facebook application development

Facebook Integrates News Stories Into Search – Facebook now displays items friends have Liked on third-party web sites within the suggested matches drop-down menu of its top search bar. Articles are not surfaced solely on the number of Likes a given article receives, the company explains, and adds that the feature launched to all users two weeks ago (people are just noticing now).

Greenpeace Goes After Facebook’s Prineville Center – Environmental activism group Greenpeace has started a campaign to get Facebook to say “no” to using coal-derived electricity at its new Prineville, Ore. data center. We’ve previously reported that Facebook would be using both renewable and non-renewable energy at the center. What’s more, the center is already doing a pretty good job of being environmentally-friendly by using naturally cold air to cool servers, an evaporative cooling system, re-using server heat for offices and reducing electricity usage.

Latest Facebook Revenue Estimate: $2B – Facebook’s latest revenue estimates for 2010 are hovering around $2 billion, TechCrunch reported this week. We’d previously reported that the company’s 2009 revenues were almost $800 million and that the company was now on track to bust $1 billion this year, although previous reports have also put the run-rate at $2 billion. Most of the company’s revenues stems from advertising. [Image also via TechCrunch]

Facebook Traffic Eclipses Search Traffic at Gawker – Gawker’s marketing team put together some interesting data showing that its Facebook traffic is increasing across all sister sites and also that this social traffic is increasingly more important than search traffic. Specifically, Gawker gets 20 million monthly visits from social sites (up from 10 million last fall) and 7.7 million of that comes from Facebook. [Image via AllThingsD]

Microsoft Founder Sues Facebook – Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, went on a lawsuit rampage last week, filing against against not only Facebook, but eBay, AOL, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples and YouTube. Allen alleges that all the aforementioned companies are infringing on his e-commerce and search patents. These patents stem from Allen’s work at Interval Research in 1992; it closed in 2000 and some of the patents include very general descriptions for browsers, attention managers and alerts to users.

TweetPhoto, Now Plixi, Integrates Facebook – TweetPhoto has changed its name to Plixi and the company enables users to share and interact with photos on both the Twitter and Facebook platforms. Plixi aims most of its products towards Facebook and other social networks, such as its check-in service for photos. The company was founded in 2009 and recently raised $2.6 million in investment from several angels, as well as Canaan Partners and Anthem Venture Partners.

Egyptian Govt Monitors Facebook – The Egyptian Ministry of Interior has created a department especially to monitor Facebook activity in that country, according to Global Voices Online. This department includes 15 people who work 24 hours a day in three shifts, including two police officers and three engineers. They are tasked with monitoring criticism of the current president, Hosni Mubarak, and his son and presumed heir, Gamal.

How to Access Facebook in Vietnam – As we reported at the beginning of the year, Facebook is being blocked by the Vietnamese government. However, the web site Viet Tan has published an extensive guide on how to get around government controls, mainly by accessing “lite” versions of the social network, such as the mobile site. Despite the censorship, Vietnam has 1.2 million users according to our most recent Global Monitor Report on Inside Facebook Gold.

RootMusic’s Facebook Player Collects Royalties – RootMusic launched a YouTube tracks feature allowing musicians to collect royalties on every song played on Facebook. Through the free 520 pixel-wide version of the BandPage media player, musicians can collect revenue from every song played on Facebook; some artists currently using the service include 50 Cent and Maroon 5. See our previous coverage for more details about the company.

Questions is Back – Questions disappeared for a few days this week, for most of the small portion of Facebook users who had access to it. Now it’s beginning to appear again.

Tagging Looks a Little Different – The way Facebook users are tagged in status updates has changed slightly. Whereas previously the names of those you tagged in your status appeared in blue letters, now they appear with a gray background (see screenshot above).

Blacktop Combines Foursquare, Places – Blacktop has created an app for iPhone allowing users to combine Places and Foursquare check-ins into “trips” that may be shared to their Facebook stream or by email. The company is advertising itself as a great way to “tell the story around a vacation, a day trip, or a night on the town.”

