facebook application development

30 Jul

Facebook Roundup: Bugs, Questions, Security, Media, Messenger and More

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Advertising, Applications, Apps For Sale, Business, Connect, Development, Facebook, Google, Government, International, Legal, Marketing, Metrics, Mobile, Open Graph, Pages, Policy, Search, Twitter, iPhone

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.

29 Jul

Facebook Executives, Including Zuckerberg, Visit Capitol Hill

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Business, Development, Facebook, Google, Government, International, Legal, Open Graph, Policy, Politics, Privacy, Security

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other company executives visited Washington, D.C. this week, the latest moves to fend of possible legislation around privacy and online advertising.

National politicians have begun paying more attention to online business in the last couple of years, with Facebook getting special attention around issues like privacy policy changes.

Zuckerberg’s first official trip to Capitol Hill included private meetings with politicians, including with Utah’s Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, as well as other members of the Senate’s Republican High-Tech Task Force. Hatch came out of the meeting talking about job creation, not privacy. “It was a productive meeting that underscored technology’s importance as a key engine in fueling job creation and putting the nation on the road to economic recovery,” he said in a statement, according to Politico.

Meanwhile, other company executives testified along with other technology employees from AT&T, Apple and Google at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing about online privacy where senators said they’d be eyeing new online privacy rules by next year.

Democratic Massachusetts Senator John Kerry said during the aforementioned hearing that he was working with Arkansas Senator Mark Pryor, also a Democrat, on proposed legislation for 2011. Politico reported that Kerry is likely to have “the full support of the committee’s top Democrats,” who have been involved in several privacy hearings this year. Separate online advertising regulatory bills have been drafted by some members of the House.

Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor also testified that vague legislation could ultimately harm technological innovation. AT&T’s Senior Vice President of Public Policy Dorothy Attwood and Google’s Engineering Lead for Privacy Alma Whitten had similar messages, advocating a loose regulatory framework around online businesses.

Privacy changes, security problems and other issues — along with rapid growth — have put Facebook in the political spotlight.

Facebook has been busy this year taking on the issue of online privacy, with other executives meeting with the Obama administration. Much of this prepping included hiring people to oversee global policy, D.C. legal expertise and even a California lobbyist. Of course Zuckerberg’s first trip to D.C. coinciding with Senate hearing testimony is also a part of the company’s committment to address privacy.

[Zuckerberg photo via Gabriel Bouys AFP/Getty]

22 Jul

Facebook’s Hires This Week: Austin, Google and eBay

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Development, Facebook, Google, International, Policy

Facebook hired people for its sales, analytics and human resources teams this week from competitors like Google and eBay. Our weekly list is derived from LinkedIn. In alphabetical order, here are the new employees:

Chris Burton will be working as a recruiter for Facebook in Austin and previously worked as an account manager at TEKsystems, and similar positions at Robert Half International, ConsumerReview, CBS Sportsline and PointCast.
Fred Leach has joined the advertising measurement team and has worked at Better Place, Inc. and Google.
Scott Lewis has joined Facebook as a risk and compliance analyst and comes from a similar position at eBay. he’s also worked at Deloitte & Touche, S. Lewis Design and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Ritesh Mehta is now part of Facebook’s platform operations and comes from a position in enterprise online sales and operations at Google.
Kate Simpson joined Facebook this week as part of the online sales operations team. She did similar work at ad2-one and as an agency relationship manager at Google.

16 Jul

‘The Social Network’ Trailer Now Available

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Advertising, Business, Facebook, Google, Government, International, Legal, Marketing, Mobile, Open Graph, Policy, Politics, Privacy

Following up on a couple cryptic clips, Columbia Pictures yesterday released a full-length trailer for “The Social Network,” the unauthorized movie about Facebook’s early years.

