A common question we get from developers is how to keep information of Users or Pages using their apps up to date. We wanted to share some of the best practices that can improve the reliability and performance of apps you write on Facebook.

We often see developers querying the Graph API each time a User logs in to their apps to fetch information and update their records. This presents several issues and has a huge hit on performance.

Instead, we encourage you to use the Real-time Updates API that we designed especially for this purpose, allowing developers to subscribe to changes in data in Facebook. Rather than polling Facebook’s servers, your app can then cache data and receive updates whenever the data changes.

For example, many apps rely on a User’s location to fetch and display relevant information, it is very important that this data stays up to date on the app’s backend.

Real-time updates allows you to set up a subscription on the location field of the User object, whenever that field changes, Facebook will make an HTTP POST request to a callback URL you specified by with a list of changes.

You can currently subscribe to updates for these types of objects:

• User – Get notifications about particular fields and connections corresponding to User objects in the Graph API.
• Permissions – Get notifications when Users change the permissions they afford your applications. The fields are like those in the corresponding FQL table.
• Page – Get notifications when Pages that have installed your app as a Tab change their public properties.Note that the page topic is only used for subscribing to changes to public attributes of the page (like name, category, picture etc). This is the same information that is returned by the Graph API call https://graph.facebook.com/. However, you can subscribe to the page’s feed in the same way you subscribe to a User’s feed – the subscription topic should be User and the subscription field should be feed

Below is PHP Sample code that sets up an endpoint that will receive both GET (for subscription verification) and POST requests (for actual change data).

<?php

  $verify_token = 'YOURVERIFYTOKEN';

  if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'GET' && isset($_GET['hub_mode'])
    && $_GET['hub_mode'] == 'subscribe' && isset($_GET['hub_verify_token'])
    && $_GET['hub_verify_token'] == $verify_token) {
      echo $_GET['hub_challenge'];
  } else if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] == 'POST') {
    $post_body = file_get_contents('php://input');
    $obj = json_decode($post_body, true);
    // $obj will contain the list of fields that have changed
  }

?>

Once this endpoint is set up, you will need to make a POST request to the actual Real-Time updates API to subscribe to a field.

<?php

  $app_id = 'YOUR_APP_ID';
  $app_secret = 'YOUR_APP_SECRET';
  $app_url = 'http://YOURAPPURL';
  $fields = 'location';
  $verify_token = 'YOURVERIFYTOKEN';

  // Fetching an App Token
  $app_token_url = 'https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id='
                   .$app_id.'&client_secret='.$app_secret
                   .'&grant_type=client_credentials';
  $ch = curl_init();
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $app_token_url);
  curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
  $res = curl_exec($ch);
  parse_str($res, $token);

  if (isset($token['access_token'])) {
    // Let's register a callback
    $params = array(
      'object'
        =>  'user',
      'fields'
        =>  $fields,
      'callback_url'
        // This is the endpoint that will be called when
        // a User updates the location field
        =>  $app_url . '/index.php?action=callback',
      'verify_token'
        =>  $verify_token,
    );

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://graph.facebook.com/'
                                  .$app_id.'/subscriptions?access_token='
                                  .$token['access_token']);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $params);
    $res = curl_exec($ch);
    if ($res && $res != 'null') {
      print_r($res);
    }

    // Fetch list of all callbacks
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 0);
    $res = curl_exec($ch);
  }
  if ($res && $res != 'null') {
    print_r($res);
  }
  curl_close($ch);

?>

The code above should return a similar object listing current subscriptions:

{
   "data":[
      {
         "object":"user",
         "callback_url":"http:\/\/YOURAPPURL\/index.php?action=callback",
         "fields":[
            "location"
         ],
         "active":true
      }
   ]
}

It’s important to note that for security reasons, the POST request made by Facebook’s servers to your endpoint will never actually contain the data that changed but only the field.

This is what a query from Facebook’s servers to your endpoint may look like:

{
   "object":"user",
   "entry":[
      {
         "uid":"499535393",
         "id":"499535393",
         "time":1326210816,
         "changed_fields":[
            "location"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

Once your endpoint gets called you can either query the Graph API immediately to fetch the new information or schedule it for a later call (next user login for example).

You can find more information about the Real-Time Updates API here.

Original Source

Advertisers trade in adjectives and adverbs. Campaigns and creative executions are filled with them. However, with all content increasingly filtered through social networks, it’s what people do with advertising rather than what they say about it that will make all the difference this year. Guaranteed.

