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Big news for developers today: public profile status updates can now be accessed through the developer API. Andy Young, the developer behind Selective Twitter Status, was the first developer that we’ve seen to figure out a way to update public profile statuses via Twitter. Earlier today his application added a feature which now enables any Twitter user to update their public profile directly. This also means that applications can now effectively update public profile statuses, something that many developers were waiting for.
Interestingly enough, it doesn’t appear that Facebook has technically added any new functionality in regards to updating a public profile’s status. Instead, Andy Young was clever enough to realize that all an application needs to do is pass the public profile’s admin to Facebook’s authorize.php page (http://www.facebook.com/authorize.php?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY&v=1.0&ext_perm=status_update&next=REDIRECT_PAGE). By using the page ID just as a profile ID in the Status.set API call, you can then update any public profile’s status that has granted you permission to do so.
As I’ve written previously, this was a feature that many developers have been waiting for but apparently they don’t need to wait any longer! Facebook has not been heavily promoting this capability but I’m sure we’ll see a ton of new applications leverage this functionality. Also of interest is that unfiltered access to public profile statuses means there could be many new applications that do the same type of data mining that a few Twitter applications have produced.
For example, someone could theoretically develop a public profile status search. Using the Facebook API Test Console, you can view the status updates of many pages that you are not a fan of. In the very near future we could soon begin seeing a number of aggregators that track the conversations taking place via Facebook public profiles.
I’m not sure if Facebook just began granting developers access to the status updates but this is another step by Facebook to duplicate much of Twitter’s functionality. To recap, as of today there are two new capabilities for developers: all applications can view any public profile’s status updates and developers can be granted access to update public profile statuses.
This is a huge update and I’m assuming there will be many more in the near future. Will you be developing applications that leverage public profile status updates?
Brilliant! Exactly what I’ve been trying to do!
As long as we’re talking about public profiles - how do leave comments on your own profiles as YOURSELF rather than as THE PROFILE?
Uh-oh… Selective Twitter Status doesn’t help me because my Tweets are automated (via Twitterfeed) and I have no way of appending the #fb. Back to square one.
Rumbled!
Actually I added support for pages April 1st.
The authorise page is still a bit buggy unfortunately - I had to hack together some workarounds. Hopefully they smooth this out soon..
This is a Applicstion feature that is helpful particularly if you use twitter more then facebook in terms of ongoing events.
When i started twitter about a month ago selective publishing was something i liked brainwaves was an @fb idea. not having selectiveness was another reason i waited longer to adopt to twitter - still alot of friends have not
the use of #fb will allow the can do as what whould be like twitter although i can select abit more.
Something i like is the use of more # tags so other services can also be used such as #my myspace #ff (friendfeed), ming (mingleville), #bebo amongst others (and maybe Facebook and Myspace etc also in time could have there own version of a tag back e.g. #twit.
Publishing as a status is a good thing but if every application had it I just hope it does not get abused - something sadly some developers will do as not all are so nice like a side effect of giving every page administrator status update permissions.
I do hope some developers such as Birthday Cards hope they listen to the feedback me and others have given about birthday status previously to improve there spammy status service to a more understanding one
‘ Jamie Ellis says: Wish Christophe Aimé Marshelle a HAPPY BIRTHDAY! http://tinyurl.com/dxc2bk‘ (grammar, link misleading and also multiple people on birthday the statuses can get spammy)
e.g. ‘Jamie Ellis wishes #bdaynamelist a Happy Birthday. Send Birthday Wishes: #link’ (allows more then 1 birthday if needed and better grammar wording)
On regards of status updates - Public Profiles is not immune as having status updates on profiles has increased problems particularly from attention seeking fake public profilists (who publish any page all well known not offically) and then turn the pages into self promotion (e.g. referal links) and other spam.
abuser example: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Potato-Smiley-faces/60431779482?ref=nf
I have been using Andy’s app with my FB Fan page for over a week now. Works well with both the profile and fan page.
After a few hours of fruitless trying, I turned to Andy Young’s tweet sync app, and managed to link tweets to facebook public profile status!
Oh THANK YOU!!!!
I knew if I waited long enough that someone who is way better geek than me would make this happen! I knew I couldn’t be the only one fustrated that Twitter only liked to attach to users on Facebook and was just lame with the public profiles.. now I just have to figure out if I can make the 15 plus clients pages connect with only THEIR Twitter accounts.. or is it still goning to try and glob onto the real me????
Either way, I have a new toy to play with next week!
Kisses to Andy Young!
Colin Carmichael, use a different automation service.
Yes, the status update feature has been available for a while, but not many people know about it. And, by the way, NetworkedBlogs supports importing your blog feed to your Facebook Page and publishing it as a status update.
Now if Ping.fm could implement this…
So an application can now update my public profile??? How can that possibly be a good thing?
Take a brief pause from celebrating then new (very worthy) functionality this offers you and think about what this allows applications to do on their own.
Excuse me while I go remove some applications.
I’m not sure if this is exactly the right place to ask this, but I’ve been trying to develop a badge with my public profile’s picture and status to put on my website. Facebook has a public profile badge builder, but it simply doesn’t work…
Does anyone know how I might access my public profile statuses and have them show up on my website?