Facebook Sues Over ‘Face,’ ‘Book’ – Facebook is suing a number of companies with similar-sounding names. Recent examples that changed their name or may have to include: Placebook, Teachbook, FaceCash and Faceparty.

No Marijuana on Facebook - Facebook has declined to run ads from a group called Just Say Now, which is promoting the legalization of marijuana in California. Initially the company accepted the ads, generating 38 million impressions from Aug. 7 to 16, but then the ads were removed.  The Huffington Post quoted Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes, “The image of a pot leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies.”

Politicos and Privacy Problematic – Tim O’Reilly told The Hill this week that he’s concerned that politicians may negatively impact the technology field in their “witch hunt” for consumer privacy.

Flowtown Shares Consumer Media Use – Flowtown is an interesting company that takes your customer email lists and gives you a breakdown of their social media use, influence and demographics. The cost is $17 to $200 a month (plus five cents per new contact), 15,000 businesses are using the service so far and the company received $750,000 in seed funding from Dave McClure of 500 Startups, among others.

Facebook Hires Platform Exec – Katie Mitic has joined Facebook as part of the company’s platform marketing team. She previously worked for Palm and Yahoo. [Image via]

Facebook Won’t Use ARM Chips – The rumor this week that Facebook would be using ARM chips in its servers turned out to be untrue this week. ARM chips take less power than other technologies and are frequently used in smart phones.

WePay Brings Group Pay to Facebook - WePay, the online payment company, announced its Facebook integration today. WePay could be useful for Facebook Events and Facebook Groups, there’s the option to sell tickets and collect money with a bank account or credit card. The company takes a 3.5% or 50 cent transaction fee.

Germany Employers Can’t Screen Potential Hires on Facebook – A new German law bans employers from screening applicants’ Facebook profiles during the hiring process,  although Googling and searching LinkedIn are still allowed. The law comes after several years’ worth of scandals where employers were spying on employees; the new law also prevents employers from video surveilling employees in the bathroom, changing room and break room.

Facebook Edges Out Orkut in India – Facebook overtook Google’s Orkut as the most popular social network in India this week. For more information check out the Global Monitor report at Inside Facebook Gold.

Open Meeting Law and Facebook - The City of Redondo Beach, Calif. shut down its Facebook Page this week after concerns that the Page didn’t meet the state’s public records law. Do comments on the Page count as public record? Could the city delete offensive comments? These were some of the issues at hand that the city’s attorney decided were not worth the legal uncertainty. Redondo Beach remains active on Twitter, YouTube and Nixie.

Peanut Labs Mobilizes for Pakistan – Peanut Labs has organized on Facebook to raise money for the millions of flood victims in Pakistan. The company is taking donations on Facebook hoping to raise $25,000 by Aug. 31. Although co-founder Ali Moiz is a native of Pakistan, the company also donated 10% of its February profits to Haitian earthquake relief. To donate click here.

CampusBuddy, Cramster Collaborate – CampusBuddy, the education-focused Facebook application, has partnered with Cramster the online college help site. The new partnership, according to a blog post from CampusBuddy, will allow each company’s members to benefit from the others’ resources. Cramster will offer its homework and textbook help and CampusBuddy will offer its data from more than 100 million official grade records aiming to help students raise their grades.

Rixty Running Giveaway – Rixty is giving away $750 in Rixty cards, which may be used in more than 50 online games and on Facebook. To enter to win one of the cards click here.

Rumor: AOL, Facebook Talk Ad Alliance – The New York Post reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and AOL CEO Tim Armstrong have been discussing a “strategic alliance” that would boost the companies’ respective online ad businesses. Discussions have purportedly been on for months, and a deal might allow Facebook to tap into AOL’s online ad power and AOL to dump much of its content into social media, post-Bebo. AOL could potentially be named a “preferred media partner,” according to the story, but Facebook said it doesn’t comment on “market rumors.”

