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Archive for March, 2009

New Facebook Layout Failed?

March 21st, 2009

My first status on redesigned facebook layout was like “is liking new facebook homepage design!” – well, I liked it and I still like it. But wait, i’m such kind of user who spends most of the time in front of his laptop, who likes and understands all these “real-time stream”, who understands how facebook is trying to kill twitter …etc.

But what about 200 million users who are not a nerd like me? Today, I have read almost 200+ comments on this poll that was published to know about users feedback. Do I really need to read the comments when the result says around 95% users don’t like the new layout design?

Still, I wanted to know why people didn’t like it. Certainly, users got some good points. And some of them are …

It brings all craps on home page, last detail of every single thing.
It’s confusing, highlights seems like an advertisement.
Users have less control of what they see and what they write.
Live feed was very popular tab and it’s removed
User don’t get notifications when a friend get tagged…..etc

I know, users have to adapt with the new layout and it takes time. This is call “adaptation” dude? We saw users hated the 2^nd layout design but after a certain time they got adapted with it. Now, it’s not been too long since 2^nd layout changed, but this latest changes actually surprised maximum users. Facebook didn’t prepare them like before. This time users don’t have option to go back to old layout which was on 2^nd design change.

This time I have a full doubt about this design change. I just feel facebook must do something about it or they will lose a number of good users. I know people are addicted to facrbook, so whatever they ask us to eat, we are bound to eat that. But still redesigned facebook has to be changed, maybe not going back to old design but it has to give users more power and maybe bringing back the “Live Feed” tab will be a good idea. So that those who are interested to “real-time” can stay on that page.

Now, this is interesting. mark zuckerberg had a tread on his facebook public page that says…

Lots of good feedback on the new streams home page. Thanks for all the encouragement. If you’re not into it, try it out for a few more days and tell us.

Now, you want to hear what people are saying?

Read them here, im sure you will enjoy all users feedback….

what’s your feeback on new layout?

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Posted in Design, Facebook, Twitter

Facebook Chat Invite API to Increase The Application Users.

March 13th, 2009

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Over the last few days, we have seen some major changes on Facebook developer platform which will increase the application developers to engage more users with their applications. I will try to write on them one by one in near future whenever I get time. Today, i’m going to discuss “Chat Invite API” with an example and I will also focus on area(s) how we can use this API to get more users attention.

Chat invite API Enables your users to initiate Facebook Chat with their friends from within your applications. Great! Let’s give this responsibility to users to bring their friends in our application.

Three main attributes of this API are..

msg (required)
condensed
exclude_ids

an example could be like the following..

<fb:chat-invite msg="let's play a game!" condensed="false" exclude_ids="1,2,3"/>

2 things are very important here, “msg” that comes in the chat input box when you select an online friend from the list, so be sure that you put something related to your application. Setting up the application URL will be right idea along with some text.

I.e :

 msg ="Come join me! <?=$base_url;?>"

: Invite Chat from your Canvas Page

: Chat with friends from Canvase Page

another attribute is “exclude_id”, let’s exclude those who haven’t added this application and idle. So that we will show those users who have not added our application and who are idle. Let’s look at the complete example that does this job for us.

<?php 
include_once("config.php");
$users = $facebook->api_client->fql_query("SELECT uid FROM user WHERE is_app_user = 1 and uid IN (SELECT uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = {$fbuser})");
/*
 * Now, let's make these ids comma seperated (1,2,3)
 */
$arFriends = "";
    // Build an delimited list of users...
    if ($users){
        $arFriends .= $users[0]["uid"];
        for ( $i = 1; $i &lt; count($users); $i++ )    {
            if ( $arFriends != "" )        $arFriends .= ",";
            $arFriends .= $users[$i]["uid"];
        }
    }
?>
//now place this code where you want to show your chat invite box.
<fb:js-string var="chatInvite">  <fb:chat-invite msg="Come join me! <?=$base_url;?>" condensed="true" exclude_ids="<?=$arFriends;?>"/> </fb:js-string>
    <div id="chat_invite_container"></div>
<script> document.getElementById('chat_invite_container').setInnerFBML(chatInvite); </script>

Chat with friends from Canvase Page

Thats it! Now, we can allow users to talk to their friends directly from your application.

Reference : http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Fb:chat-invite

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Posted in API, Facebook, PHP

Let’s Find a Heaven in This Hell…

March 2nd, 2009

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Yesterday, my mom invited our relatives at our place for dinner…..ok, wait, let me come to this story later!

I have been pretending a lot since this BDR (Bangladesh rifles) mutiny. Stopping myself from updating my status about it or saying something on it on twitter. Keeping myself in silent when all friends are firing about what BDR/Army did, even when my family members are talking at dinner table.

I’m just too much shocked! I have no language to express this feeling. What difference would I make by saying something about it on twitter? Will these kids get back their fathers in their family? Will all these women get back their husbands in their family even if I scream so loud looking at the sky with spreading my hands? -sigh!

Another thing make me a little bit hypocrite talking about this. I will never feel the pain and sorrow that a kid is feeling after losing his/her dad. A women after losing her husband. I will never feel the same until I lose my own brother or sister!

I know I can ask thousands questions about this incident. But to me a question or rule is worthless when someone is already gone. Life is very beautiful, you have taken that life! What else matters to that dead person? But still I have a question! “why this happened?” no, no you didn’t get my question – I’m not asking what actually happened between BDR and Army so that it happened. Look around – almighty is all around right? He knows what you are doing and how you are doing? Almighty knew that it was going to happen right. If he likes to see people in peace then why wouldn’t he stop it? Why did he allow all these army people for misleading BDRs? BDRs are our brothers too, he knew that eh? If he has all powers then why wouldn’t he do such thing so that we people never fight with each other, we never hate each other, we never kill each other! – ok, I know im talking rubbish!

This is a hell, this is not the world I imagine. So, john lennon’s “Imagine” doesn’t give any peace in my mind. I’m just tired of all these things!

Ok enough, let’s come to the story I started at the beginning. So, we had lots of guests here at my sylhet house. Among them there, were around 8-10 kids! As usual, when I see kids I take them to my room or a place where I can play with them. And for some reasons kids easily adapt with me…

anyways, they were playing on my bed and I was taking some pictures of them while there were playing. They would fight and then forget, cry and then hug the kid who slapped! Things were going on for around an hour. Most amazing thing happened when a kid went to wash room leaving her chocolate on the bed. Next one came and took it, she asked the other one like “whos chocolate is this?” “it’s not yours” other kid replied. She left the chocolate exactly where it was! I was staring at her! Wow, i’m in heaven in this hell! Look at these kids who don’t understand what is called BDR and what is called Army! They are not bothered. But, they know PEACE.