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Learn More About Facebook With Upcoming WebCasts

Posted on June 8, 2009 by jessestay

I’ve been invited to do 2 WebCasts in the next 2 weeks that I think you might be interested in. As always I’ll try to post my slides on SlideShare if it makes sense to do so. I really like an interactive presentation so most of the time my slides don’t make sense.

The first is for the Marketers in the Audience. It’s about gaining Business value from Facebook, and I’ll discuss how to give your business legs using the Social Network. I’ll cover how to create an effective Facebook Page for your business, when and how to use your personal Facebook Profile for networking, do’s and don’ts on the network, advertising, the tools you need, and more. That Webinar is hosted by Marketing Coalition, and is $149 per individual, and $129 per individuals in groups of at least 3. You can register here. The Webinar takes place on Thursday at 1:30PM EST.

The second WebCast is free, and hosted by Safari Books Online. It will target developers new to Facebook development, and in it I’ll cover the basics of what you need to get started in Facebook Development. We did this last year and I think everyone really enjoyed it that attended. The first people that register get a free Autographed copy of my book, FBML Essentials, and everyone else gets a free 45-day account on Safari Books Online to read FBML Essentials. Did I mention how much I love O’Reilly? You can register here. My slides from the last one of these I did are up on SlideShare.

There will be a Q&A after each session, so come with your questions and I’ll do my best to answer!

Facebook’s Deployment Record is Spinning but Seems Broken – Does it Need a Poke?

Posted on May 25, 2009 by jessestay

Facebook lately has been very good at providing regular and frequent updates to its service. So much that it has often come under the gun for updating too much to the detriment of its user experience. I have been last to critique them on this however, as I think it’s a good thing to be listening to your users like they have, releasing early, and releasing often as users give feedback towards the experience. I think it’s a major reason Facebook is still growing and still surviving despite Social Network users being the type to easily get bored of new technology. There have been several launches recently which, IMO have been very loud and powerful in the way they were announced and the affect they would have on users. You probably read about them because they were talked about on almost every major Tech blog when they were announced. There’s still one major problem though – myself and numerous other users still haven’t received these features.

Let’s start with the launch of one, as a heavy FriendFeed user and strong advocate of real-time updates, hits near and dear to my heart. The Facebook stream live updates were announced over 3 weeks ago, claiming to provide you with a live update of new posts in your stream when they appeared. A simple click on the link should make those messages appear. While not completely real-time, it’s a step forward, and something I’ve been really looking forward to for over 3 weeks. You can see my profile, after over an hour of not refreshing on Safari here – note there is no link with new updates:

Here’s how it should look, according to Facebook:

It should also be noted this looks the same if leaving Firefox stagnant, or running on Windows, or any other machine or browser. This isn’t an OS or browser issue it would appear – it looks as though Facebook’s deployment routines simply haven’t gotten to my user account. It would appear I’m not alone in this either. Asking about this on Twitter about a week ago I got numerous responses from other Twitter and Facebook users who also were not yet seeing this in their stream. A Facebook employee even kindly suggested I was supposed to be receiving this. I responded saying I wasn’t, but still have not received any feedback in return from Facebook.

It would appear that’s not the only thing that is having trouble rolling out lately though. Over a week ago, Luke Shepard, a developer at Facebook, announced a very welcome feature launching Facebook into a much more open era. The feature enables users to link their Facebook accounts to their Gmail accounts and other OpenID providers, making Facebook an official OpenID provider. Also, according to Shepard, users would be able to register for Facebook by simply entering their Gmail credentials. “Now, users can register for Facebook using their Gmail accounts. This is a quicker, more streamlined way for new users to register for the site, find their friends, and start exploring,” he said.

The problem is that I still don’t see a way to do this on Facebook. I can link my Facebook account with various OpenID providers and even Gmail, but that’s only if I have an existing account. However, there is no option when I log into Facebook, or when I try to register with Facebook to login or register with my Gmail credentials or other OpenID credentials as he says. Am I just the last person on their deployment list? I know I’m not the only one because this was pointed out by someone else with the same question. If I can link my OpenID profile with my Facebook profile, but can’t login or register with it, what good is this announcement?

