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Facebook Blocks Chrome Extension That Imports Contacts To Google Plus

52 points by dkd903 15y ago

rakkhi 15y ago
You could just use the official download option. Also another way is to sync your phone with Facebook friends, also sync phone contacts with Google contacts via exchange. Job done.
- antimatter15 15y ago
  The official download doesn't include emails.
nextparadigms 15y ago
Does anyone know a way to import Facebook photos, too?
- marcf 15y ago
  iPhone syncing does grab the profile photos.
  - nextparadigms 15y ago
    So how would you go from there to import them into Google+? Sharing them to Picasa or something? Well, I don't know if iPhone has that but I think Android does, and I'm trying to figure out how it would work on Android.
- yesbabyyes 15y ago
  From Facebook: "You can render the current profile photo for any object by adding the suffix /picture to the object URL." Here's me: http://graph.facebook.com/yesbabyyes/picture?type=large http://graph.facebook.com/yesbabyyes/picture?type=large
frgtn 15y ago
You can try this bookmarklet: http://vytautas.jakutis.name/2011/05/27/convert-your-facebook-friend-contacts-to-csv/ http://vytautas.jakutis.name/2011/05/27/convert-your-faceboo...
dstein 15y ago
Honestly, how did we end up in a situation where some website has a complete list of everybody's friends and family email addresses and doesn't grant you access to them? One culprit is probably spam. Your email address became something to hide for fear of being spam bombed. This prevented any sort of universal person->email directory from being feasible and necessitated an intermediary sevice like facebook to share contacts publicly.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
mgutz 15y ago
Nobody stays king for long. Social networking sites are only good until the next best thing. I'll bet a good dollar within 5 years Facebook will lose much of its popularity. Then Google+, ... In the meantime, Facebook will do little things like this to slow the exodus. Is anybody really that attached to Facebook?
yangez 15y ago
This is counter-productive and just adds another good reason to turn to Google+. Despite switching costs, it's hard to like a service that coerces you to stay by preventing you from exporting your own data.
Turing_Machine 15y ago
One way around this: 1) Import your Facebook contacts to Yahoo! (you can create a throwaway account for this if necessary). http://www.ymailblog.com/blog/2010/03/facebook-friends-meet-yahoo-contacts/ http://www.ymailblog.com/blog/2010/03/facebook-friends-meet-... 2) Import the contacts from Yahoo! to Gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12118 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12118 It's been a while since I did this, but it worked fine then. No guarantee it still does. Edit: I'm assuming here that it's easy to get the contacts into Google+ once you have them in GMail. If that's not the case, never mind. :-)
- saalweachter 15y ago
  When you are in your circle editor, all of your Gmail contacts are visible. Additionally, there is a "import from Yahoo!" button directly in the circle editor.
  - Turing_Machine 15y ago
    Good to know. So why did I get modded down?
    - Turing_Machine 15y ago
      Modded back up. Maybe it was FB employees? :-)
robert-boehnke 15y ago
Are your friends email addresses available to a Facebook app with the appropriate rights?
- ig1 15y ago
  I don't know if it's still the case but you used to be able to use the API to get hashed copies of your friends email addresses (so if a service could rehash the emails of their own users and hook up the users if they're friends on Facebook). Obviously Google probably have the largest database of email addresses in the world so they probably could just hash them all and figure out who your friends are.
click170 15y ago
Streisand effect: I found out Google+ was actually scaring Facebook to the point that they aggressively try to prevent users from switching, so I decided Google+ must was worth taking a look at.
- mtkd 15y ago
  Goldman Sachs must be flapping over the PR plus is getting. Google really do seem to have product momentum - an FB account could very soon be Myspace cool. Also I sense there is something going on with G/Twitter at the moment - the plus launch and the firehose issue all seem too coincidental - feels like some M&A brinkmanship to me.
bonch 15y ago
Whew! For a second, I thought we'd have a day without another endless series of Google+ advertisements--er, links.
michaelcampbell 15y ago
You stay classy, FB.

