Not because I can instantly chat with friends, but because I can see my friends activity on facebook LIVE. I can see when they sign on, when they go idle, and I can see their live mini-feed within the chat window. For Facebook, this is revolutionary.
So having the news feed and mini-feed was one thing. Having things like FriendFeed and all these different RSS feeds for updates is great… But having LIVE, REAL-TIME updates brings stalking to an even higher level. I don’t care what you did 5 minutes ago, or 2 hours ago… I want to know what you are doing RIGHT NOW.
So, where is my live twitter updates (more real-time than an RSS feed & more accessible than an SMS)? I want PUSH updates. Everything needs to be pushed to me. I shouldn’t have to PULL down all of my valuable stalking information.
In reply to my OpenSocial post, online reputation company Rapleaf co-founder Vivek Sodera sent me some interesting statistics that they have gathered. The statistics show the overlap of users between social networks. Why does this relate to OpenSocial? OpenSocial is a bridge between Social Networks and non-social networks. If User X has an account at 5 different social networks, and trends show that this is a common practice, and, as Rapleaf has done, you can identify which social networks have the greatest overlap, you could (for instance):
Target your OpenSocial implementation towards certain users
Verify that it is a good idea to participate in OpenSocial (wink, wink Facebook!)
Tailor your OpenSocial implementation to link data from certain social networks (those that show the greatest overlap)
Streamline a user’s access to their overlapping data!
Social Network Overlap - OpenSocial Participants (…and Facebook)
The greatest overlap between OpenSocial container sites exists between Myspace and Hi5, in which 43% of Hi5 users also use Myspace.
Facebook users are 63% female and 36% male whereas the sites integrated with the OpenSocial platform are 61% female and 38% male
52% of Facebook users are 18-25, whereas 40% of the users are 18-25 for the five container sites on the OpenSocial platform
Facebook users tend to use 2.9 major social networking sites on average whereas users of OpenSocial container sites tend to use 2.7 major social networking sites
13% are on Facebook, 43% are on Myspace, 2% are on LinkedIn, 13% are on Friendster, 2% are on Plaxo
Interesting; in this post on TechCrunch, Michael Arrington says “…resort to becoming a MySpace user along with the rest of the unwashed masses”, in response to somone who had their Facebook mysteriously deactivated.
Also, with all of these new platforms emerging, I am wondering what their overlap will be between each other?
I have been experimenting with different CPC (cost per click) products the last few months. I have obviously gone down the Google AdWords route, and I have looked at StumbleUpon’s pay-per-stumble; but my newest victim is proving quite valuable.
Facebook Flyers Pro is Facebook’s hand at AdWords. Unlike AdWords though, I have the ability to do some heavy demographic targeting. With Facebook Flyers Pro, I also have the added bonus of being able to see the exact number of people I am reaching. It starts off at 20 million people. As you add in location, sex, age, political views, relationship status, keywords (which looks at their entire profile), educational status, and place of employment, your total reach drops. I have a Flyer running right now that is targeting 87,200 females between the ages of 16 and 30, who live in the United States, and have certain keywords in their profile.
Just like any other CPC program, you bid on your max CPC, and set your max spending per day, then hit go! My experience with Facebook Flyers Pro so far as been amazing. Keep in mind that I am using Facebook Flyers Pro, which is CPC. They also have Facebook Flyers Basic which is based on views, and not clicks (better for spreading information, but no good for getting traffic). With the demographics I mentioned above, and that pool of 87 thousand people, I am seeing a decent CTR (click through ratio). The fact that the ads are highly targeted make this a great value. The higher my CPC max bid, the more my banner is shown.
Using some Google Analytics magic (see comments below), I can see that 25% of the click-thru’s actually converted… WOW. And I am only spending $5 a day, max! Within a few hours I had converted 10 people. I would recommend everyone who is interested give it a try.
I originally posted my code and the ideas surrounding its creation and use on April 20, 2007. Five months later, Facebook decided to lay the hammer down, after many people had already implemented, ported, optimized, and whored my code. Now, one month after that, Facebook has an official API method for updating your own status.
Was this a move to open their platform more and to silence those who believe Facebook’s f8 is more of a ‘closed’ platform when compared to other service providers with APIs, a move to implement something that they obviously forgot about so they would look like less of a loser, or an honest move towards helping the federated status initiative? Either way, I am glad that the API method now exists.