Note there is no option to log in with Gmail or OpenID

Note there is no option to register with Gmail or OpenID

It would appear something seems broken in the Facebook deployment process. Either it’s just really slow, or not all users are getting the updates they’re supposed to be getting. Or are we getting these announcements just to get the marketing spin machine going? It would appear that this blogger is not on that list if it is the case! Regardless, I’d really love to have the updates we were promised!

If you’re seeing the same issues, let it be known in the comments. You can follow me on Facebook at http://jessestay.socialtoo.com.

Make the Most of Facebook With Fox 13’s New Series

Posted on May 4, 2009 by jessestay

A few weeks back I was interviewed by our Local Fox station, Fox 13 KSTU about Facebook. I was interviewed by Arikka Von, Katy Carlyle, Nicole Hunter, and Nineveh Dinha about topics such as why you should join Facebook, Facebook Privacy, Security, and even Strategy on Facebook. The series ran all last week (now all my neighbors are wanting me to give them a class on Facebook), and I think serve as a great resource for anyone wanting to learn the basics of what Facebook can do for them.

For those wondering when I’m on Facebook–Now What??? will get a new edition, rest assured Jason (my co-author) and I are definitely talking about that, and hopefully sooner than later we will be able to begin working on that. We also have something else in the works (again if I can just get time to get my part done) that I think will hold you through in the meantime. Until we get any of that together, these videos by Fox 13 Utah serve as a great resource. Thanks a lot to the entire Fox 13 team for giving me the opportunity to share! I especially like the one showing you how to set your Facebook Privacy settings. Nineveh’s strategy segment was also very useful I thought (If you’re going to be running against Senator Bob Bennett this election, call me – I’d love to help you out!):

Facebook Fundamentals

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Facebook Etiquette

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Facebook Security and Privacy

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Facebook Strategy

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I Should Have Heeded My Own Advice About Twitter

Posted on April 21, 2009 by jessestay

About a full year ago, I wrote of developers leaving the Twitter development platform due to Twitter consistently removing features, making changes without warning developers, and effectively putting developers out of business with just a single change of policy. I advised other developers to be careful building a business model around Twitter, adding that it was a risky move, much more risky than many of the other platforms out there. It would seem I should have taken my own advice.

It was this time I started SocialToo, a service that originally we built around the auto-follow concept. I named it such because I did not want it to work solely on the Twitter platform. It was clear Twitter was on an unstable architecture, and their relationship with developers was also quite shaky. For this reason, I added in features like Facebook profile redirects at the time (a simple “yourusername.socialtoo.com” which redirects to your Facebook profile). But Twitter, at the time, was the easiest solution to build around, and made the most sense for where we had started so I figured we had to make what we did with it perfect. Here we are, one year later, and I’m still trying to make it work perfect, but not because our code sucks – it’s because Twitter keeps changing their system, and the rules that go with it!

Today Twitter pulled the rug out from under its developers once more by, with absolutely no notice, announcing that (paraphrased, in my words) since their way was the right way, they were discouraging auto-following, and would only allow a user to follow 1,000 people per day. What Twitter neglected was that, while not many, myself and others were building business plans around the users that would need this. A little notice would have been helpful, but is very consistent with the way developers have been treated over the past year or more by Twitter. Yes, I’m a big boy and we’ll survive, but that’s besides the point. You can read more about what developers are experiencing over on LouisGray. Put lightly, I’m not happy.

Twitter Needs a Firm Terms of Service

I know I’m not only one to say this when I say that I don’t have a clue what to expect from Twitter any more. Any developer out there is prone to this type of treatment, and I can pretty much guarantee it will affect every Twitter developer out there at some point until something is done about it. The reason for this is that Twitter really has no firm Terms of Service around its platform. I am not required to agree to any way of using their platform when I write software for them.