52 points by dkd903 15y ago

You could just use the official download option. Also another way is to sync your phone with Facebook friends, also sync phone contacts with Google contacts via exchange. Job done.

antimatter15 15y ago
The official download doesn't include emails.

nextparadigms 15y ago

Does anyone know a way to import Facebook photos, too?

marcf 15y ago
iPhone syncing does grab the profile photos.
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  So how would you go from there to import them into Google+? Sharing them to Picasa or something? Well, I don't know if iPhone has that but I think Android does, and I'm trying to figure out how it would work on Android.
yesbabyyes 15y ago
From Facebook: "You can render the current profile photo for any object by adding the suffix /picture to the object URL." Here's me: http://graph.facebook.com/yesbabyyes/picture?type=large http://graph.facebook.com/yesbabyyes/picture?type=large

frgtn 15y ago

You can try this bookmarklet: http://vytautas.jakutis.name/2011/05/27/convert-your-facebook-friend-contacts-to-csv/ http://vytautas.jakutis.name/2011/05/27/convert-your-faceboo...

dstein 15y ago

Honestly, how did we end up in a situation where some website has a complete list of everybody's friends and family email addresses and doesn't grant you access to them? One culprit is probably spam. Your email address became something to hide for fear of being spam bombed. This prevented any sort of universal person->email directory from being feasible and necessitated an intermediary sevice like facebook to share contacts publicly.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

mgutz 15y ago

Nobody stays king for long. Social networking sites are only good until the next best thing. I'll bet a good dollar within 5 years Facebook will lose much of its popularity. Then Google+, ... In the meantime, Facebook will do little things like this to slow the exodus. Is anybody really that attached to Facebook?

yangez 15y ago

This is counter-productive and just adds another good reason to turn to Google+. Despite switching costs, it's hard to like a service that coerces you to stay by preventing you from exporting your own data.

Turing_Machine 15y ago

One way around this: 1) Import your Facebook contacts to Yahoo! (you can create a throwaway account for this if necessary). http://www.ymailblog.com/blog/2010/03/facebook-friends-meet-yahoo-contacts/ http://www.ymailblog.com/blog/2010/03/facebook-friends-meet-... 2) Import the contacts from Yahoo! to Gmail: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12118 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12118 It's been a while since I did this, but it worked fine then. No guarantee it still does. Edit: I'm assuming here that it's easy to get the contacts into Google+ once you have them in GMail. If that's not the case, never mind. :-)

saalweachter 15y ago
When you are in your circle editor, all of your Gmail contacts are visible. Additionally, there is a "import from Yahoo!" button directly in the circle editor.
- Turing_Machine 15y ago
  Good to know. So why did I get modded down?
  - Turing_Machine 15y ago
    Modded back up. Maybe it was FB employees? :-)

robert-boehnke 15y ago

Are your friends email addresses available to a Facebook app with the appropriate rights?

ig1 15y ago
I don't know if it's still the case but you used to be able to use the API to get hashed copies of your friends email addresses (so if a service could rehash the emails of their own users and hook up the users if they're friends on Facebook). Obviously Google probably have the largest database of email addresses in the world so they probably could just hash them all and figure out who your friends are.

click170 15y ago

Streisand effect: I found out Google+ was actually scaring Facebook to the point that they aggressively try to prevent users from switching, so I decided Google+ must was worth taking a look at.

mtkd 15y ago
Goldman Sachs must be flapping over the PR plus is getting. Google really do seem to have product momentum - an FB account could very soon be Myspace cool. Also I sense there is something going on with G/Twitter at the moment - the plus launch and the firehose issue all seem too coincidental - feels like some M&A brinkmanship to me.

bonch 15y ago

Whew! For a second, I thought we'd have a day without another endless series of Google+ advertisements--er, links.

michaelcampbell 15y ago

You stay classy, FB.