Status Updater

February 5th, 2010
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For each new post published, the Status Updater plugin updates the status / or profile of the desired social network. Current update options include: Facebook status, Facebook shared link, Facebook page wall, Facebook group wall, Twitter status, Myspace status.

If you use social networks for promoting your blog posts, this plugin (should) save you a lot of work.

Latest news

February 5, 2010: Facebook changed the user interface today. Chances the plugin stops working are near 99.9%, please wait for the next version, coming as soon as possible.

Requirements

  • A wordpress blog hosted somewhere :)
  • Php 4 or higher
  • Curl library
  • In order for the cron job simulator to work, your theme must use the wp_footer function correctly (it is mandatory in themes, but you never know if the theme is standard compliant)

Installation

  • Unzip and upload ‘fb-status-updater’ directory to your ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory
  • Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in the Admin panel
  • Fill required data in the plugin options page
  • Ensure the fbSessionData.txt file, in the /wp-content/plugins/fb-status-updater/ directory is writable from PHP

Features

  • You might set up basic options and let the plugin run every time you publish a new post (or every time a scheduled in the future post becomes available) or, by activating the “Advanced status composition” option, fine tune how and where to push each post
  • Update a Facebook profile status
  • Update a Facebook Fan Page status
  • Share the post as link, with title, summary and a picture, on a Facebook profile
  • Share the post as link, with title, summary and a picture, on a Facebook fan page wall
  • Update the Twitter status
  • Use your favourite link shortener service with the Twitter Status
  • Update a Myspace profile status
  • Edit the status “template”. The pushed status is usually made by 2 tokens: post title and post url. You can change the order of the 2 tokens as you like, as well as add any other work/char. Example:
    Hey did you know %POST-TITLE% -> %POST-URL%

Enhancements / todo list

  • update a Facebook Group wall
  • share the post as link on a Facebook Group wall
  • add Stumble up on as share option
  • add Linkedin as share option
  • add tinyurl, http://yourls.org/ to the available shortener services
  • find a way to store FB login credentials in a place where other plugins do not have access to

Changelog

  • 1.5.6 the plugin was not updating Facebook pages and Myspace profile anymore, solved
  • 1.5.3 “the plugin was not working on windows servers” bug fixed, “in some cases the post image wasn’t cought correctly, if not specified in the custom fields” bug fixed, “facebook asking for date of birth to confirm account” issue fixed
  • 1.5.2 tr.im bug fixed, “facebook is asking for captcha a little too much” bug fixed
  • 1.5.1 custom image not stored along with the post bug fixed, “header cannot be sent…” bug fixed
  • 1.5 better user interface, share as link on page wall option available, choose your favourite url shortener service, many bugs solved
  • 1.4 Myspace status update, Facebook share as link
  • 1.3.2 removed the plugin activation function that screwed up on so much environments; minor bugs fixed; decide from the advanced section if a specific article should be sent to both social networks or just one, the one you want; “Facebook not updating” issue with debug; “share as facebook link” request not yet implemented, I know you’re waiting for it
  • 1.3 url shortener service on j.mp (if your server has the php json library, otherwise on is.gd); different status for facebook/twitter with advanced options; facebook group wall support; strict control on wall id fields (more difficult for users now not understanding that a wall id is not a url); default status template: decide where you want the url, the title and any other word/char
  • 1.2.3 plugin activation bug solved
  • 1.2.2 some more bugs fixed
  • 1.2.1 some more bugs fixed
  • 1.2 minor fixes + cron job for posts published in the future + twitter status update
  • 1.1 log email format issue solved, added one more wall to post to, send one post just one time
  • 1.0 First public release

Download

Download the Facebook Status Updater plugin now!
Previous versions

Issues

  • If your Facebook password contains the + symbol, the plugin won’t be able to login. You should choose a different password that might contain other symbols. Currently working on this issue but can’t say when it will be solved.

Security Issues

Using this plugin might bring some security issues to your Facebook account. Please read carefully.

The Fb Status Updater plugin stores your Facebook login credentials into your own wordpress database (that’s how wordpress can use your Facebook account each time you publish a post).
If you believe your wordpress database is not a safe place to store such data (if someone else beyond you has access to it, if you think an hacker can somehow connect to it and see its data), do not use this plugin.

If you think your own database is safe, please note that any wordpress plugin can access the wordpress database. If you plan to try and install many new plugins and don’t exactly know what they do, do not use this plugin because a malicious one could just sniff your FB authentication data and send it by email everywhere.

The Fb Status Updater plugin itself should be safe, it all depends on the environment it is asked to work.

If this is not clear or if you have any doubt, feel free to leave a comment (and subscribe to rss comment in order to read the reply :))

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