Facebook Lexicon, a new utility that Facebook just announced can help you learn how certain words are used on discussions taking places on wall posts.

With that knowledge in hand, let's see what's the buzz on the Habs right now as the buzz in Montreal is increasing week after week.

We see a neat increase before the end of the regular season and a huge spike of discussions with the playoffs now taking place. Makes sense! Click on the above picture to see the most recent stats on wall discussions about the Habs.

It's pretty neat, but I would really like to see some numbers. Maybe they only use samples? In any case, I think the idea is more to compare tendencies.

So, without wasting time, let's compare between the Habs and the Bruins:

Ahhh! That's better. No wonder the tickets for the series in Montreal sold in minutes and they were still tickets available in Boston at the first day of the playoffs...

UPDATE: you need to be logged in Facebook before clicking on the images to see the latest stats.

The big news today this morning: Microsoft Partners with Top Social Networks to Put Users at the Center of their Data.

Microsoft announced the Windows Live Contacts API and partnerships with Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn and Tagged to access contacts and friends from different social networks. At the same time, they are launching http://www.invite2messenger.net to invite friends on other social networks to join them in Windows Live Messenger.

Even if Microsoft is participating in the Data Portability Workgroup, this is a separate endeavour. It does not look really selfless.

In any case, if you weren't already convinced, it means Microsoft is seriously trying to make its Web 2.0 place by aggressively tackling social networks. It should not be underestimated by it's competitors. I hope the market will continue embrace the challenge so that we end up more rapidly with true data portability.

Many startups are tackling the PIM portability problem. My favorite, for the moment, is Plaxo. While not perfect (it had a rough start when they had invites spamming people over and over), it has grown to become my data portability manager for contacts and calendaring. It syncs well with Google Calendar and Outlook which syncs well with my Blackberry. It's much better than my previous solution, but because of screen scraping it still has some glitches. Some of these glitches are with LinkedIn sync. Also, it does not sync Facebook events, probably because of term of use.

It's already hard to find something that works well for syncing basic contacts and calendaring information between Outlook and Google. I am still amazed that a company like Google cannot even get syncing from Google Calendar to Outlook or Google Calendar to Blackberry right.

Managing different social networks has become a pain. Syncing and sharing data across social network has it's own challenges like privacy and security. Robert Scoble who was temporarily banned from Facebook knows something about it.

It's interesting that Microsoft links the Live Contacts API announcement with Live Messenger. I believe that integrating information and interactions we have in social networks should follow us more closely. Who knows, maybe with Messenger I would find a bunch of social network friends that are also on XBox Live and I don't know about it? It hope. It should.

In my case, its also important that the PIM information follows me offline. It's the Blackberry's fault! Whenever I subscribe to an event online, it should easily follow me offline. Same thing for a connection with someone I trust.

I hope a real standard will be widely adopted and implemented soon by the different social networks (specially Facebook).

Update: The space is heating up yet again: Yahoo! Supports OpenSocial; Yahoo!, MySpace and Google to Form Non-Profit OpenSocial Foundation

The Problem

Recently, I have been struggling to find a workable solution to synchronize Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook in order to keep my Blackberry's events in sync with Outlook and Google Calendar.

The goal is simple:

• If I enter an event in my Blackberry, I want it to show up in Outlook and Google Calendar.
• Entering an event in Outlook should show up in my Blackberry and Google Calendar
• Entering an event in Google Calendar should show up in Outlook and the Blackberry

Why use Outlook? It's my primary offline storage facility. I mainly use gMail, but my emails are also backed up offline in Outlook when I'm in the office. I want to do the same thing for Google Calendar: to back up events in Outlook. An added advantage is that I use Outlook to synchronize events with the Blackberry as their Desktop Synchronization has never failed me. Also, when I'm in the office, I find that an offline application like Outlook is a bit faster to enter new contacts or events or the send emails (specially with attachments). Outside the office, I use gMail and I now want to use Google Calendar. But, it needs to be synced with the rest!

I first tried Google Sync for Blackberry. Once installed in my Blackberry, it would simply not synchronize events entered manually in my Blackberry and upload these to Google Calendar. Of course, my old Desktop Manager for my new Blackberry continued to do the job and synchronize Outlook but I was left with Google Calendar being not up to date. Events synced with Outlook wouldn't sync back up to Google Calendar through Google Sync. So no go! De-installed Google Sync.

