Overview of the New Facebook Social Plugins – Part 3 of 3

Friday, 11 June 2010 22:36

Facebook recently launched 8 new social plugins that utilize Facebook’s new Open Graph Protocol and Graph API. In part 3 of this 3 part article (see part 1 and part 2) I’ll go over the NEW Live Stream, Login with Faces, and Facepile social plugins and how I think each can be used.

Live Stream

The Facebook Live Stream social plugin is similar to the Comments social plugin (see related article) in that a visitor to your website can leave a comment on a webpage and also post that comment to their Facebook profile. However, with the Live Stream social plugin visitor's comments aren't shown permanently, instead only the last 10 – 15 comments are shown (depending on the height that you set for the plugin). You will not be able to look at any older comments.

Facebook Live Stream Social Plugin on a webpage

With the Live Stream social plugin you do NOT get a choice over whether or not to publish the comment on your Facebook Profile, it will do it automatically. The only choice you have by checking or unchecking the "Share with everyone watching this event" is whether you want your comment to display in the Live Stream plugin itself (unchecking "Share with everyone watching this event" will post your comment on your Facebook profile only).

Even as the Administrator of the Live Stream social plugin on your own website, you don't get the option of deleting comments, however you can ban users to prevent them from adding any additional comments, and although I haven't actually done it personally, apparently when you ban a user all of their comments are immediately deleted.

My thoughts on the Live Stream Social Plugin

The folks at Facebook suggest you use the Live Stream social plugin to share comments for a live/real-time event such as live video streaming events (think UFC), speeches, webcasts, webinars, etc. I can see how this plugin could be useful in that situation. But the average blogger isn't going to be hosting many of those, so it's usefulness to most people is quiet limited.

Login with Faces

It took me over 4 hours to work out what the Facebook Login with Faces social plugin actually did! I initially thought it was a login button to actually logon to Facebook. However, it's nothing of the sort. It's basically what used to be the "Facebook Connect" button.

When the Login with Faces social plugin is initially put on your website, all you will see is the Login button.

When the Login button is clicked by a visitor to your website, that visitor will first see the familiar "Request for Permission" dialog box.

Facebook Login with Faces social plugin - Request for Permission

If the visitor clicks "Allow", you as the administrator of the Login with Faces social plugin will now have access to look up all of the public Facebook information that is available for that visitor. And the visitor will see your website name in their privacy settings (where it can be easily removed).

Facebook Privacy Settings

Also once the visitor clicks "Allow" their Facebook profile photo will appear under the Login button on your website, and all of their Facebook friends who also go to your website will see the visitor's Facebook profile photo too. There is an option in the social plugin's configuration to not display any profile photos, but I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that if he/she has enough space to display them on their website.

Facebook Login with Faces social plugin - Connected to your Website

If someone removes your website from their Facebook Privacy settings, he/she ceases to be "Connected" to your website, and thus their Facebook profile photo will no longer appear under the Login button, and of course you won't be able to retrieve their public Facebook information anymore.

Unfortunately the only way for someone to "Disconnect" from your website is by going into their Facebook Privacy settings and removing your website. The Login button doesn't become a Logout button once someone is connected to your website.

My thoughts on the Login with Faces Social Plugin

This one is really simple. Facebook plans to replace "Facebook Connect" with the "Login with Faces" social plugin, so if you would like access to a visitor's public Facebook information, using this Login with Faces social plugin is going to be the only way to do that in the near future (when Facebook Connect is discontinued).

Facepile

The Facebook Facepile social plugin is very simple. It's basically the Login with Faces social plugin (see above) without the Login button, so it shows the profile photos of the visitor's Facebook friends who have already "connected" to your website. That's it!

My thoughts on the Facepile Social Plugin

As the Facepile social plugin overlaps substantially with the Login with Faces social plugin, the only use I could think of for it was if you needed to split up the Login button (of the Login with Faces social plugin) with the Profile photos of the visitor's Facebook friends who have already connected to your website. For example, with the Login with Faces social plugin, it's an option to NOT show the profile photos. So I could theoretically put the Login button (of the Login with Faces social plugin) at the top of the page, and the profile photos (utilizing the Facepile social plugin) at the bottom of the page.

Please leave me a comment if you found this article useful or if you have any questions.

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