The change started last September when Facebook revealed that the ubiquitous “like” and “share” features will soon be joined by all kinds of verbs. Two of these — “read” and “listen” — are already live. Others are coming soon with the debut of Facebook Actions. “Buy” and “watched” are likely to be two.

Facebook users who install certain news and music applications such as Spotify and The Washington Post social news reader can opt to share their actions. In other words, read news or listen to music on the social network and it gets broadcast to friends friction-free.

The arithmetic, therefore, is simple. The more marketers can evoke social actions, the more likely it is that their wonderfully crafted narrative will stick to people’s screens.

The empirical evidence is already there.

Increasing Traffic

Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow estimates that sites that simply add an optional Facebook share capability to common online applications, such as an online poll, can increase traffic 12.98%. (Yes, he’s done the math.)

Media early adopters have already seen strong results from their embrace of verbs. The Guardian has garnered 1 million additional monthly page views since it launched a revamped Facebook presence last fall. Yahoo is so pleased with its early results that it has expanded its relationship with Facebook to 26 more sites. The social network is already deeply embedded into Yahoo News.

It’s not just Facebook though. Technology companies have long understood that pointing and grunting are arguably the most innate human gestures. It’s something children do at a very early age. Cavemen basically invented both. So they’re building these natural interfaces at the core.

Siri on the iPhone and Kinect on Xbox* are two early implementations: users talk or point. But soon similar gesture-based media will show up everywhere. These will drive a lot more frictionless sharing. The social networks and search engines will gobble up the data and use these signals to shape the algorithms that already guide so much of what we pay attention to.

Here are three strategies to consider:

Build verb hooks everywhere

You wouldn’t think that people want to share that they completed an online poll or registered to enter a contest, but data prove the contrary. A small percentage will, and this generates a network effect that pays off big. Look for ways to attach social verbs to even basic online features.

Here’s why this matters to marketers: If they adopt the verb structure and API’s into their assets, they are more likely to surface through Facebook’s algorithms. For example, Ford should consider adopting the “watch” API for any video content on its site.

Consider the lens of friends

Content finds us though the lens of our friends. This means no two people see the same web. It’s all personalized. Execs need to think hard about their audiences and pay particular attention to psychographics. This can help guide decisions about the language and creative that will generate verbs, not just awareness.

Prioritize media that think in verbs

When making a media buy, look for partners that get the power of natural gestures and have started to build it into their armada. Insist that they add social functionality to even basic banner ads and rich-media executions.

Your mission this year is not just to be heard but to inspire action. Tapping into the network effects of verbs is a must in a social digital age.

Image credit: sAeroZar

*Microsoft is an Edelman client.

Original Source

As we’ve previously reported, Bank of America’s loan modification program (for want of a better phrase) is being sued by the state of Arizona. But the AZ Attorney General says the nation’s second-largest bank is hindering his investigation by quietly negotiating settlements with underwater homeowners — or at least those who will pledge to keep their mouths shut about the bank.

BusinessWeek writes of one settlement in which the borrower, who defaulted on a $253,142 mortgage, had that loan modified to a 40-year loan with a sweetheart 2% interest rate.

For that admittedly awesome deal, the homeowner agreed to “remove and delete any online statements regarding this dispute, including, without limitation, postings on Facebook, Twitter and similar websites,” and to refrain from making statements “that defame, disparage or in any way criticize” Bank of America.

The Arizona Attorney General’s office, which claims knowledge of at least a dozen such settlements, has asked a court to compel BofA to turn over these agreements and to block the non-disparagement clauses. A hearing is set for Feb. 1.

“These agreements have completely silenced even the most communicative consumers,” writes Assistant Attorney General Carolyn Matthews in the state’s court filing. “The settlement agreement purposefully makes it impossible, legally and practically, for a consumer signing it to come forward, voluntarily and promptly, to provide evidence in this case.”

Lawyers for BofA defend the non-disparagement clauses, telling BusinessWeek that the bank will not enforce the provision if those who signed the settlements choose to speak to investigators for the state.

Bank of America Settlements Impede Fraud Probe, Arizona Says [BusinessWeek.com via ThinkProgress]

Thanks to Steve for the tip!