Enter Google Calendar Sync

Now, Google has announced Google Calendar Sync. It is used to synchronize to Microsoft Outlook. Exactly the missing link I need! If first saw it announced here.

It will only sync Outlook with your primary Google Calendar. For me it's OK, I never created additional calendars. The sync options are simple enough:

• 2-way
• 1 way: Google Calendar to Microsoft Outlook
• 1 way: Microsoft Outlook to Google Calendar

I excitedly installed the application ASAP and did a 2 way sync. Fair enough, my Outlook calendar events appeared in Google Calendar (some days now were in bold). I my hurry, I first thought it had created duplicated, because the day I was checking had the event twice! False alert, I remembered I had entered this event in both calendars. I entered new events and Google Calendar and did a manual sync through the app in the tray and my events appeared in Outlook. Great!

Google Calendar Events with guests do not sync!

Then, last night I created an event in Google Calendar for Third Tuesday's next event. It's on March 18 at 6pm at the Lolita Lounge (96 Sherbrooke West). Through Google Calendar, I also invited my wife as I know she wants to go.

After a few hours of work at the office today, I checked Outlook's calendar for March 18th, expecting my new event to magically appear but it didn't!

After some testing and trial and error, I came to the conclusion that events with guests will not be synced to Outlook. Be deleting the guests (sorry Kim!), I was able to make the event sync. Since inviting guests was a Google Calendar feature I had never used, it seems like I will refrain from using it for the time being. But what would happen if someone sent me an event invitation I accepted? I suspect it wouldn't sync either. I'll probably have to recreate it then.

Since then, I found comments of people having the same problem.

Conclusion

Does not work exactly as advertised. To their credit, they are still showing the "Beta" tag beside the name of the app. But then again, like gMail, will it be in Beta status for years?

In any case, knowing about its caveats should make it a good enough solution for me.

Use with caution.

As a developer, if there's something I hate in Facebook, it is all these "What the ____ are you?" or "What's your ____ personality?" applications that force people to spam their friends before showing them the results. These applications have rapid growth from day one and monopolize the most active application directory listings while bringing zero value except user fatigue against applications and invites. This is not what Facebook applications should be like.

Last week, I was at the FacebookCampToronto3 event and Dave Morin, Facebook's senior platform manager was a guest speaker. After his presentation, I got to ask the first question and I asked him if they are going to do something against forced invites. He answered that they were always looking to improve the experience for the users and that they do not like forced invites neither.

Our wish may soon be granted as it seems Facebook is finally doing something against forced invites!

The platform policy page has been updated. Now as per their policy, an application cannot:

Present a user with a subsequent friend invite page if the user has already clicked a Facebook-rendered Skip, Cancel, or Skip This Step button, unless the user explicitly selects to invite friends from a page that offers more than just the friend invite option. If the application presents the user with a friend invite page that does not include a Facebook-rendered Skip, Cancel, or Skip This Step button, the application must offer some navigation option to leave the friend invite process, and the application must not present the user with a subsequent friend invite page unless the user explicitly selects to invite friends from a page that offers more than that single option.

More information is available here:

Facebook bans 'forced invites' in apps

Forced Invites Get Shutdown

Today, new improvements have been pushed by Facebook for applications. The About pages are now promoted to the functionality of Facebook Pages and developers get improved statistics with graphs.

About Page

Since the About Pages now work like Facebook Pages, the About Page has gain new features:

• The Review section has been converted to The Wall
• A new Review section now uses the Reviews widget so that users can write reviews giving 1 to 5 stars to the application with a textual review. As the Wall was previously used by users for everything and anything except reviews, Facebook has answered developers complaints with a separate review space.
• It is now easier to promote an application through advertising
• Users can now become fans and developers can send updates to their fans
• The developer's view is different: developers cannot write reviews and they have additional buttons to edit the application, view statistics, send updates to fans and other management facilities
• Since it is now a Facebook Page, developers can add applications to their About page

To see an example of the new About page, I invite you to visit my application's about page: Status Competition.

