Facebook added a new section on its developer site focused on publishing past actions. It encourages developers to provide transparency about how past actions will be posted and give users control over the functions. Posting past actions will generate a notification indicating that a past action has been posted to a user’s Timeline.

There are still some trade-offs associated with using Open Graph. Images, for example, cannot be shared as large as they can with the Photos API. (We covered these issues in more depth here.) But overall, Facebook has smartly added more resources for those working with Open Graph to promote past-tense sharing.

Facebook, USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter - Involver is powering Facebook and USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter on Facebook.com/sports and other pages. The app allows users to see, rate and share Super Bowl ads before, during and after the game via web or mobile.

Most users get big social return from Facebook – A study from the Pew Research Internet Project found that most users receive more social feedback than they put into the platform. This is due to the fact that there’s a small percentage of power users that is extremely active in liking, commenting and providing other social feedback on the site.

Bday Gift Finder uses data to find gifts – Bday’s Bday Gift Finder is an app that allows users to find the right gifts for friends by utilizing user data to settle on the most appropriate gift card. The app analyzes Likes and the sentiment attached to those Likes. Bday recently received $2 million in Series A funding.

Facebook, USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter - Involver is powering Facebook and USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter on Facebook.com/sports and other pages. The app allows users to see, rate and share Super Bowl ads before, during and after the game via web or mobile.

Most users get big social return from Facebook – A study from the Pew Research Internet Project found that most users receive more social feedback than they put into the platform. This is due to the fact that there’s a small percentage of power users that is extremely active in liking, commenting and providing other social feedback on the site.

Bday Gift Finder uses data to find gifts – Bday’s Bday Gift Finder is an app that allows users to find the right gifts for friends by utilizing user data to settle on the most appropriate gift card. The app analyzes Likes and the sentiment attached to those Likes. Bday recently received $2 million in Series A funding.

The app is another example of the unique tactics the social network is using to promote its redesigned profile and part of a new trend of collaboration. The company is showing maturity as it prepares to file for an initial public offering that could raise at least $5 billion for the company.

Timeline will be mandatory for all users within weeks, but users have been able to opt in since December. (Developers gained access in September.) During this period, Facebook has taken steps to lead users to discover the new profile through their friends rather than giving the impression the social network is forcing another unwanted change on them. The company has done significant outreach to get celebrities and other influencers using Timeline. It also partnered with Moo.com to let users create Timeline-inspired business cards. These efforts would have been uncharacteristic for the social network a year or two ago, but Facebook has shown a new willingness to work with other businesses and public figures. These diverse partnerships could help the company’s valuation when it files for an IPO. Recent reports suggest Facebook could seek to raise $5 billion, lower than the previously rumored $10 billion. By setting a low float, the company could debut above its initial price as Groupon did in November. Zynga, on the other hand, reached for a larger amount in December and only crossed its initial price on Monday.

Of course, the social network has to satisfy users in addition to investors. Apps like Timeline Movie Maker help users see how personal Facebook is to them. When users visit TimelineMovieMaker.com, they can connect the app with their Facebook account. If users do not have Timeline enabled, they will be prompted to do so. After a few minutes of processing, the app produces a video including photos, videos, check-ins and status updates in the same format as the promotional video Facebook used to debut Timeline at f8. Users can change the music or swap photos if they want, then share the video with friends. Unfortunately the video takes a long time to render and cannot be played in-line from News Feed. Making it easier for users to view their friends’ videos would have made a more compelling case for Timeline.

Facebook is expected to formally file for public offering on Wednesday.

Facebook COO Shifts Europe focus from privacy to economy

Facebook has a €2.6 billion U.K. impact -  A study from Deloitte found that Facebook’s overall economic impact in the United Kingdom was €2.6 billion, or 35,200 jobs in the U.K. and 32,000 jobs in the European Union and Switzerland.

Facebook ads game categories to News Feed -  Facebook now displays the genre category below game names and stories in News Feed stories. As we reported on Inside Social Games, users might be more likely to click on games when they know more about them.

Facebook engineer creates Google hack -  An project called Focus on the User, created in part by a Facebook engineer, provides a bookmarklet that forces Google Search Plus Your World to display results from social networks besides Google+.

Causes now a standalone website – TechCrunch reported that the charity app Causes has re-launched as a standalone website.