Original Source

CEO and co-founder Sheldon Owen said Unified takes an enterprise approach to social advertising to give companies one system to manage campaigns from creative and planning stages to reporting and analytics. As businesses try campaigns on a number of new platforms, they can find themselves struggling to put things in perspective and understand how social media makes an impact. Unified’s Social Operating Platform calculates earned media and ROI by automating what many advertisers do manually through spreadsheets.

For example, a companies might use the Social Operating Platform to run Facebook ads to bring new fans to a page. In addition to setting a cost per action goal for the campaign, advertisers can assign values to other relevant metrics that are not otherwise included in an ad report. An advertiser paying $1 per fan might believe wall posts and comments are engagements with viral reach worth $0.20 each. The Social Operating Platform uses the Facebook API to display all of an advertiser’s performance indicators in one dashboard and calculate earned media value.

One problem might be that advertisers might not know what sort of value to place on a YouTube share or Twitter @ reply, for instance. Besides offering some strategy consulting, Unified aims to help advertisers through its Unified University training program. The web-based program provides information about a number of social advertising platforms and allows people to get certified on its system.

The Social Operating Platform is available for an undisclosed per user license fee, and the company offers other services and ways to integrate additional data that are negotiated on a case by case basis.

Original Source

Most of the hackathons below are in the United States, with New York (four events) edging out San Francisco (two events). Here is the complete list of 22 upcoming hackathons:

• Accelerator Workshop – 01/11/2012 – Toronto Ontario, Canada
• PDX Weekly Hackathon – 01/12/2012 – Portland OR, United States
• PennApps Spring 2012: Simplicity – 01/13/2012 – Philadelphia PA, United States
• Copenhagen 3D Startup Weekend January 2012 – 01/13/2012 – Frederiksberg, Denmark
• Northern Kentucky Startup Weekend – 01/13/2012 – Highland Heights KY, United States
• Seattle Startup Weekend – 01/13/2012 – Seattle WA, United States
• West Michigan Startup Weekend – 01/13/2012 – Grand Rapids MI, United States
• Culvert Hackathon 2012 – 01/14/2012 – Virtual
• Arduino Camp & Robot Hackathon – 01/14/2012 – New York NY, United States
• Facebook Mobile Hack – New York – 01/18/2012 – New York NY, United States
• CodeChix Presents: Mobile/Web Graphic Design for Engineers (Women only) – 01/18/2012 – Mountain View CA, United States
• Hackathon for Social Good – 01/19/2012 – New York NY, United States
• Wikipedia – San Francisco Hackathon January 2012 – 01/20/2012 – San Francisco CA, United States
• Haskell Hackathon – 01/20/2012 – Cambridge MA, United States
• Facebook Mobile Hack – Boston – 01/20/2012 – Boston MA, United States
• CityCampHNL Hackathon – 01/20/2012 – Honolulu HI, United States
• Startup Weekend Ann Arbor – 01/20/2012 – Ann Arbor MI, United States
• Jacksonville Startup Weekend – 01/20/2012 – Jacksonville FL, United States
• Startup Weekend Krakow, 20-22 January 2012 – 01/20/2012 – Kraków Malopolskie, Poland
• Startup Weekend SLO – 01/20/2012 – San Luis Obispo CA, United States
• Umbraco London Hack day – 01/20/2012 – London London, United Kingdom
• Cleanweb Hackathon NYC – 01/21/2012 – New York NY, United States

If we missed your event, make sure and submit below as a comment and we’ll include it next week.

For those that are new to the hackathon space, these events are not intended to perform illegal activities around computer networks. Software developers widely see hacking as a quick and dirty programming solution to a problem.  It is NOT about gaining access to other networks, which is a definition widely publicized by the media and hollywood.  Among the developer community, it is mean to be a positive term that drives innovation among developers.

Original Source

What is ‘People Talking About This?’

People Talking About This is the number of unique users who have created a “story” about a page in a seven-day period. On Facebook, stories are items that display in News Feed. Users create stories when they:

• like a page
• post on the page wall
• like a post
• comment on a post
• share a post
• answer a question
• RSVP to a page’s event
• mention the page in a post
• tag the page in a photo
• check in at a place
• share a check-in deal
• like a check-in deal
• write a recommendation

Whenever a person takes one of these actions, it counts toward People Talking About This. If a user posts a status update about going to a restaurant, that will not affect People Talking About This unless the user uses the @ function to tag the restaurant’s page or checks in to the restaurant from a mobile device. For now, plain text mentions of a topic do not influence People Talking About This, which is meant to indicate how well a page is engaging fans, not simply how popular something is.

