Well I have spent the better part of the holiday designing and wrapping up a new site. Interpreting my blog’s title, you might imagine my last name to be O’Brien, that is unless you make the mistake of interpreting my name as Brian with the SEO… you get the idea. To be sure, I am decidedly Irish, though indirectly so. To give my weary brain a break from all things internet and search, I’ve founded The O’Brien Store.
What does any of this have to do with Facebook? I’m getting there; in the proper spirit of a Marketer, please indulge me as I promote the site and encourage your visitation and participation. The O’Brien Store is founded on a the spirit of a traditional Irish Pub. Pubs in Ireland were often opened in hardware or grocery stores to capitalize on the space and diversify revenue streams. Undoubtedly, the evolution of pubs in Ireland had other benefits; what man of yore wouldn’t be happy to do the grocery shopping? Point is, Irish pubs are warm, inviting social experiences that serve many needs. Obviously, I can’t well serve Guinness online any more than Shepherd’s Pie so we’re doing what we can to serve Irish heritage, history, and wit with Irish gifts and products in the mix. As part of the experience, you can join The Blarney Social Club and participate in the discussion, find friends and fans of the site, and earn rewards care of…. you got it: Facebook.
Facebook has done an exceptional job at fostering development and adoption of Facebook Connect with supportive developer resources and an engaged group of engineers. Simply, Connect allows users to “connect” their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This enables websites to implement and offer many of the features of the Facebook Platform off of Facebook. Many are supposing that Facebook Connect will quickly relegate OpenID to the ranks of New Coke (or for those younger amongst you, DRM). Perhaps the more important question is how will Google’s less than stellar record of customer support hinder their success with rival platform Friend Connect?
Don’t get me wrong, the better part of my time has been spent work on the site itself with the integration of Facebook relatively easy. Facebook engineers are publishing videos to help developers get started all while encouraging 3rd party involvement and contribution.
One of the most valuable tools for bloggers is that which was designed by Sociable.es owner Javier Reyes. The plugin adds the Connect login function and profile features to your blog with a simple activation. Javier is doing an exceptional job keeping up with the demand for his WordPress application; chasing bugs, helping the rest of us who can’t get our divs and spans straight, and releasing ongoing enhancements.
Truth be told, I did some customization to the widget and plugin so your experience won’t look exactly the same as that which I have here but I couldn’t have done that without Javier and developer Daniel Guth (sorry I can’t translate his blog for you 🙂 ). With a little help, you can be live in a couple hours.
Come take a break from being viral or searching for how to get on position higher in results. First one is on me.