Are you on Facebook ?

Are you on Facebook ?

  • Yes - I'm totally addicted!

    Votes: 13 21.3%

  • Yes

    Votes: 41 67.2%

  • No

    Votes: 1 1.6%

  • No - Facebook is EVIL!

    Votes: 6 9.8%
  • Total voters
    61
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We are interested to know how many of you users (especially listeners) are on Facebook ?

Facebook today announced it was taking over the web with its new global Like button (BBC Article : BBC News - Facebook's bid to rule the web as it goes social). We are considering implementing this to allow users to share which radio stations they like or are currently listening to. This could be a great way to share your taste in music and for independent radio stations to gain more listeners through Facebook.

We have attached a poll (above) to gain some insight.

Shameless plug. We have a Facebook Fan page : Internet Radio | Facebook

and now a new Facebook App : Internet Radio Facebook Application
 
If you're not on Facebook then you should be ashaimed!! It's one of the most powerful tools on the web to this day, second only to Google, which you can only search with. Facebook helps you connect, share messages, and is so simple to use... Twitter is for losers who speak too much (quite frankly)!! MySpace is dying, a slow and terrible death... as for Bebo... need I say anymore?!
 
Interesting opinions there Ben thanks for sharing and getting involved in the debate :) On the flip side there are those who think Facebook is a threat to the freedom of the internet. Essentially their argument is that Facebook is a private 'walled' community who perhaps shouldn't be trusted. Their recent API release allows Facebook to be integrated into all websites quite heavily (and that's their plan)... should we be happy about having Facebook as the gatekeeper to all this information ? The data gathered by Facebook is priceless from a marketing point of view. Bearing in mind Facebook needs to start making some money for its investors at some point... what will they do with this juicy data ? There are of course privacy issues to be thrown in to the argument with most people utterly oblivious about what info they are actually sharing. The default privacy settings are quite revealing and bearing in mind what sort of info / pictures people share possibly worrying for certain individuals.

Having said that we are on the fence in the debate (seeing both the positives and negatives) and already have our programmers looking at the API. We could possibly allow listeners to FB connect with the site and 'Like' stations etc... This might be a great way for all the stations we list to get more listeners tuned in. Also you can see which stations your friends like etc... There seem like a lot of possibilities there. Facebook is easily our most popular sharing method on our 'Share' buttons on the directory at the moment so it looks like we may go down the like route for individual stations in the future. Any thoughts on this from anyone ?

We have put off installing Facebook Connect on the forum because of the new API release. Facebook Connect will allow more people to get involved in the forum without needing to go through the hassle of creating an account (just use your FB one). The new API means that the older method of Facebook Connect is likely to be phased out at some point so we want to hold on for a vBulletin plugin to be written for the new API method. Shouldn't take too long. This is definitely something we will install.
 
Facebook

As Far as Hot 100 Radio is concerned, Facebook is a great driving engine for people I know to stay connected, social media and having a Fanpage for the station is great for listeners and the station to update people on ongoing events for your station.


Shawn
Hot 100 Radio
The Hot 100 Radio - Home
 
We are interested to know if there are any Facebook developers out there (i.e. you have a Facebook developer account) ?

Let us know as we are working on an app at the moment and would like to give some access to some developers (only) for testing.
 
Those opinions you have put across make a good read, and every single point you have made is valid and I understand exactly what you are saying. The main thing I feel with Facebook Connect, is it puts all of your eggs into one basket. Some people use Facebook on a daily basis, and linking it to other site via Facebook Connect could (in their mind) jeopardize their account security. Also, if someone manages to get their Facebook password, they also get access to all of the sites they use Facebook Connect with (all listed inside Facebook, for that much easier access).

I have a few things on my site, that allows people to "Like" this on their Facebook profile, which is fine. As for Facebook taking over the whole internet... they are well on their way to doing that!! If Facebook started to charge users to monthly fee, say £0.99 a month.. I think many people would buy in to it. It's the biggest network of it's type, and because people use it day in day out, they will soon miss it... and lets face it, 99p a month is nothing!!

Back to the developers stuff.. I have a developers account so I am willing to test these apps out for you no worries =D!!
 
We think the ability to login via Facebook to this forum (and other sites in general) will be an added bonus as having yet another registration page and therefore account to administer is a real barrier to people getting involved. I'm 80% sure we will get it installed here soon.

The Like buttons seem to be having an ok response. They are still a little buggy it seems with the recent activity data not working correctly. Traffic wise there had been no major increase in Facebook traffic. Out 'Share' buttons seem to produce more traffic than the 'Like' buttons. We might test out 'Recommend' vs 'Like' and see if that makes and difference.

We have also added a Fan page box to the bottom right of the genre pages. This replaces an Amazon MP3 affiliate box which, well, sucked basically. The Fan box seems to be getting a few new Fans every day which is good and we hit the 500 mark yesterday. We have also started feeding in our News section via RSS to the fan page automatically which appears to be working well.