Some might see this as a good thing, but what they are neglecting to see is that a Terms of Service gives developers a vision of what to expect, something we don’t have now. This needs to change, and soon – we as developers need to know what we can and can’t do on the platform. Can we write apps that auto-follow? Can we write apps that auto-DM? What about mass-DM? Can I store data and what data can I store on my servers and for how long? What is the definition of spam? There are lots of rules for Twitter users that we agree to, but nothing a developer must agree to when writing apps. This is why you’re seeing so many apps out there gaming the system, causing these ridiculous rules to have to be made, when it can realistically all be settled before-hand with a simple agreement all developers must agree to before developing apps for Twitter.

If I knew what I could or couldn’t do on Twitter I could avoid it in the first place. Unfortunately Twitter hasn’t defined that and it’s pretty darn confusing, not to mention extremely risky, to write apps for the Twitter platform right now. With Facebook, on the other hand, I’m required to agree to a very specific agreement, and they’re very clear when they’re going to change any of the terms, giving developers plenty of warning. It’s well written out and well defined. It’s a platform with little risk and high reward for businesses because they give developers time to work with any changes they make to it.

We need notice, Twitter!

These “day of” announcements are very immature and something a 15 million user company with millions to billions in the bank shouldn’t be doing. They were doing this type of stuff a full year ago, and even today they haven’t changed their ways, even though they said they would. Twitter needs to start notifying developers of these changes or a lot more are going to be put out of business at the drop of a hat.

Every day on the developers mailing list I’m seeing other things like this happening – OAuth technology being removed without notice (I recognize it’s beta, but we still need to know!), no notice to developers on what’s happening when site slowness happens, when things are fixed on the platform, and when they’re broken, and more. As a developer with 12-15 years of experience in these things, the entire Twitter platform is a joke! You just don’t do these types of things in the real world of software development! I worked at places I would have gotten fired for this type of activity!

Developers will continue to leave if this doesn’t change

I have to admit, I’m re-evaluating my strategy to stop working on what I was doing in the Twitter environment, and move more to other platforms at the moment. When I do that, no, I won’t remove the existing Twitter technology, but I will admit it will be very easy for the users on my service to get the same value they’re currently getting on Twitter on other services, and as they experience similar treatment by Twitter they’ll be leaving as well (as I’m already seeing). I know I’m not the only developer in this boat right now – there are a lot of frustrated developers out there with almost no signs of change from Twitter. I know developers that now refuse to develop on the Twitter platform because of the way they were treated, and that will continue to happen.

I have to admit I had to send out e-mails to 20 or 50 or so of Twitter’s very top users today telling them that Twitter wasn’t allowing them to auto-follow. Those are tough e-mails to write, especially considering the influence Twitter has allowed these individuals to have and the audiences these people are capable of engaging. I’d like to make Twitter look good for these people, but Twitter isn’t making it very easy.

Twitter, it’s time to get your act together. Hire some more smart people, get people in management that know how to make these decisions right, and make us believe, not by words alone, but by actual actions, that you’re going to do something about it. If you don’t, as I’ve said before, when the developers leave, so will your users.

Come follow me over on FriendFeed over at http://beta.friendfeed.com/jessestay or over on Facebook at http://jessestay.socialtoo.com.

You Don’t Own Your Data on Social Networks

Posted on April 9, 2009 by jessestay

I get asked often by clients, reporters and media folk and others about Facebook’s recent Terms of Service updates, essentially saying they own their users data and have a right to do as they wish with their data. They’ve turned around on that and will be releasing newly revised Terms soon, but at least they’re being honest about it. The thing is, any service on the internet you belong to, which includes Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, even Gmail, and more, owns your data. It’s their right to change their Terms for their users any time they want, and the only choice you’ll have at that point is to leave the service, or continue on, recognizing what you already knew – that what you’ve stored on their service is theirs to own forever. I think people have come to accept that – they just get all up in arms when it’s thrown in their face.

