How can I post a video, via Facebook's Connect API, to my Facebook profile page?

Question

Hi guys -

[I've answered my own question below - The fourth answer. One of the previous answers had a good hint in it - but not enough for the solution].

Has anyone posted a video via the Facebook Connect API to their profile / feed page?

Ideally, the video should be queued to the first frame with the superimposed Facebook's blue right arrow "play" button. Or if a thumbnail representing the video has to also be uploaded (rather than the video being queued to the first frame) as well, this is fine.

Also, when the video, or thumbnail, on the profile page is clicked, the video plays where it is - rather than going to another page off Facebook to be played there.

Thanks guys, ~Aki

Answer 1

Have you read the Facebook developer wiki page on this? That explains what is possible and how, it's pretty decent.

Answer 2

I don't think stevedbrown answered your whole question - I would try using the calls in that page, but using the application's ID as the user ID when you upload.

Answer 3

Use the Video.upload as described by stevedbrown or the Stream API or if you want to go simple share the link via API or share link.

Answer 4

The question may have not been correctly worded. The term "API" was misleading to a couple of folks - and I apologize for that.

What I was trying to do was to "share" a video by linking it in Facebook, AND to have it play in the profile feed (ie. to not leave the Facebook site while viewing the video - just like YouTube and Hulu.com do).

After digging into the JavaScript that Hulu was using to get this behavior, we noticed that a link tag was missing between our version of the < meta > and < link > tags, and Hulu's.

Facebook's web page, http://www.facebook.com/share_partners.php, was missing a tag that you should have if the content is a video, and you want it played in the profile feed.

Along with: < link rel="video_src" href="http://www.example.com/player.swf?video_id=123456789"/ > ...

You should include: < link rel="media:video" href="http://www.example.com/player.swf?video_id=123456789"/ >

That will get it to play in the feed. BUT, your domain name must be whitelisted.

To get your domain whitelisted, fill out this form: http://www.facebook.com/share_partners.php#/developers/developer_help.php

I got a reply, and approval, within a day! Kudos to the Facebook developer support staff!

Answer 5

Thanks for the info here. A couple of questions:

This answer implies that the video_src tag is not absolutely required if your site is whitelisted? "shared pages (including a videoplayer) only show your videoplayer in the stream if your domain is whitelisted by facebook (hit support up for that). otherwise try to share the flv file in video_src"

The reason I ask is because I will likely not be able to include the video_src tag in what I'm doing, but still want to play the videos inline on facebook. The above comment also implies FLV files work, but I believe only SWF can be shared?

I also notice on the share_partners page that after the video_src tag there is an asterisk * but there is no associated text. Anyone know why? Is it a mistake, or is it supposed to have a note saying this tag is not required if whitelisted?

Cheers!! Dave