This evening Facebook has announced the launch of the “Twitter exporter tool” for Facebook Page administrators. As Jaime Schopflin Hall highlights in an email to the press, “the tool allows Facebook Page administrators to automatically syndicate content and information they publish on Facebook to Twitter without leaving Facebook.com”. This tool was previously tested out and spotted via a Twitter update by Blake Ross, a Facebook employee, but then was later removed.
In a blog post, Michael Gummelt, the developer of the application, describes how the new feature works:
If you manage a Facebook Page, you now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them. If you have multiple Pages, you will have the option to link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts. This new feature will only link Facebook Pages to Twitter, not your individual profile. It will soon be available at http://www.facebook.com/twitter.
The goal of this new tool is to get users to make their Facebook Page, their primary source for updates. Right now many people publish on Twitter and then on Facebook (as we do on our Facebook page). Now, people will be able to share on Facebook and then have their updates instantly posted to Twitter. The timing of this couldn’t have been more perfect considering my article that went out moments ago about the battle between the two companies.
This move though is move confusing than anything else though as it makes Twitter easier to integrate with. Interestingly enough though, Facebook has grabbed Twitter’s vanity URL for this new product. What do you think this new integration means for the ongoing battle between the two companies?
One drawback might be that we now have to limit facebook's updates to 140 characters, isn't it?
Comment by Arel — August 20, 2009 @ 7:21 pm
I think it's vendor lock, since we can't publish to fan page via fb API which means in past we had to publish story to facebook and twitter separately, but now we can do this in one step via facebook fan page -> no traffic for twitter and traffic for facebook.
It looks like "twitter is just some inferior subservice of facebook, use it if you really need it..".
I just hope they'll soon release update of fb API so we'll be able to publish to fan page via desktop clients like seesmic.
Comment by Anze — August 21, 2009 @ 12:24 am
I think there's still some error. When you post link in FB Page, in Twitter the link was changed nicely to bit.ly. However, when you click the bit.ly link, it actually leads to different URL. There's a bug that the URL is somehow added with several random characters in the end.
Comment by Pitra — August 21, 2009 @ 3:54 am
Facebook is getting stronger over twitter day by day! I think we will see more facebook features pretty soon.
Comment by facebook app develop — August 21, 2009 @ 4:54 am
I think its actually pretty cool. It will making updating those blasted fan pages easier. One less step in the free marketers life.
http://www.limitedprofile.com
Comment by melissa — August 21, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
About time! I've been waiting for this for months. It just seemed like such a natural thing I was surprised they didn't come out with this feature sooner!
And, I love to see Facebook embracing their competitors by integrating them. They are really one of the best examples of embodying the core principle of the social media world, sharing.
Comment by Veronica Reynolds — August 22, 2009 @ 1:02 am
I just LOVE how Facebook's attention is on the businesses and pages. It will be interesting to watch as things grow and develop. Right now, we as users are enjoying the abundance of tools, apps and integrations. Hope that remains the focus for both companies as they continue to evolve. Gotta love 'em both! They are like brother and sister, constantly competing for attention, and working in unison towards the same goal: to make us-the community, happy and attentive.
@kickofftopic
Comment by Karmen Reed — August 22, 2009 @ 10:11 am
This tool is amazing so by the help of this we can run both facebook and twitter at same time.
Comment by Facebookster — August 24, 2009 @ 5:37 am
Hmm, just tested this out here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/California-Celts/108360936285?ref=nf#/pages/California-Celts/108360936285?ref=ts
It ended up duplicate posting the URL on the Twitter page here: http://twitter.com/californiacelts
Comment by Facebook User — August 24, 2009 @ 10:25 am
i signed up . posted a status on my fb page . only to check all my twitter widgets [i have on myspace] and i even went to twitter to see if it worked. i didnt see my fb page status update anywhere . so . i am very confused . how does this work . what am i missing .
Comment by jordan — August 31, 2009 @ 8:53 am
The question I have is since Bit.ly is being used to shorten the URLs, where do we go to get the metrics on those clickthroughs?
Comment by Tony Obregon — September 1, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
I love this tool, Can't do without it. Facebooks integration with Twitter has saved plenty of time.
Comment by Vandana — September 30, 2010 @ 11:11 am