Loading Profile...
EMPLOYEE
What if Flock could publish your actions to Facebook for you?
Flock is full of smart folks, and it's one of my greatest pleasures to get to grab a plastic cup of wine and throw around ideas with them. I've heard great idea after great idea, but the downside to having all these smart folks is that they always find the issue in the equation that will break it. :)
Recently we've been throwing around a new idea, and we have yet to poke a hole in it, so I wanted to run it by you.
People love to share their activities online. They post a blog and then Twitter the link out. They upload photos and then blog about it. And they try to pull this all into Facebook through apps, notes, or status updates.
What if that was easier? What if, by simply installing a Facebook app and choosing your settings in Flock, you could have Flock automatically publish to Facebook when you post a blog, upload photos, add a feed, favorite a site, etc? These items would show up in a box on your profile as well as in specific items in your news feed. Never again would you have to post a note when you update your blog or upload some photos to Flickr.
This would all be customizable and could be disabled; we wouldn't want this to be creepy, just an option if you choose it.
Of course, if this was successful as a Facebook app we could branch out to OpenSocial networks, or even create an embeddable HTML widget.
Is this interesting to folks? Would you add this to your Facebook page? If you saw this on a friend's page, would you be intrigued? Would it convince you to download a browser?
Thanks in advance for your feedback...we're quite fond of this idea, but you are the ones who would be using it, so your thoughts on it are key.
Flock'n'roll,
Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
Recently we've been throwing around a new idea, and we have yet to poke a hole in it, so I wanted to run it by you.
People love to share their activities online. They post a blog and then Twitter the link out. They upload photos and then blog about it. And they try to pull this all into Facebook through apps, notes, or status updates.
What if that was easier? What if, by simply installing a Facebook app and choosing your settings in Flock, you could have Flock automatically publish to Facebook when you post a blog, upload photos, add a feed, favorite a site, etc? These items would show up in a box on your profile as well as in specific items in your news feed. Never again would you have to post a note when you update your blog or upload some photos to Flickr.
This would all be customizable and could be disabled; we wouldn't want this to be creepy, just an option if you choose it.
Of course, if this was successful as a Facebook app we could branch out to OpenSocial networks, or even create an embeddable HTML widget.
Is this interesting to folks? Would you add this to your Facebook page? If you saw this on a friend's page, would you be intrigued? Would it convince you to download a browser?
Thanks in advance for your feedback...we're quite fond of this idea, but you are the ones who would be using it, so your thoughts on it are key.
Flock'n'roll,
Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
I’m excited about this idea!
9
people like this idea
I like this idea!
Tell me when this idea gets some attention.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The more people who like this idea, the more it gets noticed.
The company is working on this idea.
-
Inappropriate?Hey Evan: it is interesting that you bring this up at this time. Was about to compose some more input about Jack Daw's Beta FLOCK and results that I am getting have been good. The photo uploader is working. The whole thing, kitn'caboodle did not work again, tho, until I uninstalled xpclucen. Why is that included?
When Flock opens and MY ACCOUNTS, the native's like twitter, facebook, youtube, etc. to FLOCK are turned on and some point I visit Facebook, FBook seems to really be getting TOO MUCH information from my YouTube account. IN my Facebook MINI-Feed for the past several days, I have had my favorited youtube activities included in mini-feed repeatedly with the same content 10 times in a row or more. SO I delete them off my mini -feed, which is a Facebook option, but everytime I open FLOCK and youtube account is active the activity appears on my Facebook again.
SO it seems only natural that the features you discuss are here and now with the native accounts to FLOCK. Yea or Nea?
Great idea but if it bots and spams the heck out of my FACEBOOK or any other account it will be irritating.
PS: the application you are discussing seems to be almost a fully realized function of the activity logging on site at mybloglog.com. Is this similiar to your approach?
wesley miller
GET YOUR FLOCK BAR Wallpaper
http://arunaurl.com/2g8l
I’m there!
-
Inappropriate?Hey Wesley,
I think what you're saying is that you think that Flock is publishing your YouTube activities to Facebook. Flock does NOT do anything like that at this time without you actively choosing to do this. It's possible that YouTube has Facebook's Beacon installed, though I doubt it. But Flock is not currently publishing anything without your permission, and obviously making sure that we keep your privacy is an important part of this extension concept.
I'm somewhat familiar with MyBlogLog, and yeah...similar but different. Publishing specific activities automatically for you, if you so choose.
Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com -
Inappropriate?Hey Evan,
I really like this idea. It could quite nicely replace the horrible twitter application I'm using on Facebook as well as eliminate the need for me to "auto import" my blog into notes and wrap all my online activity into one place for convenient reading.
As long as there's not like a bazillion options that you have to click on/off every time you do something in Flock, I could see this taking off. I'd hope for a high but intuitive level of customization though, as well as the Facebook app having a decent UI [or just controlled entirely from Flock, which would be much better].
