How can I add Social Apps that aren't currently on the "Also On" drop down menu?

I'm "Also On" social apps that are not listed in the profile drop down box. Is there a way to add these?

Specifically, I am "Also On" Facebook and Yelp.

Apologies in advance if this has been answered before, but I couldn't find applicable info in the FAQ's or old threads.

Thanks.

posted by doppleradar to feature requests at 2:16 AM (65 comments total)

....liiiiiiike dating sites? hmm? That sure would be a good solution for the DateMe thing. Think about it! ;) /me was Yente in Fiddler senior year
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 2:48 AM on April 14

Yelp! I need somebody! Yelp! Not just anybody, YELP! You know I neeeeeed someone, YE-Eh-Elp!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:53 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

I'm guessing the reply will be to link to your various other accounts in your "About me" box. Still, the little user icons are so snazzy! (And my "About" box is pretty cluttered as it is...)

If there's one of those I'd like to add, it'd be Picasa. It'd be fairly easy to plug into the "Also on" widget -- the URL is just "picasaweb.google.com/USERNAME". Why should Flickr get all the love, anyway?
posted by Rhaomi at 3:53 AM on April 14

Huh, the "Also On" social apps doesn't include Facebook? That's... really really surprising.
posted by Phire at 3:56 AM on April 14

On second thought: Would it be easier, in the long-run, to make the "also on" boxes user-definable? Right now we have to choose services from a limited list, provide the appropriate username, and the page then converts that info into a little box. Could we replace that with a script that, when given a link to any profile page, will create a box linking to that page and bearing that site's favicon? That way all the little niche sites can be included, and we won't have to hear any grousing about what's been neglected or axed.

People could of course link to any site, not just profile pages, and that does have the potential for abuse (spam and inappropriate content and such). But people could potentially link to the same things in their "About" space anyway, so I don't see how it could be any worse in icon form. Maybe put a limit on the number of icons to cut down on clutter.

What do you think?
posted by Rhaomi at 4:15 AM on April 14

What then happens to the sites without favicons? They'll sit there all lonely and boring, maybe a few of them in a row, looking blank.

Granted, of all the links currently on my link bar, only one doesn't have a favicon. But still, you get the idea.
posted by Phire at 4:18 AM on April 14

Faviconless sites could be represented by little hearts! Because, you know, Metafilter loves you.

Or, I don't know, it could be a chain link, or something equally generic. I'd expect most social sites large enough for a Mefite to be a member of (and want to link to) to have a favicon, anyway.
posted by Rhaomi at 4:25 AM on April 14

The also-on list contains the first 10-15 social apps that we could think of that had easy-to-construct URLs from information people could find about themselves. There was some reason facebook wasn't on this list but I don't remember what it was. If you have another social app, drop it on the wiki and we'll be doing a round two at some point.
posted by jessamyn at 4:28 AM on April 14

Facebook is probably unlisted because it uses some godawful numeric ID instead of usernames which isn't always trivial for non web developers to find.

If you were going to do the arbitrary also-on feature, just fetch the favicon.ico from the domain that was entered. I can't think of a single big site that doesn't have a favicon.
posted by Skorgu at 5:17 AM on April 14

If there could be a user-defined, totally optional section for games, that'd be hella awesome. From Xbox Live gamertags to Wii game codes with a healthy layover at TF2 servers in the middle, that'd be a spicy meatball!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:27 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]

Aside from the aforementioned godawful numeric ID, random internet strangers can't actually see your Facebook profile anyway -- they'd need to have you as a friend.
posted by danb at 6:15 AM on April 14

danb: "Aside from the aforementioned godawful numeric ID, random internet strangers can't actually see your Facebook profile anyway -- they'd need to have you as a friend."

Only if you have your account-sharing set to the default "I'm a wingebag" value.
posted by Plutor at 6:29 AM on April 14

By which I mean that if you go to profile privacy page, you can change it to at least include "friends of friends". But you're right, there's no way to say "I'm not a moron, my naked photos are not on the internet, please let anyone see my profile".
posted by Plutor at 6:33 AM on April 14

Facebook is probably unlisted because it uses some godawful numeric ID instead of usernames which isn't always trivial for non web developers to find.

Huh? Why can't people just go to their Facebook profile and copy-and-paste the number from the URL? It's just a short string of numbers in a short URL.

random internet strangers can't actually see your Facebook profile anyway -- they'd need to have you as a friend.

