SocialDitto Not Ready for Prime Time?

[Update: The primary developer for SocialDitto contacted me this morning to address the concerns I enumerate in this article. He and I are in the midst of a congenial discussion about what he can do better and what I in fact got wrong. I'll add another update to this post based on that discussion as soon as possible. - Will]

SocialDitto aims to be a simple online tool that lets you embed individual Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus posts in HTML documents (such as your website or blog.) You just copy the URL of a public post, paste the URL into a box at SocialDitto, and grab the resulting code.

The embedded posts are fully functional, displaying the user's avatar, a link to the post, and accompanying links. In some cases embedded posts include photo thumbnails, video stills, and link previews. In all cases, posts must be public to embed them; this is a good thing, as it protects users' privacy.

Here's one of mine:

Follow @willconley777 Will Conley
@willconley777 Please hold. My computer is digesting a cow. #fb
3 days ago via Echofon · powered by @socialditto
 Reply  · Retweet  · Favorite

What's It Good For?

I was planning to play around with SocialDitto as a blogging tool. I wanted to hand-select and embed some of my best tweets and Facebook posts as new blog posts elsewhere, to perhaps lure new, similar-minded people into my social media universe. I might also have used the service to collect some of my favorite posts by others around certain themes.

Unfortunately, SocialDitto just isn't ready for prime time. Either that, or I don't know how to use the Internet as well as I thought I did.

Commence the Tedious Litany of Problems

SocialDitto is not without its kinks; it's still a new-ish product as of June 1, 2012. Every embedded post relies on a huge chunk of script and HTML. Tweets are a visual disaster. If an embedded tweet comes from a profile that uses a tiled background image, you get an ugly two-tone border. Even when you can get the preview to look right, it might not resolve properly when actually embedded. I managed to embed the above tweet and make it legible by turning my own Twitter profile completely white, but how many other profiles are like that? Not many.

Line breaks in Facebook posts disappear when embedded with SocialDitto, leaving you with one run-on paragraph. Google+ posts work great with SocialDitto—including line breaks—but link previews don't appear. And after my experience with the Twitter aspect, I didn't bother trying to embed either a Facebook post or a Google+ post. (You can try, if you want. Let me know how it went, in the comments here.)

The post URL box at SocialDitto appears to be all-in-one, but you really need to click the Twitter, Facebook, or Google+ logo above before pasting the URL into the box. Even then, you might get an error message; refreshing the page and trying again sometimes helps.

What SocialDitto Needs to Work on Right Now

SocialDitto was created by WebProNews—the same company that produced Twellow (awesome service) and LinkNotify (I've never tried it.) So I do have some faith in the company.

Maybe I'm doing it all wrong. That's highly possible. Right now, I think WebProNews needs to either simplify SocialDitto's embed code into one neat line of script, or eliminate all script and use plain HTML to standardize the way embedded posts appear. I recommend the latter, as script doesn't work in certain blogging platforms like WordPress.com. (It does work in Blogger, sort of.)

FINISH HIM!

Lots of bloggers seem to think SocialDitto is the bee's knees, but I think it's just an awesome idea, hastily executed.

Flawless Victory.

-----
All post content on Man of Many Words is created by Will Conley. Please feel free to share this post or any of my other posts with the whole world. Just make sure they know where it came from.

"Facebook for Beginners" Gently Leads New Users Through the Maze

Facebook for Beginners (facebookforbeginners.blogspot.com) is a new blog of mini-lessons for people new to Facebook. It's "to-the-point and caffeine-free."

 

In writing for Facebook for Beginners, I try to keep posts as short and sweet as possible. I want to help new users overcome their fears and just wade into it one random step at a time. Facebook can be very intimidating, especially for someone for whom the Internet is a foreign land of scary Porn and Codes and Viruses and Stalkers.

New users often have a lot of random, elementary, or seemingly unimportant questions, such as:
Can I delete this email I got from Facebook?

How can I send a message to all of my Facebook friends at once?

What's a wall?

But in fact it's those types of odd questions which, if brushed off and left unanswered, can linger in the mind and get in the way of learning. Facebook for Beginners is designed to answer those odd questions so new users can become veterans as soon as possible.

