731574 - Show the number of social media mentions for each Hacks blog post

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Developer Engagement :: Mozilla Hacks, task, P1)

Description

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Proposed in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=707698#c13

Just a count and a link to Topsy that offers this over a longer amount of time. Like a simple version of http://robertnyman.com/2010/11/28/javascript-badge-to-present-twitter-reactions-to-a-certain-url-in-your-own-web-site/

Comment 1

[Robert Nyman]

It would be really good if we could implement this for the Hacks blog.
All we need per blog post is the count for Twitter mentions about the article, linked to a resource where people can dive deeper if they want to.

Since we usually get reactions in social media, but not that many comments at times, it still shows that "the world" found the post interesting and it doesn't look stale.

Comment 2

[David Walsh :davidwalsh]

Why not do something similar to what I have?

http://screencast.com/t/ofe2Ftsd

Use the widgets provided by each vendor -- all show the count but also encourage people to share.

Comment 3

[Robert Nyman]

The problem there is that if you're logged in to any of those services, user data will be shared with them. Doesn't go to well with our Do not track policy/approach (and I believe this applies to Google Analytics as well).

Additionally, does the Twitter badge keep count for all time, or only the last week?

The functionality offered by the Twitter badge (overall tweet count all time and possibility to tweet) works fine with what I think we need - as long as it's ok to have it added to the code for Mozilla Hacks.

Comment 4

[David Walsh :davidwalsh]

I'm fairly certain that the count displayed is all time.  

Good point about DNT though, didn't think of that.  A recent Twitter blog post said that all API endpoints would become auth'd, so I'm not sure we'll have an "open" way of pulling that info.

Comment 5

[Robert Nyman]

Right, that could be another obstacle. Feels a bit counteractive for Twitter, though, if it won't even be able to show tweet count for a blog post without authorization.

Comment 6

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Sharing user data is the reason no mozilla websites implement the social vendors' widgets.

On other marketing sites, we've shared user data with social vendors so long as the user gives their consent. e.g., A one-time warning/prompt/dialog/overlay over the social widget that says something like, "To view Twitter activity, click here to allow Twitter to receive your data" or some nicer form of that.

Comment 7

[Robert Nyman]

Understood. But could that potentially be an option with Twitter then?

Comment 8

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Yup. Would just have to run it by legal and try to not make the UX totally suck. ;)

Comment 9

[Robert Nyman]

Those two things are just details! :-)

Comment 10

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

Adding some things from our meeting today...

* One problem is that these widgets often track user behavior.
* One solution is to hide the widgets behind a "Share this post" button, so that
  only users that plan to use these services is tracked. We already have tools
  for this kind of thing (Craig can say more) and are using them on The Den [1]
  (see the "Share this" button).

[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/theden/2013/03/08/st-patricks-day-theme-for-firefox/

Comment 11

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

Another option (for twitter):

1. Author attaches the specific @mozhacks tweet url to a post
2. WordPress polls twitter API for the number of retweets
3. WordPress shows retweet count and a "retweet" button

Comment 12

[Robert Nyman]

I thought a bit more about this, and it's an interesting solution. In most cases, though, tops 60% of the tweets about the post are RTs, the rest are separate tweets. Preferable is seeing ALL tweets about that post.

Comment 13

[David Walsh :davidwalsh]

It appears this task, after the retirement of Twitter API v1, will only be available via the button.  Looking for ways around this.

Comment 14

[David Walsh :davidwalsh]

So I'm seeing two routes:

1.  We load the official social button widget after we ask permission

2.  We use the search API to search for the posts's URL.  Twitter sends back only 100 results at a time so we'd need to recurse over the results and add them until the response was less than 100.  We'd do that with PHP and cache the result.

I'm not seeing a plugin that will help with this, unfortunately.  Anyone have ideas here?

Comment 15

[Luke Crouch [:groovecoder]]

How about 2.5: use the search API to search for the post's URL. Display the number that twitter sends back, or "100+" if it's more than 100.

Comment 16

[David Walsh :davidwalsh]

Without allowing users to tweet the page via the widget, the number is just a vanity stat.  Saying 100+ isn't too useful.  I really think we should find a way to work the widget in;  I can't imagine a reader caring too much about that number, so we should turn it into utility rather than just display.

Comment 17

[Craig Cook (:craigcook)]

Well we already have the widget but I don't think it's been switched on in production. An admin needs to go to Settings > Reading and check the "add social sharing" option.

Comment 18

[Robert Nyman]

In all honesty, it's both, though. It's a vanity stat in the sense of showing the popularity of the blog. We have a number of good articles with no or few comments, but that gets good traction in social media, so showing a number is good for both the readers and the author to see the interest.

Then, of course being able to Tweet directly as well would be very good.

Comment 19

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

Is this a dupe of bug 737486? It appears we already have these widgets -- see the top-right of any article.

https://hacks.mozilla.org/2013/05/phones-for-apps-for-firefox-os/

Comment 20

[Robert Nyman]

I assume so. It's an old bug/feature request.

Comment 21

[John Karahalis [:openjck]]

Not completely a dupe, but the functionality described here has been provided for free by bug 737486.