Building a Member Directory Site on WordPress with Facebook API Integration?

Question

I'm looking to build a member directory for one of my WordPress sites that hooks into the Facebook API. Site users would be able to browse through the directory of members and view their Facebook profile and information such as e-mail address, phone number, website, etc.

Basically, I'm thinking that members will need to login to facebook from the site and "allow access." Then, WordPress can pull member data from Facebook such as e-mail address, phone number, website, etc. and store it as custom meta in WordPress. One problem with this approach would be when a user updated their facebook profile, the WordPress site wouldn't get updated until they log back into the site and the "update" process kicks off again.

Am I way off base? Is there an easier way to do it?

Is there anything that would get me started with this, or would it need to be built entirely from scratch?

Answer 1

Hi @Nate Dudek,

I think you'll likely want to start with BuddyPress as it is essentially a "Facebook-in-a-Box", albeit a much more limited version of Facebook. It'll have more of the data structures you need to integrate with Facebook in the manner you describe.

Beyond that you might find these articles helpful:

• How To Integrate Facebook With WordPress

• 12 Useful Facebook Wordpress Plugins For Bloggers

• 6 Best Facebook WordPress Plugins

• 10 Must Have Facebook Plugins For WordPress

• WP-FacebookConnect Plugin

• Plugins on WordPress.org tagged with "Facebook"

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Simple Facebook Connect plugin offers plenty of functions that seem related to what you want, look over it for starters.