Facebook and Twitter Connect, Pingbacks
We've got some exciting updates this week, so sit tight and we'll get started. Of course, news would not be complete without a special gift from Frank. It appears that he neglected to celebrate birthdays this month. So, in the spirit of better late than never, please rip a zippy yippee if you were born in August, and Frank'll send you a ginger kitty to kiss and cuddle. Be sure to include your secret birthday wish (don't worry, we'll never tell)!
Facebook and Twitter Connect
Update: Thank you for taking the time to offer your honest feedback. We understand and appreciate your desire for privacy. We share your concerns. Most of us would not want to publish our LiveJournal usernames or FO comments to Facebook or Twitter either (to the extent we even use them). Please give us a little time to address your concerns. We are listening, and we'll do our best to respond.
For those of you who squander spend time on those other social networks, we've just made it easier to stay in touch with your grandparents, forgotten acquaintances, and former bosses on Facebook and Twitter without having to leave the comfort of your LiveJournal home. To activate cross-posting, visit Account Settings/Extensions. Once you link your Twitter and/or Facebook accounts to your LiveJournal account, you can automatically cross-post entries and/or comments. Alternatively, you can choose to cross-post selectively to Facebook or Twitter whenever you post an entry or comment by clicking on the Facebook or Twitter icon beneath the text box (you must be logged into your Facebook or Twitter account on the same browser).
Several things to keep in mind:
- If you've been using the previous version of Facebook Connect, you'll need to reactivate this feature by re-implementing your settings on the Account Settings/Extensions page.
- Once you enable Facebook and/or Twitter Connect, only your public LiveJournal posts (those marked as "Everyone") will default to cross-post, but you can override this on a per-post basis beneath the text box.
- If you set your default to cross-post comments, ALL of your comments, including screened and Friends Only comments, can be cross-posted whenever you choose. Only public comments, however, will be preselected to cross-post. If you wish to cross-post a Friends Only or screened comment, you will need to select the cross-posting option manually when you post the comment. Of course, you can override your settings on a per-comment basis, so you have complete control over whether to cross-post each and every comment.
- If you edit a post or comment after it has been cross-posted, it will not revise the post on Facebook and/or Twitter.
- Your posts will publish on Facebook and Twitter according to your respective privacy/visibility settings on those networks.
- For further information, see the Facebook and Twitter Connect FAQ.
In order to spread the love, Facebook users who do NOT have LiveJournal accounts can now log in, comment, view friends, and join communities using a Facebook log-in/ID and password (much like OpenID). To log into LiveJournal using your Facebook account, click on the Facebook button located in the log-in area of the LiveJournal header (as shown in the image on the right). Facebook users can quickly upgrade to a full account in Account Settings.
Pingbacks are back!
In response to popular demand, we've brought back pingbacks! For those who are new to this feature, pingbacks let you know when someone has linked to a LiveJournal entry you've posted. It also notifies another user if you link to one of their posts. To ensure your privacy, pingbacks ONLY work on public posts when both users have enabled this feature.
A few things to keep in mind:
- If you've never used this feature, the default will be set to open (i.e., on).
- If you formerly disabled pingbacks, it will remain off.
- The "ping" will appear as a screened comment on the original post in the journal or community.
- To update your pingback settings, please visit your Account Settings/Privacy page.
- Webmoney: This payment method has been temporarily removed while we work on improving integration.
- Repost tags: We fixed the bug that was cutting off reposted entries. The basic Repost tag now correctly reposts an entire entry. To learn more about this feature, please see FAQ 313.
We want to thank you for letting us know which LiveJournal features you didn't discover immediately that you can't live without. High on the list was the ever-popular LJ-cut. An LJ-cut allows you to 'hide' part of an entry behind a text link, so that the entry doesn't take up as much space in your journal and Friends pages. You can create an LJ-cut in an entry by following these easy steps (described more fully in this FAQ):
- Rich Text editor: Highlight the text you want to cut, then press the
button ( 
). In the dialog box, you can replace "Read more" with another word or phrase, which will link to the entire entry. - HTML editor: Type
before the text you want to hide. This will insert "Read more" with a link to the entire post. When you want to end the cut, type lj-cut>.
We'll be back next week with another tip. Photos of the week
Congrats to sergey_sk78, who won our 35th LJ_photophile poll! Click here to vote for the next photo of the week. You can also vote for your favorite pic in this week's themed contest, on the subject of Purple, here. FYI: We pick entries for the polls based on a combination of comments, +1 ratings, and staff input. Winners of both polls receive 500 LJ tokens. We thank you for sharing your talent with the global LiveJournal community.
Frank & Meme's Excellent Adventure
Frank and Meme had quite an eventful week, having only narrowly escaped lethal poison, booby-trapped bling, and dangerously cloying tattoos in Vegas. Congratulations to jaelijn, whose entry, A Jeweled City on the Horizon, was selected as the next official chapter in the Frank & Meme saga. We'll be sending LJ Tokens to all of our talented writers. You can start posting entries for the next episode in frankandmeme. Frank will send a drama lama to everyone who comments on new submissions, so get writing!
Thanks again for joining us. We'll see you next week!