Also, nothing helps to evangelize a product than to see someone easily sharing their public online activities through their browser! [I myself got on to Flock from CNet, but whatever, this would have peaked my interest]
I’m anxious
2 people think
this is one of the best points
2 Comments Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Hey Phil, Thanks for the reply, you totally understood what we are talking about...sounds like it would be a win for you. Interestingly, erich13 seems to want more control over this. Would you be less into this feature if it popped up a dialog each time you did a publishable activity, asking you if you want to publish? Maybe we'd just allow both options... -
See that was my issue about the "remember this password" thing that Flock took care of really nicely. As long as it was done in a similar manner, it'd be manageable. If the bar were like this it'd be awesome:
Advanced Options ------------ Always Publish / Never Publish / Publish Once
Advanced Options is where your bazillion options could come in were you to need them. -
Inappropriate?Too much automation for my taste. I prefer to choose which actions I post to my status.
2 people think
this is one of the best points
4 Comments Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Hey erich, what if you got a message each time you did a publishable action, asking you if you wanted to send to Facebook? Still somewhat automated, but you'd have the ability to choose.
-
I think I might find that annoying.
-
Perhaps I should clarify: we're not posting this to your status, we're posting this to the Flock Application on Facebook (a box on your profile) and to your news feed. The following is not meant to be snarky: are you saying you'd rather manually go to Facebook and publish a link or change your status to inform people you have a new blog/new photos/etc than have it automated in some way? "Yes" is a totally legitimate answer, I'm just trying to make sure I'm clear on your feelings about it.
-
Yes, I prefer manually updating status and status-like stuff, usually via ping.fm or HelloTxt.com
-
Inappropriate?BTW, I love it that you are using GetSatisfaction. Now how about try uservoice.com also? =:-)
-
Inappropriate?Facebook integration is a really small step - reeeally small, in the days of Ping.FM and Moodblast and whatnot. How about Ping.FM posting instead, and that way it'll hit all of our microblog and status services?
I’m unimpressed
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
5 Comments Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Hey Brent. We gotta start somewhere with this concept. Facebook has 75 million users...that's not really a small step. :) Certainly it would be ideal in the future to be able to publish to a multitude of sites, but that's V2...we gotta get the initial concept off the ground. Is this tool useless to you without those other sites integrated?
-
The difference between using Ping.fm to update everything, and specializing with a Facebook app, is that the app would allow you to post more than just status updates on your page. Using Ping.FM's API for other services might be a great idea, but Facebook is a platform with more to offer than just updating statuses.
-
Ah, good. I too like using a multi-service thingy so that when I reply to one person, I let others get confused about which service that one person might be on. Of course, in most cases, that person is on Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Identi.ca, and everything else, and they all use ping.fm to post to everything, so if someone is on more than Twitter then you can get the exact same content 20 different ways! I personally only have one account so that when someone chooses to reply using their multi-client service, a ton of people go "Who the heck is he talking to???". That is my opinion on ping.fm thank you
-
I too have moved beyond just Twitter, on to using Ping.fm to blast out status, etc.
-
Evan - yes, that is completely useless to me, but maybe I'm not doing a good enough job of explaining.
I use Flock because I use social services. Not singular, plural - lots of social services. If I only used a couple of services, then I'd go to those sites directly and consume their data, but I use a lot of services because my friends are on a lot of different sites.
For that same reason, I've long since abandoned updating my statuses one at a time across all of the social networks. For that matter, I abandoned that approach with instant messaging clients years ago. You wouldn't come out with a new multi-service IM client today that forced you to update your statuses one at a time for each service, would you? How many people would actually use that? None - they'd wait for v2 to update all of their services at once. -
Inappropriate?I think it's a interesting idea. It almost sounds like more of a facebook app then a feature of Flock. Doesn't this deviate a bit far from Flock's core browser functionality?1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
It's definitely tied to the Facebook app. Yeah, it does deviate from our core functionality...this is our attempt to find a way to solve an issue (always having to manually post your new items to Facebook) while also making your friends on Facebook aware of Flock and giving them a reason to get it.
-
Inappropriate?yes, this would be VERY good. The only point I would like to see considered is having some form of control over which blog posts, or which photos would be pulled in. To pull all of them in is not always valuable.
1 person thinks
this is one of the best points
-
Inappropriate?Sort of like Brent's idea, i don't think this should be focused on facebook. I think it should update everything like twitter and pownce -
Inappropriate?FriendFeed already has a facebook app which sounds very similar to this. How would this differ from that other than having the Flock brand?1 Comment Add a comment
This is one of the best points
-
Hey Brian, fair question. The answer is automation. You already have your accounts set up in Flock, so all you have to do is say "yes, let Flock publish to Facebook when I update these". Setting up FriendFeed, while not insanely hard, is not a cakewalk. It takes time, and time for you to learn the interface. With this app, you just say "yes" and Flock does it for you. I'll definitely check out the FriendFeed App though!
-
Inappropriate?I disabled my facebook account : way too much spam! Long live twitter. The same Idea for twitter and I'll be pleased.
I’m frustrated
-
Inappropriate?Hey folks,
Just wanted to say thank you for all your feedback, it was great getting to put an idea out for some air before actually building it.
We are going to look into building something like this (no guarantees, but the investigation has begun). Would any of you, skeptics or supporters, be interested in beta testing this? I'd love to hear both sides of the coin in relation to the actual, physical product.
If you're interested, drop me an email at evan at flock dot com.
Flock on,
Evan Hamilton
Flock Community Ambassador
evan at flock dot com
I’m excited
-
