Nick O’Neill recently wrote about the possibility that if Facebook would just open up your status updates, Twitter could be put out of its tracks. Well, actually, Facebook updates are open – it’s just up to each user to release them. Any user on Facebook can provide their friends’ status updates to any third party provider, through a simple RSS feed, and this feed has been around since April of 2007!
To obtain the RSS feed is simple. Just click on “Friends” in the header at the top of Facebook and select “All Friends” in the drop-down. Now, look up in the URL bar of your browser (this works best in Firefox or Safari) – see the little RSS icon? Click on it, an voila, your friends’ status updates will come, in a live feed, straight to your RSS reader. There’s nothing stopping developers from creating a service around this, asking for this URL from users, and providing a Twitter-like interface around it. The URL goes in this format, and it’s completely controlled by the user, because a key must be provided to the app that wants to use it (this is for me and my friends, key obviously omitted):
feed://www.facebook.com/feeds/friends_status.php?id=683545112&key=xxxxxxxxxxx&format=rss20
This also works for your own updates. To get an RSS feed of just your updates, you have to go to your mini feed page at this url (I can’t find a way to get there through links on Facebook – if you know of a way please let me know in the comments). On the right hand side of the page, you’ll see a “My Status” link. Add that to your RSS reader and now all your personal Facebook status updates will go to your reader! Again, with a key you give out as a user, any app can now use this data to track your own status updates. In fact, FriendFeed is already utilizing this feed! The URL for personal updates is in the format of (I’m leaving my key in this case so you can see my own updates):
http://www.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=683545112&viewer=683545112&key=77b2714b66&format=rss20
Of course, any developer can also access these updates, with the user’s permission, via the Facebook API as well so theoretically you don’t even have to collect these URLs. However, through this method, anyone can track you, and your friends’ status updates with your permission. So your Facebook updates are public, sort of.
You can also access Status Updates if you are using Internet Explorer 8
Thanks!!! Very helpful!
Very cool. Thanks!
More accurately, Facebook updates aren’t public, but they can be if users take a bunch of extra steps. The problem with that is the average Facebook user is not going to go to the trouble to feed their updates into another service like FriendFeed. So most people’s updates will continue to exist only behind the “wall” of Facebook.
@Evan my point exactly …this is still too many steps for the average user … this was a good first step back in 2007 but they need to make the information more available.
@Evan my point exactly …this is still too many steps for the average user … this was a good first step back in 2007 but they need to make the information more available.
@Evan my point exactly …this is still too many steps for the average user … this was a good first step back in 2007 but they need to make the information more available.
@Evan my point exactly …this is still too many steps for the average user … this was a good first step back in 2007 but they need to make the information more available.
@Evan my point exactly …this is still too many steps for the average user … this was a good first step back in 2007 but they need to make the information more available.
@Evan my point exactly …this is still too many steps for the average user … this was a good first step back in 2007 but they need to make the information more available.
@Evan my point exactly …this is still too many steps for the average user … this was a good first step back in 2007 but they need to make the information more available.
I've been using this RSS feed for daily e-mail (through FeedBurner) with my friends' status updates for a while. I'm not on Facebook all that much, but this helps me keep up with folks.
Don't ask me why I don't just import the feed into Google Reader. Old habits die hard, I guess….
Testing….
I totaly agree with your point here! I admire the stuff you post and the quality information you offer in your blog! Keep up the awesome work dude
Thank you Steven – I appreciate the compliment!
Interesting, but I can't say I'm too worried to be honest. I have nothing too personal on facebook!
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[…] Isn’t rss dead? Jesse Stay shows you how to take your friend’s Facebook updates and slap them into a feed – Stay ‘n Alive […]
[…] to retrieve your friends’ status updates via RSS. I was taken by this, as this was something I wrote about back in January, and it was indeed possible, with a special key only known to the profile owner, to get an RSS feed […]
[…] to retrieve your friends’ status updates via RSS. I was taken by this, as this was something I wrote about back in January, and it was indeed possible, with a special key only known to the profile owner, to get an RSS feed […]
[…] to retrieve your friends’ status updates via RSS. I was taken by this, as this was something I wrote about back in January, and it was indeed possible, with a special key only known to the profile owner, to get an RSS feed […]
[…] to retrieve your friends’ status updates via RSS. I was taken by this, as this was something I wrote about back in January, and it was indeed possible, with a special key only known to the profile owner, to get an RSS feed […]
[…] to retrieve your friends’ status updates via RSS. I was taken by this, as this was something I wrote about back in January, and it was indeed possible, with a special key only known to the profile owner, to get an RSS feed […]
[…] to retrieve your friends’ status updates via RSS. I was taken by this, as this was something I wrote about back in January, and it was indeed possible, with a special key only known to the profile owner, to get an RSS feed […]
[…] to retrieve your friends’ status updates via RSS. I was taken by this, as this was something I wrote about back in January, and it was indeed possible, with a special key only known to the profile owner, to get an RSS feed […]
It doesn't work for me, i don't get the RSS icon in the address bar :S
Junal, please read the article I wrote today – you're right, it doesn't work
any more.
It doesn't work for me, i don't get the RSS icon in the address bar :S
Junal, please read the article I wrote today – you're right, it doesn't work
any more.
[…] Shared You and Your Friends’ Facebook Updates are Public, After All | Stay N’ Alive […]
[…] Isn’t rss dead? Jesse Stay shows you how to take your friend’s Facebook updates and slap them into a feed – Stay ‘n Alive […]
[…] Shared You and Your Friends’ Facebook Updates are Public, After All | Stay N’ Alive […]