Hack to Import Facebook RSS Feeds Into Ning 3.0 Networks

Workaround to Find Facebook RSS Feeds

We once were able to use FBRSS.COM to grab the feeds of Facebook Pages we follow. What FBRSS did was simply parse the RSS feeds on Facebook and then they generated new RSS feed URLs on their own server, but that no longer works. There were some cool things you could do with the feeds on Ning networks, but FBRSS is seemingly no more. But here is a nifty workaround for finding the Facebook Page Feeds.

Steps for Getting Facebook Feeds Into Ning Networks

Step 1 – Getting your page id from Facebook

Everything on Facebook, from users to photos to events, has a numeric id. This id is used internally by Facebook to find different objects in its enormous database. When you request the RSS feed from a page, you’ll need to send the id of the page along with your request. That’s why the first thing you need to do is to find the id of your page. It’s pretty simple. Open any Facebook page and click on the grab the URL of the page. Copy and Paste it here on Find Your Facebook ID When you have that numeric ID paste it into a notepad txt file for Step 2.

Step 2 –Constructing the Facebook RSS Feed URL for the Page

Just replace the numeric ID at the end of the following URL with the id you found in step 1.You can use either Atom or RSS

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=rss20&id=YOURPAGEID

View the Live FB RSS Feed of Beautiful Nation FB Page on this page in the network

For another example:

Here’s the URL to the Ning's Facebook page as an atom feed: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=134541301162

And here’s the URL to the same page using RSS 2.0: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=rss20&id=134541301162

Choosing a RSS format You can choose between an atom feed and RSS 2.0. If you don’t know the difference just go with atom.

To read more about Atom vs RSS 2.0 click here.

Step 3- Importing Your Feed into an RSS Module on Ning Site

This part is easy, simply copy and page your new URL into an RSS Feed Module anywhere on your site, save, sit back and smile.

Bonus: You can of course also have a tabbed module with several FB RSS feeds imported..For example.

Let me know if you have any questions and have a great weekend. As always I am here to help you with any workarounds you might be thinking about.