Linking to a single Facebook wall post
September 3rd, 2010
From time-to-time, I’ve wanted to link to a single post and comment string on our Facebook page wall. Why? Well, sometimes the post was a few days old, and I didn’t just want to provide a link to the page and have someone scroll down to find the post I was referring to.
I had seen this done, but couldn’t find any documentation on Facebook’s Developer forum, or anywhere else online, for that matter. How did I finally figure it out? I stumbled into it when I clicked on a post that had a large number of comments, and then ascertained which elements of the URL it generated were necessary to create the individual post link.
This is what an individual post link URL looks like:
http://www.facebook.com/PageName?v=wall&story_fbid=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
At the end, you’ll notice it has an ID number (fbid) – mine have all been 16 digits. This is a unique number for each wall post. Getting this number, however is a little tricky.
An individual wall post link is automatically generated for a wall post with a large number of comments when you click on the comments number to view them. Not sure where the threshold is, but it seems to be over 20. If you want to generate an individual wall post link for a post with fewer comments, here’s what you do to get the ID number.
Hover over the “Remove Link” button that appears at the top of the wall post you want, and (carefully!) right click and copy the URL. It’ll look like this (truncated to make things easy):
remove_confirm.php?story_id=div_story_##########_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx&profile_id =##########&story_key=#################
You need the 16 digits that are represented above by red Xs. Ignore all the other numbers.
Take those 16 digits, and append them to this URL below, replacing PageName with your page’s URL:
http://www.facebook.com/PageName?v=wall&story_fbid=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
And there you have it – an easy way to link to an individual Facebook wall post!
ReadWriteWeb Summit Wrapup – Part 1
June 17th, 2010
Last Friday, I had the opportunity to attend the ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit in New York City. Although I was one of only a handful of people in attendance from the higher-education world, I found the summit to be extremely valuable, and it was a great place to learn, share and connect with others across a wide variety of industries.
In addition to these wrapup posts, over the next several days I will also be writing a series of posts reviewing new applications and services that I had a chance to demo at the summit.
SpeedGeeking Demo Review – Scenios
June 12th, 2010
This is the first in a series of posts about products and services I had an opportunity to view as demos during the SpeedGeeking event of the ReadWriteWeb Realtime Summit on June 11, 2010.
Scenios is a web-based digital asset management application that allows you to upload, share, tag and export video clips collaboratively with your team.
As soon as the demo began, I immediately saw the value this could have in my office, where we often use video clips from more than one student videographer, and reviewing and producing the piece can be timeconsuming and confusing.
Facebook Releases New Privacy Control Information
May 26th, 2010
Facebook announced changes today to the way users can control access to information they have posted on the site.
I have not, yet, had time to review all the press and new controls fully, but here is the rundown:
Facebook has established one control mechanism to set who can see the content you post on the site. This does NOT replace the granular controls that currently exist, you can still get at them and control your account that way if you desire. The new controls are meant to simplify the granular process. With this, it should be easier to set who can see all your content with one fell swoop.
In addition, Facebook is no longer requiring some information to be public. You will now be able to decide who can see your friends list and pages list.
Facebook Doesn’t Value the Developer Relationship
May 20th, 2010
Yesterday afternoon, Facebook dropped a bomb on the developers and content creators that use Facebook pages to extend their brands into the social web. In a very unprofessional and careless manner, they announced a major policy change by burying it in the middle of a forum thread on the Facebook Developer site.
The specifics of the change are that Facebook Pages with fewer than 10,000 fans (likers?) will no longer be allowed to set their default landing tab to anything other than the Wall or Info tabs.