The new trailer also has lots of dramatic words and images, like the clips, mostly of people using Facebook, but it includes scenes from across the span of the movie. Set over a slow choral version of Radiohead’s “Creep,” the movie footage shows actor Jesse Eisenberg playing Mark Zuckerberg, starting with his time as a student Harvard and ending with what promises to be a dramatic finale at Facebook’s former headquarters in downtown Palo Alto. The overall mood is surprisingly dark, as many are noting, considering that the story is about the web software business.

The Los Angeles Times points out that “The Social Network,” directed by David Fincher (“Se7en,” “Fight Club,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) and written by Aaron Sorkin (“A Few Good Men” and “The West Wing”), is actually a lot more than a movie. Although the movie is based on “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich and premieres in October, the film will likely be used as ammunition in a vigorous public debate about online privacy.

“The Social Network” will probably serve as a stimulus to discuss the hot-button issue. This is evident in the way the film’s being treated on the movie circuit, as The New York Film Festival will feature the film as its opening night movie.

15 Jul

Facebook’s Hires This Week: Prineville, Google, Nokia, Samsung and Yahoo

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Advertising, Business, Development, Facebook, Google, International, Policy

It would appear that Facebook has begun hiring people for its Prineville, Oregon data center, as evidenced by our weekly list of new hires to the company via LinkedIn. Other hires include many from Google, and from mobile companies. The list in alphabetical order:

Paul Condon has joined the company as an advertising specialist. He previously worked as an SEM/PPC executive at GoAdy and a similar position at Jobs.ie.
Michael Dinsmore was hired as the lead datacenter technician and worked similar jobs at Google and Apple.
Jeremy Downs is set to join the product marketing team at Facebook. Downs has worked as the director of marketing and partnerships and Peek, several positions at PayPal, Inc. and Justarrive.
Dave Ferguson, former engineering director at Google, has joined Facebook’s engineering team. In the past Ferguson worked in positions at Mahalo Logic, Ignite logic, DST Output, Intuit, Caere Corporation and IBM.
Chuck Goolsbee has been tapped to be the lad datacenter technician for Facebook’s Prineville, Oregon facility. Goolsbee comes from a position as vice president at digital.forest and held positions with TPD Publishing Group and Federated Department Stores.
Eric Newman will now be providing Mac/PC desktop support at Facebook; he comes from a position at Apple.
Vinod Venkataraman has joined Facebook as a software engineering from a position as a teaching assistant at the University of Texas at Austin.
Stanley Wang is now an acquisition marketing manager at Facebook and comes from working as the director of search strategy at Red Bricks Media. Wang previously worked at Coby Electronics, Akamai Technologies and Kinderhook Systems.
Wei Wang was tapped to be an engineer at Facebook, coming from a technical position at Yahoo. Wang also previously worked at Oracle.

Facebook has also brought on several interns this week:

Dean Eckles has joined as a research intern, coming from a staff research position at Nokia. Eckles has also served in similar jobs at Stanford’s CHIMe Lab, Nokia and Yahoo.
David Fong is now a software engineering intern at Facebook. Fong was previously working a similar position at Google and Stanford University.
Dustin Ho will join the company as a software engineering intern; he also comes from a similar position at Google and worked in like jobs at Indeed.com, Dallas Semiconductor/Maxim and the University of North Texas.
Torbjørn Morland is also a software engineering intern who joined Facebook this week. Previously Morland worked several positions at NTNU in Norway and Powel ASA.
Anton Raichuk came on board this week as a software engineer intern from a similar job at Google. Raichuk has also worked with Ukraine Computer Software.
Shuo Tang is also a software engineer intern at Facebook who was previously interning at Samsung Telecommunications America and Microsoft.
Kristopher Windsor will work for Facebook as a software engineer intern; he previously worked as a software developer co-op at IBM.

14 Jul

In Brazil, Facebook is a Small But Viable Contender Against Orkut

Posted by Chris Morrison, under Facebook, Google, International

[Editor's Note: The data cited in this article is excerpted from Inside Facebook Gold, our membership service tracking Facebook's business and growth around the world. Visit Inside Facebook Gold to learn more about our complete data and analysis offering.]