Improved Statistics

The new statistics page, now called Insights displays nice-looking graphs:

For the graph, you can select different statistics:

• Canvas Page Views
• Unique Canvas Page Views
• Average HTTP Request Time on Canvas Pages
• Average FBML Render Time on Canvas Pages
• Unique Adds
• Unique Removes
• Unique Blocks
• Unique Unblocks
• API Calls
• Unique API Calls

As previously, the statistics are still compiled daily from midnight to midnight Pacific time so you cannot see statistics for the current day.

On another tab, you still get a sample of HTTP Request Statistics and on yet another tab you get the previous Add/Remove Referrer Statistics.

What's unclear for me, since my first public application, Status Competition, was only published 20 days or so weeks ago is that I only can see the last 2 weeks of statistics. I hope statistics are not limited to only the previous 2 weeks. One thing I think is missing is the ability to export the statistics for spreadsheet mashing.

For more information on the changes to the About Page and the statistics reports, you can read "Changes to the Application About Page".

It is official now! Jerome Paradis and Kim Vallee are proud to announce that their first public Facebook application has been approved.

Why the wait to talk about it?

We wanted to wait until we received the approval to write a post about it. We invited some friends to play and they tipped Heri of Montreal Tech Watch. Another friend, Duncan Moore told Tris Hussey of MapleLeaf 2.0. We have been scooped twice but really we do not mind.

Our goal with the application

For our first application, we decided on an exercise of simplicity in design. The interface had to be simple and fast to use. I am sure it happened to you when reading your friends’ status updates. You get an instant emotion or a feeling.

The Status update rapidly informs your friends of what is going on with your life. Kim likes updating her status several times a day. Jerome imagined this concept because he saw the viral potential of the Status Updates. As a gamer, Jerome designed the application as a game-like utility. Together we refined the concept. Kim worked on the interface.

The application makes the most of psychological behaviors. When your friends vote on your status updates, it proves you have been read. By voting, your friends are telling you how they feel about your status updates. It gives instant gratification. And voting has a reciprocal power.

How Status Competition works?

Status Competition is a fun way to stay connected with your friends. It is fun to see how people use your creation. So far, we have seen friends who challenged themselves and entered into a sprint of Status Competition voting.

To climb the leader board, invite your friends to participate into a friendly Status Competition. Make your own opinion about our game. Try Status Competition and see how fun it is!

About the guest blogger: Kim Vallee is an Entertaining Expert and Tastemaker. She is happily married to Jerome Paradis. She produces At Home with Kim Vallee, a blog on stylish living and entertaining.

First, Happy New Year 2008 everyone!

No, I'm not going to say I'll blog more, because I don't know if I will be able to follow through.

All my resolutions for 2008 have the goal of making my life simpler and easier.

My first step is to start with emails to stop the information overload. I've been using Outlook since 1996. My PST file was now over 5 gigs!

First thing is that I've put this file aside and it's now an archive. I am starting with a blank slate. Then, I imported my contacts for the old file and I will have to delete a few outdated contacts. I also imported my tasks and I them cleaned up so that I only have a few future tasks to do. For the inbox and email folders, I did not import anything. I really want to start fresh. If I ever need something from the past, I will search my archive.

I've  also set up my email account so that emails stay on the server for 2 days. Over the holidays, I configured GMail to fetch emails from my server. I already have a Web mail access, but it strains under the load when I keep too many messages. I plan to gradually migrate to GMail to archive my emails instead of using Outlook. This way, I'll have everything available online. That's why I'm keeping my emails on the server for 2 days: it is to be sure GMail fetches them.

I'm also continuing to unsubscribe from every newsletter. All of them! I use RSS feeds with Google Reader instead. This way, I will read what I want when I want instead of having my Inbox fill up with things I don't really need to be distracted with. My goal is that the only emails I eventually see will be from friends and business contacts.

To free yourself from information overload, I recommend reading this post from Tim Ferris: 12 Filtering Tips for Better Information in Half the Time: RSS, Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon

I finally managed to get my setup fine-tuned to debug Facebook FBML applications using Visual Studio 2005. Chances are that the same procedure will work under Visual Studio 2008. Since I struggled a bit to get my setup right, I thought I should share my findings.

