Can my blog updates appear on facebook?

September 5, 2008 7:38 AM

I'm looking for a facebook application that will update my profile each time I post on my blog, ideally with the first sentence or two of that post included in my profile.

I'm looking for something relatively clean and gimmick-free, as well as something that won't spam my friends. Any recommendations? Thanks very much.

posted by veggieboy to Computers & Internet (20 answers total)

Best answer: You can have your blog updates go to facebook by adding your blog feed into the built-in Notes application. Is that what you're looking for?
posted by Hildegarde at 7:42 AM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I knew this was the kind of question that would take all of four minutes to answer. Thanks, Hildegarde. That seems to do the trick.
posted by veggieboy at 7:50 AM on September 5, 2008

Excellent! I wanted to do this, too, and now I am.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:52 AM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

You may also want to check out ping.fm for a related functionality. If you Twitter, microblog, etc., you can do it via ping and it'll post to whatever services you have set up. I use it to update my Facebook status, tweet, microblog on my blog, and some other junk. You can even do it via IM.
posted by sadiehawkinstein at 7:53 AM on September 5, 2008

Oh goody! I'd been wondering this too!
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 7:59 AM on September 5, 2008

You can have your blog updates go to facebook by adding your blog feed into the built-in Notes application.

(meekly) How would I actually do that? I'm interested in doing the same, but I'm a little technically untutored. (I can get CONCEPTS, but my failing is I often need to have terms defined because I may know what you're talking about except I've been referring to the "blog feed" as "that thingy in the corner").
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:15 AM on September 5, 2008

Looks like you have to have RSS set up to do this. Still cool. May have to set up a feed now (on my personal blog which is just for friends anyway).
posted by cjorgensen at 8:18 AM on September 5, 2008

Okay, log into facebook and go to Notes. It's a basic facebook feature, so you don't have to add anything. Click "my notes". See the little box about note settings? Click anything that says "import settings", which will bring you to a screen where you can add the RSS feed from your blog.

Does that help?
posted by Hildegarde at 8:29 AM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

You may want to checkout SwitchAbit.com
From the FAQ...
SwitchAbit is a utility that allows users to control their content routing across multiple services, permitting control on a post-by-post basis (re: where content should go). Like the Cc: function in email, users send a message once, and have it appear on multiple services.
posted by TheDukeofLancaster at 8:57 AM on September 5, 2008 [1 favorite]

Hildegarde:

Okay, log into facebook and go to Notes. It's a basic facebook feature, so you don't have to add anything. Click "my notes". See the little box about note settings? Click anything that says "import settings", which will bring you to a screen where you can add the RSS feed from your blog. Does that help?

Sort of - how do I know whether my blog HAS an RSS feed? Moreover, what IS an "RSS feed"?

(meekly) Yeah, when I said I was technically untutored, I wasn't kiddin'.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:31 AM on September 5, 2008

ping.fm would be perfect if it had sms :(
SwitchAbit.com is pretty cool looks like i'll be going that route - thanks TheDukeofLancaster!
posted by doorsfan at 9:59 AM on September 5, 2008

Is there a way to make your Facebook postings turn up as blog postings, eg in Wordpress?
posted by skylar at 10:05 AM on September 5, 2008

EmpressCallipygos, where is your blog set up? Usually if you go to your blog (for example on Blogger/Blogspot), this help page explains how to figure out what your feed URL is. If you're using wordpress, I think it varies depending on the theme but often the default icon is the orange square with some dots coming out of it. For example, in the upper right hand corner. In short, it depends on what kind of blog you have, but almost all blogs have a built-in RSS feed somewhere.

Skylar, which facebook postings do you mean exactly? status updates, posted items, photo albums?
posted by polexa at 10:20 AM on September 5, 2008

I have my blog's RSS feed on my Facebook page using "Blog RSS Feed Reader". You should be able to find it if you search for it in Facebook.
posted by iguanapolitico at 10:46 AM on September 5, 2008

EmpressCalliipygos: it's here: http://queencallipygos.livejournal.com/data/rss Is that the one you want to add?

What an RSS feed is: think of your blog as having two parts. The way it looks (the style of the font, the pictures, the formating that makes it indent just so, the colours of the background, etc.) and the stuff you write into it. An RSS feed is only interested in the stuff you write; the RSS feed is updated every time you update your blog, and that content can be "fed" into other systems. It still resides on your blog, and you update it just by updating or even editing your blog, but the RSS feed allows you some flexibility in terms of pushing that information into all kinds of other places, alerting others to your updates.

Does that help?
posted by Hildegarde at 11:48 AM on September 5, 2008

Thanks for this quick answer; I've been on FB for a while now, and literally had no clue you could do this. Wow.

And Duke , I can't believe that users actually are willing to use services like Switchabit that ask you for your usernames and passwords to other sites. Since I'm legitimately curious, what makes you feel comfortable typing your Twitter username and password (or any other service, really) into the Switchabit site? Seriously, you're just giving your login credentials to site A away to site B, without a thought in the world.
posted by delfuego at 12:02 PM on September 5, 2008

Got it straight now -- thanks to all who helped.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:06 PM on September 5, 2008

Hi Polexa - the ones I was thinking about were Facebook notes and posted URLs. Is there a way to use Facebook as the CMS from which I seed blogs, etc?
posted by skylar at 5:05 PM on September 5, 2008

Skylar, I believe there is. I just poked around a little and it looks like you can pull an RSS feed of your posted items & Notes.

If you're using the new interface, mouse-over the applications tab, click on (posted items OR notes), then click on my (posted items OR notes) and on the right-hand side there should be a feed.

As for how you get this to into your blog, it'd be the same way you get any RSS feed into your blog. I guess it depends on which platform you're using and if it's wordpress my guess is that there's a plug-in for it. Unfortunately I'm not well-versed in wordpress at all so you're on your own there. Good luck!
posted by polexa at 10:44 PM on September 6, 2008

Assuming you're talking about the Blogger blog linked in your profile, you could use Blog It to post to your blog from within Facebook and your full post could show up in both places as well as promoting it on Twitter or other services if you want.

Notes does work good for pulling in your blog's feed, too, as everybody mentioned.
posted by anildash at 7:35 PM on September 7, 2008