Facebook App?
ktb53
Registered Users Posts: 40 Big grins
What's going on with the facebook app? Hope someone works on this soon.
What if the Hokey Pokey REALLY IS what it's all about?
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So I just got a comment on my blog about this, too, so I'm very interested...
*However*, there's a big problem: SmugMug doesn't *have* a Facebook app. So I'm not sure what's going on with it - because it doesn't exist.
That being said, we're certainly open to building one. If we were to build one, what would you want it to do?
Could people tag SmugMug photos just like they can tag themselves and their friends in the Facebook Albums?
Being able to buy prints from the Facebook app would be great too.
There also appear to be apps called "My Photos from SmugMug", "My Smugmug Gallery" and "SmugFoto". Perhaps one of them has stopped working...
I'm not a super facebook fanatic and I'm still getting the hang of things but I see all my friends posting their images and I would like a simple way to choose from my smugmug albums what photos I want to see on there, whether that is through a special tag, or something on the facebook app side I don't really care. I would be nice if the tagging that you put on your smugmug apps would "transfer" over to the facebook tagging but it's not a feature I use a lot.
Like another user said, there are like 4 (not very good) smugmug apps and I have yet to figure out one that works at all. I realize they are not made by you guys but you're not being represented well, especially when I hear a lot of people talking about flickr's solid facebook app. Viva Smugmug!
With the way Facebook is growing, having a solid SmugMug Facebook app. would be brilliant marketing for smugmug as well. Currently Flickr is the best integrated - with the code gurus that SM has it shouldn't be hard to make something competitive.
:thumb
Make is happen! :ivar
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I can't imagine why SM wouldn't want to jump on this. It would be very much worth the effort, I believe.
Thanks!!
Here's what I did in leau of a smugmug option. I put my photos on www.ning.com, and created a facebook slideshow application there. They have instructions there for setting up a facebook app to show your photos. I setup this facebook app:
http://apps.facebook.com/langfordphotography/
Works pretty well, but doesn't auto start or loop like I would like, and it is not configurable.
James
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com
james@langfordphotography.com
Glad to see this topic coming up. Let me describe my scenarios and provide a few detailed requirements.
Scenario: FB has rapidly become a key network tool for family, friends, and co-workers. The integration of news feed with applications, status updates, etc. has provided an ambiant and sticky appearance for habitual traffic. Translation: easy to see what people are up to. FB's photo features are nicely integrated. My main issue is that I want to use my SmugMug site for sharing photos and storage, not FB, so I need an easy way to share my SmugMug photo activity with my Facebook crowd. The current SM apps out there (there are only 3 from what I can, and one of them appears useless) really do not provide an adequate level of photo insight or customization that I already have on an SmugMug home page as a regular subscriber.
Requirements:
- Allow me to post a SmugMug app on the new wall page of my FB profile. (this is the new FB UI, not the old one)
- Allow me to share which Albums I want to appear in my App. The other SM apps do not provide the level of customization I'd like to see - they're either randomly appearing photos, album organized by category (who cares?), or a single custom profile photo (too limiting). I would like to see 2-4 albums minimum in the app, each using their assigned feature photo. Optional whether they display the photo album name.
- Add an entry to the FB news feed with SmugMug details such as "Craig created a new album called Flying Toads and added 23 photos." "Craig added 15 new photos to Blue Angels photo album."
- Optional: display a slideshow of the last 4 uploaded photos to an album(s).
Several Flickr apps have similar functionality listed above, so would love to see a well rounded and supported app for SM. This is essentially a new distribution mechanism for our photos that drives traffic back to our SM sites - good for everyone all around.(I would be happy to help beta test such an app if that helps.)
Thanks for listening...!
- craig
kerwien.smugmug.com
+1 - Sounds great
+2 - Would love to see a well integrated SM app on Facebook.
I, for one, am getting tired of having people on Facebook tell me to post more photos when my SM site is linked in my profile.
I want this too!
So i've tried almost all the facebook apps built by others (and no offense to the authors) but they never work correctly. i am an avid facebook user (i'm on it everyday, many days multiple times a day)
I'd want:
1. facebook "downloads" smugmug pictures so that smugmug is the only place i have to upload pics too.
2. The pics can be viewed through the facebook instead of a click through to smugmug.
3. i don't need various sizes or the functionality of smugmug. all i need is the pic captions transfering over. and you're more than welcome to add in some smugmug advertising on each page
4. comments should still work but they don't have to transfer back to smugmug (would be a nice v2 though)
5. Tagging has to work...that's important for this to be worth it. something simple like what facebook pic has now
6. lastly my friends shouldn't have to add the app to view the pics...this may be a more facebook thing but this really puts a hamper on useage.
so.....when we getting a working facebook app
P.S. I'm a product manager for a SaaS company so feel free to ask me for more detailed specing / use cases info if you need it.
Thanks,
Palak
The head muckety-muck also posted this:
http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/2008/09/16/job-opening-social-sorcerer
:-}
Alterntely, if SmugMug isn't interested, perhaps someone else here is? Please get in touch! The current Facebook App offerings fall short in a number of ways - flexibility, ease of use, reliability, etc...
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85mm f/1.8, 17-50 + 28-75m f/2.8 lenses
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Hey guys, I am the Sorcerer working on the FaceBook application, so please keep your comments coming. So far the only one that is going to be difficult to accomplish is the ability to Tag/Comment on photos, and then have those transferred back to SmuMug. Hopefully one day FaceBook will allow us to do something like this, but right now they don't have that functionality. I've added it to the wish list though, and I will also re-iterate the need for it back to FaceBook. Please keep the suggestions coming, the application is under active development and it helps me greatly to know what you guys want to see....