Around the world, there are a few major markets in which Facebook stands at a disadvantage to other social networks. In 2009, these markets looked impregnable; this year, however, we’re seeing signs that Facebook could get a foothold in even the most intractable countries.

Last week, we wrote about South Korea. This week we’re looking at Brazil, which stands alone in South America both for its language, Portuguese, and its distinctive culture.

And it stands out online for another reason: its wholehearted embrace of Google’s social network Orkut. It’s possible that Brazil is now Orkut’s last bastion, as signs are suggesting that Facebook may have outgrown Orkut in India.

Beating Orkut isn’t such an easy task in Brazil, where Orkut likely has around 50 million users, or roughly 25 percent penetration for the country of 192 million people. That’s about equal to what Facebook has in its most penetrated large South American market, Argentina.

But Facebook has been making significant progress this year. With the latest June figures, the social network has added 2.4 million new users in Brazil through the first six months.

By our projections, Brazil should have about 14 million Facebook users by next year if it continues growing at current rates. However, growth is not typically linear for Facebook in new markets. If it can keep growing in Brazil, that number could easily be doubled, making Facebook about half of Orkut’s size.

The operative term is “if”. With a total Facebook penetration of just 2.5 percent, Brazil is anything but a sure bet. Facebook’s own advantage lies in the fact that Google seems to be concentrating its attention on creating a new social networking alternative in the United States — though in the process, the company may lose its single strongest market.

Full data on Facebook’s audience growth throughout Europe and in countries around the world is presented in the July 2010 edition of the Facebook Global Monitor report, available through Inside Facebook Gold. An Inside Facebook Gold membership also includes data on language growth, audience demographics by country, and user behavior stats for the Facebook business ecosystem. To learn more about membership, please visit Inside Facebook Gold.

12 Jul

Microsoft’s Docs.com Improves Facebook Integration

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Advertising, Applications, Business, Development, Facebook, Google, Marketing, Metrics, Open Graph, Pages, Policy

Microsoft tweaked its Docs.com to better integrate with Facebook Pages last week, and from the looks of it, document sharing through Facebook will now be a much easier experience.

In a blog last week Microsoft announced the changes to Docs.com were made in response to user feedback since the service’s launch in April. Apparently one of the most requested changes came from Page administrators eager to have the ability to post a document on Facebook.

Under the changes, Facebook Page admins may now: Author a document as your Facebook Page, post a document to the Page, add a Docs tab to your Page and all admins may share/manage documents created for the Page.

A slideshow with more detailed information is available here.

As we reported previously, Docs was unveiled as one of Facebook’s Instant Personalization sites at its f8 developer conference in April.

At the time, Docs.com was in beta testing, although the idea was eventually for Facebook users to use Docs.com while on Facebook. These new changes seem to further that idea, allowing more ways for Docs.com users to use the service while on Facebook.

As a strategic investor in Facebook, Microsoft is hoping to use product partnerships like this to breathe more life into its aging line of productivity software, using Facebook social features to make collaboration easier, even as rivals like Google try to do the same. We’ve heard that more Facebook integration may be coming from Microsoft this year.

09 Jul

Facebook Roundup: Ads, Likes, Lawsuits, Privacy, Drinks and More

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Advertising, Applications, Apps For Sale, Business, Connect, Credits, Development, E-commerce, Facebook, Google, Government, International, Legal, Marketing, Metrics, Mobile, Open Graph, Pages, Payments, Policy, Politics, Privacy, VirtualGoods, iPhone

Canadian Firm, German Govt File Against Facebook - Toronto-based Merchant Law Group filed paperwork seeking class action status in a lawsuit against Facebook this week claiming Facebook mishandled user data during the most recent privacy changes, and seeking the sum of the money the company made as a result of making user data public in that change. It’s not clear how strong the firm’s particular arguments are; what is clear is that some law firms pursue such cases when they think they can get money or at least publicity out of their efforts.