85K Arab Facebook logins hacked – ZDnet reported that Israel and Saudi Arabia are in the midst of a hacking war, and 85,000 Arab Facebook logins are one casualty.

Washington state AG targets clickjackers -  Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna announced suits against two companies thought to encourage clickjacking on Facebook. The suit was announced at Facebook’s Seattle office.

Facebook registers ‘FB Origin’ domain - Facebook registered several domains, .com and .biz for example, for something called FB Origin via the company MarkMonitor.  Fusible speculated that this means the company is set to launch a new product along with Timeline apps.

Shoebox, UrbanSpoon and Wipolo, for example, have all sought to help users fill in their new profiles, but none has been able to do so in an ideal way because of deficiencies in Open Graph.

1000memories‘ mobile app Shoebox is releasing an update today that lets people scan paper photos, upload them directly to Facebook and tag their friends and family. The app prompts users to indicate when the photo is from, but this data cannot be synced with Facebook so that the photo appears in the appropriate spot on a user’s Timeline. 1000memories co-founder Brett Huneycutt says Open Graph does not allow photos to be displayed as big as they are when posted through the Photos API. As a trade-off, Shoebox uses the Photos API instead of Open Graph, but this requires users to manually edit images’ positions on Timeline. Huneycutt says his team is working with Facebook to find alternative solutions.

Another problem with Open Graph is that individual actions are not given much, if any, weight unless users manually adjust settings in the activity log. This makes sense most of the time — people don’t want every song they listen to or article they read to show up as separate stories on Timeline. But when apps want to share more significant actions, there is not an optimal way to do this. For example, if people use Wipolo to indicate trips they have taken, the app will display monthly or yearly summaries of their travel; but it will not feature each trip at its actual date on Timeline. To do that, users need to visit their activity log and select “Shown on Timeline,” but even then the story appears much smaller than if people used Facebook’s native “life events” feature. (See below for images.) The trip also won’t appear on Timeline’s built-in Map.

Developers cannot currently access life events through the API, though the social network has indicated that it is working to provide it. If Facebook offered write permissions for life events, developers could build apps that help users easily fill in their Timelines without formatting trade-offs.

Even when format is not an issue, some developers have been unable to take advantage of past-tense sharing on Facebook. Mobile app Urbanspoon allows users to check into restaurants and select a past date if desired. Although this updates a user’s “Dineline” within the app, the action does not yet sync with Facebook properly if users choose a time more than 24 hours ago. Backdating is apparently only available to select partners, though this is unclear from Open Graph documentation. Urbanspoon senior software developer Brian Dewey says Facebook told his team that it would support the feature in the next few weeks.

The tools and access the social network offers developers will determine if Timeline can truly become “the story of your life on one page,” as it was pitched at f8. Open Graph clearly helps users document their lives moving forward, but developers will need more support from Facebook to build apps to share users’ histories.

How photos display on Timeline using Open Graph vs. Photos API

With Open Graph, images display as a thumbnail and link out to another site.

When apps use the Photos API, images can be shown full size on Timeline and added to a Facebook album. However, apps do not get proper links as they do when using the Open Graph API.

How past trips display on Timeline using a third-party app vs. life events

When users add a past trip via Wipolo, a story appears in the private activity log as so:

It also appears as part of an aggregate story at the end of a month or year:

If a user chooses to show a Wipolo action on Timeline, a small story appears on appropriate Timeline spot, but without the ability to resize.

When a user adds a trip using Facebook’s life event feature, this produces a larger Timeline story that includes a bigger image and the option to resize.

A lot of the actions users take in Open Graph apps are going to involve commercial products or entities. People will be able to “watch” movies, “wear” designer items, “drink” beverages and so on. Most of these actions will not be taken within brand-specific apps. Instead they’ll be made via Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Foodspotting and other third-party platforms. As a result, we may start to see more brands directing people to these apps. For example, a movie page on Facebook could link to the Rotten Tomatoes page after opening weekend and tell fans to rate the movie, knowing this will generate additional impressions among a user’s friends. Brands will also be more likely to partner with apps to offer promotions or be featured in some way now that their reach will be much greater. This is because instead of waiting for users to actively share things on Facebook, Open Graph apps can continuously publish lightweight stories about users’ activity. As a result, formerly niche communities like the aforementioned Pose or Foodspotting could become more viable marketing avenues.

