Setting up a Facebook "feed" on your website

OK, so our team regularly adds Twitter and Blog feeds to websites.  Often we get aksed to add a Facebook feed... thing is, Facebook is not really a "feed" as it's made up of posts and info from you and other users.  So to add the Facebook "stream" to your site, what you need to do is add a customised view of the "Like Box" social plugin.

To do this, follow the instructions on this page:
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like-box/

Happy coding!

You Tube Poster Frames & Thumbnails

If you have ever uploaded a video to You Tube, you'll know that You Tube gives you three choices for a poster frame which is also used as the search thumbnail.  Google just calls them "video thumbnails" to make it easy I guess.  However if you embed your You Tube video on a website, the initial frame before video plays (Poster Frame) is also the thumbnail.

The thumbnail image can have a big impact on whether people actually click on your video in search results and also the look of your web page if embedded.  So how do these thumbnails work and can you modify them?

If you are a You Tube partner - you can now upload custom thumbnails... cool!  To become a partner, you need to enable monetization on your account... not so cool.  If you don't want to do that, then read on.

How to edit your video thumbnail:
1. Visit your account page
2. Click the Uploaded Videos
3. Select Video
4. Click on Edit
5. Click the thumbnail you want, and Update

How does You Tube select the thumbnail?
Well according to one website, it goes by a simple time formula:
X = Video length (in sec.)
Y = X divided by 4 or X/4 (in sec.)

Y is the 1st thumbnail.
2 times Y or 2xY (in sec.) is the 2nd thumbnail (poster frame).
3 times Y or 3xY (in sec.) is the 3rd thumbnail.

So it is possible to create your video with these time codes in mind and actually get a thumbnail and poster frame that is exactly what you want!

I will post an entry soon on You Tube Vs Vimeo!