?

And anyway, you may not even need to know them again, or know who they are. They may have served a purpose, pointed you in the right direction, given you a hint, or a tip, or a link, or an idea, or just shown you how to get to seminar room B8 in Block 5 level 3. You don’t even need to remember what they looked like. It may be that you’ve got a glimpse of their avatar lodged in your brain for recall somewhere, and you kind of remember their imaginative – or awkwardly contracted – username. That’s fine.

Maybe you don’t remember it. That’s OK too. If they’re to be any future worth to your mission your paths will cross again on some platform or interface. After all only c.15% of your Facebook friends or Twitter followers actually exist, don’t they? The rest are – for all intents and purposes – just virtual padding to your online ego.

But, is that OK to be ‘OK’? We may be spreading our follower-base, gaining friends left, right and centre – but isn’t this just ‘Second Life – Unplugged’? Even less depth of relationship, far more to hide behind.

Truth be told, I can’t even remember the name of the guy I walked back to the tube with. He’d told me twice, but it went in one ear and off my newsfeed before I could catch it. Like a good job interviewee though, I do know how to find out how I can find out how to: reconnect. Perfect.

Actually, I wonder if I’ve spent more time online today in community than with hundreds of other live, real people. Was there any need to actually turn up to the conference? Well, yes. I eventually got my Mac online and tweeted into the live feed with attempts at wit, and theological curveballs. At times a small ripple of laughter broke out, for which I felt mightily #smug about. But the distraction soon subsided, to the credit of the speaker (the real, actual, live, and captivating speaker). I wanted to lurch forward at the end and shake his hand. And there’s just no hashtag for that.