I am using Nikhil Kothari's excellent Facebook.NET API because I think it's very good for FBML applications. I also tried the Facebook Developer's Toolkit and I found it easy to use for IFrame applications, but a bit buggy. I also had to make corrections to the source code to improve performances and solve some bugs. In any case the following recipe to debug applications would work with any API.

Getting your PC to serve HTTP request over the Internet

Since Facebook FBML applications work though REST requests that are incoming from Facebook's servers, you will need to setup your PC to respond to HTTP request from the outside.

The first thing in order, is to setup your rooter and or firewall so that your PC can respond to external HTTP requests. In general, you need to:

1. Open the HTTP (80) port on your router to forward requests to your PC's LAN address
2. Configure your firewall to let HTTP requests through

In my case getting this to work was a bit of a struggle, because my Bell Canada service supplied me with a dreaded SpeedStream 6300 router/modem. To make a long story short, I had to use a second router, plug it in the WAN port and setup the DMZ address to the second router's address on the SpeedStream.

You will also need to setup a DNS Server so that the name server reaches the public IP address your are connected to. To do this, you either need a fixed IP address and setup a DNS server or need to use a dynamic DNS service. In my case, I'm lucky, I have a fixed IP address and have my own DNS servers.

To test correctly that you can serve external HTTP requests, the following is recommended:

1. If not already installed, install IIS on your PC (you will need it later, anyway)
2. Configure IIS to serve a static HTML page, start the IIS service and test your page on localhost
3. Test your HTML page using your external IP or fully qualified domain name. Here, chances are you will need to test the page from outside the network. Ask a friend to try the URL from a remote location.
4. As a basic security measure, make sure to configure the IIS service to start manually and start it only when you need it or to change the port forwarding on your router to make sure your PC is not constantly available to respond to external HTTP requests.
5. If your Web page is not responding, check the IIS logs. It will tell you if your Web server is being hit or not. If it's not being hit, there's surely a problem in routing external HTTP requests to your local Web server.
6. In order to resolve external URLs that point directly to your domain name, you will need to add an entry for your fully qualidfied domain name in windows\system32\etc\hosts.

Testing your Facebook FBML application

Once you know your local Web server can answer external requests, make sure your Facebook FBML application is working. If you have access to a hosting service (you will need one if you wish to publish your application), publish your application, configure your Facebook Developer account for the application and test it.

Once you know your "Hello World" application works, you can now try and setup you debugging environment.

Debugging the FBML application

To debug a FBML application, you will need to setup your project as a Web Application Project. You might not need to, but I was never able to allow external HTTP requests to be served by the Web server included in Visual Studio 2005, even when configuring it on port 80 and disabling IIS. With Web Application Projects, you can use IIS. You can learn more about Web Application Projects here. To migrate a Web Site Project to a Web Application Project, I recommend this excellent article by Scott Guthrie.

Once your Web Application Project is ready for your Facebook application, go in your project's properties and set up your project to use IIS:

If you start the debugger for your project you will be asked to log in your application. Instead, go to http://www.facebook.com, log into your account and install your application. You will probably get an error because it did not respond to the installation URL. It does not really matter, if there was an error while installing your application in Facebook, it will be installed anyway for your profile and your will see a link for your application in the left menu. If you browse to your application, you will probably get the following error (if you set up your Web.Config to show errors):

If you don't get this error, but instead get a default Facebook application error, check your IIS logs to see if Facebook is reaching your local copy of IIS. If not, recheck your routing configuration, your firewall and your application's configuration in the Facebook Developer application.

The above error happens because the debugger is not attached to the right process. Here's how to solve it:

1. Stop your debugger
2. Restart the IIS Service.
3. Use any browser to browse your application, you should finally see it served from your PC!
4. Then, start your Visual Studio Debug to attach to the ASP.Net worker process (aspnet_wp.exe) using the "Debug/Attach to process" menu item:

Redo the above 4 steps anytime you get an HTTP 500 error.

It should now work. If you refresh your application's page in your browser, it should still show correctly and if you add a breakpoint in your code, you should see that you are debugging Facebook's requests!

I heard rumors that Facebook was removing the "is".  I think they tried to enable it yesterday and it did not went as expected. This is why we got some "is is" in our statuses yesterday.

Anyway, for the occasion, I took the time to make another Napkin Status Update.