The thing is, as a brand, you can’t afford for this to happen. Owning, and losing rights to your data can make or break your business. People take risks to be able to take shortcuts and survive by joining such services, and frankly, it’s important to still have a presence on these services because people are talking about your brand and you could be missing out on that conversation. But can you really trust your content on such services? What if Twitter, or Google, or FriendFeed were to pull a Facebook and with the drop of a hat own all your previous data. They are within right to do so – you gave them that right when you signed up for their service.

The Social Web Needs More Open Protocols

We were discussing on FriendFeed today how the new FriendFeed beta, with its real-time nature, is a lot like IRC, and enables people to chat, in a completely new way, in real time. The thing is, it’s not at all like IRC. IRC is an open protocol. It’s software businesses can own, modify, and change to their hearts content. They can wrap their brand around it. With IRC a business has the ability to own the community that subsides within the environment they set up, on their own servers.

Not FriendFeed, or even Twitter enable this capability, which is why if they don’t adapt in the future things will change. Facebook is attempting to address this with their Connect product, and that’s a step in the right direction. Facebook also provides quite a bit of their underlying developer platform code, as open source, freely and openly to the community, also a step in the right direction, but they can always do more.

Keep in mind that this is all about owning your own community. Can Guy Kawasaki set his own rules about what is, and isn’t spammy? Can Leo Laporte provide a Geek-friendly environment for his TWIT Army? Can ESPN provide a sports-enthusiast friendly environment for Football fans, and properly advertise and provide things, in their own way, that those fans would appreciate? You can’t do this on any of the networks right now (with the exception of Facebook Connect).

Laconi.ca is headed in the right direction on this. As is Automattic, and SixApart. They all have their own major services, but all of their services enable you to focus on owning your own community. And even if you don’t have enough control, they provide you the source code to give you the control you need, should you need it. This is the future!

Why does this matter to the end-user?

You may think, well, I’m not a business. I’m just a casual user so this doesn’t matter to me. I’m willing to bet if you’re an Athletics fan, or a Boston Red Sox fan, or a 49ers fan, or a Mom, or even a Dad, that you put much more interest in those things than you do the brand name Twitter or FriendFeed or Facebook. Those things are your real life! Now imagine if those brands started to give you a way you could communicate with like-minded individuals, and what if different brands could talk with each other? This is one reason Facebook is going to succeed, and one reason Laconi.ca is going to succeed, because I can chat in the environment I want, and my friends all still get to hear me! As an end user, and especially a brand targeting that end user, that’s powerful!

This is why TodaysMama Connect is seeing great participation in their new Connect community for Moms. Now, with their service, Moms can connect with each other without having to sift through the massive data mine of Twitter. At the same time, TodaysMama gets to own and control the community in a way that works well for Moms and is inviting for them, while maintaining their brand image. You see the same with Leo Laporte’s TWIT army, and I’m already talking to several other major brands that are considering the same.

How do you control your data?

Will the future be full of everyone creating their own communities of “followers”, competing for who visits their site and embraces the community? It’s possible, but that’s far down the road. We need more open standards. The Twitters, the FriendFeeds, and the Facebooks all need to be providing and leading these open standards and serving instead of being data hoards, becoming network Connectors, providing ways to connect multiple smaller networks with each other. They need to be the directories and the places where people can go to find each community. They need to be the search, and the stream of the “brand-owned” data, and providing as many ways as possible for those brands to completely own and customize the experience for their own communities. Their role is the glue of the Open Web.

Let’s truly make these services the IRC of the Social Web. Thank you, Laconi.ca and Automattic, and SixApart for leading the way.

Photo Courtesy Eric Kilby

I’m On Facebook–Now What??? Now Available for the Kindle – Get Your Copy Today!

Posted on March 23, 2009 by jessestay

Recently when Amazon made their Kindle software available for the iPhone I told Jason and our Publisher Mitchell at HappyAbout that it was time we get our copy in the already strong database of books the Amazon Kindle Store provides. Now, not only would you not have to buy a Kindle to read our book digitally, but you could now take it anywhere with you, in your pocket, along with dozens of other of your favorite books thanks to the portability of the iPhone. This was very appealing to me, as now with just the push of a button you could download our book, read it anywhere you go, bookmark it, select your favorite pages, and more in a nice, easy-to-read digital format.