And, as noted by Daniele Muscetta (a new friend of mine, and Facebook F8 Developer), it has already been picked up and implemented in a project that echoes that of my original vision of Twitter->Facebook over at TwitterSweet.
Earlier last week when the Facebook controversy started, I contacted TechCrunch to get some questions answered before I responded, because I know they have experience in talking to service-providers. After speaking with TechCrunch, and not responding to Facebook’s take-down request, my account was disabled. I finally responded and, after a few emails, agreed to remove the code from my website (for fear of legal intervention, and to get my Facebook account back).
TechCrunch ran a story today detailing the controversy and the implications surrounding it. It is great to see that others have the same ideas as I do and agree with me on some levels.
Well, I have done it. I have managed to bridge that gap between my computer and my toilet… or my computer and my drive to work… or my computer and those boring lectures at school…. I no longer have to suffer through the pain of not having access to my live feed of everyones life. I can now continue my daily stalk even when I am not at my computer.
If you are like me, you have your Facebook status update feed for all of your friends in your favorite feed reader and set it to update every 1 minute. You also added your friend’s Twitter feeds. You may have even taken advantage of Facebooks SMS notification feature, where it txt-msgs you whenever a friend updates their status… Well, that was not good enough for me, and only provided me with limited info on a few people… I wanted INSTANT access to my Facebook/Twitter stalking resources!
So, I found a way. I own a Motorola Q, and I love it. Despite all of the problems everyone has with it and what everyone says, I find it to be the most useful mobile tool I have. I watch TV on it (SlingBox + Comcast Digital Cable), listen to music on it (SiriusWM5 for Sirius, and Orb for mp3s from my large library on my desktop PC), play SNES games on it (thank you PocketNesterPlus), use it for GPS navigation & phone book (Windows Live Search), instant message from it (Agile Messenger), and of course that phone/email/web thing as well. I WANTED MORE!
I wanted to move my obsessive Facebook/Twitter habits into my mobile lifestyle so I could stalk on the go. Here is my solution:
Notice the information that I circled in red. This the latest Facebook update from my entire set of friends. “Katie S. is on her way to target.” My homescreen is updated every 3 minutes with the latest status update from Facebook. Whenever someone updates their status, my phone makes a very light noise and the update is displayed on my home screen. ULTRASTALK! I see all and hear all now.
And now, here is how it works. I found a scripting language that works on mobile phones and has a nice set of functions and features. It is called MortScript. MortScript has the ability to read/write to the registry, download and read files from the internet, automatically run at specified intervals, etc etc etc… I created a very simple script that checks a PHP file on a server of mine, and saves the information to the phone. Then I added a built-in plugin to the home screen that displays that information. I currently only have it doing a live Facebook status update, but the PHP script could easily be made to pull Twitter, or even BOTH. This MortSCript is only for displaying the information, so really, the PHP script could grab ANY type of information, such as: server status, new email, feed updates (such as facebook/twitter), IM presence information, number of users on your website, new comments on your blog, important alerts (like a pager?). Really, I have created the framework for any type of instant mobile alerts.
MortScript:
scriptURL = "URL_TO_YOUR_SCRIPT"
ThisScriptPath = SystemPath("ScriptPath")
ThisScriptName = SystemPath("ScriptName") & SystemPath("ScriptExt")
#Update interval in seconds, 180 = 3 minutes.
