• Read more about Do's and Don'ts of Social Networking

I was quoted in today's Launch magazine in Do's and Don'ts of Using Social Internet Sites for Business. In the article, I offer the following advice on adding and interacting with contacts on various social networks:

Don't forget your manners.

While nearly all social networks have rules for participation (don't post obscenities or copyrighted material, for example), the etiquette for adding people to each network is defined by the mores of those on the network, Postman says. He offers a few guidelines:

• Users should be particularly careful to avoid the appearance of flirtation and inappropriate comments and messages. Use the same rules as you would in the workplace.

• Don't send blatantly commercial messages. Business networking is OK. Shameless promotion and cold calling is not.

• If the network allows, give the person you are inviting some context for the invitation.

• Do not take it badly if someone declines or ignores your invitation to connect. That's their option.

• Read more about Beboist - A Rails Plugin for the Bebo Social API

UPDATE

Click here for the latest on Beboist

The Beboist plugin provides a Rails interface to the Bebo Social Networking API.

The plugin was designed from the ground-up to be flexible enough to accommodate
any changes to the API, while at the same time providing a clean interface
that will be familiar to most Rails developers.

Setup

Ensure that the json gem is installed on your system and the Beboist plugin is installed in your vendor/plugins folder:

gem install json script/plugin install http://svn.intridea.com/svn/public/beboist</pre>

Generate your config/bebo.yml file using

script/generate beboist_settings</pre>

Fill in your appropriate app settings in config/bebo.yml. Ensure that your app name is right.

Generate the first migration for your users table using:

script/generate beboist_user_migration</pre>

Migrate your database using

rake db:migrate</pre>

In your application.rb, insert the following filters:

before_filter :reject_unadded_users before_filter :find_bebo_user</pre>

Write your app, and keep an eye on your logs to catch any possible error messages.

API Reference

The methods listed in the Bebo API Documentation are mapped to Ruby classes in the following manner:

users.get_info(uids => "1,2,3", fields => "first_name, last_name")   # BECOMES BeboUsers.get_info :uids => [1,2,3], :fields => ["first_name", "last_name"]

Notes

The Beboist plugin uses Bebo’s JSON API, and the ‘json’ gem to directly convert JSON objects to Ruby. It works with Rails 2.0+, but has not been tested on Rails 1.2. Check the README for more details, and file tickets at Intridea’s Public Trac