facebook application development

Facebook Faces Another Ownership Lawsuit – Facebook came under a temporary asset restraining order this week after yet another person claimed to have had a stake in the company. Paul D. Ceglia filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Allegany County in New York alleging that he owns 84% of Facebook per a 2003 contract he signed with Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook has requested the case be moved to federal court.

Ceglia claims he and Zuckerberg signed a contract stipulating that Zuckerberg would design a web site for a $1,000 fee and Ceglia would retain a 50% stake, with an additional 1% stake every business day until Jan. 1, 2004 until the site was completed. The site was to offer Harvard University students access to a live functioning yearbook called The Face Book.

New Facebook Publisher Revealed – A screen shot of the new Facebook publisher was seen on Twitpic this week. It looks like the new publisher is more simplified, including status updates, links and photos, but not videos.

Facebook Set to Announce 500M Users – TechCrunch reported this week that Facebook is set to announce the 500 million user mark with an interesting gimmick. Apparently, Facebook employees have been asked to upload photos of themselves thanking users; these photos were being hosted on a Drop.io account.

Facebook and White Flight – Danah Boyd has released another piece of scholarship on the racial composition of Facebook this week. The book chapter, “White Flight in Networked Publics — How Race and Class Shaped American Teen Engagement with MySpace and Facebook” details this topic and comes from her yet-to-be-published book “Digital Race Anthology.”

Previously Boyd noted that teenagers’ preference for MySpace or Facebook seemed to fall along racial lines, with more affluent white and Asian teens preferring Facebook and working class blacks and Latinos preferring MySpace. This latest chapter notes that MySpace has become a “digital ghetto” to many teens causing “white [and asian] flight” to Facebook.

One caveat is that the two companies don’t normally release racial demographic data about their user bases, although in late 2009 Facebook released some states showing that its US user base reflects the general population. Boyd’s statistical support for her thesis is derived from third parties.

For more see the story or the book chapter.

SocialSenseFB Filters Facebook for Brands – Networked Insights introduced its new Facebook Page application this week, SocialSenseFB. The app analyzes a brand’s Facebook fans, what their conversations consist of, how those conversations are impacting the brand and any issues to be addressed.

Involver Launches Tracking Tool – Involver launched a new program this week, AMP (audience management platform), aimed at helping brands track the ways their fan base grows, partially with frequently updated analytics. AMP consists of a dashboard where brand managers can see Twitter and Facebook followers, schedule content and track interaction. Pricing is tied to the number of Pages or fans to be managed.

DeHood Launches Facebook Integration – Location-based service focusing on hyper-local communities DeHood launched a Facebook integration this week at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat conference. The company also has an iPhone service and iPad app. On Facebook DeHood allows users to invite friends to their DeHood community, find friends already in those communities and post their DeHood-related activities on their Walls.

Govts Get Creative with Facebook – A few foreign governments did some interesting things with Facebook recently. In Ireland, input from Facebook users was taken into account over budget cuts, according to the Department of Finance there. And in the Philippines the government is using Facebook and Twitter to boost revenue by searching from tax evaders online.

Controversial Indian App ‘Whitens’ Skin – Vaseline has introduced a curious Facebook application in India that has caused quite a stir. The App is for a skin lightening cream for men and on Facebook takes a users’ photo divides the face into darker and fairer halves on Facebook to illustrate product effectiveness. Skin lightening products are popular in India and Vaseline’s parent company, Unilever, responded by saying the app was “created for the Indian market as a culturally relevant and engaging way for Indian men to interact with this product.” According to Inside Facebook Gold, India currently has 10.5 million users.

Facebook’s online video traffic is continuing to grow in the US, according to web measurement firm ComScore, rising from 41.3 million unique viewers in April to 45.5 million last month. The average number of videos viewed per Facebook user stayed about the same, falling slightly from 5.6  to 5.4.

The company also notably cracked comScore’s rankings for the 10 largest US online video sites by views, appearing for the first time with 245 million views in the month, or roughly 0.7% percent of the US market. Of course, Google dominates the list because of YouTube, and brought in a total of 14.6 billion views for 43.2% of all US video views during the period.

While still relatively small, Facebook’s video presence has boomed along with the site’s growth over the past few year. Reasons include its efforts to improve its uploading and sharing features, along with broader trends, like the increasing prevalence of mobile devices with video-recording capabilities.