Every post is a random definition, how-to, or informational tidbit about using Facebook. (Don't worry, articles can also be searched or browsed via archive and tag cloud, all organized-like.)

You most certainly know someone you can direct to that blog. Is it your dad? Your grandmother? A co-worker who has stopped scoffing whenever you mention Facebook and is now curious about it? Someone from Alpha Centauri who has never seen one of our primitive human laptops?

When you figure out who that is, direct them to facebookforbeginners.blogspot.com.

Feedback requested! Should I keep writing about business topics? Sample article within.

Hi there.

I am testing the waters to see whether my business writing is of worth to you and your networks. Depending on your feedback, I will continue to write about angel capital, venture capital, crowdfunding, and other business investment topics. I will also attempt to research and answer any of your questions about such topics, to boot.

The more valuable my writing is, the more likely you are to link to my articles and share them with your networks. The more links and eyeballs my articles get, the more revenue shares I rake in.
On the other hand, if my business writing is not compelling enough to warrant viral distribution, I make bunk and it isn't worth my time financially (even though I do rather enjoy it.)

That's why I am asking for your feedback.

Please read my article "How to Determine Whether a New Company is a Good Candidate for Venture Capital Funding" on eHow. It is one of many I have written, but I am choosing this one for testing the waters.
If you like the article, pass it around like the town bicycle. Also click the blue "Like" button, as spotlighted in this gratuitous screenshot:


Cheers, and I look forward to your feedback. Should I keep going?

Apparently Someone Thinks This Blog Has Hit The Big Time (HA!)

Cave troll contemplates God, financial accounting
Originally uploaded by kevindooley

Trolls happen. It's a fact of social media.

What is a troll? A troll is a person who harasses people online. They attempt to evoke an emotional response. They target a person and they generally do not stop until they have had a few laughs at someone else's expense. Without getting into any gory details, I can assure you that trolling has sometimes ended very badly in real life - either for the target or for the troll himself/herself.

Obviously that's boring.

This blog has officially been hit by its first troll. You don't need to read the comment that was posted twice. I can tell you it was somewhat creative but definitely mean-spirited. It was intended to discourage me and others from participating in Westward Invasion 2009. The troll knows that some people are easily frightened. It is an interesting psychological phenomenon, I will say that much.

But just because it's interesting or entertaining doesn't make it worthwhile. As I stated in my response to the comments (now deleted) I have no problem with censorship. None whatsoever. On the Internet it's called comment moderation. That's where I get to delete any comment I want.

Well, since I don't feel like dealing with it, I'm instituting automatic comment moderation on this blog. I will approve any and all comments that agree with me, disagree with me, make fun of someone or something, opine in a loud manner, speak in a soft tone, lampoon me, encourage people, offer constructive criticism, or pretty much anything else. I will even approve a comment if it is completely off-topic.

I will not approve spam or trolling.

We clear? All good? Let the good times troll. I mean roll.

A Social Media Experiment on the Grand Scale: Westward Invasion 2009

What is Westward Invasion 2009?
Short answer: An emigration. An adventure. An erasure of the boundary between online and offline. A social media experiment on the grand scale. A reality show that is actually worth watching, broadcast in a decentralized manner in real time by you, sponsored by visionaries.

Clear answer: Westward Invasion is an emigration and adventure opportunity for me and you. I am moving to California. Some of you are coming with me. Others will just travel with us for all or part of the journey. We're packing light and taking the slow route, curling a path all over the West, visiting places both mundane and fantastical. Invaders who live in the West will act as hosts for a day. Those who don't want to participate IRL (In Real Life) can do so virtually. Sponsors are invited to pay attention.

The whole thing will be blogged and vlogged here and elsewhere. I am inviting everyone I know on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, this blog, your blogs, and other networks to participate on some level. How far can social media go to make things happen in the real world? Is it possible to erase the line between online and offline?

I invite you to join Westward Invasion 2009. No commitment is implied when you join the network. Just get your face up there, tell us about yourself, share some of your own ideas, poke around, ask questions, get excited about possibilities. Everything is explained there - inasmuch as Westward Invasion can be explained. We are in build-and-brainstorm mode, so I am wide open to ideas.

