Tech | January 10, 2008 | 18 comments

Current.com Gets a Facebook Widget!

Image
Justin_Gunn
The new Current News Facebook widget puts the power of the current.com homepage news feed right into your Facebook account and lets you pick the Facebook friends you want to affect your news feed. It's awesome!

How to install and use the application:
1. Sign into your Facebook account
2. Go to http://apps.facebook.com/currentnews/
3. Click the "Add current news" button
4. You'll then see a main window with a feed of news snippets from Current.com and a list of friends on the right who've also installed the application
5. There are 3 main things you can do:
5.a. Vote yes or no on a story you see in your feed. Your activity affects the stories your friends will get in their feed (see below)
5.b. Use the "Share" button to send items with other friends on Facebook or post to your profile
5.c. Choose your Current News "editors": (pick your friends on Facebook that you want to influence what items you see)
6. The Current News Application will live in the "Applications" sidebar on the left side your profile, and you can drag it to the top for easy access when you sign in.

How to invite friends and capture your results:
Go to http://apps.facebook.com/currentnews/invite and pick the friends you want to invite (you can only do 20 at a time, but feel free to get creative)
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  2. tags:
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18 comments // Current.com Gets a Facebook Widget!

  • EdwardWatson
  • stardate
    • 0
      stardate  

    • I feel I have to post my standard declaration:

      I hate social networking sites!

      I hate them so much I could explode.

      What's wrong with me?

    • 4 years ago
  • joebrilliant
  • danlevine
    • 0
      danlevine  

    • mizer ~ there is a lot of exciting (to me anyway) movement going forward in the cross-social-networking space. The Facebook dev platform was the first major foray into this world, but since then Google has announced Open Social and Facebook announced (then retracted) Beacon. The potential eventual personal ownership of your "social graph" (instead of your friend list being owned and duplicated by each site) will allow for sites to focus on providing the services they want to provide and let you plug and play. Until that day, Current is working on a platform of widgets for other sites that will take the functionality you know and love on Current.com and bring it to the other SNs. This Facebook app is merely the first step.

      I guess that's a long way of saying... this wont be the only way we link to external social networks, but we arent planning on changing our mission and trying to be a Facebook or MySpace.

    • 4 years ago
  • joebrilliant
    • 0
      joebrilliant  

    • @ mirimysweet: Levitating Lapdances sounds like a potentially VERY popular widget in it's own right... keep those feature suggestions comin...

    • 4 years ago
  • mizer
    • 0
      mizer  

    • This seems to be getting a lot of support. Which is a little unsettling to me. I used to have a Myspace (regretfully) and have always steered clear of Facebook. When I figured out about Current I was smitten with glee because finally there was a social networking site that actually had a significant purpose other than tagging, uploading pictures of you and your drunk friends, and subtle stalking, and that was untainted by dumb, annoying people. I'll admit, Facebook and its concept can be cool at time, but I hope this widget business is the most way the two are linked to each other.

    • 4 years ago
  • theinfonaut
    • 0
      theinfonaut  

    • Just in time for facebook to release its "hide all apps" feature and the demise of facebook apps!

      A year ago this would have been MASSIVE.

    • 4 years ago
  • mirimysweet
  • ChangeofScene
  • joebrilliant
    • 0
      joebrilliant  

    • Just to manage expectations, contrary to what the image above implies, the Current News Facebook Application does not come with a Levitating Lap Top.

      (But if you get enough friends to add it, we'll talk.)

    • 4 years ago
  • jblade
    • 0
      jblade  

    • Great widget, I was hoping you guys would consider using the Clearspring widget platform. Check out their launchpad. I would certainly add the widget if users could grab it and spread it around virally.

    • 4 years ago
  • nkeg87
  • Simon_S
  • Mr_Costello
  • richjm
    • 0
      richjm  

    • In many ways, this is just like magic to me. That thing David Blaine did with the thing, the Statue of Liberty disappearing... and now the Facebook app.

      I'm really enjoying seeing Current stories appearing in my friend's news feeds, especially when I added them to the site...

    • 4 years ago
  • mirimysweet
  • xhiaopi
  • turboruss
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