Question

We are making an Article Reading app with Open Graph. When ever user reads any article on the App it gets posted as an Activity and his friends can see it.

The problem is if user clicks on the feed title, he is taken to the permission page and he has to grant the permission to read the article. I know that this is the core of Open Graph but we feel it would be great if we can provide a link like “Read Now” apart from usual post, which takes the user to the article directly without granting any permission. Obviously, he wont be able to see any friends activity on that page and it wont allow us to post on his behalf, but that is fine because users intention was just to read that particular article.

Has any one done something like this?

Any pointers would be really appreciated

Gaurav

Answer 1

I’m not sure how you’re posting this link, if it’s using the javascript sdk or from the servers, but the Post object has the actions field which is:

A list of available actions on the post (including commenting, liking,
and an optional app-specified action)

For example using the js sdk:

FB.ui({
    method: "feed",
    link: "LINK_URL",
    ...
    actions: [
        { name: "Read Now", link: "URL TO THE READ NOW " }
    ]
}, function(response) { console.log(response); });

You can obviously do the same if you post in different methods since it’s all based on http requests.

Another thing is that you can completely go around all of this.
When a user comes to an article, check if he is authenticated, if he is no problem, otherwise show him message saying something like “you can read the article or log in, read it and share the social aspect of the experience..” and two options, continue to read or to install the app, if he chooses to install the app you then take him to the auth dialog.