Marketers might be tempted to create their own Open Graph apps, but they will need to think more long term than they previously have with Facebook. Timeline apps provide value through use over time, helping users share part of their identity or learn something about their own habits. These apps are not ideal for one-off promotions. If marketers create them solely to take advantage of “frictionless sharing,” users are likely to recognize them as spam.

Another important point about Open Graph apps is that since they benefit from users taking repeated action, they work well as mobile and web integrations not page tab apps. A few of Facebook’s more than 60 Open Graph partners developed canvas applications, but none were using page tabs. We suspect this is in part because tabs apps are unavailable on mobile and pages could be converted to the Timeline format sometime this year. Marketers should be mindful of how much they invest in page tab apps moving forward and instead consider what kind of Open Graph integration or partnerships would be most relevant for their consumers.

See our breakdown of Open Graph apps by category here.

Image credit: Facebook

A lot of the actions users take in Open Graph apps are going to involve commercial products or entities. People will be able to “watch” movies, “wear” designer items, “drink” beverages and so on. Most of these actions will not be taken within brand-specific apps. Instead they’ll be made via Rotten Tomatoes, Pose, Foodspotting and other third-party platforms. As a result, we may start to see more brands directing people to these apps. For example, a movie page on Facebook could link to the Rotten Tomatoes page after opening weekend and tell fans to rate the movie, knowing this will generate additional impressions among a user’s friends. Brands will also be more likely to partner with apps to offer promotions or be featured in some way now that their reach will be much greater. This is because instead of waiting for users to actively share things on Facebook, Open Graph apps can continuously publish lightweight stories about users’ activity. As a result, formerly niche communities like the aforementioned Pose or Foodspotting could become more viable marketing avenues.

Marketers might be tempted to create their own Open Graph apps, but they will need to think more long term than they previously have with Facebook. Timeline apps provide value through use over time, helping users share part of their identity or learn something about their own habits. These apps are not ideal for one-off promotions. If marketers create them solely to take advantage of “frictionless sharing,” users are likely to recognize them as spam.

Another important point about Open Graph apps is that since they benefit from users taking repeated action, they work well as mobile and web integrations not page tab apps. A few of Facebook’s more than 60 Open Graph partners developed canvas applications, but none were using page tabs. We suspect this is in part because tabs apps are unavailable on mobile and pages could be converted to the Timeline format sometime this year. Marketers should be mindful of how much they invest in page tab apps moving forward and instead consider what kind of Open Graph integration or partnerships would be most relevant for their consumers.

See our breakdown of Open Graph apps by category here.

Image credit: Facebook

Music

Music apps got a head start after f8 when a few partners gained the ability to auto-publish to Ticker and Timeline. Spotify has dominated since then, but now with Turntable.fm, Soundcloud and others integrating Open Graph, there could be more diversity in how users share what they listen to. Missing, of course, is leading digital music player iTunes, which could not strike a deal with Facebook in 2010 ahead of its Ping launch. Google-owned YouTube isn’t likely to integrate Open Graph either, but Vevo.com activity can be added to Timeline. Pandora, which has partnered with Facebook in the past, is not yet adopting the “frictionless sharing” model introduced at f8. The question is whether users will begin to choose Open Graph music apps over other services, or if they start to appreciate alternatives that don’t share their listening habits.

News

Social news readers were also early to adopt Open Graph because “read” was a pre-approved action. The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, USA Today, Yahoo News and others automatically share what users have read. Culture and entertainment sites BuzzFeed and Wetpaint let readers share their reactions with words like “awesome,” “OMG,” “cute,” “meh,” “LOL” and more. Wetpaint’s custom verbs create some odd constructions on Facebook, but some users might prefer how these sites share just the posts they take action on rather than everything they read. Popular blogs will likely integrate Open Graph to increase traffic, but it’s too soon to tell how Timeline might affect local news organizations.

Travel

There are several apps that have added Timeline features, but none so far that update Facebook’s built-in map feature. TripAdvisor, Gogobot, Wipolo and Where I’ve Been all let users indicate places they’ve traveled to on separate maps. These apps also use different verbs for the same actions — for instance “has been,” “pinned,” “added” and “checked off” instead of “visited” or “traveled to.” Yelp, which was not one of the Facebook partners launching Timeline integrations last week, is the only location-based app we’ve seen that populates Map. Foursquare has not integrated Open Graph yet either, but it is easy to imagine a Timeline app that displays all of a users’ checkins and badges.

