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.

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]

Global brands joined a band of celebrities and musicians on this week’s list of Top 20 Facebook Pages, compiled by our PageData tool, counting the number of fans joining a Page on any given day. In order to make the list this week Pages had to acquire between 1.1 million and 518,300 new Likes.

Top Gainers This Week

Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	YouTube	9,105,143	+1,127,486	+14.13
2.	Facebook	14,234,219	+888,703	+6.66
3.	Lady Gaga	13,690,189	+817,782	+6.35
4.	Family Guy	13,451,027	+793,141	+6.27
5.	Coca-Cola	8,664,011	+785,276	+9.97
6.	Bob Marley	7,381,216	+766,719	+11.59
7.	House	10,824,937	+714,771	+7.07
8.	Eminem	8,262,643	+699,808	+9.25
9.	Linkin Park	8,994,938	+641,159	+7.68
10.	Vin Diesel	12,309,003	+630,930	+5.40
11.	South Park	8,914,566	+621,207	+7.49
12.	The Twilight Saga	10,257,766	+605,544	+6.27
13.	Starbucks	11,056,832	+597,424	+5.71
14.	Cristiano Ronaldo	8,911,429	+586,248	+7.04
15.	Shakira	5,591,895	+579,678	+11.57
16.	Michael Jackson	17,058,493	+550,254	+3.33
17.	Red Bull	7,021,774	+544,560	+8.41
18.	Oreo	7,202,917	+539,091	+8.09
19.	Lil Wayne	8,563,543	+538,582	+6.71
20.	Katy Perry	5,617,561	+518,320	+10.16

First was YouTube, adding 1.1 million fans to pass a total of 9.1 million Likes. Overall, the growth seemed pretty steady, although there appeared to be some official Page consolidation last week that affected many of the Pages on our list this week.

In the global brands category, Facebook came in second place, adding 888,700 Likes to reach a total of 14.2 million, perhaps in part to news of the hitting the half billion user mark. Coca-Cola came in fifth place, adding 785,300 fans to grow to surpass 8.6 million inw aht seemed to be partly due to Page consolidation.

Starbucks took the number 13 spot, adding 597,400 fans, growing to 11 million. Red Bull was at number 17, adding 544,600 fans, pulling in a total of 7 million Likes by promoting sporting events. Next was Oreo at number 18, adding 539,100 fans to pass 7.2 million Likes; the company continues to promote a contest for international fans to become the Page’s profile picture.

Celebrity, in several forms, made up a chunk of this list this week, too; this includes television shows, movies and stars.

In fourth place was television show “Family Guy,” adding 793,100 Likes to grow the Page to 13.4 million; the makers of the show made appearances at the recent Comic-Con event in California this week. Medical drama “House” was seventh, adding 714,800 fans to reach 10.8 million total; the show had big growth this week and won big at an awards show.

Action star Vin Diesel’s Page added 630,900 fans to grow to 12.3 million this week. Next, “South Park” took the number 11 spot, adding 621,200 Likes to a total of 8.9 million. “The Twilight Saga” followed in twelfth place, adding 605,500 fans, passing 10.2 million total, and also putting in an appearance at Comic-Con. Finally, Portuguese football (soccer) star Cristiano Ronaldo added 586,200 fans to his 8.9 million total to take fourtheenth place.

The rest of the list was occupied by musicians.

Lady Gaga was third, adding 817,800 fans to her 13.6 million. Bob Marley’s Page took sixth, adding 766,700 fans to a 7.3 million total, though there wasn’t much happening on the Page. Rapper Eminem was eighth, added 699,800 fans now with 8.2 million Likes; he’s promoting his new album. Linkin Park was ninth, adding 641,200 fans to come in just under 9 million fans; the Page is promoting the band’s new album in various ways, including by offering a pre-order on the Page.

Shakira added 579,700 fans to take number 15, coming out with a total of 5.5 million Likes; her Page has been promoting her award nominations, merchandise and tour dates. Next was Michael Jackson at number 16, adding 550,300 fans to pass 17 million total Likes. Rapper Lil Wayne was at number 19, added 538,600 fans, grew to 8.5 million in part by releasing a new music video and sharing another letter from prison. Finally, Katy Perry came in at number 20, adding 518,300 LIkes to now boast 5.6 million; she’s also promoting a new single.

Facebook has hired two people to head their soon-to-be-opened Hyderabad, India offices, which we previously reported will involve 500 hires and about $150 million in investment. The 50,000 square-foot facility is set to open shortly and will incorporate online sales, operations services and general support services for Facebook around the world. These two appointments are the first executive-level hires Facebook has made in India.

Kirthiga Reddy has been appointed as director of online operations and Manoj Varghese as India’s director of operations.

Reddy has previously worked with the Phoenix Technologies software group in India and with Motorola’s mobile solutions provider as director of the Good Technology Group. She has an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Masters of Science in computer engineering from Syracuse University in New York.

Her main objective as director of online operations will be to expand Facebook’s reach in terms of users, advertisers and developers not only in India, but the rest of the world as well.

Varghese has previously worked as the human resources director for Google India, taking charge of staffing in the Asia Pacific and Japan. He also worked in a similar capacity at Dell International Services, Infosys Technologies and Maruti Suzuki.

Note that the office will be serving the world, but it will also be bringing more attention to Facebook in the country. According to Inside Facebook Gold, India currently has 10.5 million Facebook users — a tiny but fast-growing part of the population.

Stay tuned for more updates, as the office is set to open in the coming months.

[Reddy photo via Twitter; Varghese photo via HRM]

You’ve probably never heard of Pencake Limited, but the Hong Kong-based developer is the largest non-social gaming developer on Facebook — at least by monthly active users, as it now has 36.2 million, according to AppData. Why? It’s a quiz application developer, with more than 100 titles (and perhaps many more) in a variety of languages, that has managed to grow despite Facebook’s efforts to tune down these sorts of apps.

Founded in 2008, the company describes itself as a “marketing solutions provider” that makes custom quizzes, contests and other campaigns for other companies. Its web site currently lists a number of Asian brands as well as others like Microsoft and Olay as clients.

Pencake is most visible due to a series of core applications: Element Analyst, Friends Interview, Star of the Day, Five Friends Analyst, Gifts Creator, and Create Your Quiz.

Create Your Quiz alone sits atop the Pencake list with over 22.3 million monthly active users (followed distantly by Element Analyst Creator at 2.7 million). This has led to the creation of lots of quizzes, with each localized in over 20 languages, including Chinese, Spanish, Russian and French. This method of growth on the Facebook platform is not anything new. In fact, the Gift Creator and Create Your Quiz apps ought to ring a bell for long-time Facebook users.

Facebook has been making a few changes that have made these sorts of applications more visible. It has started associating many child quiz apps with the parent apps, which both shows these apps to be much bigger than they appeared before. More importantly for growth, it condensed multiple news feed stories from apps into single entries in news feeds, meaning that users had to click to see all of the news feed stories about the app.

Pencake has been, according to other developers, an especially aggressive quiz-maker, having been accused of many acts of spam on the Facebook developer forum (in fact, the company appears to be admitting to spamming in the Hong Kong press). However, when we asked the company, founder Terry Tsang said that it has stopped these practices, that it has been talking to Facebook, and that it continues to improve its apps. We’ve seen some user complaints, but we expect Facebook will take action if there are more problems.

The platform has been defined by developers pushing the limits of what Facebook offered in every way possible. The company has had to scale back many features, like third-party notifications, because developers have abused them. Given the years of back and forth on platform design and regulation, it’s surprising to see a company like Pencake get this far.

[Image credit: Facebook Developer Forum member xiaoten]