Forums/Official FAQ/Syndication
Posts on the new Facebook Timeline
Waleed
posted this on December 26, 2011 20:26
We've been getting questions from users who switched to the new Facebook Timeline and now their NetworkedBlogs posts are not visible, or barely visible on their timelines. We're still learning about the timeline as well, but I'll share what we learned so far for everyone's benefit:
1. Post Visibility:
a. On the normal profiles (pre-timeline), everything you post to your wall is visible to you and to your friends who visit your wall (unless you set a privacy setting to hide some posts from some people). On the timeline, though, not all posts that you publish to your wall are visible. Instead, Facebook uses an algorithm to decide which posts to show and which to hide. In other words, just because you posted something on your timeline, it doesn't guarantee that you'll actually see it. It might be there, but not visible.
b. You can influence the visibility of posts by going to your "Activity Log" and you should see all the posts there and there is an option to "show on timeline" or "feature on timeline". With these options, you can override Facebook's algorithm manually to force certain posts to be visible.
c. To complicate things, there is a known Facebook bug that is affecting only some users that causes all app posts (including NetworkedBlogs) to be completely invisible. If you don't see any post from NetworkedBlogs at all, and the posts are not in Activity Log either, then you're probably affected. In which case, wait a few days and Facebook should push a fix for this.
2. Post Grouping
In the new timeline, Facebook might group several posts together in one box. Users who post a lot will notice that more because facebook might group 20 or more posts together in one small box that shows 3 or 4 posts and a link to "show more". So if you don't see posts from NetworkedBlogs, search for a box that might contain a group of all the posts together.
The problem with this grouping is that other posts, such as messages that your friends post on your wall, might be more visible on your wall than your own posts!
3. Post Order
With the new timeline, the posts on your timeline might not be ordered as you'd usually expect (most recent first). Sometimes, more recent posts might show up further down, especially if they're grouped in a box. So scroll several pages down if you don't see your posts at the top.
4. The Open Graph API
This is the new technology that Facebook announced a few months ago that will work much better with the new timeline. However, although the timeline is released for many users, the Open Graph API is not available yet. So in this transitional period, we're in this strange position in which the timeline is available but we can only publish to is using the older technology, so that's another reason things don't work as well as they should. This should be temporary though and should be solved once the new APIs are released.
Solution:
We've been testing a few methods to work around the new design and limitations, and we found a good method that solves all the problems above. The posts are visible on the timeline, and they are not grouped in a box, and they're ordered correctly. We're testing this right now with a few beta users before we make it publicly available to everyone. If you're interested in joining the beta, see this post for more details.
Comments
Hmm... well, something here somewhat answered my question, but I'm not sure...
Under post grouping. Where you say the posts are grouped together and there's a 'show more' link. And further that you said the problem is my friends' posts may be more visible than my own.
Well, yeah. It is something like that that I notice. But I'm not sure if it's exactly that.
You see, I'm not using the new timeline style. My fb still looks like what it used to look like. If I look at my profile page, I can see the networkedblogs post just fine like before. But when I go to the homepage where I have all my friends' post as well, my networkedblogs post shows up under a friend's networkedblogs post. And I just find it a bit annoying, to tell you the truth. >.> And I checked her profile, she's not using the timeline style either. So, I'm not quite sure what's going on...
I really hope you can find a solution to this because I really don't want to see my post underneath someone else's... =/
What a holiday surprise by facebook...another one...they'll never stop coming up with unexpected ideas making our lives hard, will they? - Thanks for trying to find solutions to all your problems mentioned above... (I find the boxes with posts grouped inside especially problematic...)
***thanks for advice, info and help anyway!
I'm glad to have found this, at least for commiseration purposes. I had come to appreciate and rely on my posts being updated automatically and in a timely, predictable fashion. Now, I have to work to find them. I do hope this is temporary as you've indicated. I look forward to the change. That's actually my main complaint about Timeline, that I can no longer see my posts, and I think the same is true for my followers, because my readership and comments seems to have dropped as a result. Thanks for looking into the issue.