UpdateInterval = 180
Call SetUpdateTime
#Turn Errors OFF
ErrorLevel("off")
Contents = ""
wURL = scriptURL
Contents = ReadFile(wURL)
OldContents = RegRead ("HKCU","ControlPanelOwner","Notes")
If (OldContents ne Contents)
#For the Q
RegWriteString ("HKCU","ControlPanelOwner","Notes", Contents)
#Uncomment the following and change filename to play a sound
#PlaySound("NewUpdate.wav")
EndIf
Exit
# -------------------------------------------------------------
Sub SetUpdateTime
If (UpdateInterval <> 0)
RunAtTime = TimeStamp() + (UpdateInterval)
#Remove the Notification Queue (if exists)
RemoveNotifications(ThisScriptPath & "\" & ThisScriptName)
#Set the Notification Queue Item
RunAt(RunAtTime, ThisScriptPath & "\" & ThisScriptName)
EndIf
EndSub
PHP Script
$url = 'FACEBOOK_STATUS_FEED_URL';
$ch = curl_init($url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/5.0");
$xml = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);
$xmlobj = simplexml_load_string($xml);
$status = $xmlobj->channel->item[0]->title;
$author = $xmlobj->channel->item[0]->author;
$authorn = split(' ',$author);
switch(count($authorn)):
case 1: // single name
$authorabbr = $authorn[0];
break;
case 2: // first & last name
$authorabbr = $authorn[0].' '.$authorn[1]{0}.'.';
break;
case 3: // first middle last, take first and last
case 4: // first middle last sr/jr/III, take first and last
$authorabbr = $authorn[0].' '.$authorn[2]{0}.'.';
break;
default:
$authorabbr = 'Someone';
break;
endswitch;
$status = str_replace($author, ucwords($authorabbr), $status);
echo $status;
?>
XML to add to your home screen file:
You will obviously need to customize the XML to suite your current home screen needs (x,y,height,width,font-size, etc etc). Follow this link to download MortScript and install it. Name the script above ultrastalk.mscr and run it from filemanager to start it. If anyone is actually interested in using this, just leave a comment and I will post a follow up with step-by-step instructions.
[UPDATE: October 01, 2007 @ 11:09am EST]
Facebook has officially implemented a users.setStatus() method in their API. Read more…
[UPDATE: September 04, 2007 @ 7:21pm EST]
It is with great disappointment that I must make this announcement. Facebook has requested that I remove the code from my website. They have also contacted everyone else who has found my code and publicly mentioned that they are using it. I originally did not comply, but my Facebook account was disabled and legal action was about to be pursued.
I am saddened at this turn of events because the idea behind the code was to extend Facebook’s current service and fill in the gap that their API had. The API still does not provide a means for updating ones status.
To everyone who found my code useful, everyone who ported my code to various other languages, those who integrated my code into their projects, and those who believe in Federated Status, Thank You.
- Christian Flickinger
I use Facebook as my ’social network of choice’, and the means for updating friends of my status. The main reason is because most of my friends have no idea what Twitter is, nor would many of them use it. Everyone I know does have a Facebook account though, so it seems only natural that I use the medium which will give my updates the largest audience.
Although I do not use Twitter, I fully support it and love the idea of it.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to see if I could meld Facebook and Twitter. What I envisioned was a one-stop shop for updating my statuses across the internet. To do this you would need something that can PUSH and ACCEPT updates. Twitter has an API that will ACCEPT updates, but nothing that will PUSH them. Facebook has an API that does not have any functions for status updates at all, but they do have status update RSS feeds. I want Twitter to be the top of my update tree. I want to update twitter (because of its SMS/Web/IM/API updating capabilities) and have everything else know about it. The API allows me to make a plugin for my IM client that could possibly throw my latest away message up on Twitter. SMS/Web/IM allow me to update twitter from wherever I am.
Well, I do not give up that easy. I want a way to update Facebook without physically logging into Facebook. It can be done, and I found out how. Facebook has no status update API and their update box uses AJAX to post, so cURL is out of question… or so everyone thought! Facebook has a mobile service (http://m.facebook.com) that allows you to update your status and view your Facebook from a cellphone. It looks the best on Windows Mobile devices (I have a Q), and works great on normal WAP browsers. This is the key to my facebook-twitter hack.
Facebook mobile uses a normal POST method for updating status. How cool is that? This means that it HAS to be possible to update your Facebook from a program. Using nothing but cURL (or, in my case, PHP with the cURL extension), you can update your Facebook status. What does this mean? This means that if someone wanted, they could easily keep their Facebook status synced up with their latest Twitter status. The code is below. Feel free to use it. Mentioning my blog/name would be greatly appreciated.
// Code removed at request of Facebook
I have already created my first test mashup of Winamp & Facebook, successfully displaying, in real time, the current song I was listening to in Winamp as my Facebook status. Anyone with some experience could easily use the above code to check Twitter and (if updated) push to Facebook. Happy mashing!
