I have been spending some time recently developing an online community which will hopefully be launched next quarter. One of the things I wanted to integrate is OpenID to try and lessen the burden of signing-up and logging-in. However, after doing some research I’m thinking that Facebook Connect might be the better way to go. This is the first of at least 2 posts about implementing Facebook Connect with your own PHP application. To begin we will first look at what Facebook Connect is and does and the next post will get technical and look at how to integrate it with your next CodeIgniter or PHP application.

What is Facebook Connect and how does it differ from OpenID?

Facebook Connect (FC) allows users with Facebook accounts to log into your website/service using their Facebook log-in credentials. OpenID provides the same functionality except instead of using your Facebook credentials you use your OpenID credentials. The difference between the two is that FC brings a lot more, in terms of features and functionality, to the table for developers to work with than OpenID does. FC allows users to take their web based social identity with them from site to site.

The Facebook Developers site has a lot of useful information on FC and what you can do with it. Using FC, you can enable “…your users to seamlessly “connect” their Facebook account and information with your site, connect and find their friends who also use your site and share information and actions on your site with their friends on Facebook.” In a nutshell, when you integrate FC with your website or web based application you are allowing your users to interact with their Facebook account from within your app thereby adding value to your site right off the bat.

As I stated above, FC offers more than just authentication. If a user logs into your application using FC you have the ability to interact with that users Facebook profile, friends, Facebook Feed, requests and notifications (if they give your app permission). A nice example of FC functionality and features is a sample app Facebook staff developed as an example called The Run Around. This example shows how FC would be integrated with a typical web app. You can either create your account using The Run Around registration form and connect your Facebook account later on the settings screen. Or, you can just use your Facebook account to log-in and forgo the static registration all together.

When a user logs into The Run Around, and they have connected their account to their Facebook account, the app can now post updates to the users Facebook Feed and show them any friends of theirs that are also using the app. So now you can not only leverage a users Facebook log-in information but you can create an app that interacts with that users Facebook account which I think is totally cool. This opens the door for developers to create nice sites that compliment Facebook and vice verse.

Now that we have covered what Facebook Connect is the next post in this series will begin to look at how we go about using it in our own apps… stay tuned!

Update:

Well, it looks like they might have spoken too soon. After the CEO of JPG Magazine announced the magazine would be closing up shop they have received interest from a number of companies including Flickr and Smugmug in regards to acqusition. From the tone on the blogs and such it sounds like a deal is farily certain. Woohoo… JPG might not be closing after all.

E-mail marketing apps are a dime a dozen now a days. Each one claims it has better delivery rates than the other, more pre-designed HTML templates than the other and better support. However, I found an e-mail marketing app a while back that has just differentiated itself from the rest of the pack completely. The program is called Campaign Monitor (CM) and it’s not just your typical e-mail marketing app. CM has been built with designers and developers in mind. You can completely rebrand this hosted application to make it look and act like your own application and then resell it to your customers for additional revenue… totally cool!

Below are my 10 reasons why Campaign Monitor rocks:

1. Very easy to use.

E-mail marketing can be a complex activity if you aren’t real tech savvy. Especially in today’s market with so many different e-mail clients and spam filters around. Campaign Monitor has an extremely simple user interface. They don’t clutter the screen with unnecessary icons or graphics. Most operations are in a step by step wizard format with plenty of helpful notes and explanations along the way.

2. It speaks our language.

When you really get into e-mail marketing and start looking into why messages are bouncing, etc. you start to come across terms like Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DNS records. Your general user, who just wanted to send a message to their list, doesn’t know what all that is about… and they don’t care. Campaign Monitors reports get the information across in plain terms that anyone can understand. Their bounce report lists all recipients whose messages bounced back along with the specific reason why it bounced.

3. You only pay when you send.

E-mail marketing is one of those things that I refuse to pay a monthly fee for. I don’t send enough e-mails to warrant such a fee. That’s why Campaign Monitor is so great; you only pay when you send a message. So all the list and subscriber management tools are available for free. When it’s time to send a message it’s just $5.00 for the e-mail and $0.01 per recipient. So, if you’re sending a message to 100 people the cost will be $6.00 for the message. And the price doesn’t go up for more recipients. Of course you will pay more for sending to more people, because of the penny per recipient, but it’s still just $5.00.

4. Helps you get your messages to your recipients.

Getting e-mail’s to their intended destination is not a simple process. Spammers have clogged the pipes with so much junk that poor e-mail systems are having a hard time determining what’s legit and what’s not. To help ensure your mail get’s delivered you are encouraged to look into the Sender Policy Framework and adding TXT records to your DNS so e-mail services like Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo don’t file your message as SPAM. Campaign Monitor does all the hard stuff for you by allowing you to add authenticated sending domains to your client accounts. Then CM provides you with the necessary DomainKey and Sender ID TXT records to just copy and paste into your domains DNS.

