The WPBook plugin I wrote for WordPress that embeds your blog into the Facebook canvas could be adapted for an Omeka plugin to display a collection in a similar fashion. In addition to retemplating the content of the site, the plugin would push FBML to a user’s profile to customize the way item appears. I don’t have immediate plans to build this – it remains on a rainy day to-do list, but if there’s interest then I could be persuaded to create this sooner than later.

If a Facebook Application seems too large of a task, Facebook recently unveiled Pages, which allow institutions, companies, and products to essentially have their own profiles. Prior to this, Facebook had banned profiles for non-individuals. For an example of a page, I set one for CHNM that you can be a “fan” of. Similar to user profiles, pages can add applications designed for them, including have a wall where visitors can leave comments. CHNM will start pulling in future blog posts using a feed application added to our profile, and maybe we’ll toss in some other apps for good measure. Maybe superpoke? Well, maybe the virtual bookshelf is more useful.

At the time of writing this, 19 museums around the world and 145 libraries have already created their own Facebook pages. It will be interesting to see if these pages replace similar groups, which I previously suggested for libraries and museums that were looking for an easy Facebook presence.

The event consisted of an hour of networking, followed by a thorough presentation by Dave Fetterman, the creator and lead engineer of the Facebook Platform. I came away from the event with three topics that stuck in my mind:

Privacy
As discussed in the most recent Digital Campus podcast, privacy is an ongoing concern with Facebook as they continue to “open up” to developers and advertisers. While much of what I’e been hearing and reading has been critical of Facebook’s lack of privacy settings and difficulty changing them, Facebook itself is confident (or at least projecting a display of confidence) about their own privacy. In fact, Dave Fetterman went on to say that privacy and the way Facebook has developed it within their social utility is why users continue to trust Facebook.

One thing that was mentioned by Dave in his presentation was a lack of privacy settings in many applications that are being developed by 3rd parties. He encouraged us to create privacy settings in order to achieve similar “trust” from Facebook users. Later in the presentation he also discussed how apps rise to the top in popularity based upon how they meet needs of the users, which, if he is right in his impulses, indicates a lack of concern of privacy by most Facebook users. I’d generally agree. The unanswered question remains, who should be dealing with the security and privacy of users – Facebook, or the 3rd party developers?

OpenSocial
I was waiting to see how Facebook would officially handle the launching of Google’s OpenSocial, and at the Garage they played it off well. Dave Fetterman said he was “flattered” by it, after they adopted many of the ideas he included in the Facebook Platform when he launched the API 14 months ago. Rather than looking at OpenSocial as the future of social networking, Dave reframed the discussion to be about Facebook and how they’re the innovators; Google and everyone else is following. When asked if they would adopt OpenSocial, Dave said that Facebook would leave that up to the users, and if they wanted it. That’s the biggest non-answer of the night, repeated over and over.

Providing User Data to Developers
Facebook has been testing a new service for developers to store 3rd Party application data locally on their servers. So what, you might ask? When you take into account Facebook’s recent changes to their advertising service, it becomes clearer. By storing your app’ data on Facebook’s server, their advertising model becomes stronger. For the application developer, they now have resolved many of the scalability problems and time-out failures that Facebook popular applications.

A developer asked if Facebook would allow 3rd party applications access to user contact information, or set cookies to target advertising within their individual apps; I was a little surprised by their answer. Facebook is currently looking at ways to provide applications developers with user demographic data, and also allow them to set or retrieve cookies. Allowing applications to plant cookies seems to fly in the face of many of the privacy issues that were mentioned earlier, but Dave asserted that it was a reasonable request.

Student Pugwash USA is a nonprofit devoted to educating youth about science policy. The survey is meant to gauge young voter’s knowledge and views on science policy in preparation of the upcoming 2008 elections. Many of my blog readers aren’t between 18 and 25 years old, but if you are, you’re eligible to take the survey (that was a restriction by Student Pugwash). It’ll only take a few minutes, and will help the survey be a success. It’s all multiple choice / yes/no questions.. no short answers, so there is no pressure.

I’d encourage all who can to check out the survey – perhaps you can get some ideas of how to conduct your own Facebook Survey.

Go here to take the survey: http://apps.facebook.com/spusasurvey/

We’re focusing on the psychology and metrics of Facebook, and how understanding these two pieces can help developers create superior applications on Facebook–or on whatever platform opens up next (and apparently more are coming soon).

What’s new here is how Facebook Platform has brought the creator and user close together through Facebook product features like Reviews and Discussion Boards, as well as built-in metrics of uptake and engagement. Anyone can see exactly how people are responding to a Facebook app, both individually and collectively.

BJ Fogg and Dave McClure have framed this course well by probing the relationship of creators and users in these applications. And while the course itself focuses on Facebook applications, I imagine that many of the discussions could be extrapolated and applied to other trends in web applications that are moving toward similar models. The class’ second assignment is to create a Facebook application that aids teaching and learning – it will be especially interesting to see the outcomes of this. Can similar observations for commercial applications be applied to educational apps? And, as I brought up in a previous post regarding Facebook apps that libraries are beginning to develop, is it possible to cross an “invisible line between school and cool?” In what ways do the approaches of these applications differ from other applications?