We have wondered why Facebook hasn't offered some sort of paid 'Premium' account subscription. Higher resolution photos / videos. More allowed to be posted etc... Maybe they will in the future. As its stands they probably have so much investment being ploughed into them that they can put off monetisation a little longer while they work on dominating the online social media space.

Glad to hear you have a developer account. We are nearly ready for beta testing the new app so once we add a few more features we will drop you an email with an invitation to install the app. Thanks Ben :)

Anyone else wanting to get involved please make yourself heard.
 
One thing I would like to mention here, is that Facebook is currently the biggest social network site. Notice when I say *currently* as these things go through phases, or at least they used to!! I remember not so long ago when the craze was MySpace, now if you go onto MySpace today you will see it's DEAD!! Here is the funny thing, people loved the freedom with MySpace, you could have your own font, background etc etc etc... Facebook is totally the opposite, so what happened?

I entered Facebook quite late in life, I see people on there that can barely be 12!! I came across it in early 2008, so I would of just turned 18, which as you can see is quite late in my life. I have also stayed on there for the simple reason I can connect with everyone that I need to, all in one place.

As I said before, these sites go through phases, but I have a feeling this one is here to stay. There is so much going on with the site, but it's still easy to navigate around and you never get lost.


Just a few more points to add to the debate!!
 
Hi,
We have a facebook page alongside twitter and myspace accounts.

While no one can argue that facebook is at the top of the game followed by twitter (and for me) myspace in 3rd, yes over the years myspace has fallen down hill, however for music artists it remains a key site, after all the service and features (and layout) offered for music artists can't be beaten, although it is not as socially connected as the facebook pages.. and of course twitter is a key part of any social network setup, not only can you post to your followers you can link it to all your other social media sites to post updates from twitter to them all, this saves a huge amount of time and of course opens you to the twitter community alongside facebook, myspace and so on.

My advice is to never rely on just one social network tool but use them all, they all have benefits, they all have their own audience and they all open you to a large audience across the world and across all platforms.

Integrate facebook, twitter and myspace (others if you wish) into your website as much as possible, facebook leads the way in this area, this opens up your website to the entire (400 million or so) facebook users.

Social networking is a huge part of what i personally deal with (from a web developers side, from a webmaster side and as a web user) and for me it proves to be a successful tool to gain business/listeners without the marketing, there are some "automatic robots" out there, don't use them, do not "pay for followers/friends", they are either fake or will stop following you after you have paid (after all they are most probably not interested in you), its not about the amount of fans/followers but the quality of those followers, if you have 300 followers but only 100 actually follow you by choice that means you have 200 waisted followers that do not gain you listeners or business..

Anyhow, this is a little of my own opinion, still developing my web design/hosting business site but it is UK Web Hosting - UK Web Design - UK Dedicated Servers - UK Domain Registration - UK Virtual Private Servers - NuWeb Solutions if you need anything!

Also take a look at some of my social networking sites:

Business/Radio:

NuWeb Solutions | Facebook
www.twitter.com/NuWebSolutions
MaxDance.co.uk (Internet Radio) | Facebook
www.twitter.com/MaxDanceUK
MaxDance.co.uk (Internet Radio) (Max Dance) | MySpace

Personal:

Juan Arroyo | Facebook
Juan J Arroyo (JuanJArroyo) on Twitter
Juan Arroyo (Juan Arroyo) | MySpace
Juan Arroyo - United Kingdom | LinkedIn

That's my input on this, sorry about the plugs :)
 
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Hi Fred, Welcome to the forums. So you are a anti-Facebook. We rarely get random friend requests although our fan page does get spammed a fair bit by people promoting their stations. We prune this every now and again so its no problem for us.
 
Hi Fred!
LOL if my partner/wife told me to spend less time on-line i would sign divorce papers in a second for her, then again i like control, over my life, plus its give and take in a relationship, thats my view ;)

Socialising on-line is just like socialising off-line, its just a modern way. I have met nice people from all over the planet thanks to facebook, then again i am a really social person LOL

I have my details on-line (mobile) but then again i do allot of work on line, so being connected and available is essential...if only it paid better!
 
We are on FB but we do try to keep away from this as much as we can. Facebook is a great tool for many people who want to get noticed and find new friends but it also has a downside to it aswel.
 
Hi,
I have of yet to see a downside to it, our fan base is ever growing thanks to facebook, do not use twitter much for the station other than a copy of our facebook page posts, altough will be looking to change that.

I still believe facebook and twitter alongside other social network sites help grow your business or fanbase, and it is free!

Embrace it, social media is a growing trend not only to gain customers/listeners but to inform and provide support also, many companies offer live twitter tech support too these days, even BT (British Telecom) they are at @BTCare, great support from them!
 
facebook

facebook is quite a powerful tool although i find tbh the station directories do more for listeners for our station although at present im looking at applications that allow you to incorporate your actual shoutcast stream onto your facebook timeline
 
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