My Flickr App Blog

Back To The Basics

Time for My Flickr to shift back to the basics!

Over the past year, the number of people and Facebook Pages using My Flickr has grown tremendously, and, for that, I say, Thank You! At the writing of this post, My Flickr has +390,000 monthly active users and almost 20,000 fans. It is running completely on your support through both PayPal donations and minimal ads.

My Flickr, which I started developing as soon as Facebook revealed its app platform in May 2007, has grown to accomplish the following features:

1. Display exactly the photos a user wants according to searches (simple to advanced)
2. Showcase up to three custom searches of a user’s Flickr photos and photosets in a huge My Flickr tab in their Facebook profile
3. Broadcast updates about a user’s latest Flickr photo uploads to their news feed
4. Display larger versions of a user’s photos to their Facebook friends
5. Allow Facebook friends to comment on Flickr photos within Facebook without needing a Flickr account!

However, as of January 12, 2010, the latter two features (4 & 5) have been disabled until further notice, bringing My Flickr back to the basics. I’ll explain.

One of the biggest complaints & concerns voiced by My Flickr’s users included ME, is that navigating around the My Flickr app became extremely slow and sometimes just failed to load. Anyone? Yes. Something needed to be done. I began tweaking & re-factoring the code here and there as much as I could and made some progress; nevertheless, the increasing load from the number of excited users and their Facebook friends taking advantage of the sweet new Photostream & commenting features became to much for our server to handle.

What do people on Facebook most want to do with their Flickr photos?
First, automatically notify their friends & family when they upload new photos. Secondly, showcase & share photos taken with those who view their profile! The basics.

My Flickr desires to accomplish those two tasks and execute them well.

This past semester (senior year!) was definitely the most involved and busiest of my scholastic career. I learned Objective-C programming & even created UH Guide, an iPhone application for the University of Houston (download here). I had no free time to work on My Flickr’s growing load problems.

As I mentioned, both viewing and commenting on larger versions of one’s photos within My Flickr is disabled until further notice. Don’t worry though, Facebook friends who click on a user’s photo or photosets will continue to be directed to the appropriate Flickr pages to view them in full glory! During my free time this last semester, I’ll be working on ways to continue to improve the basics in the My Flickr Facebook application as well as ways to re-enable the other features.

Cheers.
-Kaleb Fulgham

Adding the Box to a Facebook Page

This short tutorial follows my Adding & Managing with Facebook Pages post.

It seems that Facebook Pages always get the shaft when it comes to usability on Facebook.

Assuming that the admin of “A+ Scholars” have already added the My Flickr app to the fake Facebook Page, “A+ Scholars,” with the ID:39704393888, let’s dive into adding the My Flickr Box to our Page.

First, visit http://facebook.com/pages/manage/ and click “Edit Page” under the “A+ Scholars” page. Second, scroll down to the “My Flickr” entry under Applications. Third, click the pencil button to open a drop-down menu and click “Application Settings.”

A dialog box entitled “Edit My Flickr Settings” should pop-up. Click the (add) link next to Box:.

Facebook should have added the My Flickr box to the Boxes tab on the “A+ Scholars” Facebook Page. The admin of “A+ Scholars” wants My Flickr to be a bit more prominent and decides to move the Box to the primary Wall tab. The admin visits his page, clicks to the Boxes tab, clicks the pencil on the My Flickr box, and clicks “Move to Wall tab.”

Now, the admin of “A+ Scholars” can go Configure what to display in the My Flickr box using an easy, customizable search.

Final product after moving the Box to the Wall tab:

Flickr Tagging of Facebook Friends

After a little more than 4 days of polling My Flickr’s users about tagging Facebook friends in photos, we gathered 115 responses.

Normal tagging of Facebook friends is a relatively straight-forward process to implement, but the infrastructure of placing boxes around friends’ faces will require significantly more time to develop. The tags will be available on Facebook as well as Flickr. They will be machine tags which are almost the same as normal tags, but provide a little more context. Theese machine tags will able to be used in other Flickr 3rd-party applications & provide portability (backup solutions)!

