Is Facebook Report feature working at all?

Questions
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1

I tried generating a report and could not. I’ve explicitly given access to the FB app in FB settings and allow it when it asks for permissions after launching it from facebook report - Wolfram|Alpha.
Also, I’ve read that blog posts that talk about FB deprecating their API and the report not being so rich anymore. However, in my case, I am not getting any report whatsoever. After allowing WolframAlpha, the control just returns to the page I started with (linked above).

What am I doing wrong? How can I generate some report, any report?

2

Hello Ashish:

There does not appear to be anything you can do. Running it from the Wolfram|Alpha search bar wanted me to log into both Wolfram|Alpha and Facebook…to no avail. I also tried these:

WolframAlpha["facebook report"]

SocialMediaData["Facebook", "Friends"]

SocialMediaData["Twitter", "Followers"]

It looks like this function (introduced in V9) is no longer available.

You could report it to the support group (I am sure they already know).

3

I did some brief testing with another social media domain which was apparently supported at one time, according to the documentation (SocialMediaData).

Trying to use Linked in retrieved the following error messages:

![error returned with socialMediaDAta[]]1

It is interesting that the system is reporting an oAuth flow error about invalid consumer key. When it asked me to login, the consumer key (configured in Mma) is shown in the URL.

oAuthFlowLink0.png
oAuthFlowLink0.png644×375 45.6 KB

I do not believe that we (as users) can change this in the configuration…maybe it is exposed somewhere.

4

Yes, I had fun in early v 9 with all of the graphs, etc. No more.

5

Thank you looking in to it folks. From what I read, FB blocked some access (and rightly so). Still data is available for those who’ve explicitly allowed (in FB) the apps to ‘see’ their info and activity. Still what they said will continue to work is not working.

You’ll still be able to generate an analysis of most of your own
activity on Facebook, but you won’t have access to any information
about your friends (except their names) unless they’ve also authorized
our Facebook app.

I checked on FB at www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications and even after authorizing WolframAlpha app, I do not see it listed in my Apps. I went to App settings to explicitly allow it control over my information. How can I do so?

Yes, it was fun the first few times I tried it. I am big on personal analytics. I came back to revisit my analysis and compare with previously saved results. In fact, I wish to find some such tools for my multiple online activities like IMDb movie ratings, Fitbit activity tracking, WordPress activity, list.ly lists, and so on.

6

As far as SocialMediaData is concerned, the documentation pages needs to be updated after Fb had made some restrictions on personal analytics.

You can also use ServiceConnect for services like Fb,LinkedIn, Twitter etc to get the data, also the documentation for it is updated recently to give clear picture of what requests are supported.

7

Thank you Daman:

I was able to use ServiceConnect[]/ServiceObject[] to successfully connect and extract data from Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.

There are varying levels of supported data, but I can guess that when I dig out the corresponding APIs, lots of information will be available.

8

Hi, I’m totally new to this–can you explain how I would use “ServiceConnect[]/ServiceObject[]” to get this data?

9

Hi Yolanda,

Check the Documentation. The service names are hyperlinks, click on “Twitter” and it will take you to this page which has the details and examples.