www.LiveFanChat.com
Changing the way you interact with live events forever

Monday, June 25, 2012

Facebook kills the Live Stream Plugin

Chuckled at "requires refreshing for every comment to appear", lol what exactly are these guys spending their R&D dollars on??


I know massively scalable chat is hard to do but if http://www.livefanchat.com/ can do it it properly you'd think that Facebook would have no issues scaling and not need to kill this product (heck they paid $20m for the Hot Potato developers to buy the experience/technology).

September 2012 Breaking Changes (90-day notice) - Removing Live Stream plugin

The Live Stream plugin will be removed on September 5, 2012. We recommend using the Comments Box plugin instead. Please migrate your app as soon as possible. On September 5th, if your app is still using the Live Stream plugin, we will render the Comments Box plugin in its place. While it offers similar functionality, there are a few functional differences. Please see the Live Stream plugin documentation for more info.


Migration to Comments Box Plugin - https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/live-stream
On September 5, 2012, if you are still utilizing the Live Stream plugin, we will render the Comments Box Plugin instead. While the Comments Box plugin offers similar functionality, there are a few differences:

· Live Stream allowed you to specify an xid so that you may have multiple plugins on the same page. Comments box does not allow this.

· Comments Box does that have 'via attribution url' for specifying where outbound clicks should go

· Comments Box requires a refresh for updates







Friday, June 22, 2012

Road Course !!


This weekend is one of the two road course events in the Nascar calendar.

Nationwide Sargento 200
Saturday 3pm edt
- http://www.LiveNascarChat.com/go/16284

Sadler is said to be the critics favorite however even though he finished fourth last year and has been on a winning streak this year i'm not so sure.

What is interesting however is that Jacques Villeneuve in the 22 car will representing for Penske Racing - i know a lot of oval fans will be booing...but we'll see.


Sprint Save Mart 350
Sunday 2pm edt
- http://www.LiveNascarChat.com/go/15817

Two wide restarts, left and "right" hand turns, whats not to love about Sonoma :)

Its interesting how there is no longer any real "ring-ins" for the road courses, and those that are...have their hands full anyway. This is Ambrose race to lose but with drivers getting anxious in the passing zones it only takes one bump to put anyone out of the running.

Lets face it- this race is impossible to handicap, if you think you can do better feel free to post your picks pre race day at http://www.facebook.com/LiveNascarChat/posts/315260778564728

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Game 5 starts tonight 9pm edt

Miami #Heat will close out the NBA 2012 championship in Game 5 Thursday night.

Join in the live basketball chat action at - http://www.livebasketballchat.com/go/17766


Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Facebook has gone too far

i've just posted the following comment out on each of the 14 facebook fan pages we have for www.LiveFanChat.com/Sites


This extortion will not work in the long run.
.
.
.
.

Isn’t Facebook supposed to be the magical tool that levels the playing field for small business, non-profits, and grass roots movements? Once upon a time, maybe…but not so much now.

Do you know that “IF” you see this post you are one of only a few percent of the people that are fans of this Facebook page who will see it. It’s the abysmally small number Facebook bothered to publish in newsfeeds.

Yeah. You read that correctly. Most fans don’t receive our posts at all, in any way, shape, or form.

Facebook is only sharing them with fans who repeatedly return to our page/post or comment on the page weekly, The rest of the posts you see in your newsfeed are big corporations who are paying to be there.


In fact only about 4-6% of our posts are ever seen by anyone eg - http://alwaysupward.com/blog/fb-fans-arent-seeing-your-posts-and-how-to-fix-it

Basically since the IPO Facebook have demanded payment from each and every post LiveFanChat make in order for it to be seen and these payments run from as little as $5 to several hundred dollars depending on the size of the Facebook group.

This is ridiculous http://www.livefanchat.com/ has 14 different Facebook pages ranging from a few hundred to well over a few thousand followers we’ve built up over the last 12 months for our http://www.livebaseballchat.com/
http://www.livebasketballchat.com/
http://www.livenascarchat.com/
etc etc pages.

If we cant use Facebook to communicate with our fans without paying then screw Facebook and we’ll start using other methods to publish our content out.

Please sign up to one of the http://www.LiveFanChat.com/sites and we’ll send you an update via email on how changes about how you can access your content as we no longer choose to play Mark Zuckerbergs games.


Cheers,
Dean Collins
Co-Founder
http://www.livefanchat.com/

Monday, June 11, 2012

Thunder vs Heat ...bringing it for 2012 NBA finals


So many teams came close, it could have easily been Celtics or Spurs in the finals but at the end of the day the teams that are here are the ones that dug deep and pulled out clutch plays when it counted.

I'm not even going to try and predict who the winner of this matchup is apart from over the next week we are going to see some of the best basketball in 2012.

Each team have an obvious power player in Lebron and Durant, but its the "other" superstars like Bosh and how well they can effectively pull defenders away from the zone that will determine attacking success.