Food

Yummly and Foodily have canvas apps that let users share recipes using verbs like “made,” “recommend,” “crave” and “yum.” Foodspotting is a mobile app for users to “spot” the best dishes at restaurants and interact with other users’ food photos with the “want” and “nom” buttons. None of these apps use the obvious actions “cook” or “eat.” Urbanspoon’s mobile app lets users indicate that they “ate at” a restaurant, but doesn’t let users share menu items. We can imagine a number of health apps integrating Open Graph to help users track what they eat, how many calories they consume and other food habits.

Film/Television

Facebook partner Rotten Tomatoes has made frictionless sharing part of its web experience. Users who add the Timeline app are able to “rate” movies they’ve seen and indicate which titles they “want to see.” The same is true for French film site, Cinemur. Although Hulu users streaming video from a canvas app and Netflix users outside the U.S. can “watch” videos, there are not yet any Open Graph apps to share what you’re watching in theaters, for instance. This is an obvious opportunity for IMDB and GetGlue, which let users check into shows or movies they’re currently watching. A number of “smart TV” apps are doing similar integrations to post what people watch to Facebook.

Shopping/Style

A few apps have integrated Open Graph to let users share items they’re interested in. Shopping Mall by Payvment users can “want” things from the canvas app catalog. People can also indicate what they “own.” Lyst.com visitors can “add” clothes, footwear and accessories, and SneakPeeq’s canvas app lets users “peeq” deals on boutique items. With mobile app Pose, people can take and tag photos of their style and “love” other people’s photos. A box on Timeline will track users’ favorite fashion items and brands and display popular items they shared. As with other categories, the obvious verb “wear” hasn’t been put to use yet. This is an opportunity for other mobile apps and major brands. Some Timeline apps like GiftRocket share what users “buy,” “send” or “redeem,” but developers have to be sensitive about automatically publishing stories about purchases given that was a major issue with Beacon in 2007.

Books/Education

GoodReads.com has added Open Graph to help users share what they want to read and ratings of books they’ve finished. E-reader Kobo now populates users’ Timelines with books they’ve read, comments they’ve made and time spent reading. Other apps like Kindle and Nook could do something similar to promote their products on Facebook.

Only two education-oriented Open Graph apps were available at launch. Chegg lets college students add the courses they are taking to a box on Timeline. Grockit is a test-prep site that users can connect with Facebook to share when they answer questions, join study groups and earn badges. It remains to be seen how interested students will be in filling their Timelines with homework activity, but online tutorial sites and flashcard apps could find success with these new sharing mechanisms.

Games

Many games are already very successful on Facebook, but Open Graph presents opportunities for reach and discovery that had been formerly cut off or never available. Words With Friends, CastleVille, Diamond Dash, Bubble Island and Draw My Thing are the few games that have launched Timeline integration. These use the obvious verbs “played” and “earned” to let users share their activity and achievements. We can also imagine games populating Timeline with summaries of time spent, items purchased, characters played most often or combos used most frequently. Additional means of discovery and platform-specific achievements could give Facebook an edge over other platforms like Google+.

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Zuckerberg weighs in on SOPA -  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg weighed in on the Stop Online Piracy Act on Wednesday, writing in a Facebook post, “We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the Internet’s development.”

Facebook fifth in video viewers – ComScore reported this week that Facebook was the fifth most popular destination for online video behind Google, VEVO, Yahoo and Viacom. This is among the 182 million Internet users in the U.S. who watched online videos in December. Last year Facebook placed sixth, but generally has not seen steady growth in this category. [Image via ZDnet]

Employees increasingly use social media at work -  Palo Alto Networks found a 300 percent increase in social networking on corporate networks this year. Specifically, bandwidth consumption for Facebook apps, social plugins and posting increased from 5 percent to 25 percent since October 2010.

Update on Koobface virus -  Facebook security team posted an update about the Koobface virus this week, noting that after three years the company is been able to keep the virus off the platform, but is still seeking those responsible.

Next gen iPad includes Facebook code - iMore is reporting that buried within the iOS 5.1 beta 3 code for iPad3 are “ongoing references to Facebook.”

MTV uses Facebook for scholarships -  MTV has partnered with the College Board and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to run a campaign called My College Dollars, which guides students to college scholarships for which they can apply.