Web Strategy and Development Blog

Activity Streams

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One of the key components of the Missouri State website redesign is the new Activity Stream. It’s featured on both the Missouri State homepage and Current Students page. The activity stream combines content feeds from various campus providers – University Relations, Public Affairs, SGA, Athletics, SAC and the Bookstore to name just a few.

Not only does it pull in content from many different providers, it also pulls in content from different services such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Delicious and various RSS feeds. This makes for a very dynamic and constantly changing stream of information.

Activity Stream

Here’s how it works:

  • Only one item is pulled per source every 30 minutes. This is to ensure that one content provider doesn’t overload the stream by posting a lot of content in a very short amount of time.
  • If content is posted on multiple sites it will only show the first entry. For example, if a link is posted on the Missouri State Facebook page and then the Missouri State Twitter account, only the first post from Facebook will show on the stream. This helps to reduce duplicated entries.
  • Only the 15 most recent items appear on the homepage (the 13 most recent appear on the current students page), but older items can be viewed by visiting the Full Stream, which shows the 100 most recent items.
  • From Facebook, only manual updates are pulled into the stream; this means that anything posted by an application (like Notes, RSS Graffiti, Twitter, etc.) does not appear. For content posted to Twitter, the stream ignores any items posted from Facebook, Twitterfeed and the Twitter Tools plugin on Missouri State blogs.

Some best practices you should be following when posting your content:

  • Don’t post a lot of content at once. There’s no need to post six months worth of events in the span of five minutes. Not only is this an ineffective way to promote your content, it also has the potential to alienate your followers, who will relate such activity with spam. Space out your content postings as much as you can, and if you do have more than one piece of content you need to post at the same time, wait at least 30 minutes to do so to ensure that all of the items appear on the activity stream.
  • Use tools that minimize copying and pasting your content into different sources. You should only need to post your update in one place, and then by setting up the correct tools, your content will disseminate automatically to your other accounts. Some great examples of these tools are the Facebook to Twitter option available to Facebook page administrators, or Twitterfeed for Twitter users. Last fall I presented on RSS and Social Media Coordination, and if you would like to see more of these tools in action I suggest you watch this video presentation. Not only does this coordination between your sites make the workload easier on you, it also streamlines how that content comes into the activity stream and helps reduce the possibilities of content duplication.
  • Similarly with blogs, take advantage of having notifications of new blog posts sent automatically to Facebook, using an application like Notes or RSS Graffiti, and Twitter using the Twitter Tools plugin available on Missouri State blogs.
  • When retweeting others’ content on Twitter, use the new retweet feature and do not put “RT” in front of the tweet. This will ensure that if you are retweeting content from another provider on the activity stream, that tweet will not be duplicated.

Features to be added in the future:

  • We will be adding an RSS feed of all the content from the activity stream, so users can subscribe to the feed and keep up to date with everything happening on campus without having to visit the website to see all the content from the activity stream.
  • We will be integrating a Like button on all activity stream content sourced from Facebook. At present you can see how many people like Facebook content, but once this button is added users will be able to like content without leaving the Missouri State website.
  • The full stream page will eventually go away and will be replaced with an expanding homepage that will show older content on the same page – similar to how the news stream works on Facebook. This will allow users to see older content without going to a different page.
  • There will be a button added that allows others in the campus community to submit their content sources to be added to the stream. For content to be considered for the homepage, it must have at least two audiences. For content to be considered for the current student page, the content must be relevant to current students.

New Media Support

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The Office of Web and New Media recently overhauled our new media support web site. It now offers guidelines, recommendations, examples and resources on a variety of social media and multimedia topics:

Twitter Support

YouTube SupportWe’ll continue to update and enhance these pages.

You can also keep up with new media (and web) tips and resources by subscribing to the Web and New Media blog, following MSUWEB on Twitter or referencing our Delicious bookmarks.

Re-purposing videos from Inside Missouri State

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This post will give you step-by-step instructions on how to embed the videos from Inside Missouri State on your University web site. There are five marketing message videos, one for each of the first five sections of the site, as well as testimonial/spotlight videos that correspond to each marketing message on the left of these sections. You are free to include any of these videos on your University website. Here’s how:

  1. The videos are hosted on Missouri State’s iTunes U site. You will need the URLs for these videos to embed them on your site. First ensure that the iTunes software is installed on your computer, and then visit http://itunesu.missouristate.edu and click on the button labeled ‘Open iTunes U: Public Access.’ This will open iTunes on your computer, and automatically navigate to Missouri State on iTunes U.
  2. Now that iTunes is open to Missouri State’s page, click on the section labeled ‘About Missouri State,’ which is in the first content area called ‘Welcome.’ You will see multiple tabs in the About Missouri State section. The tab labeled ‘Inside Missouri State’ houses the five marketing message videos from Inside Missouri State, and the tab labeled ‘Spotlights’ houses the testimonial videos from Inside Missouri State (they are the first six videos under this tab).
  3. Find the video you wish to use on your site, ensuring that the correct tab where it is located is selected and open in iTunes. At the top of the page is a ‘Subscribe’ button. Right-click on this button, and select ‘Copy Link.’
  4. Open your web browser, and paste the link you just copied from iTunes into the address bar and press Enter. You will now see the RSS Feed of the tab you had open in iTunes U. Find the video you wish to embed on your site, and copy the URL of that video. The video URLs should all end with ‘encolusure.mp4.’