Thanks!
Can he get me a date?
Kidding, I'm married.
Very cool about the hire! Looking forward to seeing what you guys do on Facebook.
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
Congratulations on the gig! Incredibly happy that they hired for this position.
I've been following this thread and I'd love to give you some thoughts on the new app, but I was hoping you could first post the basic functionality that you anticipate having. There are so many directions one could go on an app like this, and I'd love to know which way you've chosen. From there, I think you could get some great constructive requests and comments.
Thanks much...looking forward to ver. 1.0.
I'll add my thoughts on cool ideas:
1. Tagging of friends in the pictures, even if it doesn't transfer back to SM.
2. Tab support (reference the MyFlickr FB app)
3. Automatic publishing to user's FB wall when smugmug galleries are created or updated.
I'll keep it coming as I think of them.
Awesome! Glad to hear smugmug is still doing a great job listening to their customers.
For me, as a print seller, I want to primarily use Facebook to promote my work and drive traffic to my website. What I would love is to be able to easily create a slideshow type app that is configurable, and can be easily added to facebook users' homepages and sidebars. Users should be able to click on any of the pictures in the slideshow they see, and be taken to the specific picture and gallery on smugmug where they could then potentially order a print or leave comments or whatever.
I was able to set something rough like that up using ning.com, but the traffic is sent to ning, rather than sm. Let me know if I can provide any other details.
James
Langford Photography
http://www.langfordphotography.com
james@langfordphotography.com
Okay, so ALL of this is obviously subject to change, but here is the list of features we have planned for FaceBook. We currently have 2 FaceBook applications planned: 1 for people just looking to share photos on FaceBook, and 1 for our Pros who are looking to establish a business presence on FaceBook.
Standard Application Feature Set:
- Import photos from SmuMug into FaceBook Photo Albums
- Export photos from FaceBook into SmuMug. This can be photos you've been tagged in, photos of your friends, or any albums you've created on FB.
- Embed Your SmugMug photos into your profile (with a Note).
- ECards - Send any of your SmuMug photos to other FaceBook users as an ECard.
- Application Tab Support - Allows other FaceBook users to view selected SmugMug galleries inside of FaceBook. This is available off of your profile.
- PhotoRank - PhotoRank allows you to submit a SmugMug photo for review by other FaceBook users. Everyone can then vote on and comment on the photos. There will then be a leaderboard where you can see the best photos for each month. (This is optional, you will need to submit a photo(s))
- News Item Updates- We will automatically update your news feed for you (John just added 4 new photos, etc..)
Professional Application Feature Set:(once imported users can tag, comment, etc..). This will physically move a copy of your photos over to FB.
- Unbranded and Completely Configurable
- You can add Full contact information for yourself/business, as well as a photo/logo.
- You can add tabs to it. Each tabs can either be textual content, or a gallery, or a combination of the two.
- There will be a contact tab, where users can contact you via email, that will also display your contact info. (Fully configurable)
- Mailing List Support - Will let users sign up for a newsletter (configurable and optional, and with admin to send notifications)
- Optionally you can embed a photo or advertisement on your profile.
- Optionally you can allow your photos to be sent as ecards, or to optionally be embedded on other people's profiles.
- You can attach this application to a user, or to a page on FaceBook.
Please let me know if you think I am missing something, or if you need some clarification on a feature. Obviously your feedback is incredibly important to us, and at this stage in development it really does help to know what everyone wants...Thanks,
Scott.
I hope this will be optional - I don't want ALL my uploads to be announced on smugmug.
In general though the feature set looks awesome!
Thanks,
TObias
Yes, it will be optional. It will be something you turn on/off in the FaceBook application.
I like the idea of importing photos into Facebook - I would urge you to think carefully about the UI here though... Other apps I've seen have done a very poor job of letting me navigate down to the gallery that I'm looking for... I have hundreds of galleries, pretty meticulously named and categorised (and sub-categorised), so for me, the best way to navigate would be through category, sub-category, gallery (sorted by alphabet)... But others may not like alphabetic sorting - they may prefer the order in which the galleries have been arranged in a category / sub-category... It seems like a small point, but it makes a world of difference to either party...
A quick rant: The way SmugMug currently 'helps' you move photos from one gallery to another using a seemingly un-ordered drop-down list of all galleries (seemingly without respect for categories and sub-categories) is not at all helpful or intuitive!
The way users navigate their own SmugMug site is what is familiar to them, so replicating this type of interface would make most sense... Once you've successfully navigated to a gallery, you would perhaps only see thumbnails, of which you would then multiple-select for import...
I would also like to suggest that each imported photo from SmugMug to Facebook, gets a direct link back to it's original location on SmugMug in the description field for that photo... Perhaps in brackets after the imported SmugMug caption field? Again, this may need to be an optional preference... I would prefer it... But others may not...
85mm f/1.8, 17-50 + 28-75m f/2.8 lenses
iMac 24" 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme, 4Gb RAM, OSX 10.5.7
http://encosion.com/ | http://encosion.smugmug.com/
Thanks for the input encosion, especially the difficulty with navigating through galleries. I will need to revisit this to make sure we come up with something that works well for users that have that many. I will also add the embedding of links to the original in the description field (and I will make it optional). That definitely seems like something that needs to be in there. Be sure to let me know if you come up with anything else.
Thanks,
-Scott.