However, as NewTeeVee points out, comScore’s numbers don’t quite line up with what Facebook is seeing internally — the company recently said that there are now more than 2 billion video views happening per month through the service. One reason for the difference is that Facebook is referring to its worldwide traffic while comScore, in this case, is only looking at US traffic. More than 70% of Facebook’s users are located outside of the US, so comScore’s numbers here only reflect a minority of Facebook’s overall video traffic. Other reasons Facebook’s numbers diverge likely include methodological differences between how Facebook and comScore count traffic. For what it’s worth, a Facebook spokesperson tells the publication that  ”Our internal stats for our monthly video uploads and views. We don’t comment on third party data so I can’t speak to how Comscore measures [its stats].”

Whatever numbers you look at, the trend here is that as Facebook — and the ubiquity of digital videos — continues to grow, so too will Facebook’s video traffic.

Levi’s is holding a video contest on Facebook to find the first online “face and voice” of Levi’s womenswear, who will be known simply as “Levi’s Girl.”

Aspiring virtual spokeswomen of the American denim and casual wear manufacturer are asked to submit a 1-2 minute video via the company’s Facebook app explaining why they would be the perfect fit for the role, which involves reaching out and engaging with Levi’s female fan base on Facebook and Twitter. Video submissions will be accepted until June 20.

“Last year, we empowered the ‘Levi’s Guy’ -– our social media coordinator –- to be the voice of the Levi’s brand to our Facebook community,” recounted Director of Women’s & Digital Marketing Kristin Bannister. Now the company is looking for someone with “an amazing personality who is willing to be the face [of the brand] and to connect with our female fan base.” Ideally, that person will already have a strong social media presence and be passionate about global issues, fashion and style, Bannister explained.

Levi’s will comb through the entries and select five finalists, whose videos will then be shared on Levi’s Facebook Page. Community members will have one week to vote for their favorite candidate, to be announced at the end of July. The winner will land a six-month paid position in Levi’s San Francisco headquarters, working alongside “Levi’s Guy” in the marketing department.

Levi’s has pursued an aggressive social media strategy in the past, having been one of the first major brands to integrate Facebook’s new Instant Personalization features with its site and launching what we dubbed as one of the most innovative viral video ads of 2009.

When asked about the value social media provides to Levi’s, Bannister explained that “it’s more about engagement…we don’t put strict measurements on sales.” The brand boasts more than 300,000 Facebook fans, which has grown by more than 25% in the last few months. In addition, Levi’s Guy has over 5,000 followers on Twitter.

We think the campaign is great for a number of reasons. Firstly, it will attract far more attention than a generic post on a job board — or any other traditional employee search method for that matter — while still allowing Levi’s to exercise some control over the selection process. Perhaps even more importantly, it will increase engagement with existing Facebook fans and attract new fans from contestants’ social networks. What’s more, Levi’s fanbase will already be familiar with the Levi’s Girl before she even starts work.

What do you think of the contest? Have you ever competed in something to win a job?

Tags: facebook, jobs, levis, social media

Universal Studios has just released the second trailer for Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World on its Facebook page. The trailer was originally going to premiere in front of the comedy, Get Him to the Greek, but the studio offered to release it online first if the film could get 100,000 Facebook fans.

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter are becoming increasingly integrated into promotional campaigns for feature films. For instance, Disney premiered the first trailer for Alice in Wonderland on Facebook and also used the social network to serve up exclusive character posters.

For the upcoming release of Toy Story 3, Disney/Pixar has gone all out, even creating faux-vintage toy commercials for YouTube.

Universal’s strategy with Scott Pilgrim is unique in that it asked users to become fans of the film before it launched the trailer. The director of the film, Edgar Wright, announced this incentive on his Twitter account.

You can check out the second trailer for the film below:

What do you think about how movie studios are using social networks to promote films and to build buzz? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: facebook, Film, Movies, scott pilgrim vs the world, trailers

Sketch troupe Derrick Comedy has tackled social networking as the topic of their latest video by creating the next next-generation social network: Gink. What is Gink? Well, it’s simple, really: “Gink is a fun made-up word, combining the words gibble and spink, both of which are also made up.”

Simultaneously parodying the proliferation of social networks and the dizzying array of specialized terminology that often comes with them, Gink goes off the deep end with an assortment of seriously delivered gibberish that would make Dr. Seuss proud.

Check out the video below — warning: some NSFW language included — and let us know what you think. Is Gink the next big thing?

[via Maximum Fun]

Tags: collegehumor, comedy, facebook, gink. Derrick Comedy, parody, social networks, twitter, video, viral video, youtube