Paradigm shift? Integrating Joomla with Facebook
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- imagine4D
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Hi everybody,
would like some feedback on this general subject:
Background
I'm doing a Nanjing city portal , and have been thinking for months how to make it as 'socially connective' as possible. Commercial purchase-wise, I considered Jomsocial but ultimately decided on a Joomla/Community Builder/RokBridge/PHPbb3 w. RT templates on both ends. That mix was ok, but was a bit slow, and felt slightly off...
Facebook Integration
I'm based in Nanjing China, but I'm hosting the site in the US, via Siteground. Accessing HelloNanjing.net from China, the speeds are ok usually, sometimes not, and altogether frustrating. To help with speeds, I decided to cut out as many add-ons and plugins as I could, and ultimately decided to cut out RokBridge/PHPbb3 as well.
Then, I for some reason got quite taken (over the past few weeks) with the power of Facebook, for 'social network' type website marketing.
Then I came across JFPConnect , which integrates a CBlogin with Facebook accounts.
I bought it today and set it up, and so far feel very impressed, and excited about the possibilities....
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I would like to hear some feedback, on the idea of marketing my website, by piggybacking off of Facebook. Do you think that's a good idea, or do you think forum development/ Jomsocial etc is a better way?
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- Roeland_A!
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This question is more about with strategy you want to adopt for your website.
Do you want it to be your website, that distinguishes itself from others through its features, that are to some extent unique?
Or you do not want the hassle of having your own forum and so on.
What my questions are for you is basically: what was the cause of the combination being slow? There are so many ways to optimize a site, did you go that route?
The feeling slightly off bit, where does it come from? Is it the general look and feel of the website? - *Karma comes in many forms, my personal favourite is the random saucepan from the sky* J.Spencer 17-02-2009
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- Jamesso
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- I've seen an article recently that showed new websites, which allowed users to login via facebook connect, had higher recurring traffic than those who didn't. Of course, they could simply be better websites but it's something to think about in any case.
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- imagine4D
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Roeland Aernoudts wrote:
What my questions are for you is basically: what was the cause of the combination being slow? There are so many ways to optimize a site, did you go that route?
The feeling slightly off bit, where does it come from? Is it the general look and feel of the website?
Hiya Roeland. About the slowness, I've got two large components running (Mosets directory and JFactory classifieds). Doing some research on Joomla speed optimization, I read a tip somewhere to eliminate bridges if possible. It's one of the the things I'm experimenting with now, to see if it has any impact.
More importantly, though, is my second point, about things feeling 'a bit off'. The look and feel is fantastic, I have no complaints there!
What I've been wondering for a while though, is if it's really worth it to try and get a forum up and running (active, with lots of users and daily posts) in 2009? There are so many well-established forums out there already...
For me, the forum is really just a way to get people using the site. If this traffic can come from elsewhere (ie Facebook users), then perhaps I can save the effort of trying to get this forum going, and instead focus on developing content on the Joomla side.
Well, I'll be switching over to a dedicated host inside China in a few weeks, so I think the speed issue will be resolved, whether I use the bridge or not.
However, in terms of getting more regular traffic on my site, my experiment over the next few weeks is to see if the Facebook connect will achieve that target faster and easier, than investing my energy in getting people to use my forum...
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- Roeland_A!
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On the eliminating bridge thing and speed I can tell you the following, the speed gain of not using the bridge is almost negligable, what rokbridge basically does is making sure that a user can login on both sides, now in terms of overhead that is created, this overhead is second to none. Depending also in which way you implement the bridge of course.
If you use the wrapped bridge, i.e. going through a forum dir, the overhead created increases slightly, because phpbb3 is so to say "seen by joomla as a joomla component" the overhead in that case is just a fraction larger, but not more then one of your other components.
If you are using another bridge however, it is totally different. When you examine the rokbridge code, you will be able to understand most of what I am stating here.
You can even test this all by running the joomla debugger and see what extra queries are done more when using rokbridge.
On the other end, starting your own forum, it just depends on what you wish to achieve with your efforts, if you are looking from the perspective that there are a lot of well-established forums, I would ask you the question: What is the actual group you are targeting with your site.
I could give you a whole rundown on website strategies, niche marketing and so on, but well, this is not really the place for that :cheesy: - *Karma comes in many forms, my personal favourite is the random saucepan from the sky* J.Spencer 17-02-2009
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- Roeland_A!
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yw! Now I am really curious about the audience you are targeting
EDIT: Got it :cheesy: Interesting target group. Niche marketing may be effective with such a clearly defined group :cheesy: - *Karma comes in many forms, my personal favourite is the random saucepan from the sky* J.Spencer 17-02-2009
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- The Wingman
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WOW - want to say thanks for turning me on to this FaceBook APP. Haven't purchased it yet, but it looks incredible.
- Individuals can be logged in your Joomla site and invite their friends to come join.
- Syncing between FaceBook & Joomla logging in.
- Syncing of Profiles (Pulling FaceBook into Joomla).
- FaceBook Login Intergration.
- FaceBook comment widget.
My take on this...my site (under wraps) is uniquely different (yeah, yeah I know
- if you have seen my sites - they are allllll different, but this one is special. 
)
The catch is - this is like building an FaceBook to drive customers to your site or product or service. Your making their (FaceBook Users) busy lives easier and yours by not having to build an APP yourself.
I'm not building a social community site per say, in other words I am not going for the FaceBook/Myspace thing....I am building a service that happens to have community builder features in it and would benefit from social networking with FaceBook. Basically, it is Social Networking between sites.
Looking forward myself to seeing the results of this.
Thanks,
Wingman - "You can learn a lot from a dummy. So, pay attention to yourself." Quote by me.
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- imagine4D
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Yeah Wingman, it's very interesting indeed. A week or so after I purchased Facebook integration, here are my findings:
1. Installing the component and plugin is easy, but then, to complete the process, you need to do stuff on the Facebook developer API thingy, which caught me off guard a bit...
2. Basically, for the Facebook API stuff, you need to create a new database, and then upload a Facebook directory (about 200k, I think) to your server.
3. Once you do those things, the process is complete. Then, users can click 'Login with Facebook'. The result is that they login to Facebook (popup bubble, looks kewl), and then get sent to a page which says something like "If you are a registered user login now. Otherwise, please provide your preferred details (username and email).
That's it. Facebook Connect then creates a full Community Builder Profile and adds them as a registered user.
So, it's an easy option, for people to register for your site...
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- imagine4D
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So on one side, Facebook users can easily join your site.
However, the exciting – viral marketing – aspect for me is what site actions get ported to Facebook.
At present, the Facebook API will create for you an application called 'Footprints', but I haven't quite figured it out yet.
The Facebook comments module (an additional $10) is cool in theory: Facebook users comment on your articles, which are then shown (with linkbacks) in their Facebook profile. Holy viral marketing!
Unfortunately, the developer of the module sez it's a bit janky, because the of how the Facebook application is coded.
That said, Facebook development seems very robust, so I imagine things will get better in future.
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