I was at a social media presentation last Wednesday that has really left an impression.  Two of the presenters was the guys from Queensland Tourism who are behind that Best Job In The World campaign, where you are a caretaker for the Great Barrier Reef.  Anyway, it has renewed my interest in building Facebook applications, and I’m very aware of the value of building tools that let businesses easily play with social media.

Queensland Tourism are using Facebook, but in a really limited capacity.  Facebook Connect allows you to connect facebook users with your website that takes the power of Facebook, and extends it with what you can bring to the game using facebooks API.  I believe Facebook Connect is going to create much better apps than the current gimmick apps that currently clog up your friends pages.

Let me start with this site: http://www.drupalforfacebook.org/ which has been duplicated on facebook here: http://apps.facebook.com/drupalforfacebook/node .

What you are looking at in the above links is powerful.  It is the content of your site duplicated in a facebook application.  Users needn’t leave the familiarity of facebook to read your content, they can now do it online.

This is made possible with the Drupal for Facebook developed by Dave Cohen

Currently, this drupal module only works in Drupal 5, however work is being done in the background for a Drupal 6 version which is expected around April.  In the meantime Drupal 6 users can patch the drupal 5 module with http://drupal.org/node/235457#comment-1279420 to explore.  There is a bit of documentation at http://drupal.org/node/205481 for the Drupal 5 version.

Also, another project that has perked my interest is Facebook Connect which allows users to login to a Drupal websiteusing their Facebook login and password.  Facebook Connect also brings with it other features though it isn’t as complete as Drupal for Facebook, however Facebook Connect has a Drupal 6 version readily available.

Finally, there is the Facebook API group at Drupal, who are keeping tabs on this development

I’m about to open up a Drupal 5 project, so I can play with the more fully developed Drupal For Facebook module.

Just remember, social media is about participating and sharing information.  Build tools that will help people do this, not social network ghosttowns that no one uses.