Now that you have the URL to the video copied, you need to paste that URL into the video player. In Web Press, you will use a content class called ‘Video Player – MP4 or FLV.’ The instructions below will show you how to embed the video using this player in Web Press.

If you have a University site that does not use Web Press, the embed code can be provided to you. Please send an email request to bradmitchell@missouristate.edu if you would like to use the video player embed code on your site outside of Web Press.

To embed the video in your Web Press page:

  1. Open the Foundation Page of the web site that you want to edit.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click Edit List of Content Pages. The Edit Link Element page opens.
  3. On the Edit Link Element page, click Create and Connect Page. The Content Class Groups page opens.
  4. In the top portion of the screen, click the General Pages group.
  5. In the bottom portion of the screen, click Video Player – MP4 or FLV.
  6. Type in a headline. This headline can not seen by users and is used for searching only.
  7. Open Edit Video Settings Via Form and paste the video URL you copied from iTunes.

(More information on using the MP4/FLV Video Player in Web Press can be found at http://webpress.missouristate.edu/VideoPlayerMp4Flv.htm)

Also note that you can use the above instructions to embed any video that is hosted on Missouri State’s iTunes U site. Simply find the video you wish to embed on your site, and then follow the above instructions.

Web Developers Users’ Group Schedule Set for Fall 2009

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The Web Developers Users’ Group (WDUG) schedule has been set for Fall 2009:

Date Time Location Topic
Mon, Sept 21 4:00-5:00 PM Karls 101 Web Press Tips and Tricks
Wed, Oct 21 4:00-5:00 PM Karls 101 Using Calendars on your Web Site
Wed, Nov 18 4:00-5:00 PM Karls 101 RSS and Social Media Coordination

Any Missouri State web developer is welcome. Registration is not necessary. See more information about WDUG.

Missouri State University News Site Updated

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NewsThe updated version of the Missouri State University News web site went live on Monday, August 3rd. The new site utilizes WordPress as a publishing platform with a custom design and interface. Since the updated site only contains news content, a separate web site was also created for the Office of University Communications in Web Press.

Along with a new layout and design, the updated News site also has these new features:

  • Featured Story
    There is a new area on the front page that allows for a featured story that includes an image associated with it.
  • Podcasting
    There is a new Podcast section on the website that includes both audio and video podcasts. Users can listen to or watch the three most recent podcasts on the front News page by clicking on the name of the podcast to stream it in their web browser. An option to subscribe to the podcast is also available through RSS.
  • Search Function
    Users can now search within the News site itself by typing in a keyword in the ‘Search News’ search box in the grey bar at the top of the page.
  • Consolidation of content
    The previous content areas of Faculty & Staff Accomplishments, Student Accomplishments, and the Out In Front blog have now been consolidated into an overall Accomplishment category.
  • Integration of Audio and Video
    There is a simple way to add audio and video content to a news release, whether that be the main focus of the news release or supplemental material. Any audio or video included in a news release will be embedded in that story and include an audio or video player so users can stream the media from the page they are viewing.
  • Multiple Archives
    Content is archived by the month it was posted as well as by news category.
  • Linking to other Missouri State Social Media sites
    There is a new section called Missouri State Media that includes new icons and links to other University social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, iTunes U, and Blogs.
  • Tags
    All news releases and posts are now tagged with keywords. Users can use these tags to find similar articles with the same tags, searching for content with specific tags, or to see all posts with a particular tag. The most popular tags are shown on the front page of the News site, and every news release shows it’s tags at the bottom of the story. Users can also get an RSS feed of a particular tag by adding ‘feed’ to the end of the URL.
  • Multiple RSS Feeds
    There is an overall RSS feed which includes all news, as well as separate RSS feeds for each news category (News Releases, Hot Topics, and Accomplishments) and another RSS feed for podcasts.

This was a collaborative effort between the offices of Web and New Media and University Communications and could not have been accomplished without the help from all of the staff in both offices. I’d like to thank everyone in University Communications for all of their great recommendations and for coming along on the ride of taking the News web site to the next level.