The results from the survey revealed a strong two-thirds win between the two options:

1. Tagging of Friends - 66%
2. Tagging of Friends with specific frames/boxes - 34%

This will be the next feature I will be working on for My Flickr. Enjoy!

Adding & Managing with Facebook Pages

Facebook Pages are not a new thing with Facebook; however, recently, they have received a much needed facelift. The process of adding & managing applications though was and still remains a confusing & daunting task. This post will hopefully break down that barrier with the My Flickr App.

During this tutorial, we will be adding the My Flickr App to the fake Facebook Page, “A+ Scholars,” with the ID:39704393888. The Facebook Page would be accessible via http://facebook.com/profile.php?id=39704393888

The A+ Scholars admin visits http://facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2352557895 and clicks the “Add to Page” button, chooses “A+ Scholars,” and clicks the “Add My Flickr” button.

The admin is redirected to My Flickr’s setup screen where they will authenticate their currently logged into Flickr account (aplusscholarslovesmyflickr) with “A+ Scholars.” The admin is redirected to Flickr and allows My Flickr READ ONLY access. The admin is then directed back to My Flickr’s Configure page to get started. The URL in the URL Bar should look like this: http://apps.facebook.com/myflickr/configure/?fb_page_id=7865241014

The admin searches for the Most Recent photos tagged “Open House” and saves the search to “A+ Scholars” page box. The admin notices a new Faceboo Page fan’s message and reads it. Wait how does the admin get back to managing My Flickr for “A+ Scholars?” The admin’s first intuitive is to click the My Flickr icon bookmarked in the bottom toolbar. WRONG!!! This sends the admin to their personal My Flickr Configure page leaving them puzzled.

The route the admin should have traveled is as follows. First, click the “Page Manager” icon in the “Applications” pop-up (it could be bookmarked) & click the “Pages” link at the top.

One could also visit http://facebook.com/pages/manage/. Second, the admin should click “Edit Page” under the Facebook Page “A+ Scholars” that they want to edit. Third, scroll down to the My Flickr entry under “Applications,” click the pencil in the upper right corner, click “Edit.” The admin is now enjoying the My Flickr Configure page for “A+ Scholars” which looks something like http://apps.facebook.com/myflickr/configure/?fb_page_id=39704393888.

Basically, anytime you are using My Flickr with a Facebook Page account ensure that the URL either reads “…?fb_page_id=39704393888” or “…/fbp-39704393888”.

Bookmark the My Flickr page of the Facebook Page(s) that you manage to save you a hop, skip, and a jump! Enjoy!

* UPDATE (6/14/2009): Adding the Box to a Facebook Page.

My Flickr v4.0

After several weeks of work redesigning and adding several new features, I am proud to announce the release of My Flickr 4.0. Notice: everyone using version 3.0 will automatically upgraded to 4.0.

The first thing users will notice is the simple Configure page where they can control almost every aspect of My Flickr. Want to post your most recent photos to your Profile box? Create a Search, Preview the results, and Post it. Want to add a full My Flickr tab to your Facebook Profile? Since you already have one Search of your most recent photos, choose it from the dropdown list of your Searches and Save & Generate the Tab.

Facebook users are now capable of commenting on your Flickr photos (only if you allow it, of course), however, if they want those comments really heard, they can easily visit the photo on Flickr or use the special Flickr sign-up link at the bottom. Hand in hand with commenting, all Facebook users or just your Facebook friends can now browse your Flickr photostream or Flickr photosets. You can toggle this feature as well.

What about my Privacy!?! All photos should be up to Safe-Search standards. If you decide to display your Flickr Photostream on My Flickr, you can set My Flickr to only display your “Public” photos or maybe “Public” & “Friends” photos.

My Flickr links to your Flickr profile, photos, and photosets at every chance possible.

New Features:

• View larger Flickr photos, photostream, photosets
• Facebook photo commenting & notification
• Facebook Flickr info in the Info Tab
• Increased Privacy settings
• Redesign & Usability improvements

Tell me what you think about the new version!