WPBook 1.5 Released – Let the Streaming begin!

WPBook

So for a while I’ve been working on and beta testing the next version of WPBook. Tonight I’ve just tagged it for release, so it will be available for download shortly. (I’ve already been running it here for a while and testing it on a few other test blogs).

The main improvement in WPBook 1.5 is that it now knows how to use stream.publish, meaning that it will automatically post to your wall in Facebook when you publish a post in WordPress. Your friends should see that notification as well in their streams. (We’re not, however, sending application updates or tracking all users’ user id’s – instead you enter your own userid into the settings and it uses that to post to your wall). Included are attachments (first image attached to the post is used) and excerpts (if you hand craft excerpts they will be used in the wall post).

The other main improvement is that WPBook now requires PHP5, and as such can wrap Facebook calls in Try/Catch blocks. For the non-programmer, this means those awful, dramatic “fatal uncaught exception” error screens are gone. WPBook isn’t doing anything terribly meaningful with those errors yet – still working on that- but at least it traps them.

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Social Media Engagement, Ice Cream, and Murder

Earlier this summer, the Altimeter Group and WetPaint collaborated to produce the ENGAGEMENTdb site and related ENGAGEMENTdb Report ( a free download).

It’s truly a must-read if you’re interested in how large brands are engaging their customers through social media. In the Introduction, Ben Elowitz (of WetPaint) and Charlene Li (of Altimeter) claim:

While much has been written questioning the value of social media, this landmark study has found that the most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. The relationship is apparent and significant: socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful.

So now we know it pays to be social, but it is important to note that by “social,” we’re talking about deep engagement, not merely having a presence.

But there’s an interesting rhetorical slip there – in the space between “a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement” and “it pays to be social” we’ve crossed the gap between correlation and causation.

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Assembled Web and Social Media

Thought I’d share a quick embedded presentation here for folks who aren’t yet following me on SlideShare. (Although after performing tag-team PowerPoint Karaoke at PodCamp Boston, perhaps I should think twice?).

The goal of the presentation- a sanitized (client references removed) version of one given to a client this week – was to talk about:

• Social Media (and specifically how to get started with it)
• Facebook (and other social network applications)
• The iPhone (and other mobile platforms)

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BarCamp Boston 4

One of my favorite new trends of the last couple of years is the unconference movement and the *Camps, associated originally with BarCamp (an alternative to the invite only, highly exclusive FooCamp put on for “Friends Of O’Reilly”) but now extended to PodCamp, HeroCamp, TransparencyCamp, and even MooseCamp. (There’s also the inevitable CampCamp, though the name CampCamp was in use by another group since 1997).

Now BarCamp Boston 4 is coming up this April 25th and 26th at the Stata Center at MIT. Although ultimately the topics discussed are determined by who shows up, odds are that free and open source software, social media, voting, government transparency, robotics, hardware and software hacking, startups, and all kinds of topics related to openness, the web, and business will be common.

BarCamp Boston 4

I definitely plan to be there and I’d encourage you to register and attend, whether you’re a veteran or a n00b to the unconference world. It’s a fantastic opportunity to have a real conversation, in the absence of hugely expensive registration fees or overbearing sponsors.

Code Monkey Go To Job

This summer Tara Hunt of HorsePigCow interviewed Jonathan Coulton. As a fan of both, I downloaded the podcast for later listening and then forgot all about. Finally got around to that “to listen to later” folder this morning, and would encourage you to check it out.

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