While you're at it, get with me on Twitter if you're into that sort of thing. I like it.

Talk to you soon. Be fierce.

Should I Run Ugly Google Ads Here?

I used to run Google ads on this blog before I really started devoting my time to posting. I took the ads down because

1. they are ugly,
2. I don't need the income, and
3. the income would only be a few bucks if anything, since I only get a hundred visitors a day here.

What do you think I should do at this point? Leave things the way they are? Or do you think I should put some ads up and try to make some money?

Vote:




Results:

How to Sync FriendFeed Comments to Disqus

As many readers know, I'm a fan of the Disqus. You don't f*** with the Disqus (see The Big Lebowsky). Disqus is a comment system you can use to replace and enhance your blog or website. It is supported by Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, Tumblr, and many open source content management systems (like Joomla and Ruby Rails). It is totally customizable. Using it, many of your comments around the web (and your blog visitors' comments) are saved in one convenient location at your Disqus profile.

I also use FriendFeed, a lifestreaming service. (I hate that term, lifestreaming. It seems to imply that I spend too much of my life online, never you mind if it's true.)

Well now you can make it so that all the comments you drop at FriendFeed are copied to your Disqus profile. Nice! How to do it? Just use the FriendFeed-to-Disqus Comment Sync:

1. Make sure you have a Disqus account and a FriendFeed account.

2. Go to https://ff2disqus.appspot.com/. You will see a message stating you need an invite as FriendFeed-to-Disqus Comment Sync (FF2D) is still in private beta. All you need to get an invite is click the link provided. This will take you to the FriendFeed discussion room for FF2D. Drop a comment stating you would like to beta test the service.

2. Within a day or so they will send you an invite to join the FF2D discussion room on FriendFeed. Accept the invite and go to the FF2D room to find the secret link to instructions for syncing your FF comments with your Disqus comments.

And you're done. Done! Just. Done! So easy.

So what good is FF2D? I will tell you: Disqus is steadily becoming the preferred hosted comment aggregation service around the web. (That is, if you exclude BackType, which finds comments you post under your blog or website name and then puts them all in one place for everybody to spy on, woot.) With all your comments in one place, you now have even tighter reign over your Web activities around the Net.

Bottom line: For those who use FriendFeed and Disqus, FF2D further tightens your grip on your reputation.

The world is getting smaller. With FF2D it just shrunk even more. Now if Disqus and BackType got married, I think we would all be throwing rice.

How to Add Facebook Connect to Blogger in 12 Simple Steps

UPDATE for December 9, 2011: It's been almost three years since I posted this, and it's still getting hits. The instructions here are completely out of date and are absolutely useless at this point.


But! I'm guessing you came here searching for a way to integrate Facebook with your Blogger blog in some way.


Well, I have an answer for you. Or rather, a resource. It's not going to answer all of your questions, but trust me when I say, that as of today, December 9, 2011, your first and last stop when integrating Facebook functionality into your Blogger blog is to visit the Social Plugins page from Facebook itself.


Here it is: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/plugins/


Good luck.

UPDATE for APRIL 20, 2009: Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for all your awesome participation. I learned a lot from your comments. Due to your comments I have had a change of heart. It appears the JS-Kit comment system is in fact the superior service, hands down. I recommend it. It comes pre-packaged with Facebook Connect functionality, along with oodles of other benefits Disqus does not have. Go to http://js-kit.com to install it on your blog right away.

This blog post is still 100% useful though, if you still want to install Disqus comments on your blog. It really is a great service - just not as good as JS-Kit.

To the people at Disqus: You guys have a beautiful product, and in some ways it is friendlier to use than JS-Kit. I wish you all the best in your quest to beat JS-Kit in the comment system wars. Good ol' competition makes us ALL better.

Sincerely,
Will Conley
Man of Many Words

Do you have a blog on Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, Tumblr or Movable Type? Do you want to add Facebook Connect to your blog so that your readers can log in and comment using their Facebook accounts? Of course you do! There's just one problem: your mamma don't code and your daddy don't XML. That's right, I said it, and you ain't much hipper than they are. So what do you do?