Because the metric tracks unique users interacting with a page over a seven-day range, if a fan leaves more than one comment or both likes and shares a post within that time, it adds only one point to People Talking About This. However, the number changes daily so it is important to engage fans consistently to keep this number up.

Anyone visiting a page can see the total People Talking About This on the left side of the page under the number of Likes. Although Likes are counted and displayed in real time, People Talking About This data is typically two days behind. This means the number doesn’t tell admins how many people are talking about their page right now, but how many people directly interacted with the page in some way in the seven days prior to two days ago. It’s no wonder people are having trouble understanding the new metric.

To further complicate things, individual posts also have a People Talking About This count, which only page owners can view. This is the unique number of users who interacted with a post in a way that generated a story, for instance, liking, sharing or commenting on content. When users like specific comments on a post, it does not count toward this total since the action does not generate a News Feed story.

How does ‘People Talking About This’ affect pages?

People Talking About This is an important metric because it emphasizes interactions beyond an initial Facebook Like. Pages that create posts that fans enjoy will benefit. When people interact with pages in ways that generate stories, pages reach an audience beyond their existing fan base. Users benefit, too, from pages providing more relevant content. Pages that have been focused on gaining Likes without an engagement strategy to follow it will suffer from the disparity between the number of Likes and People Talking About This.

Original Source

One of the unending debates in blogging circles is about the value of comments. How do you encourage the best comments and discourage the anonymous trolls? Do you even need comments?  Or do you enforce civility by requiring real names, through the use of Facebook comments (which is what we currently use on TechCrunch) at the expense of discouraging conversation?

But there is a middle ground between anonymous commenters and those with real names: commenters who use pseudonyms. People use pseudonyms for many reasons, often because it better reflects their online persona or they simply want to separate their identities for different activities. New data from Disqus, the commenting platform, suggests that pseudonyms both encourage more and better comments.

According to the data, 61 percent of all Disqus comments are made via pseudonyms, versus 35 percent anonymous and 4 percent using real names (i.e. Facebook). People with pseudonyms also comment 6.5 times more than those who comment anonymously and 4.7 times more than commenters who use real names.

Okay, but what about the trolls?  Disqus maintains that only does allowing pseudonyms produce more comments, but the quality of the comments is also better, as measured by likes and replies. Disqus maintains that 61 percent of pseudonymous comments on its system are positive in that regard, versus only 34 percent positive for anonymous comments (I knew it!) and 51 percent positive for comments made using real names. People who use pseudonyms post better comments on Disqus. Their comments are liked more and generate more discussion.

On the negative front—comments that are marked as spam, flagged, or deleted—both anonymous and pseudonymous comments are poor quality 11 percent of the time.  Comments under real names are negative 9 percent of the time, so a little bit better than the other two but not by much.

Would this data hold true across other commenting systems? It is hard to say. Disqus allows for pseudonyms, and they are obviously popular on that system. People who register for a Disqus account get verified, and then can pick another name under which to comment. People can comment anonymously as well.

Pseudonyms appear to be a promising middle ground for commenting systems. You want to be able to block or downgrade bad actors (spam, hate speech, etc.) without discouraging the much larger number of legitimate commenters who may not want to use their real names. Should all blogs allow for pseudonyms in comments? Please comment using your real name below

Original Source

Google’s November 2011 changes to its web crawler have created new opportunities and liabilities for all websites implementing Facebook Comments, with important implications for SEO. Webmasters who properly implement and manage Facebook Comments stand to gain, but the recent changes could significantly hurt the rankings of sites who do not properly prevent and manage spam.

Google announced last November that it had begun indexing Javascript and AJAX content, without requiring webmasters to implement workarounds. While Google has not yet claimed to be indexing 100 percent of Javascript and AJAX content, it became clear soon after the change that Facebook Comments, which is displayed using AJAX and HTML5, are now indexed by Google.

Previously, in order to get Google’s crawler to index Facebook Comments, webmasters had to use a workaround like displaying an duplicate plain-text version of Comments that was visible to Google’s site crawler, but invisible to visitors, who would still see the regular Facebook Comments.

This workaround required webmasters to use the Facebook Graph API to pull Comments (access to Comments through the Graph API was announced on the Facebook Developer Blog in April). The technical nature of this workaround meant that few websites implemented it, and therefore, for most sites, Facebook Comments had no impact on Google Search rankings.

