Ident Engine

sharing and syncing your job seeking information across the web

Collecting favicons

Published: 2 October 2009 08:23

Icons will help users quickly scan lists of social media sites. However, pulling favicons directly from sites is a lot more challenging than you may first think. Google have provided a simple API to do this.

http://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=flickr.com

The only draw back I have found with using Google's favicons API is that all the icons are on white backgrounds. I have created a set of PNG favicons with transparent backgrounds for the 70 social media sites which are part of the Ident Engine download or you could try Paul Lloyd's beautifully designed set of Social Media Icons.

When creating an "elsewhere on the web" listing try and make them as easy to read as possible. Full URLs or even domain names are hard to scan read, always try and use the site name, i.e. http://www.flickr.com/people/glennjonesnet/ is displayed just as Flickr (glennjonesnet). It is important to display the username to reassure the user that you have found the right account.

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Comments

9/28/2009 11:27:01 AM #

Google's favicon API is nice, but not so great, should provide transparent PNGs...

Nicolas Hoizey

9/29/2009 1:00:44 AM #

You could try this http://getfavicon.appspot.com/

Lim Chee Aun

9/30/2009 3:05:56 PM #

Thanks Lim Chee Aun
The getFavicon API looks very good, one to consider.

glennjones

10/2/2009 2:36:18 AM #

Ident engine really does feel like magic.  I wonder - would it be feasible to create a 1 degree of separation "Friend recommender"?  
I.E.  Take identi.ca/mattkatz - pick up the foaf or xfn friends on it.  Then query those profiles, and pick up their friends.  See which show up on multiple unique profiles, and that's people that are known by more than one of my friends.  

I should probably know those people...

Matt Katz

11/20/2009 5:23:24 PM #

Transparent PNG favicons are nicer. Especially when the size is bigger.

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