Well kid, you've come to the right place. As of yesterday morning there is a quick-and-dirty way to integrate Facebook Connect into your Blogger comments section. The only specialized knowledge required is literacy. I did it myself in about 30 minutes. Try it out for yourself, right here on Man of Many Words. Scroll down and view the comments section for this post, select the option to log in with Facebook Connect, and then drop a holler. Cool, right?

So how did I do it? Just add Disqus and stir:

1. Open a new tab in your browser and keep this one open so you can refer to it.

2. Go to http://disqus.com (pronounced "discuss"). Follow the simple instructions and install the Disqus comment system into your blog. Don't worry, you can keep all of your existing comments. (Are you worrying? Don't. No need.) Once you have set up Disqus for your blog, move on to Step 3.

3. Open another new tab and go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/createapp.php. This will take you to the "Create App" page on Facebook.

Congratulations in advance, you are about to become a Facebook Developer! Wow! Unfortunately for your ego, it's really, really easy to do what you are about to do. It requires almost no coding skills whatsoever. Sorry. On the bright side, you won't have waste hours and hours of your holiday season trying to understand what all those tech sites are talking about when they blast a load of Javascript in your face and expect you to thank them for the hot tip. I mean, come on, add Facebook Connect in just 8 minutes? I sneeze in 8 minutes. Ain't no way anyone is adding Facebook Connect in 8 minutes. Not me, not Stephen Hawking, not anyone. They only say that to make you feel bad about yourself. Don't listen to them. You are smart. We shall now continue:

4. On the "Create App" page you navigated to in Step 3, fill in the field labeled "Application Name" with the name of your blog. Simple!

5. Agree to the Terms of Service and click "Save Changes". This will take you to the Edit page of your new app.

6. In the "Edit" page of your new app, fill in the field labeled "Callback URL" with http://disqus.com.

7. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Save Changes". Don't close the tab.

8. Go back to the first tab, navigate to your Disqus Settings under "Admin".

9. Scroll down until you see the Facebook Connect logo. Tick the box at left.

10. Copy and paste the API Key from your Facebook App into its corresponding field on your Disqus settings.

11. Copy and paste the Secret from your Facebook App into its corresponding field on your Disqus settings.

12. Scroll down to the bottom of the Settings page on Disqus and click "Save".

Et voila! You have successfully added Facebook Connect to your blog. Season to taste. Serves millions. To try it out, you will need to log out of your Disqus account so that you will be able to see what your readers see.

Three things to consider:

• This how-to guide applies for all platforms that use Disqus comments. I just targeted it at my Blogger friends who are still trying to hop upon the clue train.
• Facebook Connect and Disqus aren't cooperating very well in Safari. As a workaround, set Safari to accept all cookies.
• As Disqus and Facebook Connect are both new platforms, there are bound to be some bugs.

Please let me know how it goes, and Happy Festivus to all.

UPDATE: Looking for detailed instructions on how to install the Disqus comment system on other platforms? Well here you are:

• Drupal
• b2evolution
• Graffiti
• Joomla
• RubyGem

To All 15 of My New RSS Subscribers

Two days ago I added Feedburner to my growing list of blog technologies to try out. Since then I have gained 15 readers, according to the stats at Feedburner. No, I cannot see who subscribes, I can only see the numbers and their basic clicking behavior. It is one of the better ways to see how people use your site and then adjust your approach accordingly.

So, moving on to my dedicated note for my new subscribers. I just want to make it clear that I welcome any and all communication from you. You can join this site via the Google Friend Connect widget in the sidebar, talk to me on any of my social networks, shoot me an email anytime you like, and of course, drop copious amounts of post comments (now with Facebook Connect!)

That said, here's a question for you. Why did you subscribe to my blog? I was going to create a poll at PollDaddy, but I decided we don't need to get fancy here. I will just list off a few guesses, and you can respond in the comments.

Your Reasons for Subscribing to Man of Many Words

• My scowling face.
• My happy face.
• The oddly proportioned header.
• My thoughts on social media.
• My thoughts on life itself.
• I blogged about a specific topic you are interested in.
• Other

If I blogged about a topic that's near and dear to your heart, what was it?

A final word for now: If you blog or have a presence online somewhere and would like to share that information with me and/or my other readers, please do so!

