I want my news on Facebook
Don Day November 26th, 2007
OK, smart Lost Remote friends - I have an idea, one that many of us can benefit from. I want to figure out how to put together a Facebook App that would put our latest headlines in a box on user home pages. I’m fairly certain it’s possible, but my coding isn’t up to snuff. Ideally it would be fed by RSS. Anyone have any ideas that we could all use?
7 Comments Add your own
1. Steve | November 26th, 2007 at 10:29 pm
Don - just use Widgetbox - it can take an RSS feed from your site, and turn it into a facebook app in a few easy steps. You’ve got to add the facebook developer app to your FB account and generate a key, but other than that, it’s way way easy. No real coding experience necessary. Give it a shot and post the results.
2. Cory | November 26th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
I’ll take it one further. I want my Facebook friends to be able to “Digg” their favorite stories (which would be different than “posting” a story), of which would appear in some app on my Facebook news feed as well as on a widget I could embed anywhere.
3. Dave | November 27th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Some friends of mine were going to start developing an open-source version of this app but decided to focus on something that people in that demo would actually want. Sorry to sound pessimistic.
Granted, it surely doesn’t hurt to test it, and the Facebook demo is broadening, but yea… I don’t think you’ll have much local news success on Facebook when your typical headlines are “Eight Arrested in Drug Bust”, and “Podunk Yokel Charged in Wife’s Death”. With this demo, it’s not the delivery that’s hurting us, it’s the content.
Maybe if we redefined “breaking news” as something that only happens a couple times a year (IE - BIG STORIES), then a breaking news app would be good for Facebook. Think of the VTech shootings or the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse, that’s local breaking news that affects this demo. Not your average cops are on the scene of a shooting we know nothing about, breaking news.
Now, local sports, that might do well if you’re able to cover it well. Also, local nightlife and entertainment.
4. Scott Wyffels | November 27th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
No one wants news on facebook.
Facebook is basically glorified email.
5. Sanam | November 28th, 2007 at 1:37 am
I want my news on facebook too, so that makes at least 2 of us.
6. Don Day | November 28th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Oh, OK. Two people said news on Facebook was dumb. I’ll just give up. Golly gosh.
7. ALE | November 29th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Challenges, I like those
Click my name, I have feeds from the majority of the local media outlets in Spokane in a facebook app.
Leave a Comment
(Please keep URLs out of the comment body or the spam filter will block you.)Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed