Facebook integration needs a bunch of enhancements

jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
edited August 3, 2010 in SmugMug Support
After using (or trying to use) the Smugmug Facebook integration, I am finding it in serious need of a bunch of enhancements.

1) The "Be Social" interface doesn't allow me to use a shortcut link (I use bit.ly) that lets me track click-throughs. It only puts in the very long Smugmug link.

2) The "Be Social" interface doesn't have a way to link to a gallery, only to the lightbox view of a single photo. I nearly always want to pick a representative thumb and then link to a gallery, not to a single photo. The way it ends up now, it just looks amateurish.

3) The "Be Social" interface copies the long Smugmug link onto the end of my Facebook post (without showing that in the preview). So, if I include a bit.ly link in my post, I then end up with three versions of the link (the bit.ly version, the one that Smugmug copied onto the end of my post and the one that Facebook puts above my thumbnail). That's all quite messy. Only one or two are required. I don't want Smugmug to copy the link onto the end of the post.

4) The "Be Social" interface should give you a preview of what it's going to look like on FB.

5) My preference would be to type my posts directly into FB (and then I wouldn't need any of these "Be Social" improvements) but, when I type a gallery link or a photo link into FB, I don't get any choice of thumbnails. I'd really like Smugmug to serve up the right data to FB so that when they go looking for thumbnails, they find lots of them so I can pick which thumbnail I want. I presume this is because you're serving FB the ajax version of the page that has no actual thumbs in it (until the JS runs) rather than a version of the page that has images in it (like you serve search engines). Please fix this and let us use FB directly to link to galleries.

6) Why duplicate the gallery title above the thumbnail? It only needs to be there once. If there's no gallery description, then just leave it blank rather than duplicating the gallery name again.

To summarize, here's a screenshot of a recent "Be Social" posting from my facebook page where you can see how amateurish it all looks and how many ways it could be improved.

2010-07-10_1023.png
--John
HomepagePopular
JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
Always include a link to your site when posting a question
«1

Comments

  • ssklarssklar Registered Users Posts: 22 Big grins
    edited July 10, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    After using (or trying to use) the Smugmug Facebook integration, I am finding it in serious need of a bunch of enhancements.

    +1! Agreed ... the current implementation is very weak.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 10, 2010
    Great feedback - I'll show it to our FB Developer, and Product Manager. John, can you dupe this on http://smugmug.uservoice.com ? Thanks!
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 10, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    Great feedback - I'll show it to our FB Developer, and Product Manager. John, can you dupe this on http://smugmug.uservoice.com ? Thanks!
    I really don't like uservoice for this type of feedback on existing features. Do you have some internal process that makes it hard to act on if it's not in uservoice?
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 10, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    I really don't like uservoice for this type of feedback on existing features. Do you have some internal process that makes it hard to act on if it's not in uservoice?

    Having our feature requests all in one place is a great way for us to track them. I sure hope you'll add it there, as well. Thank you.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 10, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    Having our feature requests all in one place is a great way for us to track them. I sure hope you'll add it there, as well. Thank you.
    OK, I posted it on uservoice here.

    FYI, I don't monitor or discuss on uservoice.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 10, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    FYI, I don't monitor or discuss on uservoice.

    Thanks! Others will really see your request, and we have it logged now. You'll get updates as we change things on the request.
  • roletterolette Registered Users Posts: 223 Major grins
    edited July 11, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    2) The "Be Social" interface doesn't have a way to link to a gallery, only to the lightbox view of a single photo. I nearly always want to pick a representative thumb and then link to a gallery, not to a single photo. The way it ends up now, it just looks amateurish.

    +1

    That's really what I'm interested in doing 90% of the time I post a link on FB.

    Jay
  • peestandinguppeestandingup Registered Users Posts: 489 Major grins
    edited July 11, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    Having our feature requests all in one place is a great way for us to track them. I sure hope you'll add it there, as well. Thank you.
    The problem with this method is that none of these requests are being compiled in some kind of orderly fashion & you're getting duplicate requests (with slightly different wording).

    I basically posted this same exact request about "Be Social" stinking just a few days ago here. The Uservoice link is in that thread as well. My request was more about mobility, but had the same quabbles as above (URL shortening, overall integration sucking, etc)

    Im just saying, if we're telling everyone to just go to Uservoice, then there ought to be some kind of order or else its gonna just be a big mess.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 11, 2010
    The problem with this method is that none of these requests are being compiled in some kind of orderly fashion & you're getting duplicate requests (with slightly different wording).

