Many smartphone users (probably most) use dedicated apps for their social sharing. However, when clicking on a share button on websites, the user is redirected to the website instead of to the app for twitter and facebook. This document tries to offer an alternative route for sharing on mobile.
- When a user clicks the share button for the first time
ask if he/she wants to use an app or to go to the website.
Use local storage (jstorage) or cookies to store user preferences. - When the user wants to use the app, use a small script to verify
that the app is installed. When not, offer the option to still go
to the website. (save preferences accordingly).
example script: How to check if a url-scheme is supported (makebetterthings.com) - When a user wants to share another page, no option has to be offered
as the previous setting can be used. For this to work, the solution needs to be:- offered in an iframe/jsonp, so it can use it's own local-storage/cookies (domain-specific)
- offered on a large enough centralised platform (addthis.com) so that the users don't need
to set preferences for multiple website.
- An extra button leads to the (offcanvas) settings page to alter settings.
- Some url-schemes:
twitter: twitter://post?message=hello%20world
facebook: fb://post/... (unsure)
important reads: http://fokkezb.nl/2013/09/20/url-schemes-for-ios-and-android-2/ - Offer an option for power-users to set their own url-scheme.
This way a power-user can select the app to use. (e.g. twitterrific://)
GDmac 2014-03-06