So I was proud to learn today that you can now go to the Kindle Store, search for “I’m on Facebook”, and with one click, have our book in your pocket or on your Kindle wherever you go. Better yet, it’s the cheapest of all versions, at only $9.56! We save on publishing costs, you get half off the original book price. How’s that for win-win?

If you have an iPhone, you can download the Kindle app by clicking on this link. You can also buy the Kindle 2 on Amazon (affiliate link) and get the full experience. To get the book, just go here, click the “Buy now with 1-click” link, and it will automatically be downloaded to your Kindle the next time you turn it on or open the app on the iPhone. Or, if you were always wanting to see what it was about, try it out for free! There’s a “Send sample now” link on that same page which will send you just a sample so you can see a preview of what you’re purchasing before you buy it.

Oh, and be sure to share this with your Facebook friends!

The Potential for Facebook Search Kicks Twitter’s Butt

Posted on March 22, 2009 by jessestay

Rob Diana recently did a post suggesting Facebook, rather than Twitter, was the real goldmine for data. I, as I’ve inferred before on LouisGray.com, wholeheartedly agree with that notion, and in fact, Facebook is already showing the potential for this with their Lexicon product. While not yet as public as Twitter search, right now anyone can see top trending keywords and topics, very similar to Twitter search, via the URL http://facebook.com/lexicon. Better yet, Facebook has revealed where they are going with it via their new version of the trends tool at http://facebook.com/lexicon/new.

From the new Lexicon you can pick any trending topic, see the number of users talking about those topics on a given timeline. Facebook goes further though, providing demographic data. For instance, for the term, “baseball”, you can find out how many females vs. males are talking about baseball. Under a Demographics category, you can also break it down by age, or country.

Associations

In addition to demographical information, you can pull out various statistics about what people are saying about a particular topic. Under the “Associations” category, you can get a graphical breakdown of what the most popular word associations with the topic are. Popular associations for the word, “baseball” were “high school”, “college”, “coach”, to name a few.

Sentiment

I found this one quite interesting. Facebook has found some way to determine the sentiment of users when mentioning various search terms. For instance, for “baseball”, you can determine the percentage of users speaking positively of baseball, and the percentage of users speaking negatively. They go further though, allowing you to compare the sentiment of one search term over another.

Pulse

Facebook will also do some biographical checking for you as well. It looks at each search term, and will determine what other common keywords are in users’ profiles related to those search terms, and what words are most popular when users are mentioning the term. For “baseball”, users tended to have words such as “sports”, “music”, “football”, and “reading”, revealing a little information about those fanatical about baseball.

Geography

Lastly, users can see how a particular search term fares geographically. “baseball” is very popular in California. Facebook provides a map, color-coding based on percent of users talking about the particular term. I can’t help but wonder if all search results are biased towards California however since that is one of the most populous states in terms of Facebook use.

The Potential for Facebook vs. Twitter

I think Facebook has shown through this Lexicon that they have the potential to be much more useful than Twitter in terms of search and data mining potential. Because Facebook has more detailed profile data, and a significantly larger user base to read from, the potentials for useful data are so much greater, and are already proving so via this Lexicon. If Facebook starts to provide APIs around this search data, along with the publicly available user status updates and profile data, they will be a very serious force to reckon with, that I think, regardless of the mass funding Twitter has, will be extremely tough to compete with.

If you’re currently writing apps for Twitter, you should sincerely consider starting to learn Facebook.

How Do I Only Allow Certain Friends to See (insert feature here) on Facebook?

Posted on March 20, 2009 by jessestay

I was interviewed on our local radio station, KSL News Radio (1160 AM and 102.7 FM) about Facebook etiquette recently, and the article aired today. I get asked frequently how you can separate your professional and personal life on Facebook. Paul Nelson (@paulthereporter on Twitter) was kind enough to take a video of me showing how to do this. Here’s the Howto, and keep in mind that you can also do this for individual photo albums and videos as well:

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If you want to hear the audio interview you can listen here:

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