Just a thought because I have no idea if this is a fix for this or not as I have not put a new blog post up, but I did have to go back under "syndication" and give permission for that to happen again. When I did a test post it did show up on my timeline.
My Networked Blogs posts are not showing on the new timeline, and all previous posts have vanished. However, unlike the bug noted above, they are listed in the activity log and are set to show on timeline.
there have been no problems with the new timeline thing until after midnight last night....am in Australia so not sure whether or not it is a date/year/time problem...but none of my posts since midnight are visible on my timeline ....and I cannot post anything to someones wall who is on the timeline thing the same as me also........my posts are visible just on recent news etc but I have no way of seeing them on my timeline since yesterday
I posted a youtube video for new year. I tried to share it from an artist fanpage as well. It doesn't show up on my timeline. So timeline sucks big time for me just hours after decided to try it out.
I just figured out that mine posts are not showing up on FB timeine when I post images on my blog posts. *which is nearly ALL the time. PLEASE
HELP.
Thanks for letting us know. I am one of those affected by my posts not showing up since Dec. 19 on my activity log. I see my post under my husbands feed but not on my page at all. Bummed...
Well on my behalf it looks as if the postings are visible and not visible in random order. Now they are there and on the next log in they are gone again.
I can't get a post to go up on my own wall even manually. No post of any kind. Even sharing to Facebook directly to my wall from my blog, my entire blog is somehow blocked from Facebook. The only way I can get anything related to Networked blogs onto my own wall even, is to post a test feed. What do I try next? My activity log is also nowhere to be found - I do not have the new picture display that I see on all of my other friends walls.
Hi Waleed, attached the screenshot of today's publishing, after I've added the post to FB manualy.
Waleed - I updated my wall to the new design so I now can see my Activity Record. There is no record there of the many times I have tried to post my blog both manually and through Networked Blogs. When I try to post manually and then click on the post button, the dialog box just stays open as if I had not clicked "Post" at all. Then when I try to leave - x out - of the dialog box, it says "Are you sure you want to leave this page?" since no post has yet occurred. The Facebook Help page says that Facebook will not help with App issues and that I should report it to you.
I finally just manually typed my blog address into my status. Even then, when my thumbnails came up under my status as a result of entering the URL, it would not let me post. The only way I could get even the simple URL to post was to x out of the thumbnail portion before clicking "Post."
I'm having the exact the same problem as Sylvia mentioned above. I still haven't figured out how to solve it.
Thanks for this update... :D
Thanks for the information. I was able to go under my activity log and FEATURE my post. I like the new Timeline -- just need to work out the kinks. Thanks.
Thanks for the information. I was able to go under my activity log and FEATURE my post. I like the new Timeline -- just need to work out the kinks. Thanks.
We just wrote a blog post about pushing an update to fix the issues with timeline.
http://blog.networkedblogs.com/2012/01/New-Format-for-Published-Pos...
For questions related to the new update, please feel free to comment on this thread:
http://help.networkedblogs.com/entries/20835238-new-format-for-publ...
With the update, I now see my blog posts show up on my timeline, but they aren't showing up on my newsfeed page. Which means my friends can't see them unless they go to directly to my profile, instead of in their newsfeed page.
nice
I'll be more than happy if someone can just help me:
So in Old FB, if my friend has commented on someone's status, photo etc. I had a chance to see it and on the contrary, when I commented on other peoples' posts/photos these activity was visible to me (see the link to better understand visually what I mean http://www.doncaprio.com/2011/09/hide-wall-post-recent-activity-facebook.html)
But on timeline such activities are visible only in activity Log; So if I commented on someone's photo my friends can't see these in my timeline, though in activity log I made it visible to timeline
Any ideas why? or How to fix it?