5. Not your typical affiliate or referral program.

Programs like this usually work off an affiliate or referral program. You link to or recommend the program to your clients who end up sign-ing up and you receive 15-20% of what they spend. Not a very attractive offier. Campaign Monitor, however,  actually allows you name your own price and still use their system. The deal is that you name your own price and then the client gets charged your price. At the end of every month CM does the math and sends you a Paypal transfer with your profit (minus their cut of course). CM only takes $5.00 for every message sent plus $0.01 per recipient.

6. Over 30 pre-designed HTML templates.

Campaign Monitor is a full featured e-mail marketing app in a box. All you have to do is gussy it up to look like you want and your off. They even offer 30 pre-designed HTML templates for you and your clients to use.

7. 100% Rebrandable

You know as well as I that rebrandable can mean anything from being able to change colors to being able to change the URL. With Campaign Monitor you can change pretty much anything you want. You can upload a logo for the main log-in screen, a logo for the main application interface, you can choose from a number of different color schemes, you can even set your own pricing scheme. To top it off you have the ability to change the URL of your app to anything you want. So users don’t visit http://something.campaignmontior.com. You can make the program look completely like your own.

8. A wealth of design resources.

On top of a great program, the makers of Campaign Monitor have a Resources section on their website chocked full of useful tips and tools. They have ideas on how you can offer e-mail marketing services to your clients and information on how CSS is supported in HTML e-mail design. They also have detailed explanations and resources to help your users understand permissions and what is and is not acceptable use of someones e-mail address.

9. Segmentation and custom fields.

You can have 5 different mailing lists for a single site if you want. But with Campaign Monitor you have the ability to create segments within a given list. Using custom fields you can group members of a given list into segments and then send messages to certain segments without affecting the other members of your list. This allows you to keep track of all your subscribers using just one list instead of many.

10. API Access

As if the items I have already mentioned aren’t enough, Campaign Monitor also provides it’s users with API access to their program. This allows developers like myself to integrate the program with their own apps to help streamline mailing list management and cut down on all the exporting and importing that typically needs to take place. If you offer other web based applications this is a great opportunity to upsell Campaign Monitor because you can integreate it with your apps thereby making the process seamless for your clients and that’s what it’s all about.

Those are just some of the reasons why I think Campaign Monitor rocks. Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. I logged on this afternoon, after taking some time away from the computer for the holidays, and slowly sifted through over 500 blog posts in Google Reader. One of them caught my eye from TechCrunch: Zumbox Delivers Paperless Mail. The concept behind this company is that they want to deliver standard snail mail to consumers using the Internet. An interesting concept but not necessarily a new one.

Many reality television viewers may have heard of another company attempting something similar called Earth Class Mail. The HD channel Mojo had a show on the air for a while called Start up junkies which was a reality show about Earth Class Mail (ECM) as a start up business and the details that went into launching the company. An interesting show if anyone is interested but Zumbox is attempting to do the same thing that ECM is only with a slight twist.

After watching the show for a while I did a little research into ECM and I have to admit their business intrigues me. They have a valid business concept here: they create mail boxes for people, scan all of the mail received into their system, then users can log-in and view their snail mail online just like they would normally read their e-mail. When I first heard the idea I couldn’t really think of anyone who would want this service. But after I thought about it for a while it definitely has a market. Those people that travel in RVs for long periods of time, individuals in the military, people who move around a lot and of course businesses (this is the big one).

When I heard about Zumbox I assumed they were attempting something similar, but after reading their website they are actually a little different. Zumbox wants to create a digital mail address for every physical address across the country because although everyone doesn’t have an e-mail address they do most certainly have a mailing address. So in reality they don’t really do much with snail mail at all… they are just an e-mail provider that uses home addresses as the message address instead of an @something.com tag.

Unless I’m missing something I really don’t see much of a market for this concept. Their entire idea revolves around the concept that not everyone has an e-mail address. While I agree that not everyone has an e-mail address I would argue that as the current young generation gets older pretty much everyone will have an e-mail address eventually thereby eliminating the need for their service. Also, if someone doesn’t have an e-mail address it’s probably because they didn’t want or know how to go online and make one. You have to go through a sign-up and confirmation process in order to use Zumbox so the user has to go through the same process which was probably the hinderance in the first place.

The whole concept of being able to access your snail mail online I think is a cool one but I wonder what it’s shelf life will be. How long until all snail mail is just delivered electronically? We are already starting to see it: banks are converting over to digital statements, utility companies allow you to view and pay bills online. I think it’s just a matter of time until snail mail may be in the minority as far as a way to deliver mail.

What do you think? Will snail mail always be around or are companies like ECM going to bridge the gap by scanning your mail for viewing online? Let me know what you think by posting your comments below.

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