facebook application development

Facebook Questions Absent in Search Engines – Facebook launched its Questions service this week but so far the results are not available in search results. Search Engine Land reported that a Facebook spokesperson tells them, “Currently, search engines cannot access questions and answers through our Questions product. That may be something we consider for the future but have no current plans to allow it.” Also, searches on Yahoo, Bing and Google yielded no results for Questions.

Facebook to Add Delete Option – Facebook has released a “delete account” option, which would allow users to streamline the deletion of their accounts from the social network. Currently, the process of doing so is cumbersome and drawn-out with several steps. Facebook is testing the option with some users, which says it will “permanently delete your account and all information you have shared.”

Bump Releases Redesign – Bump has overhauled its iPhone app by changing its look, adding new features, allowing Twitter and LinkedIn integrations, chat function, a calendar feature and also allowing unlimited photo and contact sharing.

Info From 100M Facebook Users ‘Leaked’ – Much ado has been made this week about the “leaking” of information from 100 million Facebook users’ accounts. This information was downloaded by security researcher Ron Bowes from Facebook’s user directory, or index of public profile Pages. Which is to say that the “leaked” info was already public, including names, profile pictures and a few of the users’ friends.

‘Owner’ of Facebook Busted for Shrooms – Paul Ceglia is the man alleging he’s contractually entitled to 84% of Facebook per a contract he signed with Mark Zuckerberg in 2003. He seems to have a somewhat checkered past. In 2009 Ceglia was accused of defrauding customers in the amount of $200,000 for not delivering ordered merchandise and he also apparently enjoyed the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms in 1997 while in Texas.

WaPo Further Integrates Facebook, Web Site – The Washington Post announced an expansion this week of its Network News tool, which incorporates social media feedback such as Likes and the Recommend button. Now users may see what’s been recommended across the site, by section; also the Like button is being replaced by the Recommend button. Users may deactivate the Network News box by clicking the red X at the top of the box to manage their preferences. Similar updates were also made to the site’s Twitter integration.

LiveWorld Releases LiveConnect - LiveWorld released a new product this week aimed at helping brands better engage in conversations with fans. Facebook LiveConnect allows brands to unify moderation/administration across Pages and web sites into one system.

iGoDigital Provides Shopping Help, Facebook Integration – This week iGoDigital announced new Facebook integrations for its product recommendation platform. Essentially consumers are presented with direct and indirect product suggesitons from their network after logging in with Facebook via web or mobile, these sugestions take Likes, recommendations and interests into account. The integration also allows for Facebook users to post products on their profiles to solicit or provide advice to their network.

Appssavvy Makes Six More Hires – Appssavvy announced this week that it hired six people who are set to help the company focus on social and mobile media marketing, taking the company’s total employee count past 40. Talent includes: Human Resources Manager Holly Ettenger, Marketing Coordinator Mattan Griffel, Senior Account Executive-Midwest Meghan Kludt, Product Manager Yolanda Ladia, Senior Account Executive Magali Merat and Senior Director of Ad Operations Robin Wilson.

New Facebook Ads Promotions – Facebook has started some new promotions for Page administrators that includes free ad trials and credit promotions, following similar efforts over the years.

Nigerian President Shines on Facebook – Social Times highlighted Nigerian President Goodluck Johnson’s use of his recently set up Facebook Page, noting that the president posts at least once daily and has earnestly tried to engage Nigerians about the intricacies of government policy.

Facebook in Windows Messenger - Windows Messenger incorporated some Facebook integrations this week allowing users to see their contacts’ social network activity. In Messenger, with a new brower plugin, users can see what contacts have shared online and comment on them via Messenger Companion notifications in the upper right-hand corner of the browser window.

Become a Star with Facebook Connect – An interesting Facebook Connect integration allows users and their Facebook friends to star in a movie trailer. The reason seems to be promoting Swiss television shows.

Facebook, NPR and the Media – Facebook launched a Page specifically for media properties this week and some insight as to how media properties use Facebook came from an interview with one of NPR’s social media strategists Andy Carvin. Among the insights was that NPR’s Page was created by a fan and eventually handed over to NPR, the Page now has more than 1 million Likes and provides tips, allows for surveys and pretty basic demographic insights (60% are women, for example). Facebook accounts for 7% of NPR’s traffic, just behind Google, and comments on Facebook are much more common than on NPR’s web site.

Sit on My Facebook, the Video - An interesting mix of social media metaphors roll into one in a new, mildly NSFW music video, “Sit On My Facebook“ by The Scribes. The video was produced by the Pantless Knights.