If you’re interested in the class, they’ve set up a public Facebook group (now exceeding 500 members) and have their course syllabus online. Hat tip to Amy Stephen at Open Source Community for sharing this.

Edit 01/07/09: I’m no longer involved with the majority of development of WPBook.  There’s a great team currently working on it, and we have a Google group where questions/problems can be fielded by active community members.

My foray into WordPress development is WPBook, an easy-to-install and fully customizable plugin that creates a Facebook application mirroring the content of your self-hosted blog. I want to briefly discuss several things, including how I created it, what it can do now, and where I see this going in the future.

What is WPBook
WPBook is a WordPress plugin that mirrors the content of your blog in the Facebook canvas, visible within their site’s template. Users of the social networking site can then view and/or add the application. Right now there are two blogs running the plugin that you can check out: my application called Finding America, and Jeremy Boggs’ History 120 application. I’ve taken a screen capture of the very simple template hack I performed to control the display of the blog on Facebook’s site. Also, notice how a quick-link to my blog is listed under Applications on the left side of the screen.

Developing WPBook
This is the first WordPress plugin I’ve created, but I think it’s worth saying how simple this was to create. There were several hurdles; including automatically mirroring the content on a static page with a separate template, but in the end the solution I came up with is very straightforward. After discovering Facebook’s update_option and wp_insert_post functions, I saved myself many lines of code by stripping out SQL statements and unnecessary logic. I’d love feedback from WP plugin developers on how to make this better.

Why a Facebook Application
I’ve noticed two trends in higher education: 1) professors are using and exploring blogs as a medium for communicating with students 2) given the vast reach of social networking sites, there has been increased interest in educational application for Facebook. Several months ago I blogged about libraries on Facebook, and since then there has continued to be an increase of these apps. My hope is that this plugin can help to move both of those closer together, and also engage students in new ways with additional features.

The Future of WPBook

The current version of WPBook displays the content of your blog in the Facebook, and makes it easy to access for your readers on Facebook. Future versions of WPBook will take advantage of the social features of Facebook and its development platform. While I haven’t nailed down the specifics, I hope to provide the option of sending notifications to users of your app once you’ve posted a new message, and also allow users to comment directly via their Facebook ID.

Download and Install WPBook
I have uploaded version .4, which you can download now. Included in that zipped file is a readme with four easy steps to set up your own. Note that one of the steps requires for you to obtain an application key and secret key from Facebook’s developer application; if this is unclear in the readme, I’ll update it with more details. WPBook is definitely in beta, but based upon my testing with several installations it’s stable. If you have any questions or suggestions, leave a comment on this post.

Happy blogging

Edit 10/12/07: I’ve added WPBook to WordPress’ plugin directory. Check there for updates as I continue to improve it. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpbook/

Facebook will be phasing out its Courses feature in early August, and we wanted to make sure you were the first to know. Collaboration services and applications are a big part of the world of Education. Especially on college campuses, where we first found our roots. Many of you have probably used some kind of collaboration software as a part of your courses. Our courses application was a great way to connect with new friends, and find your classmates. But, we think Facebook Developers can create even more robust ways to create, connect, and collaborate around teaching and learning in the classroom.

As I previously discussed, librarians are creating promising Facebook apps – who will be the first to create a popular Courses app?

While these new apps gesture toward the possible future of social networking sites and create a tacit relationship between academic institutions and individuals, I’m uncertain if that’s desirable for most users. A friend recently remarked that it seems to cross the “unspoken line between school and cool.” She may be onto something. For the average student, adding a library application on Facebook isn’t the least bit desirable considering these apps simply put a library catalog searchbar within the Facebook canvas – things you can already do on the library’s website. Adding an application that’s solely a utility for school seems to cross that unspoken line. Moreover, the function of “adding” something in Facebook, be that a friend, special-interest group or application is a representation of the user, and if a user doesn’t already have a relationship with the library and that’s all the application is, then there’s little reason for them to add that app.

The applications that ARE successful so far augment interactions between friends and preexisting relationships – whether that’s sharing information on movies that you’ve seen, turning your friends into zombies, or throwing sheep at them. Facebook’s model is based entirely upon openness and sharing. Sharing is “cool.” If libraries focus on a model of sharing with their apps, they could find much greater success in attracting casual users (you know, the ones who don’t usually hang out in the library).

In my ideal library application, I should be able to share a list of the books I’ve currently signed out of the library, or books that have helped with a research project. My friends could then see the items I shared, and potentially use that information to return to the library. In that process of sharing, the library (or creator of these apps) facilitates these interactions, and becomes a larger part of our lives. If we’re looking for new ways to promote libraries or academic projects, then innovative uses of Facebook applications may be a great nontraditional place to start.