That's not quite accurate. They can see your profile if they're in one of your "networks" and you've set your privacy controls to allow this (or, as mentioned above, if they're a "friend of a friend").
posted by jejune at 7:10 AM on April 14

Well, sure, but even with the broadest privacy settings, the vast majority of Facebook users are not going to see your profile.
posted by danb at 7:25 AM on April 14

Not even using the secret mefi handshake?
posted by gomichild at 7:40 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

Does anybody else feel like they're not missing a whole lot by not being on a bajillion other social apps? I've never even heard of a couple of these.
posted by Justinian at 7:43 AM on April 14

I feel like a lot of times it's useful to have a placeholder somewhere that directs people to other places that I really hang out. So like I don't use last.fm at all or go to the site, but it's sort of nifty (for me) to have the last few songs I've listened to show up here on my profile page. Except for Scrabulous and birthdays, I don't use facebook at all but it's handy to be there for being found. If you're the sort of person that doesn't care if you're findable or isn't a real sharer type social networks have very little to reocmmend them if they're not about a topic you're already into.
posted by jessamyn at 7:57 AM on April 14

Does anybody else feel like they're not missing a whole lot by not being on a bajillion other social apps?

You're only gaining by not being on them, my friend. A sad vortex of lost attention and elevation of the banal onto a pedestal made of dung.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:00 AM on April 14 [3 favorites]

Is it possibly because facebook shows you nothing unless you are already a freind of the user?
posted by Artw at 8:36 AM on April 14

MetaFilter: A sad vortex of lost attention
posted by jpdoane at 8:50 AM on April 14

robocop is bleeding : If there could be a user-defined, totally optional section for games,

Ooh, yeah. If we are making long term, round two requests, I like this one. I've got more time invested into my Live gamertag and my Mii than 90% of the Also Ons out there.

(Which, as I say it, fills me with a strange combination of pride and shame.)
posted by quin at 8:52 AM on April 14

Is it possibly because facebook shows you nothing unless you are already a freind of the user?

Not necessarily the case! Users can set their privacy settings to make their profiles fully visible and Googleable.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:59 AM on April 14

Well, sure, but even with the broadest privacy settings, the vast majority of Facebook users are not going to see your profile.

Even still, if I'm in, say, the Austin network on Facebook, I'm a lot more likely to find a fellow Mefite on that same network on Facebook than some of the sites in the current Mefi profile preferences that I've never heard of.
posted by jejune at 9:07 AM on April 14

Since Facebook uses actual names, I'd guess that would be a problem if one wanted to remain semi-anonymous on THIS site. I mean, a few of you know my real name, and those of you motivated enough to work at it could prohably come up with it, but I wouldn't necessarily want the whole freaking internet connecting me and my account that easily.
posted by konolia at 9:20 AM on April 14

Does anybody else feel like they're not missing a whole lot by not being on a bajillion other social apps?

eh, some of them are fine. I keep something on myspace and facebook, just 'cause they're popular and have had several old friends find me that way. Keep in mind, you don't have to use them every day a little here, a little there and boom, you got a nice collection of you to show the world.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:35 AM on April 14

Oh wow, thanks MeFi tech team for adding the new IM thing! That's awesome.
posted by danb at 9:53 AM on April 14

Also:

Even still, if I'm in, say, the Austin network on Facebook, I'm a lot more likely to find a fellow Mefite on that same network on Facebook than some of the sites in the current Mefi profile preferences that I've never heard of.

That's a good point.

I guess I usually think of online communities as a way to bridge distances and talk to people I wouldn't normally run into. But with sites like this, where there are meetups and real life/online life overlap, you're right -- it definitely makes sense to try to connect to people near you too.
posted by danb at 9:58 AM on April 14

Since Facebook uses actual names, I'd guess that would be a problem if one wanted to remain semi-anonymous on THIS site.

Not a problem. Just don't use this feature.

Some people already put their real names in their Mefi profiles.
posted by jejune at 10:18 AM on April 14

"If there could be a user-defined, totally optional section for games, that'd be hella awesome.
From Xbox Live gamertags to Wii game codes with a healthy layover at TF2 servers in the middle, that'd be a spicy meatball!"
posted by robocop is bleeding

Don't let's ignore the fantastic time killer that is the MeFight Club. [TF2]
[note: 'scheduled' matches are fine and all, but I've noticed a trend where there's nearly 20 people playing every night, which I find funny, until I look at the 3 netflix envelopes that haven't been touched in weeks near my monitor.]
posted by Busithoth at 10:25 AM on April 14

The original thread on these fields from Aug '07 discusses the Facebook bit, but it's not very convincing why it's not included. Sounds like mainly "because it's a number and people don't know the number off-hand". It's not like it's hard to find though... just click your facebook profile and it's the number in the URL.

