I finally created a Facebook Page for HyveUp, and I learned two tricks I think are essential: How to auto-update a Facebook page with a blog’s RSS feed, and how to auto-post the Facebook page updates directly to Twitter. I’ll explain the RSS trick in a Screencast Pro video later, but I think I don’t need to bother explaining how the Facebook-to-Twitter automation works since it’s really easy to find and activate:
If Facebook can pick up my blog articles, and post them to Twitter, then I don’t need Twitterfeed or Friendfeed anymore. That is a funny thought because I am replacing Friendfeed with Facebook, and Facebook bought Friendfeed (for $50 millions), so I am not really leaving Friendfeed for Facebook.
Of course, I don’t use Facebook the same way I was using Friendfeed… At least that’s what I thought until Facebook started to post my blog updates… I never thought Facebook would ever be in my Web 2.0 loop of automated services, I always pictured it as a walled garden. But now I picture Facebook as able to do unexpected moves. Here is what Friendfeed had that Facebook could integrate:
- The post-to-Twitter tool (check)
- The threaded real-time conversations (probably the priority in this acquisition)
- The social networks syndication (not a word about it yet)
So is Facebook after your online social activities? Will we soon see in our Facebook dashboard what the picture below shows? I say yes!
I say yes because Facebook already shares a lot with other social networks through the Facebook Connect feature. Unfortunately for developers, there is not a way to make discussions happen simultaneously between a Website and Facebook. Every time you are doing something outside of Facebook, you have to manually share your activity on Facebook, and if someone on Facebook reacts to this activity, it won’t be posted on the original site.
If you ask me, that is exactly what the Friendfeed team was hired for: To enable simultaneous conversations across social networks, but with Facebook at the center of it all, of course!
UPDATE: Techcrunch talks about Tornado, what seems to be the first piece of the puzzle.