Quick Hit: Facebook and Google this… Facebook and Google that…

December 12, 2007 at 11:33 pm · Filed under Peer-to-Peer, Social Media, Quick Hits, Web Applications, Privacy, Programming, Online Marketing, Social Networking

Googling Facebook

Facebook previously announced the availability of limited profile data to search engines. I’ve checked here and there and hadn’t seen any evidence, but Facebook profile data is now definitely being returned (by Google at least). A search for “Scott McAndrew” (yeah, that’s vain, I know) shows the Google result to be a standard search result listing.

When not logged-in to Facebook, a click-through to the Facebook site displays the limited profile data as shown in the screen-capture below. Although not logged in, and likely not an acquaintance of mine, you are still taunted with the offer to Poke me (please don’t).

More eyesight into the walled garden

Part of the excitement about Facebook Applications, lies in the ability to reach Facebook’s every growing, engaged user-base. That’s nice, but if you’re looking to launch on Facebook, you likely have grandiose visions for your application. A week or go or so the lack of visibility outside Facebook’s gates was addressed by Justin Mitchell in a Facebook blog posting entitled “Public Canvas Pages”.

In broad strokes: Facebook’s firewall quietly invited Googlebot to take a closer look at Facebook applications earlier this month. Depending on new settings controlled by the application developer Facebook applications can be fully functional to the casual browser (not require logging in to Facebook whatsoever), require login to be in any way functional, or (the most likely) fall somewhere in between the two extremes. Developers can find more information in Facebook’s Developer Wiki.

Per an October blog entry, applications that are in the Facebook Application directory are also automatically showing up in Google search results regardless of their stance on non-Facebook user functionality. If you search on “Apple Student Gallery” you’ll find a Terralever-built application’s directory listing in Google’s search results.

Did you say Open? How’s this for Open:

In the (relatively calm) wake of last month’s MySpace/Google Open Social announcement, Facebook quietly blogged their counter-punch today: Facebook’s platform is that open, too. If you want to leverage Facebook’s innards to push out your own social networking site, have at it. As Open Social has yet to launch, the question has to be one of relevance (or lack thereof) at this point. An excerpt from the aforementioned blog entry by Facebook’s Ami Vora (emphasis and footnoting mine):

[…]we also want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we’ll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms. Of course, Facebook Platform will continue to evolve, but by enabling other social sites to use what we’ve learned, everyone wins* — users get a better experience around the web, developers get access to new audiences, and social sites get more applications.

This is just another step toward the vision of easy, open sharing of information. We look forward to supporting other social sites as they release their own platforms, and look forward most of all to the added benefit for developers and users.

* I’m relatively certain that Google, MySpace, and the rest of the Open Social club don’t include themselves as a part of the ‘everyone’ cited in the Facebook blog entry.

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Social networking platform deja vu

October 9, 2007 at 10:13 pm · Filed under Web Applications, Web 2.0, Events, Programming, Social Networking

There is about to be a major announcement in the social networking space. Developers will have access to the once closed data of a major social networking player.

Highlights:

• The platform will consist of a set of APIs and a markup language to create applications
• Applications will have the ability to use Flash and iFrame content
• Deep integration will be possible - access to members of the social networks’:
  • Profile information
  • Friend list
  • Activity
  • History
• Monetization - Developers will be able to monetize their applications by way of advertising and keep 100% of the revenue.
• The announcement will be made in tech savvy San Francisco

No, I’m not late to the party. Following rumors which first surfaced this June, Michael Arrington at TechCrunch is reporting the launch of the MySpace Platform will take place next week at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco.

UPDATE: 10 Oct 2007: Meghan McCarthy says it’s not so over at Valleywag. Her sources are saying that MySpace will have an announcement at the Web 2.0 Conference, but it won’t be in relation to their platform launch.

UPDATE: 17 Oct 2007: Looks like Arrington was dialed in on this one. During a Q&A session with John Battelle at the Web 2.0 conference Rupert Murdoch and Chris DeWolfe devulged details of the MySpace Platform.

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Up to 12 million MySpace, Bebo, Photobucket and The Sun visitors? Now that’s viral.

September 12, 2007 at 2:46 pm · Filed under Advertising, Social Networking

Whoops!  ScanSafe reported that between the 8th of August and through early September ad exchange Right Media served up somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 million infected ads carrying a Trojan-Downloader.VBS.Agent.

It turns out that seventy of Right Media’s ad servers were infected.  Some of the web sites that were effected included MySpace, Bebo and Photobucket.

In a recent press release, Dan Nadir, vice president for product strategy at Scansafe said “this is another example of how legitimate ‘trusted’ Web sites can unknowingly host malware. Online ads have become a primary target for malware authors because they offer a stealthy way to distribute malware to a wide audience”.

Read the entire article on ClickZ.

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Red Bull Flugtag online and off

June 21, 2007 at 9:22 am · Filed under Online Marketing, Social Networking, Games

I’m getting ready to head to Tennessee for Flugtag Nashville, the latest U.S. “flying day” put on by Red Bull. Terralever has been working on some cool interactive tie-ins to the event, and we fortunately need some boots on the ground to do some coordination. If you’re in Nashville on Saturday (23rd of June) stop by—it’s free! Directions and entry information is on the Flugtag USA site, on the page for the Nashville event.

The team has also updated the wildly popular Flugtag Game. It now features:

• Multiplayer support (Tournament style)
• A Chat window for Multiplayer games
• Three crafts to choose from
• Five Flugtag locations to choose from
• New crash sequences and in-flight antics

If you have previously installed the game on your MySpace page, it will be updated automatically to the new version. If you haven’t put it on your MySpace page, but are curious how to do so, just go to the game page—there is a button to install it right below the game.

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Red Bull Flugtag game for your MySpace page

April 5, 2007 at 4:22 pm · Filed under Games

Red Bull has just posted code on their Flugtag USA website allowing the Flugtag Game to be embedded on MySpace pages. If you’ve been to a Flugtag before, the game will make sense to you. Visit the Flugtag USA Game web page, then click on the “MAKE YOUR GAME CODE” button just below the game.

If you haven’t here’s some information about Flugtag from the site:

1991 - The First Flugtag
The first Red Bull Flugtag took place in Vienna, Austria, in 1991. Since then, more than 35 Flugtags have been held around the world — from Ireland to San Francisco — attracting up to 300,000 spectators. The record for the farthest flight-to-date currently stands at 195 feet set in 2000 at Flugtag Austria. The U.S. record stands at 78 feet set in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2004.

Teams are judged on three criteria: distance, creativity and showmanship. What constitutes a craft is purely up to the imagination of the participating teams. Past Red Bull Flugtag entries have included a pregnant cow, a diaper-delivering stork, a pimped-out Cadillac, a giant Oompa Loompa, and yes folks — a lobster named Larry.

As far as the game goes, it is Flash-based, and when inserted onto a MySpace page, that individual posting of the game has its own high score tracking for that MySpace page.

Disclaimer: The game was created by Terralever (my employer) in conjunction with The Barbarian Group out of New York.

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