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.

The Decline and Fall of the Word "Douchebag"

Faceboook Lexicon showing the decline of the word "douchebag" in status updates.

I rest my case. "Douchebag" is dying. There there, my douche. There there. I said it was dying, not dead. We're all dying. Feel better now?

Long, long ago (Spring 2009) in a social network far, far away (Twitter, click here) I overheard (saw) David Armano (@armano) say (tweet) ENOUGH WITH THE PARENTHETICAL ASIDES ALREADY (okay, okay) the word "douchebag". Naturally, I engaged him in some stimulating scholarly dialogue about the popular status of the word "douchebag". Douchebag, douchebag, douchebag. It really is a satisfying, mildly offensive word, isn't it? Like a nice, milky, hefeweisen drunk by the fake fire, "douchebag" goes down easy.

Heh heh, I said "goes down".

So David crosses his legs and he says to me:

"Why William! My good man. I daresay. Fucking 'douchebag' is all the rage! Is it not what all the children - Jeeves! Get me my bowler! Good man! - is "douchebag" not simply the most amenable utterance among the youth of our day?"

I lowered my monocle and replied:

"My dear friend. David. Davidoff. Can I call you Davidoff? Davidoff. Davidhoffen. Meister. I shall call you Davidhoffenmeister. Davidhoffenmeister? Davidhoffenmeister. I daresay 'Douchebag' has been in decline for nigh on some goodly time, now, I would imagine. Why, upon my word, at my last high society function in a shithole basement apartment in Alphabet City, I heard the word 'douchebag' on eleven, perhaps twelve different occasions, not counting the use of the 'douchebag automatic.'"

Davidhoffenmeister cleared his throat:

"'Douchebag automatic', William? Whatever do you mean?"

I was like:

"Douchebag automatic. 'Tis when your 'mate' says 'douchebag' three dozen times in the telling of a single droll anecdote."

And Davidhoffenmeisterweisenheimer was all:

"Oh. Well then. Why do you say, my goodly gentleman from Andover or some shit, that 'douchebag' is in decline?"

And I said, like bam:

"Just as an aging star glows brightest in its death throes, or as the Roman Empire rushed headlong into a spectacular fiscal expenditure spree on muskets and F-14 stealth jetpacks during its final moments before the Hitler came in and nuked those douchebags to Timbuktu, 'douchebag' is heard everywhere now only in paean to its own demise."

I showed him a graph. Much like the one you see in this post. Its contents speak for themselves. But I will speak over its contents anyway. It says Facebook users don't use "douchebag" as often as they used to. It peaked in 2007 and has been in decline ever since. While network television continues its increase of the word "douchebag", the Facebook elite (all eleventeen million of them) are no longer as tickled by the word.
Davidhoffenmeisterweisenheimenkopf laughed a jolly laugh, took a sip of brandy, said "Fuck that noise, Jeeves, gimme quaaludes", and said:

"Jolly good show, William! Jolly good, jolly good. I see you have bested me yet again!"
After which, Davidhoffenmeisterweisenheimenkopffleupagus and I headed out for a sporting round of Scottish baseball (such a wee little ball!) and some crumpets and empire building.

How to Share Admin Permissions on a Facebook Group You Control

To make someone an admin on a Facebook group, you have to add them as a friend, invite them to join the group, and then make them an admin.

Those are the simple instructions. If you know how to do that, stop reading and go play outside or something. If you get stuck, however, here are the

Detailed Instructions on How to Make Someone an Admin on a Facebook Group You Control:

1. Log into your account on FB.

2. Find and "friend" the person you want to make an Admin of the Group.

3. Check to make sure the person has confirmed your friendship.

4. Go to the Group.

5. Click "Invite People to Join" in the right-hand menu.

6. Find and check-mark your friend in the drop-down list at right (or just type her name and hit enter to search).

7. Make sure his name appeared at left.

8. Click "Send Invitations"

9. Check to make sure the person joined the group.

10. Go back to the Group.

11. Click "Edit Members" in the right-hand menu.

12. Find his name in the list (or just type her name and hit enter to search).

13. Click "Make Admin".

It seems like a long process but it's shorter than you think. I just included every little step from beginning to end. Drop a comment and let me know how it all went down for you.

Note: This post was cribbed from some instructions I wrote to a client this morning. I figured other people might want to know the same thing. Hey look at me, multiplying my efforts, effortlessly. That's how I roll. Smooth.

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

Why I Won't Join a Six Degrees of Separation Group on Facebook

Public relations and marketing communications professionals can learn something from the following parable:

My friend Katie invited me to a six-degrees group, and I was going to join, because I think it's a worthy experiment: Can we, through six degrees of separation, connect with everyone on Facebook? Empirically, statistically, it would be interesting to join and find out first-hand.

But then I saw a discussion thread whose title contained a racial epithet. It was an obvious ploy to get attention, and the 800 comments in the thread are testimony to the ploy's success. I didn't bother to read the comments or post one myself, because I know that would just feed the beast, and I don't want to associate myself with the word in question.

Another six-degrees group had a discussion thread whose bear-baiting title posed the question, "Can someone give me one logical reason why gays should have rights?" I didn't try putting that fire out either.

Yet another of these groups had one discussion inviting people to "Stereotype The Person Above You" and one posing the thought-provoking query "tits,face, or ass, which one is better". You get the idea.

The comment counts for those discussion threads each number in the hundreds. The threads would not have appeared in the top three discussions had they not received all that attention. That's how things work around here: The more people are participating in something, the more likely that thing is to get seen.

The Internet is a great place to learn the following:

Sometimes the best way to make something go away is to ignore it.

PR and marcomm people take heed. If the company you represent gets some bad press or stumbles across some nasty feedback on some no-name blog, consider ignoring it. Let the negativity die in peace and quiet. Die of it too.