Update: As of  Jan. 26, 2009 – there are over 4,800 members.

Designing With Web Standards - Facebook Group

Quoting from the DWWS Facebook group page:

Designing With Web Standards is “the foundational web standards text”. “A core text cited by many as the beginning of the true revolution.”

“Web standards” didn’t really exist until Mr. Jeffrey Zeldman, and his colleagues, coined the term, applied it to a set of ill-enforced W3C and ECMA recommendations, and persuaded browser makers to support these core technologies accurately and completely. That was “The Web Standards Project.”

Designers still weren’t using these hard-won standards, so Mr. Zeldman pushed A List Apart in the direction of web standards evangelism, and this had a great effect. An underground of smart, forward-thinking designers and developers embraced web standards.

Still, most people didn’t get the concepts of web standards, and the industry was oblivious to the benefits or even the existence of web standards.

So the book was written, and published, revised and re-published and the story of web standards continues. It’s the book that launched a thousand other books, from Web Standards Solutions on. It changed some people’s careers, launched others, shook up the industry. However imperfectly applied, web standards are behind most “Web 2.0″ apps.

And yet web standards are still a semi-underground movement, and standardistas are still a rare breed.

Back on November 2nd, 2007 – Jeffrey Zeldman wrote about the group in his blog.

In July of 2008, we wrote an update about DWWS group activities, and related events.

In the past year, 4,171 members have to joined the DWWS Facebook group – to ask questions about the Designing With Web Standards book, and dialogue about Web Standards.

The DWWS Facebook group is already very global. Members are from the following countries, or regions: Australia, Argentina, Bangladesh, Belgium, Belize, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Finland, Fiji, France, Ghana, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya,
Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc.

Join the DWWS FB group and let’s learn about web standards together.

Just getting started with web design or web standards? Check out Jeffrey Zeldman’s DWWS page, or our recent book review of Jeffrey’s book – Designing With Web Standards.

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 <fb:user-agent includes="firefox">
    We love Firefox!
 </fb:user-agent>

A simple example, from the new book FBML Essentials.

FBML Essentials – Facebook Markup Language Fundamentals, written by Jesse Stay, published by O’Reilly Media, July 2008, 167 pages, ISBN:0-596-51918-6,  $29.99

FBML Essentials - Facebook Markup Language - book cover

Facebook is the world’s largest and fastest growing social networking website (with 132 Million unique vistors in June of 2008).

FMBL Essentials, the new book from O’Reilly Media, is all about learning the essential markup elements and fundamentals of Facebook application design.  FBML (like HTML)  provides the basic markup tags for building a Facebook application.

According to the author Jesse Stay, this book is essential for anyone who wants to be a part of Facebook’s future. “FBML is only the beginning of your adventure in Facebook Development. Reviewing and knowing what tags are available will help save you time as you develop on Facebook.”

Whaaoo there Jesse, let’s not go-a-galloping on that horse so quickly. Some people might need to sign-up for Facebook first.  Or maybe read Facebook, The Missing Manual,  and get familiar with the Facebook blog and FAQ.

Somewhere along your journey of joining Facebook — and finding your first 20 or 200 friends –  you might have started thinking about becoming a Facebook application developer.  Perhaps you stumbled across the Facebook application developer area, and said to yourself – hmmmm, that would be fun to try. You might be  a curious technology geek like me, or “social geek” like FBML Essentials author – Jessy Stay.

OK, cowboy! Are you ready to ride? Buy this book. Read it. Learn FBML fast.

You’ll discover:

• A sample Facebook application – with explanations of how it works
• Design rules for images, CSS, Javascript, and forms – related to FBML
• An introduction to FBJS, Facebook’s version of JavaScript
• Concise explanations of all the FBML tags – logic tags, user tags, profile tags, etc.
• How to create forms with FBML
• Dynamic FBML attributes, including MockAJAX
• Tips on testing your FBML code

You can tell Jesse Stay is a very sharp guy when you read his blog.  He wrote his first FBML application in just one week, and sold it 2 months later. Jesse has consulted for several of the top 100 applications on Facebook. Now Jesse’s working on an iPhone Interactive entertainment application that will help cowboys change gears faster, or something like that.

This is funniest musical video about the FaceBook socio-technological revolution I have ever seen. (It’s also the only one I’ve ever seen.) So take a look… and I think you will get a few chuckles as you ponder the impact of FaceBook and YouTube.

Facebook is a popular, fast growing, social networking website that combines the best of blogs, online forums, photo sharing, applications, and interaction among friends, and networks of people. The one thing it didn’t have until now was a user’s guide – in book form.

Facebook: The Missing Manual provides a very clear and entertaining introduction to the many fascinating things that Facebook has to offer. Written by E. A. Vander Veer, and co-published by Pogue Press/O’Reilly, in January 2008. (US$19.99) – ISBN 9780596517694

Why am I doing this book review? I met a publicist from O’Reilly publishing on – you guessed it – Facebook, and she asked for volunteers to review the book. So I got the book, and read it over several days on the commuter bus, and found it to be an easy read.

The book is a quality production, from an experienced author — with a comprehensive outline, and clear writing style; full of interesting tidbits, sidebars, and colorful illustrations. It faithfully follows the missing manual formula, with excellent layout and typography — and the result is a first-rate, quality, how-to-manual about getting started with Facebook. Spotrick, a blogger from down under, says the book exudes quality.