Facebook, Google Approach Data Centers Differently – An interesting piece in The Dalles Chronicle points out that Facebook and Google have taken radically different approaches to constructing their data centers in Oregon. The article characterized Google as standoffish, secretive and not always smooth with the locals on site whereas Facebook — headed by one of the former leaders of Google’s data center — has sent employees to meet with local leaders and disclosed construction plans early on. In other example, as we wrote previously, Facebook recently co-sponsored a local music event and pie bake-off at its site in Crook County.

Facebook Changes Notes – Facebook has changed its Notes app to allow people to bold, italicize, underline, use bullets, numbered lists or indented quotes without having to use the HTML tags. Users will now also be able to tag Pages in Note. Finally, a new menu on the left side allows for quick perusal of a user’s own Notes, Notes about you or Notes that might interest you.

CloudCrowd raises $5.1 M – CloudCrowd, which networks with workers around the world to bring labor into the cloud, previously raised $5.1 million recently and previously raised $1.5 million, according to TechCrunch. We wrote extensively about CloudCrowd’s business recently, the company bills itself as an on-demand labor-as-a-service crowdsourcing company which uses a Facebook application to assign tasks to workers, more at the link.

Appbistro Raises $550K – Appbistro raised $550,000 in funding recently from a variety of angel investors; the startup is essentially a market of apps for Page developers. Appbistro launched in May, according to TechCrunch, and so far 10,000 apps have been downloaded from the web site.

Rixty: Redeem Coins, Get Facebook Credits – Virtual currency provider Rixty is running a promotion from Aug. 9 through Sept. 7 that combines its Coinstar coin counting kiosks with Facebook Credits. the promotion allows users to redeem vouchers from Coinstar kiosks for Credits, up to 10 free Credits for redeeming their kiosk balance for a Rixty voucher. They can earn up to 105 more free Credits for exchanging these vouchers for Credits at the $0.199/Credit tax, depending on the value of the voucher.

Facebook Seattle Page – Facebook recently opened the Seattle office we wrote about in May and the company consequently published a Page for the office. Thus far the Page has about 530 Likes and Wall content, as well as a note including basic information and a photo of the view from the office.

Facebook Nears Saturation in UK – Hitwise’s numbers in the United Kingdom show that, while Facebook is still very popular, the social network may be nearing saturation. The amount of time people spend on the site decreased slightly and growth has slowed over the past six months. Check out our premium service, Inside Facebook Gold, for more information on growth by country.

eBay Thanks Like Button for Revenue – eBay has reportedly attributed part of its $2.2 billion increase in revenue last quarter to Facebook’s Like button. The Like button has been part of eBay’s Daily Deals or Fashion Vault promotions and company executive say Facebook’s social plugins represent some of the best marketing tools currently available.

Spotify Designer Joins Facebook – Rasmus Andersson, the former chief designer at Spotify, has left to join Facebook as a product designer. At Spotify, Andersson worked on creative and art direction, interaction and graphic design, brand identity and user interaction, among other things. He’ll be moving to San Francisco as part of his new job. On his blog he said that working with basic human needs, such as music and social interaction, has been the focus of his professional life. [Photo via]

Swiss Pharma Censured Over Facebook Info – Swiss drug maker Novartis ran into trouble with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this week over a widget on the company’s web site promoting its leukemia tasigna drug. Under current laws drug companies must present the pros along with the cons of any drug in advertisements, but the widget allowed Facebook users to share information promoting the product without any of the warning information. We wrote about the thin line pharmaceutical companies are currently walking by promoting products on social media spaces; the government is still considering regulations for social media drug promotions.

Book Delta Flights on Facebook – Delta’s new Ticket Window app allows users to book flights directly on Facebook. The app is powered by Alvenda.

Shout Out with Shoutworthy - Facebook Connect integration Shoutworthy is set up to allow people to professionally recommend their Facebook friends by profession and broadcast a short message about this recommendation over Twitter and Facebook.

