Do you use Facebook? I have done for about a month now and am rather enjoying it. It’s like MySpace without the Emos! My profile is here. If you’re using FB then feel free to add me. Let me know who you are by commenting here so I can tell who’s who though!
One of the facilities is the “Status Update” where you can tell your friends what you are doing/feeling/pondering/whatever you like. Think of it as a Twitter for Facebook. It’s not much use unless you want to let your friends know what you’re doing.
Well, thanks to Adam at Pomomusings there is a way to share your Facebook Status Updates on your blog. He has actually created a small plugin called Facepress Statuspress which, when used with the hosted version of WordPress will allow the blogger to display their Status Updates in the sidebar.
Knowing what WordPress.com bloggers are like for Gucci widgets, I thought I would explore the possibility of displaying Status Updates on wp.com blogs. And it’s easy! It uses the RSS feed for your Status Updates. You can find the RSS feed like this:
- Go to your Facebook Profile.
- Click on the Mini-Feed bar so you can see all of your recent activity.
- Click “See All” on the top right of that box.
- Under “View” on the right, you’ll see a long list of “Stories” - click on “Status Stories.”
- Underneath the list, you will now see “Subscribe to these Stories - My Status.”
- Right click on “My Status” and Choose “Copy Link Location.”
- Go to Presentation -> Widgets.
- Scroll down the page and find RSS 1 or RSS 2. If you have already used both of those then scroll down a little further and increase the number of “RSS Feed Widgets” appropriately, save and re-load the page.
- Drag the selected RSS widget to an appropriate location on the sidebar.
- Click the configure button on the widget and paste in the URL that you copied in step 6.
- Click away from the widget and then press “Save Changes”.
Come back to your wordpress.com blog and follow these steps:
When you view your site you should now see your Facebook Status updates in all its glory on your sidebar. You can see mine on the right. I changed the number of items to display to “1″, otherwise it was taking up half the sidebar.
24 Comments
Collin, StatusPress won’t work on wordpress.com blogs - at least, not unless the development team there incorporates StatusPress into the system. StatusPress is for the hosted version of WordPress. Thought you might want to make that distinction clear before the angry mobs descend upon you. :)
Ah, but then again, I see that you have your status in your sidebar, so apparently I’ve already been made a liar. Don’t mind me…. :)
Thanks Jim. I realised that StatusPress won’t work with wp.com and the solution that I offer is using the RSS feed direct rather than StatusPress. :)
I’m a little confused as to how many blogs you have!
But thank you very much for this post, I had been wondering on how to do it. :)
I have a Facebook, still groping my way through it
Cat - 4. :)
Bob - it’s great once you get used to it. It took me a while too.
Great Stuff Colin! I will be using this one for sure! lol
Trent
I hate to be a party pooper, but isn’t this better ;) ?
http://www.facebook.com/editbadge.php?template=sig
Trent
Tent - define better!
That looks more funky but my version is quicker and easier to configure. I don’t know if you’ve used the badge but when I tried it on my self-hosted blog it took bloody ages to appear and slowed my blog loading time considerably.
This is a fantastic plugin…now as soon as my/our blog is hosted, I’ll set it up! I think the RSS feed is a good idea for now (X 5 for us).
In terms of better, that is relative I guess. The fact that it has more information (not just your status) is better in my mind. As well, it links to your profile and says “facebook” on it. No mistaking what it is! The fact that it is no longer just a javascript badge and an image was also “better” in my mind better. An unresponsive javascript will stop a page from loading at times, while an image will not. The fact you couldn’t see mine at work is a concern!
Either way, we all win with status updates from facebook on our blogs! Great catch Collin!
Every method is a good method - we all win. :)
Not seeing the badge at work is a work thing, nothing to do with your blog - don’t worry about it!
I didn’t like the badge much, I tend to have fairly long status messages and it cuts off after a few words. At least it did when I had it on another site a few months back.
i’m sort of a techie dunce. but i found facebook to be rather easy!
AND THANKS to you for this article. i’m definitely gonna give it a try, although rss gives me the creeps. i mean, it’s another new thing to learn, and i’m like, procastinating forever!
anyway, once i learn how to clip-to-blog, i’m gonna clip this entry using clipmarks for my blog!
hey!
i just remembered something! since you like fb, maybe you’d like to know that you can easily develop your own fb app. please go to http://www.dapper.net to find out how! in case you know about it already, why don’t you do an entry about it for us non-techies? ;)
hello hello hello!
i have my fb status on my blog! in case you want to check it out, it’s not the one the avatar links to. it’s http://shongjog.wordpress.com
thank you so much.
you made the rss thing sound so easy, i actually had the heart to finally try it! you just made my day!
Hey Sanjida, thanks for your comments! I’m glad you got it to work, means I got the instructions right!
I haven’t had any inclination to build anything for facebook - I wouldn’t know what to build! I will have a look at dapper.net and see what I can figure out though. :)
hey!
i want to build an app for fb, rather, ahem, get it built. anything that can offer regularly updated content. like fb apps of astroclock, daily wikipedia and astronomy pic of the day, to name a few.
um, do you have any idea if it takes a lot of coding bg to be able to build such an app? i mean, can i, an html-only person, really learn all the php to build an app like that? i have absolutely no php bg, save for a brush with php in a two-month-long webdesigning course where we did practically nothing but get oriented with all sorts of this and that.
so, any hope for me concerning a diy fb app?
I can’t see any reason why not if you have the patience to learn the PHP! It’s not difficult once you get into it and there are some awesome forums for coding about. One I really like is http://www.sitepoint.com - Australian based but international membership.
Go for it. Let me know how you get on!
Nice Site!
Hey Collin great site. I’m presently working on my own new WordPress site and I added you to my Facebook.
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
Is idetrorce a real person? I have that same “comment” tried on entries spanning over 4 years on 3 entries on my blog and they are not approved.
Trent
I don’t know Trent. It’s strange. There’s no website linked to the name and I didn’t approve it, it just appeared as a comment.
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