The Week in Bugs – Facebook experienced an array of relatively minor technical issues this week, that were more notable for how they were perceived. Facebook was preventing people from using the word “Palestinian” in creating Pages, apparently due to an automated filtering system. Also blocked were mentions of Power.com in status updates. However, this latter issue was attributable to the fact that, after Facebook debuted Questions and changed its publisher interface, people were having problems using the tagging option (using @ in front of a name in a status update). This has since been fixed.

Finally, there was a bit of obscenity on Facebook for users who chose the Spanish language option this week. Not only was there explicit curse words, but there were also allusions to sex acts and genitalia. There’s a Facebook Page with about 5,700 people who said they saw the same problems. Gawker attributed the problems to a Turkish web site.

With thousands of applications saturating the Apple App Store, its impossible to find all the games and apps that might suit your fancy. Granted, there are networks such as OpenFeint, Plus+, and Scoreloop, but these barely put a dent in the total, and even then one ends up searching these for what they might like. That’s where Toronto-based Kibboko comes into play with its Facebook Connect enabled application, Appblast, making recommendations to its users based on their own Facebook activity.

Using Kibboko’s “Bamboo personalization platform,” Appblast actually digs through everything the user has done, both recently and otherwise, on Facebook. People start out by selecting their device of preference — be it an iTouch, an iPhone, or an iPad — followed by a country of residence and Bamboo does the rest.

After digging through one’s Facebook activity, Appblast will make recommendations based on two elements: Your interests (“Liking” something) and recent activity. Digging back to when we “Liked” the Facebook game World at War months ago, it recommended any number of war-based games such as Call of Duty.

The second means of discovery, and also the most amusing, is based on recent activity; namely, status updates. It’s certainly a great idea, but as with any program that recognizes words, it usually can’t understand context. During our coverage of StarCraft II and Battle.net, we quoted the game: “Shields up, weapons online. Not equipped with shields? Well then, buckle up!” Appblast recognized “shields” and “buckle” and deduced that we might be interested in lifestyle apps about medieval shields and bucklers. However, one of the recommendations was about protection and held a bunch of fantasy quotes, so it wasn’t terribly far off.

Should users find something they do find interesting, Appblast has quick and convenient links that instantly bring up descriptions, screenshots, and any existing user reviews directly from within the app (no need to load up iTunes – unless you wish to buy it). Moreover, users can also mark each app as owned, if they have it, so that it does not pop up again.

This is actually where Appblast begins making use of Facebook’s social capabilities, as, if friends also use the app, they can see what their friends are buying and/or playing. That said, it is worth noting that while users can search for apps based on iDevice, the tab that houses all owned applications does not clearly state what device they are on. Also, the app does not appear to ever make recommendations based on the apps marked as owned.

Anyways, if your friends don’t own an iDevice, there’s little point for them to use Appblast, thus that discovery method goes out the window. Not to worry, though, as the application also includes a feed of best selling apps an what other Appblast users have been up to. In truth, it’s not nearly as effective as the recommendations (it’s basically the same as any of the App Store top selling lists), but it at least adds a small extra way to find apps.

In the end, Appblast is a pretty nifty little creation. It’s recommendation tools aren’t quite as sophisticated as one might think in that it appears to make most of its recommendation based on Facebook Likes, and it’s word recognition for status updates doesn’t always recognize context (though this can often be kind of fun). Overall, however, once players start adding in all the apps they own, Appblast does at least provide yet one more means of discovering something worthwhile for their devices.

Zuckerberg Interviewed on ABC – Facebook CEO gave an extended interview to ABC’s Diane Sawyer this week in which he discussed “The Social Network,” the 500 million user mark, the current ownership dispute and a possible IPO.

Facebook Updates Events Emails – Facebook recently updated the email interface for Facebook events this week, going from a text-only view to a more graphical interface matching with its latest events page changes.

Power.Com, Facebook Suit Decided – After more than a year, the Power.Com v. Facebook lawsuit was settled this week. A federal judge gave a multi-part ruling. Power.Com did not commit a crime by allowing users to violate Facebook’s terms of service to access their personal information by “automated means.” But, when Power.Com changed its IP address to do so, it might be a crime. And the judge also dismissed summary judgement against both companies.

Facebook Relies on Users for Clean Content – As more people began to upload images to the Internet the business of screening these images for offensive content became a big business. The New York Times reported this week that, oftentimes, the low paid content reviewers suffer psychological trauma related to their jobs. As the article also describes, Facebook (like many other web companies) relies on users to flag objectionable content, which is later reviewed by employees in Palo Alto, Calif. or Dublin, Ireland. Some of Facebook’s content is outsourced, but not most of it, according to a company spokesman.

San Francisco’s Facebook Use – Facebook posted an interview with San Francisco City/County’s CIO Chris Vein discussing how social media might replace government web sites and the role sites like Facebook play in providing city services.