    I basically posted this same exact request about "Be Social" stinking just a few days ago here. The Uservoice link is in that thread as well. My request was more about mobility, but had the same quabbles as above (URL shortening, overall integration sucking, etc)

    Im just saying, if we're telling everyone to just go to Uservoice, then there ought to be some kind of order or else its gonna just be a big mess.
    We go through and merge requests every so often. Thanks, Pee!
  • BigAlBigAl Registered Users Posts: 2,294 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    OK, I posted it on uservoice here.

    FYI, I don't monitor or discuss on uservoice.

    Added my vote. I must also add my dislike for uservoice, especially the lack of structure.
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2010
    BigAl wrote: »
    Added my vote. I must also add my dislike for uservoice, especially the lack of structure.

    When you type in the search box you get a list of relevant suggestions... is that not working for you?

    We merge and update often there. In fact we just did it yesterday, too.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    When you type in the search box you get a list of relevant suggestions... is that not working for you?

    We merge and update often there. In fact we just did it yesterday, too.
    The suggestions only work about 30% of the time. I did such a search and didn't see Pee's previous request. I don't know if it didn't come up in the search I did or if it came up, but didn't look like the same issue to me. In any case, I'd agree that if you really want any statistics to be useful out of uservoice, you're going to have to do a lot of hand merging of similar issues.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    The suggestions only work about 30% of the time. I did such a search and didn't see Pee's previous request. I don't know if it didn't come up in the search I did or if it came up, but didn't look like the same issue to me. In any case, I'd agree that if you really want any statistics to be useful out of uservoice, you're going to have to do a lot of hand merging of similar issues.
    We do it. Anne McBean just did it a few days ago. We also comment, close out, update, etc. Thanks!
  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Facebook integration, and copying captions from Smug to Facebook & vice-versa
    Thanks for raising this thread, John-- I have had all of the same beefs, and think I've mentioned them here & there (including somehow on UserVoice), but you've described the problems much better than I could, and the screen-shots make it clear what the problems are. I'll look for these on UserVoice & add votes.

    I have a related question about SmugMug-Facebook integration. I'm sure the answer is "no", but I'll post it here anyway in case anyone has come up with better solutions than I have: I caption many of my photos, esp. family ones. I post some of the same photos on Facebook (in actual Facebook albums, not just a "Be Social" link). I have to manually copy & paste captions from one site to the other. The fastest way I can find to do this is: open 2 pages, open "edit photos" on FB & "captions & keywords" on Smug. Then copy & paste where I see matching photos. It's slow & aggravating. Any better ideas? (as a side-note, captions don't show up from metadata on FB. And for me, the wrong ones show up in Smug-- Smug uses the description field for captions, which is also a real pain)
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Thanks for raising this thread, John-- I have had all of the same beefs, and think I've mentioned them here & there (including somehow on UserVoice), but you've described the problems much better than I could, and the screen-shots make it clear what the problems are. I'll look for these on UserVoice & add votes.

    I have a related question about SmugMug-Facebook integration. I'm sure the answer is "no", but I'll post it here anyway in case anyone has come up with better solutions than I have: I caption many of my photos, esp. family ones. I post some of the same photos on Facebook (in actual Facebook albums, not just a "Be Social" link). I have to manually copy & paste captions from one site to the other. The fastest way I can find to do this is: open 2 pages, open "edit photos" on FB & "captions & keywords" on Smug. Then copy & paste where I see matching photos. It's slow & aggravating. Any better ideas? (as a side-note, captions don't show up from metadata on FB. And for me, the wrong ones show up in Smug-- Smug uses the description field for captions, which is also a real pain)
    I don't have any better ideas for how to get the right captions in FB - that just sounds like a missing feature on FB (that they don't read captions out of the metadata) and nothing to do with Smugmug.

    The real home run would be if someone (at Smugmug) could figure out a way for our photos to live on Smugmug, but have all the same features as photos that are uploaded to FB. It's so much easier for someone on FB to quickly view a set of photos in FB that to go to the whole new context of Smugmug. Yes, I know Smugmug offers a better viewing experience than the little, non-color-managed photos of FB, but sometimes you want convenience more than beauty. The homerun would be a way to have both - convenience of photos being quick and in context in FB, but a click away to the full gallery in Smugmug with only one upload and only the SM galleries that I specify. The Grand Prize goes to anyone at Smugmug that figures out how to do that.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    And for me, the wrong ones show up in Smug-- Smug uses the description field for captions, which is also a real pain)

    Why 'for me'? How do you caption your photos?
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    The homerun would be a way to have both

    15524779-Ti.gif
  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    Why 'for me'? How do you caption your photos?

