FIRST Facebook Application

[mwtidd]

I am planning on using facebook connect as the identity system for my new extension to the blue alliance.

I realize that some people in the FIRST community like to keep their FIRST lives and Facebook lives separate (me being one of them), and am wondering what people think about using facebook connect to login to a FIRST related application and website.

I am also trying to determine how closely I would want to intertwine my application to facebook. Integration with facebook could be very weak (getting your basic information like hometown, profile pic, name...) or it could be strong (loading pictures to your account, creating and rsvping to FIRST facebook events).

The stronger ties would be helpful to FIRST as I could help people invite others to FIRST competitions, however I understand it is a double edges sword.

Also it would be possible to support both types of accounts(strong and weak) depending on how you wanted to use the app. I am just wondering about peoples opinions on their FIRST lives and Facebook lives.

[Mrs.Drake343]

For me personally it would be great!! I run our team's Facebook and Twitter pages and linked them so I can post to both if necessary. I use our facebook account to help advertise events our team does...lego camps, meetings or whatever else we do. I do all of my updating either at home or from my phone. However, our school district blocks all social media, as I'm sure many other school districts do. That would be one hurdle that you would have to work around.

[JesseK]

Above all, keep it clean and non-invasive. Get approval of the FIRST logo placement to be on the safe side. Get some feedback from Manchester on a mockup if you can if only to ensure they don't not like the idea/design. Since this is you doing it, the majority of their feedback for what to implement should be at your discretion.

Event invitations could be useful, but I wouldn't do it for every regional event -- getting 50+ invitations would be very annoying. Perhaps things like the Championships, RoboProm, championship wrap party, etc, would be more useful so users can pre-plan and further socialize online. If events were created for each regional event, no automated invitations should be done -- users of the application would have to manually sign up.

Specifying between engineering and non-engineering mentors would be helpful (thinking longer term) so that teams who need to reach out for help have a more specific subset of people to talk to.

Optional linking to a chiefdelphi nickname would be useful to find chiefdelphi users (who want to be found) at a regional event. Putting a name to a face really helps move the conversation along sometimes.

==> Lower Priority Features <==
Perhaps put in unofficial polls similar to Slashdot's (e.g. what did we think of X component in KOP, funny ones about chiefdelphi, etc).

A "Design Review" section may be useful for teams that want feedback on designs if they post pictures. Sure, chiefdelphi is a great source for reviews and comments, but very few engineers outside of FIRST even know about chiefdelphi; putting something on facebook may attract these engineers to FIRST and get them interested in starting a team.

[mwtidd]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Above all, keep it clean and non-invasive.

Funny, my elevator pitch for a similar product contained the phrase "to provide less invasive marketing." I believe that invasive solutions should always be treated as an anti-pattern

Originally Posted by JesseK

getting 50+ invitations would be very annoying.

I definitely agree, my intention was more to spread the word about regional events outside of the first community. first tends to unintentionally isolate itself, and one of my personal goals is to make it more attractive to the general population.

Originally Posted by JesseK

Specifying between engineering and non-engineering mentors would be helpful

I like this response because it shows how you would define such an application. It seems like you see it as a means to connect within the FIRST community. This helps as ironically I did not see the application as being inherently social ( CD seems to satisfy that need pretty well )

Originally Posted by JesseK

Optional linking to a chiefdelphi nickname would be useful

Definitely makes sense, this is one of my big qualms with CD though is that it is completely closed. I understand that it is a relatively old technology and may be built upon an architecture that doesn't allow for easy development of an API

Originally Posted by JesseK

Perhaps put in unofficial polls similar to Slashdot's

Good idea.

Originally Posted by JesseK

A "Design Review" section may be useful for teams that want feedback on designs if they post pictures. putting something on facebook may attract these engineers to FIRST and get them interested in starting a team.

Exactly, I want to create it as a middle ground for the first and non first communities. With the outside consultants the GDC has been bringing in I expect the games to become more viewer friendly.

Originally Posted by Mrs.Drake343

I use our facebook account to help advertise events our team does...lego camps, meetings or whatever else we do. I do all of my updating either at home or from my phone. However, our school district blocks all social media, as I'm sure many other school districts do. That would be one hurdle that you would have to work around.

Thanks for your insights, this is definitely going to be an issue. The mobile aspect is something else I will have to account for.

[synth3tk]

Originally Posted by lineskier

Definitely makes sense, this is one of my big qualms with CD though is that it is completely closed. I understand that it is a relatively old technology and may be built upon an architecture that doesn't allow for easy development of an API

It's built on vBulletin, so it can be extended and modified. I wouldn't count on it, though, as CD is quite a large community, so implementing large changes would potentially create more problems, and would take quite a bit of time that the administrators might not have.