Given the November change, Facebook Comments are now indexed by Google without any workaround. Since Google’s search rankings are affected by the quality and relevance of the text on a given page, as well as the quantity and quality of outbound links, this change means that any site visitor can affect search rankings by commenting. Quality, relevant comments and links may help boost a page’s ranking, but spam in Facebook Comments may also hurt rankings.

To learn more about the specific advantages of Facebook Comments for site owners, read on for our free, detailed overview in the Facebook Marketing Bible, where we cover:

• Facebook Comments versus Disqus, ECHO, and IntenseDebate
• Who should use Facebook Comments? A few examples of live sites that are doing it well
• Getting a search ranking lift through Facebook Comments
• Facebook Comments and the spam risk

>> Click to Continue Reading

Original Source

In a unit on the right sidebar of the site, Facebook asks, “How well do you know [friend’s name]?” Multiple-choice options follow.

This research question is yet another example of how Facebook has been experimenting to improve relevance of the News Feed through algorithms and direct user feedback. As people connect with more pages and people and share more information, whether through mobile updates or Open Graph activity, Facebook must provide a manageable and worthwhile News Feed experience.

In September, Facebook combined the Top News and Recent Stories filters into a single feed. Users can now highlight stories to let Facebook know they want to see more items like those, and they can un-highlight stories they feel Facebook has mistakenly marked as important. With the new subscribe feature, users can also indicate the type of updates they want to see or not see from their friends and people they follow.

While average user will not spend much, if any, time organizing their friends or News Feeds, more advanced users will appreciate the control Facebook is offering.

Original Source

Fewer places offer as much data on the consumer as Facebook. With an astounding global user base topping 800 million, Facebook is a treasure trove of consumer data just waiting to be tapped for insights. The number of tools that have been developed or are currently under development to mine that data (competitive or for our brands) is astounding. It’s not a trend that’s likely to slow anytime soon, so the big winner will be the company that provides quality data and insights in an easy to digest form. Who that is remains to be seen.

Facebook Insights Bulks Up With Data

One of the key players in the Facebook data and insights race is obviously Facebook. They have all of the data already and, in theory, it should be easiest for them to serve it up to users. The new evolution of Facebook Insights, a free data solution offered to administrators of brand pages, is seeking to answer many questions about our target consumers. Being rolled out on December 15th, there are several new components to Facebook Insights that make us think the new platform will be much stronger for users.

Those new features include:

Richer engagement metrics

The current version of Facebookinsights really only dives into likes, comments and interaction rates to give page owners a deeper sense of engagement. The new “people talking about this” metric is inherently more powerful by looking at overall page likes, comments, shares or likes of posts, answers of a question, responses to your event, mentions of your page, tagging your page in a photo, checking in or recommending your page. By including more engagement datapoints, we should have a better understanding of how people interact with and amplify our content.

Total Reach is stronger

The total reach metric is the number of unique people who have seen any content associated with your page, which includes advertising or sponsored stories pointingto your page in the last 7 days. This metric is more useful than looking at just pageviews or impressions alone because it tracks the entire Facebook ecosystem. More on that in a minute. Now, page owners will have a greater sense of the true reach of their page.

Improved per post data

In the current version of Facebook Insights, data is very surface level (likes, comments, interaction rates) on a per post basis. The inclusion of unique reach, engaged users (the number of unique people who have clicked any whereon your post), the number of people talking about the post and virality (the number of unique people who have created a story from your post as a percentage of the number of unique people who’ve seen it) is great for page owners looking to achieve more clarity on what types of posts perform best.

Better click data

In addition to now receiving link clicks per post (what was provided before was a rolled up clicks figure), we cannow learn what else people are clicking on in a post. The new Facebook Insights will let page owners track the number of times a user clicks on people’s names in comments, clicks on the like count, clicks on the time stamp, etc…

Measuring Branded Content: Opening the Lens

Overall, one of the biggest takeaways is that Facebook is now going to be offering improved understanding of the performance of branded content in the entire Facebook ecosystem. One of the biggest issues with the current version of Facebook Insights is that the data is collected through a very narrow lens — by that we mean what is happening on the page almost exclusively. These new metrics, like total reach, which includes ads and sponsored stories, attempt to give page owners a better sense for how far messaging travels outside of “their four walls.”

If you have had a chance to experiment with the new Insights platform, what do you think? Is the data better?

Image credit: Spencer E Holtway

Original Source