Sarah Palin, Facebook and a ‘Social Experiment’ – Former Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin wrote a controversial Facebook note this week that was automatically removed after blogger Brian Ries posted a screenshot on Tumblr urging others to flag the note as “hate speech.” Ultimately, Palin’s note was reinstated by Facebook and Ries said the result of the experiment was that freedom of speech on the Internet is still hazily defined.

Adobe Integrates Facebook Ads – Adobe Systems announced it was adding tools to its software this week that would allow online marketers to better integrate with Facebook ads. Specifically the changes will allow marketers bid for ads on Facebook through Omniture, a recent acquisition, and a company that has been an Ads API services provider for months.

Coca-Cola’s Facebook Faux Pas – Coca-Cola was forced to pull its Dr. Pepper Facebook promotion this week after the application published pornographic messages on underage users’ accounts. The app took over a users’ status updates and in the case of one 14 year-old user posted a reference to a hardcore pornographic movie.

People Hate and Love Facebook – A recent survey by ForeSeeResults led many to conclude that Facebook’s devoted user base hates the site. But as TechCrunch examines, the survey has issues. It struggles to explain, for example, why 57% of respondents visited Facebook every day, yet ranked the site worse than Wikipedia, even though only 20% visited that site every day.

Facebook in Patent Trial – Facebook was in court this week to defend itself in a patent-infringement trail. The suit revolves around a patent for managing electronically stored data issued in 2006 to Michael McKibben and Jeffrey R. Lamb, who work for Leader Technologies Inc.; they’re asking for royalties and for Facebook to stop infringing on their patent. Facebook said it didn’t misuse the technology and the patent doesn’t cover social networking anyway. Facebook has been habitually taken to court over extremely broad prior patents, and these cases have tended to not go anywhere.

BranchOut, Facebook’s LinkedIn? – Startup BranchOut launched a Facebook application this week that aims to provided LinkedIn-style business networking on Facebook. A very thorough review here.

Discovery Channel Connect Mimics Facebook - Campfire created a Facebook Connect integration for the Discovery Channel’s “The Colony” project. Essentially “The Colony” is a simulation of what a global pandemic would do to civilization via social media; electing to utilize Facebook Connect pulls up a users’ network in a simulated social network revolving around the pandemic. Users see (fake) posts from their Facebook friends encouraging them to survive the pandemic.

Zuckerberg on ‘The Simpsons’ – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to guest star on the popular television show “The Simpsons” in the upcoming season. He will play himself and tell characters on the show that even billionaires drop out of school.

Crowdflower, a labor-on-demand provider who routes tasks from companies with labor needs to crowdsource markets like Gambit and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, recently released an API and have begun working with online payment platform TrialPay. In hopes of being able to track reputation and quality scores for crowdsource workers across marketplaces, Crowdflower is also looking to employ a social login such as Facebook.

We spoke with Lukas Biewald on Monday at Crowdflower’s crowdsourcing work meetup, held in the company’s San Francisco office, about some of these new developments. First, the company has added Trialpay as a crowdsource labor pool. Since Trialpay is one of the first alternative payment options for Facebook Credits, this partnership could potentially allow crowdsource laborers to earn Credits for their work. It could be especially useful for younger social gamers who might not have a credit card or a source of income necessary to pay for offers like magazine subscriptions or to purchase Credits directly.

A new API from Crowdflower allows anyone to embed available crowdsource labor tasks into their site or application. The RESTful API allows for automated interaction with the Crowdflower platform, using URL-encoded key value pairs and JSON responses to perform functions such as notifying users when completed tasks have been judged.

Lastly, Biewald described his desire to get the crowdsource industry using a social login such as the Facebook Login plugin. If crowdsource laborers signed in through Facebook, Crowdflower could track their performance and create persistent reputation profiles. High-quality workers could then instantly tackle more difficult, high pay tasks if they started working through a new marketplace. Meanwhile, inaccurate, flaky workers would be unable to hide from their poor past performance by switching crowdsource employers. It would also facilitate another dream of Biewalds’: to see Crowdflower reputation ratings included in job applicant résumés.

Looking forward, Biewald said they are thinking about potential integrations with the Facebook Credits system. We’ll have more details on that as they become available. To learn more about Crowdflower’s features, pricing and clients, check out their Slideshare.

Votigo, Inc. is a social media promotions company offering a range of services, including solutions for Facebook and Twitter, as well as widgets and different APIs applicable to a variety of other platforms.

Initially Votigo focused on user-generated photos/video contests, interactive sweepstakes and online promotions, but Facebook has increasingly become a focal point of the company’s business.