And it's true you can't see much on a public profile, but you can msg them or add them as a friend, which is presumably what you would want.
posted by smackfu at 11:06 AM on April 14

smackfu: "It's not like it's hard to find though... just click your facebook profile and it's the number in the URL."

Really, you should be able to copy and paste the whole URL into the field and MeFi would be smart enough to find the number for you. In fact, that's the way we could do it for all social apps.
posted by Plutor at 11:14 AM on April 14

Xbox Live profile URL's are easy to construct, and I'd be über-happy if they were added!
posted by mkultra at 11:22 AM on April 14

you should be able to copy and paste the whole URL into the field

That's an interesting idea, but this URL method would have its own problems. People would need to find their public profile URL for a given service (often different from editing your profile). I think most often usernames are easier to deal with than URLs, but with Flickr, Sportsfilter, and a handful of services finding the username can be tricky. We try to add hints for the problematic services to the FAQ.

The problem with Xbox Live, mkultra, is that it requires a login to see any info. We're trying to stick to services that have public profiles.

Can someone with a Facebook account let me know the step-by-step procedure for finding your numeric Facebook ID? If we add that to the FAQ I think we can add Facebook support.
posted by pb at 11:35 AM on April 14

Can someone with a Facebook account let me know the step-by-step procedure for finding your numeric Facebook ID?

It looks fairly straight forward- login to Facebook, click the "Profile" link at the top of the page. The link will be set up like this:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=(your profile ID number)
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:49 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

It appears, like Mefi, your Facebook ID number will be lower the earlier you joined.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:51 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

Oh, one more thing about the profile ID number- the entire ID number is numerical, anything after a & sign is a referal to a specific section of a profile and does not need to be included.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:54 AM on April 14 [1 favorite]

pb: The problem with Xbox Live, mkultra, is that it requires a login to see any info. We're trying to stick to services that have public profiles.

In general, I agree with this, but XBL is pretty much a "closed" community in that the info is only useful to other XBL members as opposed to the public. The main utility of supporting this service, IMO, is that it's a much more convenient way to add someone as an XBL friend than "typing" on the controller.
posted by mkultra at 11:54 AM on April 14

Thanks TPS, I'll add that to the FAQ.

Based on some suggestions from the MeFi wiki page with Social App Suggestions, we just added Pandora Radio, Picasa, BookCrossing, VideoSift, Runner+, and Steam to the list of options. I removed those suggestions from the wiki, and updated the rules about submissions there to clarify what we're after with suggestions. Having a working profile example is a big help for us in determining whether or not we can add a service.
posted by pb at 11:55 AM on April 14

And Facebook is now on the list—you just need to find your numeric Facebook ID and use that as your username.
posted by pb at 12:10 PM on April 14

you just need to find your numeric Facebook ID and use that as your username.

You are all doomed, scrabulously.
posted by jessamyn at 12:21 PM on April 14 [4 favorites]

I don't use last.fm at all or go to the site, but it's sort of nifty (for me) to have the last few songs I've listened to show up here on my profile page

I feel similarly, and wonder if the definition of this feature might be slightly too narrow. Currently the wiki says that "the service must have a profile page that shows a user's activity there," but I'd kinda like to see recent Netflix movies alongside the Last.fm/Twitter/Flickr stuff, as long as we're doing the "this is the stream of ever-changing media in my life" thing. The Netflix data is only available as an RSS feed, however, and there's no publicly-accessible profile, so technically it doesn't meet the requirement.
posted by mumkin at 12:25 PM on April 14

The really complicated way to do Facebook is to use their off-site auth interface plus their getInfo call in their API. Kind of overkill for this kind of thing, but neat if you ever want to do anything fancy.

Thanks for adding it though!
posted by smackfu at 12:27 PM on April 14

I feel similarly, and wonder if the definition of this feature might be slightly too narrow. Currently the wiki says that "the service must have a profile page that shows a user's activity there," but I'd kinda like to see recent Netflix movies

I think the metaphor is breaking down then. The user page on MeFi is a representation of you as a person, it's a summation of who you are and everything you've done on the site. The "Also On" feature was added because we liked how another site did that, allowing you on this page representing youself on MetaFilter to say "This is also me over on Flickr, and this is me on Facebook, and this other page links to me on Sportsfilter" and the goal was to display all these public representations of yourself on the web. That way, users on mefi that say, like how languagehat writes, might get a chance to see how he takes photos, frags his gaming enemies, and knits a mean sweater on other sites.