Meanwhile, perhaps more seriously, Germany data protection official Johannes Caspar said in a statement this week that his office had initiated a legal process that could ultimately cost Facebook thousands of euros in fines. The action comes over privacy issues, specifically, April privacy setting changes that exposed the information of people who don’t use the site through Facebook’s email importing settings. Facebook has until August 11 to respond to the legal complaint.

Facebook’s Economic Geography - Visual Economics created a really interesting map of what Facebook’s economy would look like if it were a landmass, representing app companies and Pages by size, and other interesting representations.

Microsoft’s Docs Integrates Facebook - Microsoft’s new Docs.com site has made some changes to its program that allows for better Facebook integration. Currently you can post a document to your Facebook Page. Docs.com users now have the ability to: post documents for a Page, author a document as a Facebook page, add a Docs tab to your Page and share/manage docs with other Page admins.

Buy a Drink, on Facebook - It’s now possible for Facebook users to buy their friends drinks — real drinks — even if they live in different cities. Web developer Webtab uses Facebook Connect and its Bartab app to coordinate the purchase.

Basically after paying a $1 fee (on the site or via the app) a user can send a drink to someone in the app network in the form of a digital coupon; the indicated drinker must then go to the indicated bar to redeem the coupon.

DC Team Focuses on Privacy - The Hill interviewed Facebook Spokesman Andrew Noyes this week noting that the company’s D.C. team is setting its sights primarily, 90% to be precise, on privacy.

Facebook’s Buchheit Gives Gov a Hand – Code for America, a group working to “import the efficiency of the Web into government infrastructures,” is the beneficiary of the services of Facebook’s Paul Buchheit. The organization is working on several projects with a variety of government groups.

Ladies Love Facebook – Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research released a report about Facebook usage by women this week. Among the findings was that about one-third of women aged 18-34 check Facebook as soon as they wake up, even before heading to the bathroom. Other findings: 42% of women think posted photos of them “visibly intoxicated” are okay; 57% interact with people more online than face-to-face; 39% call themselves Facebook “addicts”; 21% check Facebook in the middle of the night; 63% network on Facebook; 79% think posted photos of them kissing are okay and 50% are friends with strangers.

Doctors Talk Health on Facebook - USA Today has a piece this week that explores how some health care professionals are using social media tools to help their patients.

Facebook Supports Rel-Me - Chris Messina posted a screenshot showing that Facebook now seems to be supporting the rel-me attribute on its site, used for identity consolidation. Links on one web site about someone connect to other Links about that person, establishing a bi-directional personal rel-me link.

Facebook Pushes Ad Quality, Privacy - The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Facebook is promoting its social-context banner ads service as superior to competitors — including by impression volume, as the graph from the article shows, below. Incidentally, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote a company blog this week describing the way ads work, taking special care to spell out how user privacy is maintained.

Users Like Likes - A couple of different outlets reported on the number of Likes Facebook users are serving up. One promoted the figure of 3 billion Likes a day, with 350,000 sites using Facebook’s social plugins.

08 Jul

Facebook’s Hires This Week: Yahoo, Google and Microsoft

Posted by Sara Inés Calderón, under Business, Development, Facebook, Google, International, Policy

Facebook continues to hire new talent away from other tech giants this week. Here’s a look at the latest new faces at Facebook, in alphabetical order, courtesy of LinkedIn.