    Andy, I caption them in the title field if I've processed them for stock. 99% of the time, in the stock industry, the title field is what's used for the caption, which only makes sense. The description field is just what it says it is... a description! That's typically a longer explanation, not a simple caption/title. I can give you a ton of examples. But we've been through this before. The point is not that SmugMug has to do it like the stock industry or anyone else, but it sure would be fantastic to have a choice. It doesn't make sense to me that the longer field, in which you can get very descriptive, would be the one to end up as my caption, & then my caption (title) is unable to show up here. Just wish I had the choice, because only those that I've processed for stock already have a caption anyway, yet I still have to re-write it once it appears here on Smug.
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Andy, I caption them in the title field if I've processed them for stock. 99% of the time, in the stock industry, the title field is what's used for the caption, which only makes sense. The description field is just what it says it is... a description! That's typically a longer explanation, not a simple caption/title. I can give you a ton of examples. But we've been through this before. The point is not that SmugMug has to do it like the stock industry or anyone else, but it sure would be fantastic to have a choice. It doesn't make sense to me that the longer field, in which you can get very descriptive, would be the one to end up as my caption, & then my caption (title) is unable to show up here. Just wish I had the choice, because only those that I've processed for stock already have a caption anyway, yet I still have to re-write it once it appears here on Smug.
    This is quite a different topic than the original post in this thread. But, as another point of view, I appreciate it that the field labeled "Caption" in Lightroom is the one that becomes the Smugmug caption when I upload. Works as expected for Lightroom users.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    I thought I had some brilliant ideas on how to work out this total lack of control over what our FB postings look like while still getting thumbnails. I had a bunch of ideas to try:

    Workaround Idea #1) Lock the gallery to the old All Thumbs style before posting a link in FB. That will cause Smugmug to put the image thumbs directly into the page and FB should find them and offer them as a choice when I try to post a link to a Smugmug gallery in FB. If it works, I can put the Smugmug gallery back to viewer controlled style when done with the FB post.

    Result #1) No luck. FB won't even grab the thumbnails from the old All Thumbs style. Further, FB picks up the top level site meta data, not anything useful related to the gallery itself as the description for the FB posting. FB really, really, really doesn't like Smumug pages. This idea doesn't even come close to working.

    Workaround Idea #2) Try posting a link in FB directly to the single image lightbox page. That's essentially what Smugmug does now in their FB integration and hopefully that will at least give one image to choose from as a thumbnail.

    Result #2) No luck. FB won't offer any thumbnails off that link. Ahhh, yes probably doesn't work because the LB page is JS generated, not pure HTML.

    Workaround #3) Try posting a link in FB to a specific size of the lightbox page to avoid the JS generated auto size (e.g. -XL).

    Result #3) No luck. FB won't offer any thumbnails off that link.

    At this point I'm just hosed. There appears to be no way where I can control the contents of the FB posting and get a nice Link box in FB with a link to my gallery and an appropriate thumbnail.

    So, my two choices are: #1) Accept the ugly format that Smugmug generates from their FB integration with no trackable short links or #2) Control the format myself, but get no FB link box with thumbnail. If I want to control the look and link, I can't even have a thumbnail for a link to a photo gallery of all things. This is pretty hosed.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »

    So, my two choices are: #1) Accept the ugly format that Smugmug generates from their FB integration with no trackable short links or #2) Control the format myself, but get no FB link box with thumbnail. If I want to control the look and link, I can't even have a thumbnail for a link to a photo gallery of all things. This is pretty hosed.
    Hey, give us a little time, OK? :D

    Thanks again for the detailed posting.
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    Hey, give us a little time, OK? :D

    Thanks again for the detailed posting.
    Just adding more info on the issue as I try to make a decent looking FB posting to a new Smugmug gallery I just uploaded last night. I was hoping to find a work-around even if it was a bunch of extra steps. Haven't found it.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AndyAndy Registered Users Posts: 50,016 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    Just adding more info on the issue.