Hospitals Contend with Facebook – Hospital administrators in California, as well as other places, are having trouble controlling what employees post about their work on Facebook. This is a particular problem due to U.S. medical confidentiality laws, especially in hospitals in Southern California where celebrities often go for treatment. So far, hospitals have responded by firing staffers who break the laws by posting photos or other confidential information on Facebook and by mounting their own social media campaigns.

UK’s Panic Button a Success – The United Kingdom’s experience with the so-called “Panic Button” to allow children to report inappropriate behavior on Facebook has been deemed successful by authorities there. The application has been downloaded more than 55,000 times and the 211 reports generated from it were serious offenses, such as “sexual grooming.” More at the link.

New Jersey Police Post Mug Shots – The Evesham Township police have begun posting the mug shots of local offenders, like drunk drivers, on Facebook. CNET reports that, while this is interesting, it does open up a strange can of worms because the photos can be tagged, which could lead to mischief.

Ronaldo Gets 10 Million Fans – Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo passed 10 million Likes on Facebook this week, making him the first non-American person to do so.

Facebook Ad Revenue Grows, More Acquisitions Coming - Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg revealed this past week that the company’s largest advertisers increased their spending with the site 10 times over in the past year. She also shared that some advertisers have increased spending by 20 times. As ad revenue increases, the company is set to purchase other companies to recruit talent and improve its ad system, according to Director of Corporate Development Vaughan Smith.

Like Button on 350,000 Sites, Growing on Shopping Sites – The Like button has been installed on 350,000 websites as of July, most of them news, sports and publishing. Recently, shopping sites have also begun to implement the Like button, so far increasing the number of visits from Facebook users.

New Ad Format – Facebook has updated the way some ads appear to users. While ads already feature friends who Liked the ad, new ads now feature friends’ reviews (anywhere from 1 to 5 stars) and a quote/review from them. [Image via].

Facebook Debuts New Album Layout – Facebook has changed the way photo albums appear on the site. More photos, if not all, from an album are not viewable by clicking on an album, as opposed to having to click to see the next page of photos like before.

Facebook’s Osofsky Talks Media – Facebook’s Justin Osofsky, who heads up the company’s media partnership team, gave an interesting interview to PBS this week. He discussed Facebook’s new Media Page, as well as other ways media companies are using the social network.

Bet on Facebook IPO Date – A betting site called Bodog is now taking wagers on when Facebook will reach 1 billion users and when it will go public.  odog, however, places the odds of Facebook hitting a billion users prior to January 1, 2010 at 4/6 and the company’s IPO before then at 11/10.

Facebook Testing Like Box – Facebook is testing a new box on user profiles displaying which Pages the user Likes. This box will apparently appear on the profile’s side bar. [Image via]

Questions Tested by Easter Eggs – An interesting experiment on Facebook’s new in-house Questions app came from Sean Percival this week. See a YouTube video of the experiment at the link.

Facebook Knows Your Ethnicity – Facebook has figured out, with remarkable accuracy, what your ethnicity is based on the data you share on the site. A Facebook Data team recently won a team award for best paper at a conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Washington, D.C. Using U.S. Census data and users’ names, Facebook researchers can identify a users’ most likely ethnicity. One example is, if your last name is Mueller, they’ve determined there’s a 97% chance you’re white; if your surname is Washington, there’s an 89.9% chance you’re black.

CA Agency Wants Rules for Candidates on Facebook - California’s Fair Political Practices Commission recommended that political candidates on Facebook stick to the same rules governing mailers, fliers and other advertisements this week. The recommendations don’t equate to laws, but state agencies will consider the rules later this month.

Vonage Releases Facebook App – Vonage released a mobile app for Facebook this week allowing Facebook users to make free mobile calls to Facebook friends who also have the app all over the world.

Facebook Best Company to Work For – Facebook was named the best tech company to work for according to employee reviews at Glassdoor.

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]