Facebook Integration: Receive Notification to New Replies via Facebook

Xaliber

New member
So far, among other forum softwares, I have seen XenForo as the most integrated software with social media features.

However I notice something that I think could be used to improve XenForo social media integration.

That is, I haven't seen a Facebook intergration which let user to subscribe to threads (like the normal subscribe with email) with Facebook notification. So if there is a new reply to a thread user have subscribed, they will be notified from Facebook's notification.

Since Facebook has a huge userbase, I think such a feature will be neat. So any time there is an activity within the forum board, the user will know if they're accessing Facebook (if they integrated their forum account with Facebook, that is). I think nowadays people are accessing Facebook more often than e-mail, thus rendering e-mail (as a method of notification) less effective than Facebook.

I think, using Facebook API, such a feature theoretically possible to be made. With countries that have a huge demographic of Facebook user (like in Asia), this feature I see could be a massive boost to XenForo userbase. How do you think? :)
 
Upvote 9
That would be an absolutely amazing feature, not completely sure if Facebook allow that much integration but if they do it'd be absolutely gamechanging for us I reckon.

People say Social Media is hurting forums but I completely disagree and something like this would only serve to enhance the use of social media in connecting and bringing people into the world of discussion boards.
 
Like Steve said, not sure if this is actually possible or not. However if possible this would be an excellent way to draw users from Facebook to your site.
 
I think this could be a very good idea.

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Yup, something like this! :)

Regarding the possibilities, I think we could facilitate Facebook application to do this. With Facebook apps, it could push notifications to the user, and with Facebook API we could integrate the Facebook app with Xenforo. The technical details need to be inspected further, but I think the big picture will be something like that. :)
 
It's definitely possible, but I think would require a lot of code that might not be used if people don't use the original Facebook integration feature. Something like this would be cool, along with posting to your personal Facebook when you create a thread, reply to a thread, like a post, etc - but those go beyond the scope of a forum software, in my opinion.
 
Does anyone have the "short story" on what vB's Facebook thing does ?
You mean their "official" Facebook app? Yeah, like DBA said it's basically to keep your members on Facebook and give them the same sense of dumb that they get from Facebook. And by that I mean they want you to feel stupidly safe :P
 
Yes .. One would need to make an Fb app for the forum and publish it on Fb ..

Users who are registered on the forum can simply add the app (give it permission) on Fb.
The app will be hosted on the same server as your forum.

So now with a little code magic you can push all sorts of notification and messages to your users who is logged into facebook.
 
Yes .. One would need to make an Fb app for the forum and publish it on Fb ..
Making an app isn't a big deal considering you have to do it to integrate the Facebook login to your site.

I just feel like there's certain times where there is such a thing as too much social integration - especially in a forum system.
 
Making an app isn't a big deal considering you have to do it to integrate the Facebook login to your site.

I just feel like there's certain times where there is such a thing as too much social integration - especially in a forum system.

I feel the same way but we needn't fight it .. but rather embrace it.
Internet is not just geek-space .. its for everyone :)

The intent here ,I believe , is to have cross-visibility between Social Networks and Forums .. without having to constantly switch between them.

Please share your views, I am very curious about this whole idea as well.
 
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily fighting it - simply voicing my opinion on the matter :) I would love to see some of the stuff in xenForo, but at the same time I don't want every xenForo forum to turn into a spam-fest in my news feed (which can happen with any app, I suppose...)
 
Ofcourse .. Luckily facebook has become more strict with its permissions allowing apps to post on your wall.
So that concern has been addressed to a good extent.

How I see it:-

Your forum achievements and trophies get published on your Fb wall. (Social Recognition/Vanity)
You get notification updates from your Forum on your Fb homepage. (Visibility)
Find & become Fb friends with people you meet on forums. (Connections)
Your forum app can go through your Fb "likes" and suggest you topics and threads tagged with similar keywords(Content Discovery).


What do you think ?
 
That's an awesome outline, thank you for that :) The only "concern" I have is getting flooded if you're a member on a lot of forums that have Facebook integration enabled (which is pretty much ever xenForo forum I'm a member on). Think of it this way (at least from my standpoint): I get roughly 20-30+ Facebook notifications alone (not including other app invites, etc). Now say I get 10 notifications from every forum I'm on, and guesstimate the number of forums to be around 10.

While checking notifications isn't hard, they eventually add up the more an application can send me notifications about. With my above example, that's 100 notifications from forums alone, plus I'd also have the other 30 from Facebook. While that may not be a big number to some people, I don't constantly check my Facebook - in fact, I'm actually moving away from checking it at all (in favor of Google+).

In short, my main concern is finding a median between being notified properly, versus being notified for every action (I'm hoping that make sense).
 
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