RSS Feeds in Facebook, Walled Garden of Fail: Facebook

RSS Feeds in Facebook, Walled Garden of Fail

Category: Usability & Testing Tags: Facebook | Written on Jul 22, 2009

If you hook your RSS feed up with Facebook, the items keep you inside the walled-garden of Facebook fail.

Let me give you an example.. so if I see this RSS item show up in the facebook stream:

I click on the link and it sends me to a Facebook note.

 

The RSS feed links should go to the intended context, my blog! #facebook #walledgarden #fail

Comments

#1. Michael Kozakewich http://icosidodecahedron.com on Jul 22, 2009
Ha. I think I had, at one time, tried moving some livejournal posts to Facebook, but that was before I knew about RSS. As far as I knew, I had to copy all the posts from one place to the other.
Especially with our own blogs, on our own sites, we're likely to want to keep our visitors here.

I'd say to give all your Facebook readers instructions on how to get a feed-reader. It's one of those things most people should have. In years past, I'd almost been using my email as a feed (getting notifications from every site when something happened).
#2. Aaron Abramson http://amishgeek.com on Jul 23, 2009
Facebook doesn't give you a an RSS feed (Facebook Feed=> You). You simply give facebook an RSS feed (You Feed=> Facebook).

Facebook reads your feeds, and posts new notes (create duplicates of the data on facebook's servers).

It's basically an auto-blogging utility allowing you to clone your existing blog on facebook. It is not intended to provide an RSS feed of your blog to your facebook friends, directing them to your blog.
#3. Marc Grabanski http://marcgrabanski.com on Jul 23, 2009
Auto-blogging duplicate content? That is useless to me -- they should at least allow users to display feeds as links optionally. They allow you to post links, so why not allow displaying feeds to show up as links?
#4. David Passmore on Jul 24, 2009
Did you let them know about this?
#5. Marc Grabanski http://marcgrabanski.com on Jul 24, 2009
I have no idea how to request a feature on Facebook.
#6. San Diego Real Estate http://sdrealtypros.com/ on Aug 24, 2009
This will come in handy for my real estate blog. I had been able to get just titles to appear on my Wall by adding the Twitter feed. This looks way more useful.
#7. Yannis Roussochatzakis http://domain.com on Oct 02, 2009
The method you are using is just importing (making a local copy of) your feed into Facebook.

Why don't you use a facebook application like RSS Graffiti that publishes your feed on your wall and links directly to your site?

rousso
#8. Marc Grabanski http://marcgrabanski.com on Oct 02, 2009
Thanks for the tip, Yannis!
#9. Your name http://www.foundcheating.com/ on Dec 31, 2009
RSS Graffiti is nice, but I've seen some other programs do it just as efficiently. Like anything else, there are multiple ways to do the job. It all depends on user preference.
#10. Facebook Login Indonesia - Dhany http://dhany.web.id/facebook-login-indonesia.html 3 days, 14 hours ago
What you did is pretty basic. There are many apps in Facebook that have similar effect. Perhaps you want to try NetworkedBlogs. It has more feature, but of course it depends on your preferences and your aim with it.

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