This Blog is BACKED UP by Bloggled.com

Apparently even Google deleted their blog once. Guess we all need a safety net. Bloggled.com is currently holding a contest RIGHT NOW whereby if you

• back up your blog with them,
• join them on a social network,
• subscribe to their feed or,
• yes, blog about Bloggled,

you get a chance to win a sweet prize, one of which is a 16GB iPod Touch. Prizes are given away every 2 hours today only (Dec. 15 2008). I myself signed up for the free version of Bloggled and backed up my blog--it was easy and fast. The free backup service works with all Blogger accounts, and they are working on getting up to speed for backing up Wordpress, Typepad, and other platforms.

Give it a shot, why doncha?

The Urban Pedestrian

If I had a blog called The Urban Pedestrian, it would be a daily account of my walks through downtown New Haven and surrounding areas. I would talk about the buildings, the streets, the people in the streets, construction projects that are underway, and so on. I would report on what it's like to be a pedestrian in the attempt to "raise awareness" about the "issue" of being a pedestrian. I would complain a lot about the traffic signals and how they are awkwardly timed so that it is actually safer to jaywalk than to cross at the intersection. I would bitch and moan about motorists who never use their turn signals, and relate tales of how I yelled, "Nice turn signal!" as the car swerved blithely on by. Uplifting stories of Good Samaritanism would be included, as would sardonic tales of the street people asking for money.

Today, for example, I ran into a street lady with whom I am quite familiar. I don't know her name. It was a beautiful day out, in the 70s I believe, and she said, "Do you know me?" I said I did, and asked how she was doing. "I'm depressed. I've been walking around all day, crying like an asshole." I could see the tears in her eyes. I don't know nor do I care whether she was just running for Best Actress or what. I just said, "I'm sorry, sweetheart, I would give you some money, but I am fresh out." I gave her a hug instead. She kept on walking and panhandling in the gorgeous weather.

Now that's kind of sardonic, yes? Sad, but nice weather. Good combination. Then I would move onto how I ran into my buddy Gary from the old soup kitchens I used to attend, and how I spotted him today wearing a suit at a bus stop. He was coming back from a job interview at a temp agency to (hopefully) replace his job as a stock "boy" in a grocery store. His explosion of sandy white hair and handlebar goatee, juxtaposed with the old pinstriped suit, made him look a lot like Samuel Clemens, or Mark Twain depending on who you ask. Gary was reading a fantasy novel. He's always reading a fantasy novel. He opened the one he was holding and read me a passage from the introduction, which was basically a how-to guide to writing fantasy. Moral of the passage: you have to have a theology (pagan or Christian, pagans are better because "they have more fun"), a Hero, a Quest, and a "Magic Thingamajiggy" (Holy Grail, the One Ring, the Special Jewel). That's as far as we got. Gary's bus arrived.

That's The Urban Pedestrian. Lowbrow and blue collar and street. Then there's The Upscale Pedestrian.

The Upscale Pedestrian would be a blog about how to live the good life without having to buy a car or even a bicycle. It would include information about how to use the transit system in an efficient manner, reviews of nice restaurants and museums you can walk to, a guide to planning your days around a pedestrian-oriented way of life, and other material. It would break down the cost of being a pedestrian and weigh it against the cost of owning a car, and then compare the intrinsic benefits of each way of life. I would attempt to prove that you can muster any type of non-motorist lifestyle you want, whether you are young or old, rich or humble, single or married, with kids or without.

So why don't I start those blogs? Because I have too many ideas. That's why I have this multi-purpose blog, this trash compactor. I realize there is little to connect this blog to itself. There seems to be no pattern, other than the fact that it is written by myself. So I'll just stick to this one for now. My goal is to tell self-contained stories that do not require you to follow a thread or series. On the other hand, a lot of my life does connect; a lot of the stories do find relationships with each other. So if you are a reader of this blog, please just read as much or as little as you like. If you start to see a pattern, then you have your larger narrative. Reading and writing are therefore a symbiotic relationship. As a reader, you have just as many choices to make as does the writer. So we're kind of exactly alike. You're confused, I'm confused, let's all share our lives with each other.