Will Bailey has joined as a software engineer and previously worked a similar position at Zenbe, and was PeopleSoft consultant and developer at Towers Perrin and Capital One, respectively.
Elizabeth Cantalamessa Powell has joined Facebook’s sales team and previously worked as a strategic account director at Yahoo!, a senior account executive at Looksmart and an account executive at CMP Media.
Lisa Carucci will join as an executive assistant at Facebook, coming from a similar position at Google.
Hasan Dag is now a part of the EMEA advertising team at Facebook and previously worked at Warner Brothers, ArcelorMittal and Europe 2 Radio.
Germán Martínez has joined the company as a sales manager. Prior to this he worked a similar jobs at Microsoft Advertising, MSN, Microsoft Ibérica, Terra and Terra Lycos.
Aisling Murphy will be a new human resources coordinator EMEA at Facebook; she previously worked similar roles at Mercer, Anglo Coal and Google Dublin/Sydney.
Kate O’Neill has joined Facebook as part of the public policy communications team. Prior to this position she worked as a consultant for the Bridgespan Group and a project coordinator at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement.

Facebook will also welcomed the following interns this week:

Renata Aryanti is now a software engineer intern at Facebook and was previously a software engineer intern at Yahoo.
Pranav Khaitan is set to be a software engineer intern at Facebook. Khaitan is a graduate student and research assistant at Stanford University and previously interned at Microsoft and HCL Technologies.
Jason Ma is another new software engineering intern at Facebook, is also a research assistant at Stanford and has worked in the Computer Science Department there.
Sharon Zeng is now business analyst intern at Facebook; previously she worked as a project director at Stanford Consulting and at Kakeya.

07 Jul

Gigya Releases Stats On Social ID Use, Talks About Facebook’s News Feed

Posted by Josh Constine, under Business, Facebook, Google, Open Graph, OpenID, SEO, Twitter

Gigya, a company that has transformed from widget-maker to social media optimization service, has released a new infographic detailing which social IDs people use most frequently to login to different types of Gigya-optimized websites. Facebook leads with 46% of Gigya logins across all sites, and was also the top social ID for entertainment and business to business sites.

However, Facebook trails Twitter for news site logins with 25% to the microblogging network’s 45%. One should not draw conclusions from this data since there’s no explanation of methodology or notes on the quantity or percentage of total users that employ social IDs. Yet, interestingly, it seems to show ties between certain social communities and content types.

We spoke with Gigya CEO David Yovanno to get some more context about what’s happening in the Social ID ecosphere. He explained that as social becomes a larger source of referral traffic, sites will need to optimize for it in the same way that they have for search in the past. Yovanno says a major thing they’ve learned from their data is that “in different content environments people choose different platforms to connect through.” For instance, “in retail users may be less social during the checkout phase, preferring Google and Yahoo!, whereas for entertainment, which is more chatty, they choose Facebook”.

A key finding of Gigya’s data analysis is the prevalence of Twitter as a social ID on the news sites Gigya powers such as Reuters. We believe this might be due to Twitter’s interest-focus being more conducive to news sharing than Facebook’s geography-focused network, and update frequency norms permitting more posts per day on Twitter than Facebook. Yovanno said Gigya isn’t sure but they are very interested in learning the root of this trend, and have hired an outside research firm to analyze the subject.

They’ve also found that inclusive but curated social login options produce the best results. If your site needs email addresses, you might want to downplay LinkedIn and Twitter social IDs which don’t provide that. By making the login buttons for platforms which provide data a site wants as prominent as possible, designers can corral users to their advantage. Then by adding a “More” button which reveals all the other platforms, including international ones, they can be sure to have a social ID login option for everyone.

Lastly, Yovanno revealed that the type of API that a third-party site uses to let users share to Facebook influences content’s “EdgeRank,” the algorithm that determines what content appears in the news feed. He said that referral traffic for links shared through the outdated REST API was approximately 1/3 of that for content shared through a client-side API. EdgeRank favors client-side API content because its news feed publishing permission request is more explicit than that of the REST API where it’s easier to trick users into sharing. This news should incentivize anyone still using the REST API to upgrade. If sites want to drive leads, increase conversions, and get the best EdgeRank for shared content, they must be concerned with on-site social optimization, social ID login design, and which API they’re using.

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