With the Heat being in back to back finals you might tip the scales to them....but i wouldn't.


Live Fan Chat urls
The Live Fan Chat urls are now all available on the site, upload these to your calendar and invite your friends to add your username LiveBasketballChat.com/<< Test Username >> to their buddy list, lets see who can trash talk with the best of them and who really is the king of live basketball chat for 2012.

Game 1
Heat Vs Thunder starts at Tue Jun 12th at 9pm edt
http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/go/17762

Game 2
Heat Vs Thunder starts at Thu Jun 14th at 9pm edt
http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/go/17763

Game 3
Thunder Vs Heat starts at Sun Jun 17th at 9pm edt
http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/go/17764

Game 4
Thunder Vs Heat starts at Tue Jun 19th at 9pm edt
http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/go/17765

Game 5
Thunder Vs Miami starts at Thu Jun 21st at 9pm edt
http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/go/17766

Game 6
Miami Vs Thunder starts at Sun Jun 24th at 8pm edt
http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/go/17767

Game 7
Miami Vs Thunder starts at Tue Jun 26th at 9pm edt
http://www.LiveBasketballChat.com/go/17768


Choose your side LiveBasketballChat.com/fan/Heat or LiveBasketballChat.com/fan/Thunder and good luck to you all.


Cheers,

Dean Collins
http://www.livefanchat.com/

Friday, June 8, 2012

Pocono this weekend

Winstar 400

The Camping World Trucks are back in Texas tonight, rain cancelled qualifying last night so you know what that means...they'll all be messing and shuffling early.

The live fan chat for Friday nights race kicks off at 8.30pm
- http://www.LiveNascarChat.com/go/16309


Sprint Cup Pocono 400
Ok so this is the first year with the new pavement, can someone explain to me why a new pavement makes things so much faster?

The track lap test times this week are coming in faster than last years "season best lap times".

Do you think this helps one driver over another? Post your comment on our Facebook wall now.

With this years race being 100 miles shorter a few drivers feel they are in the with a shot but my money is on Hamlin and even though he has won here 4 times in 6 years he's down talking his chances with the new distance and track surface.

The live fan chat for Pocono Sprint Cup starts at Sun 12:00 edt
- http://www.LiveNascarChat.com/go/15815


Curate Smurate
Ok so Nascar inc and Twitter have just signed a deal where you can now post your #Nascar tweets onto the tv starting with Pocono - http://www.lostremote.com/2012/05/21/twitter-announces-partnership-with-nascar-to-compliment-broadcast/

My response to this was
"Curate...smurate people want to say what they've got to say and not have it moderated. Closed walled gardens are great for kindergarden but the internet wants to be free which is why moderation is controlled by the end user at sites like http://www.LiveNascarChat.com.


Having a delayed curated discussion is about as exciting as talking to my fish as they swim left around their bowl".

So let me know am i wrong with my thinking on this? Do you want someone to filter what you are saying?

We built http://www.livenascarchat.com/ so fans can have a place to say whatever they want...and if you dont like what someone has to say easy...click their username and block them you never see their message again.

Put the tools in the hands of the people instead of curating their comments.


Thanks to NasBus for another year
http://www.livefanchat.com/ runs due to the generosity of its supporters.

Our primary supporter for LiveNascarChat are the team at http://www.nasbus.com/

NASBUS offers motorcoach shuttle travel to Sprint Cup, Nationwide, and Camping World races.

A fun and safe way to enjoy the races, NASBUS picks you up from your town, gets you to the track and brings you back home safely for less than the cost of driving and without the need for a designated driver.

Please visit their site at http://www.nasbus.com/ in order to show your appreciation for their continued support of LiveNascarChat.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Facebook are now restricting feeds

LiveFanChat have probably spent about $60 on testing Facebook ads over the last 2 years so we aren’t the target audience/company for the new Facebook promote feature (as we are cheap skates and don’t spend much on advertising - probably spent about $50 on google ads in 2 years) but the issue I see here is that Facebook are now moderating what you as an end user sees, eg I peronally probably only get to see about 50 posts a day these days even though I log into Facebook regularly.

Basically Facebook are "restricting" what I see as an end user and this is breaking the original Facebook model that I get to choose what I see and don’t see. I don’t think most users have worked this out yet...but when they do there will be a revolt against Facebook.

The good feature that Facebook introduced is we now have super accurate analytics on who is seeing posts. As such I can determine is it worth my time to post updates about Celtics vs Heat game tonight - http://www.facebook.com/LiveBasketballChat/posts/378102848906321 because it accurately shows me how many people have seen this post 30 mins after posting (and seems to update hourly thereafter).

What this as a developer tells me is unless Facebook quit freaking around with feeds....as a content provider we'll start moving to email, sms, or similar if we cant control interaction with our end users.