Founded in 2006 by Mike La Rotonda and Jim Risner in the Bay Area to help businesses better engage customers, the company has raised $1.27 million from Headwaters Holdings and several angel investors. The company also has an office located in Hyderabad, India. We spoke with Risner recently as part of our occasional series of Facebook page management company profiles.

Inside Facebook: What products and services does your company provide to clients using Facebook? What types of clients are you aiming to reach?

Jim Risner: We focus primarily on promotions (user-generated video, photo, and essay contests, sweepstakes, giveaways, and coupons) built as applications that can be added to a brand’s Page. We are full-service, but we also license our self-service tools and APIs. Our solutions come with content moderation tools and (other) features that help users spread the word about the promotion.

We tend to work mostly with larger brands and agencies like Ford, Coca-Cola, Southwest Airlines, Sharpie, KOHLs, and Shutterfly. Agencies we work with include DraftFCB, Ogilvy, Wunderman, and Arnold Worldwide, but we have solutions that work for small to medium sized businesses and agencies as well. The types of companies that use our solutions really ranges anywhere from CPG to automakers to large retailers to technology companies. Most companies are realizing the power of Facebook and building community around their brands. Promotions are probably the best way to do it. What we do isn’t limited to one type of company or category.

IFB: Can you share some highlights of how your company has helped clients meet their goals using Facebook?

JR: It’s not uncommon to see Likes or fan bases grow anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 in a few weeks to a month. Right now we have over 250,000 monthly active unique across our live promotions on Facebook. We also look at total user engagement. So things like the number of views, number votes, number of comments, number of shares, number entries and so on.

IFB: Overall, can you share metrics on the scope of your business?

JR: We work with over 100 different brands and agencies in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. Halfway through this year we’ve already doubled our revenue from last year. The size of our team has tripled since this time last year. We are profitable and growing. We are fortunate to have a lot of repeat clients as well.

IFB: What metrics do you use to determine the success of a given campaign?

JR: Success of a campaign really comes down to the client’s goals for that particular promotion. Sometimes it’s all about the fans, sometimes it’s about collecting great video content, or overall brand awareness, engaging existing customers and attracting new ones. So it really varies from campaign to campaign. I think the most common goal right now for brands on Facebook is acquiring new “Likes” (fans). But once you get the fans you need to continue to engage them. So many of the brands we work with will run several promotions throughout the year.

IFB: What have been your biggest challenges building on Facebook platform? What mistakes have you made and learned from there?

JR: The biggest challenge has been keeping up with the changes to the Facebook Platform. I can’t think of one particular mistake we’ve made, but we all make mistakes and as long as we learn from them that’s what really matters.

IFB: Beyond your own efforts, what Facebook changes have noticeably helped your company?

JR: Being added by Facebook as a Preferred Developer Consultant has been the biggest change that has helped our company in this particular area. We’ve seen a sharp and steady increase in people contacting us to create their next promotion on Facebook.

IFB: On the other hand, has Facebook made any recent changes that have noticeably hurt your company?

JR: Not really. We expect change and we’re eager to leverage any new changes that can help our clients succeed in growing their fan base and building their brands on Facebook.

IFB: If you could ask Facebook to make a single change, what would it be?

JR: Since our clients are primarily focused on Pages we would like to see more functionality in Pages including being able to leverage Social Plug-ins on them. basically right now you can’t really do anything on the pages, so just being able to leverage more the functionality for client request because they’re static pages. you have to click thru to the app before you can really start pulling in user info and seeing what they  like or recommend or tapping into any of the social info that you can capture within the app. So, those pages are fairly static.

IFB: How does your work on Facebook relate to your work on other platforms?

JR: Our promotions run across any social network, microsite, or blog. Our microsites include Facebook Connect and publishing features that allow users to post to their Facebook Wall when they do things like enter a contest, comment on someone else’s entry, or vote. Users can Like a brand’s Facebook Page from the microsite. We also have a really cool Twitter Sweepstakes solution that includes a fully branded site. I think more and more Facebook is becoming just as it is in the entire Internet world it’s becoming kind of a primary focus for us so it’s definitely  helping to drive the innovation, it’s really kind of in the last year or so kind of come even more to the forefront of what we do. Even though we offer solutions across the board, whether it’s a microsite or whatever, Facebook is becoming the go-to promotion platform. So for our clients the focus especially as of late is all about Facebook.

IFB: Do you have any specific plans that you can share?

JR: We are very focused on our Agency and Publisher tools and APIs right now. Making enhancements in that area is probably highest on our list. Making things a little bit easier to use, flow better, just making it all-inclusive and very modular so a client can just easily go into the self-serve tool and run it. After that we’re looking at ways to integrate mobile.