616796 - mentioning FirefoxLive.org on Facebook results in dull post with no image

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(Websites Graveyard :: firefoxlive.mozilla.org, defect)

Description

[skierpage]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:2.0b7pre) Gecko/20101008 Firefox/4.0b7pre SeaMonkey/2.1b1
Build Identifier: 

http://firefoxlive.org is fantastic, so I mentioned it to my so-called friends on Facebook.  Facebook automatically creates a link summary snippet with a thumbnail image for the link in a Facebook post.  But sadly for such a photogenic site, Facebook doesn't find an image of insanely cute fuzzy red pandas to offer as a thumbnail.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Login to facebook.com
2. Start a post about FirefoxLive
3. Add http://firefoxlive.org and press space bar.
4. Wait.
Actual Results:  
Facebook's Link summary snippet window appears containing the page title and "We're streaming cuteness..." text, but offers no image thumbnails.  The result is a dull FB post that no one will click on.

Expected Results:  
It would be nice if the page had some image for Facebook to thumbnail (compare with e.g. adding  e.g. http://nytimes.com  to an FB post).  View > Page Info > Media lists the cute image http://firefoxlive.mozilla.org/wp-content/themes/firefoxbeta/assets/images/thumbs/image_big_red_panda.jpg in , but this is only exposed through JavaScript.

It should be possible to put an image on the page as the background or fallback or noscript to the video-component div. Alternatively, http://www.webconnoisseur.com/blog/social-networking/facebook-link-summary-snippets/ says a web page can suggest an image to FB using link rel="image_src" (along with META NAME="description" to affect the default snippet text).

Whenever you're hoping for the social viral buzz, it's worth checking what happens if people mention your site.  E.g. http://getfirefox.com also doesn't get a thumbnail image on FB.

Comment 1

[skierpage]

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/share and http://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph is Facebook's own explanation of meta tags they look at when someone does Share or Like.

Comment 2

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Confirming; thanks for filing this - would be good to get in, for the next update.

Comment 3

[John Slater]

+1...definitely would like to do this one. Thanks for filing.

Comment 4

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Attachment: Screenshot of what it (currently) looks like

Comment 5

[Rafael]

It should work as soon as it is uploaded to the live server

Comment 6

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

When I just type "http://panda.stage.mozilla.com" (in effect, mentioning it a la comment 0), I get comment 4's attachment; using "Attach Link," though, I get what I'm expecting.

Comment 7

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Attachment: Screenshot demonstrating the differences

In the above screenshot, the top is when I "Attach Link," and the bottom if when I simply mention the domain; is only "Attach Link" supported?

Zemoga, if so, please close the bug; I just don't know.  Thanks!

Comment 8

[Rafael]

Yes Stephen, for the moment seems to work it like that, the Facebook meta tags were already implemented, but actually Facebook is changing and updating a lot of their scripts, including profiles also applications behavior. Probably it would be stabilized after 01/01/2011

Comment 9

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Verified FIXED; just saw this working when I mentioned "http://panda.stage.mozilla.com" on Facebook; thanks!