Topics covered: How to get started, creating your profile, help in Joining a network (business, geographic, city, country); finding friends, looking for people, college buddies and old acquaintances, viewing your friends, organizing your friends, responding to friend requests (or not); Sending messages to friends, and poking people (a Facebook phenomena). What it means to “write on someone’s wall”. How to stay in touch with friends through status updates, news-feeds, mini-feeds, RSS-feeds, notifications, subscriptions, etc. — and controlling what kind of information other people can see about you (privacy, security, etc.) There is even a whole chapter (chapter 13) dedicated to the topic of Facebook privacy concerns.

Other chapters: Chapter 6 – Participating in groups, finding groups, joining groups, creating groups, and participating in groups. (Note: personal observation of group behavior on Facebook… a lot of people know how to join groups, but very few know how to participate. ) Chapter 7 – Events and calendars; planning and event, or party; finding events, how to RSVP to an event, creating your own events and inviting people to join the event. (Note: I was looking for a little more help in chapter 7 and did not find what I was looking for. I had done a few event announcements to large groups in Facebook, and found that the Facebook software was very buggy — or network congestion at the Facebook server farm caused the trouble on several occasions — and it took three attempts to mail an invitation to all the people in my group (over 900 people), because the system kept timing out. Some things on Facebook work very well with smaller groups; less than 200 people – but not large groups with thousands of people … and I was hoping “the missing manual” would help me out on this.) Chapter 8 – Going shopping, placing an ad, finding stuff, answering ads. (Note: this was something I had overlooked on Facebook, and looks like a feature I need to explore more.) This was a helpful chapter. Chapter 9 – touches on business topics like recruiting people for a business, gathering prospects, looking for a job. Chapter 10 – talks about using Facebook for collaborating on business projects, setting up meetings, exchanging ideas, and exchanging files. Chapter 12 – All about Facebook applications, and customizing your settings. As stated earlier Chapter 13 covers security and privacy issues, and does a reasonable job of explaining how the interface works, and how to adjust your personal profile settings. This chapter alone might be worth the price of the book, if you are concerned about this issue, and are confused or bewildered by it.

Potential audience: This might not be the best book for the millions of people who were already using Facebook (eg, college students – they already know how to use facebook) but it is probably a helpful book for the millions of people who are still joining Facebook. High-schoolers, or college-agers that need to understand how Facebook security actually works, might benefit from this book. But the biggest audience for this book, might be the millions of people over 30 (and the grandma, granddad crowd) that are now joining Facebook in droves. (Personal note: I am a 49 year old grandpa-type.) Lots of older business people might really benefit from reading this book, if they are a little timid about social networking websites, and need some support.

This book is an introduction, or a beginners guide. It does not cover some topics in depth, and does not attempt to cover topics like how to write Facebook applications. (Perhaps OReilly will publish other books like: How to Write a Facebook Application.) This book is a user’s manual; like a tourist guide for someone traveling through Facebook-land. Enjoy the journey.

What other are saying about the book:

Mantex says…

When you’ve posted all those snaps of yourself getting drunk at the parties – did you know that it’s quite difficult to take them down again just before that vital job interview? If you’re going to use Facebook and take it seriously, you need a guidance manual, and there hasn’t been one – until now…. takes you through the whole process, step by step, from registering and creating your profile to joining networks and finding friends. And every one of those steps is spelled out in a commendably clear manner.

Duffbert says in his random musings – recommending this book…

So let’s say you’re someone who hasn’t dabbled much in the Web 2.0 world, and you’re wondering what all this talk of Facebook is about. Or, you’re a parent and you’ve heard media reports of how dangerous Facebook can be for your kids if they’re not careful. If you want to get a overview of the site without getting totally bogged down in the details once you log on, Facebook: The Missing Manual is a good option to pursue. You’ll find out the reality of what Facebook offers, why people find it appealing, and what sort of security matters you should keep in mind as you (or your kids) establish a presence there.

Monday, November 26, 2007 is the day thousands of Standardistas (people who support web standards) will wear a Blue Beanie to show their support for accessible, semantic web content.

It’s easy to show your support for web design done right. Don a Blue Beanie and snap a photo. Then on November 26, switch your profile picture in Facebook and post your photo to the Blue Beanie Day photo pool on Flickr.

Next Steps:

1. Make a personal commitment to fight Web Standards Apathy. Show solidarity with the Standardistas on November 26th, 2007.
2. Buy, beg, or borrow a Blue Beanie (blue hat or cap, even a black or grey one will do in a pinch.)
3. Take a photo of yourself wearing the Blue Beanie. Or take a cool group photo of you and your friends wearing Blue Beanies.
4. Post your photo, or photos to Facebook, Flickr, and other social networks on November 26th, 2007. Remember to switch your Facebook profile photo that day. While you’re at it, switch all your social network profile photos. Flickr, Twitter, Last.fm, iLike, Pownce, you name it.
5. Promote Blue Beanie Day in your blog or wiki starting today, and tell all your friends to get ready for Blue Beanie Day. Start by inviting all your Facebook friends to this event.

Check the Blue Beanie Day event notification on Facebook to see more Blue Beanie heads and to make a comment or ask questions.

Update, 11-Apr-2008 – the  DWWS group  is now over 3000 members.

Update, 28-July-2008 — the DWWS group now has over 3600 members.

Members are from the following countries, or regions: Australia, Belgium, Belize, Canada, China, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA, Venezuela, etc.

Please join us as we are talk about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, ECMA-script web standards in the Facebook discussion forum.

Update, 28-July-2008 — You can read related articles by following the DWWS tag.