    Yup - I just want to say this has our attention, and we're looking hard at it. Thanks again, John!
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Here's another reason I don't want to be forced to use Smugmug's Be Social interface. Besides not giving me any control over the look, it doesn't allow me to specify who can view a given FB posting. I occasionally want to only share things with family members (I have a FB list of just family members) and I occasionally want to share with everyone (not only friends). Smugmug's Be Social interface doesn't allow me to do either. It only supports posting for all FB friends - no more, no less.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    We go through and merge requests every so often. Thanks, Pee!
    I still don't see Pee's request, but here are three other FB uservoice requests that should probably be combined with mine in some way or at least considered at the same time:

    http://smugmug.uservoice.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/332156-provide-thumbnails-when-a-gallery-web-address-is-p?ref=title

    http://smugmug.uservoice.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/372833-facebook-clean-link?ref=title

    http://smugmug.uservoice.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/332140-allow-be-social-capability-with-facebook-fan-pag?ref=title
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AnneMcBeanAnneMcBean Registered Users Posts: 503 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »

    Thanks! While adding the first feature would eliminate the need for the third feature (at least for the use-case specified), these seem like three pretty distinct requests to me, actually.

    -Anne
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • jfriendjfriend Registered Users Posts: 8,097 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    AnneMcBean wrote: »
    Thanks! While adding the first feature would eliminate the need for the third feature (at least for the use-case specified), these seem like three pretty distinct requests to me, actually.

    -Anne
    SmugMug Support Hero
    Perhaps I'm reading them differently. The first link looks the same to me as my request 5).

    The second link is about the redundant and ugly full smugmug link that is automatically put into the FB posting by Smugmug which is exactly what my request 3) is about.

    The third link is a different request, but I thought should be considered by the developer at the same time since solving my item 5) would also allow one to put Smugmug links in fan pages too. And, just because Smugmug enables us power users to use the FB interface for linking to Smugmug's galleries doesn't mean that Smugmug should get rid of or stop enhancing it's own Share interface either. You should support both means of link a FB post to a SM gallery. One is the "training wheels" mechanism that gets you a standard, non-customizable format that Smugmug predetermines. The other lets you control the look of your own FB post by building it manually.
    --John
    HomepagePopular
    JFriend's javascript customizationsSecrets for getting fast answers on Dgrin
    Always include a link to your site when posting a question
  • AnneMcBeanAnneMcBean Registered Users Posts: 503 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    jfriend wrote: »
    Perhaps I'm reading them differently. The first link looks the same to me as my request 5).

    The second link is about the redundant and ugly full smugmug link that is automatically put into the FB posting by Smugmug which is exactly what my request 3) is about.

    The third link is a different request, but I thought should be considered by the developer at the same time since solving my item 5) would also allow one to put Smugmug links in fan pages too. And, just because Smugmug enables us power users to use the FB interface for linking to Smugmug's galleries doesn't mean that Smugmug should get rid of or stop enhancing it's own Share interface either. You should support both means of link a FB post to a SM gallery. One is the "training wheels" mechanism that gets you a standard, non-customizable format that Smugmug predetermines. The other lets you control the look of your own FB post by building it manually.

    Ack, I'm sorry... I was looking in the wrong spot. All three links you posted are distinct requests in my mind, but you're absolutely right in that they overlap with parts of the list you posted.

    Unfortunately a long list like this: http://smugmug.uservoice.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/899001-facebook-integration-improvements-needed is great for discussion on dgrin, but not the best way for us to track requests on uservoice. That is because, as you pointed out, the list encompasses so any distinct things. When someone adds their vote it doesn't tell us whether we should prioritize 1 and 2 on the list, or whether 5 is most important to our customers.

    No worries, though, we have the feedback in both places now and I'm sure the comments on uservoice and votes on similar features will help the most critical improvements float to the top. Thanks for the help!

    -Anne
    SmugMug Support Hero
  • Need2SkiNeed2Ski Registered Users Posts: 27 Big grins
    edited July 14, 2010
    Andy wrote: »
    Yup - I just want to say this has our attention, and we're looking hard at it. Thanks again, John!

    Thanks! Im very pleased to hear this is being addressed.
  • WinsomeWorksWinsomeWorks Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2010
    Hey everyone!! To vote on these Facebook-Smug integration ideas (all of which are GREAT!) please go here on UserVoice: http://smugmug.uservoice.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/899001-facebook-integration-improvements-needed and make your voice heard.
    jfriend wrote: »
    This is quite a different topic than the original post in this thread. But, as another point of view, I appreciate it that the field labeled "Caption" in Lightroom is the one that becomes the Smugmug caption when I upload. Works as expected for Lightroom users.
    Yeah, I know. Just answering Andy. Guess I did start that by asking the question though. I'm glad to know that about Lightroom. It's "just" Photoshop that doesn't synch correctly... aargh! Ok, gonna try again to go vote on all these Facebook improvements.... let's get this baby near the top of the list, people!!! Thanks to all who are explaining the problems.
    Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
    DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Sign In or Register to comment.