The "here are movies I've seen" is more of an activity stream thing -- the type of thing Facebook pioneered and we have a small version of here (the recent activity from your contacts thing), but it's not something I think quite fits on user pages, because I see the main purpose of the user page to be one of identity and the Also On is social interaction.
posted by mathowie at 1:37 PM on April 14

Pandora, hooray! Thanks, pb.
posted by emelenjr at 1:40 PM on April 14

mathowie: The "here are movies I've seen" is more of an activity stream thing -- the type of thing Facebook pioneered and we have a small version of here (the recent activity from your contacts thing), but it's not something I think quite fits on user pages, because I see the main purpose of the user page to be one of identity and the Also On is social interaction.

I absolutely agree with this, to the point that I wish the flickr/twitter/last.fm stuff would go away from the profile. It's just too ephemeral and makes MeFi look like a "me too" in the growing Internet Recursive Wank.

MeFi is a node, not a hub.
posted by mkultra at 1:53 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

Cool. Thanks for adding Facebook.

I was mostly thinking Yelp because I think it would allow people to get additional input on their "where's the best dentist/restaurant/mechanic/etc in x city" type questions by referencing the profiles of other mefi members.

* ... and ya, i think the suggestions for adding some kind of fill-in-your-own social app would definitely be preferable to continually adding drop-down items. Maybe sorting them into "recognized" and "unrecognized" a la Digg
posted by doppleradar at 4:49 PM on April 14

...and not to push my luck, but is there a "send this to a friend/email this post" option for cool threads and/or favorites?

I generally just cut-and-paste the url or forward from RSS.
posted by doppleradar at 5:12 PM on April 14

I am getting my ass handed to me in Scrabulous by jessamyn. Beware.
posted by not_on_display at 5:54 PM on April 14

MeFi is a node, not a hub.

You are obviously not aware of the basics of astral plane geography and karass tectonics. For those in the know, MetaFilter is the hub.
posted by Meatbomb at 7:13 PM on April 14

Hooray for picasa! Thanks for that one.
posted by fnord at 8:24 AM on April 15

Yay for Yahoo Messenger!
posted by deborah at 9:23 AM on April 15

Steam but no XBL? *grumble grumble razza frazza*
posted by mkultra at 11:15 AM on April 15

re: Xbox Live. It's stupid that there's no public profile you can link to, but you can (ab)use the "display your gamercard on your website" feature to get the link like this:
http://gamercard.xbox.com/[gamer tag goes here].card
example:
http://gamercard.xbox.com/endsofinvention.card
So maybe you could make it possible to add an actual gamercard on the MeFi profile? That displays a little info - gamertag, points, recent games, and still gives the option to click through to the behind-login gamertag profile if you want add the person as a friend or whatever.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:16 PM on April 15

What about Ravelry?
posted by Lucinda at 4:29 PM on April 15

Ravelry is on the social app suggestions list, but requires a login to view a profile. (Something we're trying to steer clear of.)
posted by pb at 4:49 PM on April 15

There's a little bug with Steam.

Mefi wants to make links in the form steamcommunity.com/id/username, but actually Steam also sometimes makes your profile page as steamcommunity.com/profiles/somenumbers. I think maybe it happens for user names that aren't totally unique. For example, my user page is this, but this guys is like this. I'm not really sure what a good solution is though, maybe the form could check for all numeric usernames?
posted by tracert at 12:54 AM on April 16

Thanks tracert. Looks like we'll need to move to all numeric IDs for Steam. Even "tracert" that you link to has a numeric ID. You can see it by hovering over the "Add to your friends list", and checking out the URL in the browser status bar. Then if I put that ID into your profile URL format, I'm redirected to their username-based profile page.

We'll just have to come up with step-by-step instructions that Steam members can use to find their numeric ID on Steam, and add those to the FAQ. Then we'll make sure all Steam IDs entered here are numeric.
posted by pb at 7:43 AM on April 16

How can I add Social Apps that aren't currently on the "Also On" drop down menu? April 14, 2008 2:16 AM Subscribe

How can I add Social Apps that aren't currently on the "Also On" drop down menu?
April 14, 2008 2:16 AM Subscribe