allfacebook - the unofficial facebook blog

So most of you have seen the first ever AllFacebook.com Video show. A few minutes ago an idea came to me. My friend sent me a link to his Ustream channel and an idea popped in my head. What do you guys think about a live call-in show where we have guests and live callers and take questions? We could do it once every couple of weeks as we interweave it with the existing AllFacebook.com video show. Just a thought! I figure since Facebook is such a hot topic there should be a live discussion. I know there probably won’t be a ton of people listening at any given time but I figured there could be enough viewers to have at least a 15-30 minute show. Thoughts?

As promised, I have launched the AllFacebook.com video show. This has been a serious learning experience and we will continue to add features and improve our process. We hit a lot of technical difficulties in the production, editing and uploading of our videos. As a result, this video came out at 11:00 PM on Labor Day when I intended for it to come out in the morning. Such is life! If you have any suggestions, please make them. This is our first run and I will be extending the features. Thanks for your input!

So I have been planning a video show for a few weeks now and I finally have the team in place to make it happen. We are going to begin making a once a week show that discusses everything related to Facebook, social networks and social news. I’d like to make the show interactive though. Each week I will ask the readers about their thoughts on a given topic and get some feedback. Unfortunately, for this week I have yet to pick a topic! Help me out and let me know what you think the first show should be about. Simply post your comment below and the best idea wins. Just to get your brain going here are a couple I’ve though about doing: poking social dynamics and Facebook in the workplace. Have any other ideas?

This morning I had the fortune to be on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, the New York NPR affiliate. I spoke with Brian about the opportunities for companies as well as answered caller questions. Unfortunately the first phone I was using was not very kind to me so I fell of the interview twice which was interesting. If you are interested in listening to the segment you can use the player below.

As you have probably noticed I have made some changes to the design of the blog. I have widened the sidebar so that we now have sponsors. Additionally, I added a list of the top 10 application articles from the blog. If you have any feedback please leave a comment or shoot me an email. I want to make sure that blog visitors have the best experience possible. I am going to also be adding some new features in the coming weeks so stay tuned! Also, I would like to thank our new sponsors.

Razoo
Razoo is a platform for social good. They launched their Facebook application this week as I wrote about yesterday. I also work at Razoo currently and agreed to help them out by posting a sponsored link. So there is is!

Interests +
Tired of the same old interests showing up on your profile? The Interests+ application allows you to enhance your profile and connect with people that share the same interests. Categories of interests include: Things I want to do with my life, Types of pets that I enjoy, Video games that I play, Health conditions that concern me, Music groups or solo artists that I listen to, Movies that I recommend watching and more! Both Brian Wasinger and Casey Young spent a lot of time developing the application and it shows. If you want to expand your interests in your profile go check it out now!

If you would like to become a sponsor of AllFacebook.com send me an email at allfacebook [at] gmail [dot] com. Additionally, we have begun offering Facebook application development services as well as Facebook marketing services. If you are interested in any of these then just shoot me an email! Thanks for your continued support!

I once wondered if the Facebook application directory would help my application gain traction. Looks like the answer was a resounding “Yes!” For those who thought that Facebook’s virality was gone after Facebook placed limits on how many people a user can invite to use an application, you have been proven wrong. As I have been saying all along, make a catchy application or one that has a robust feature set and you will surely experience adoption growth. It is just like websites on the internet. If you make a great site, people will come to it. My Bush countdown clock has become the second most viral application among those that have 1,000 to 10,000 users. For all those that are tired of hearing about my Bush countdown clock, this is the last you will be hearing about it for at least a few days.

Finally! My Bush Countdown Clock that was previously rejected from the application directory has been approved! I needed to make one minor adjustment so that there was a removal page and it was good to go. I had been procrastinating a bit, but now it is finally there. I had previously had a discussion with another developer as to the impact of having your application being approved for the directory. Our hypothesis was that the directory would have little if any impact. Boy were we wrong! The number of users that have added my application has grown 5% in an hour or so. While I don’t know if this trend will continue for very long, this is an encouraging piece of information. Hopefully I’ll have 1 million users by next week! Maybe not but nonetheless it is encouraging. If you would like to count down the minutes until President Bush is out of office, go grab the Bush Countdown Clock application. I will be sure to provide a graph that charts the adoption rate in a couple of days.

For those that came to the site and weren’t able to access it yesterday evening I apologize. My existing hosting company has provided me with some horrendous service. I am in the process of switching hosting providers and will have it up and running withing the next 24 hours. If you experience shoddy service I am extremely sorry but it is a fact of life at this point. All I can say is if you plan on launching your own blog that will experience heavy traffic, do not go with 1 & 1 as a hosting solution. Their support staff is outsourced and horrible. Rather than providing a backup solution, they simply will take down your server and leave you empty handed. So if you have any future plans to launch your own blog do not choose 1&1. That’s all I can say. I intend to continue my full coverage of Facebook and social network news but if there are any delays in the next 36 hours please help me out with a little bit of understanding. I have made the decision to go with u2-web.com. If you have a better hosting provider, let me know.

I’ve been furiously covering Facebook applications for the past few weeks. At this point there are more applications being added each day than are worth the effort of putting on this blog. Ultimately, I go through the process of checking out every application and deciding whether or not it is worth the effort of posting. I am contemplating adding an application directory to this site for users to review each application including those that I am not writing about. Additionally I will be adding a ratings feature to general blog posts as well. Unfortunately many of the applications that are being developed are duplicates of others or are not held to any sort of development standard. I would like to make this blog the filter for that process so that you don’t need to spend your time perusing the application directory and can easily find the best applications for your profile. I also would like to add an awards feature. We will provide awards such as “This week’s best application” and other types of awards. Thanks to Peter for the awards idea! What features would you like to see added to this blog?

It is time to start on a new journey. While I have many things that I am personally considering, I am currently focused on launching a Facebook development team. If you are a reader of this blog then you already know of the potential offered by the Facebook platform. Where is it headed? I don’t know. Will the market get flooded? Possibly. Is there money to be made? Definitely. Unfortunately I missed out on the New York City Facebook developers meetup on Wednesday, but the Facebook revolution has officially begun. If you are interested in working to provide high end Facebook applications to clients, please get in touch. I am in need of primarily developers and a single designer. Additionally, if you want to contribute to this blog, please feel free. If you know Facebook, are highly enthusiastic about Facebook, and have something to contribute to the team, please get in touch ASAP. Simply shoot an email to allfacebook [at] gmail [dot] com and I will respond as quickly as possible. By the way, if you are looking to work on the team you must be located in Washington, D.C. or New York City. Bloggers on the other hand can live anywhere. Isn’t it great to be a blogger?

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