Resident Evil 4 (Game Cube, 2005) Mint - eBay (item 320627169536 end time Dec-15-10 15:28:01 PST)
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Tuesday, December 14, 2010
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.: "About this playlist
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Description: The Many works of Christopher Stokes
About the creator
LordDevilman666
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Visual Artist Known as Lord Devilman, to some. real name Christopher Stokes. Lead Member of The Apocalypse. The Apocaypse is very dark and evil trance techno. \m/(- -)\m/ http://devilman16661.fortunecity.com/666INDEX666.htm"
18 views
51 videos
Total length: 1 hour, 31 minutes
Last updated: 4 days ago
Description: The Many works of Christopher Stokes
About the creator
LordDevilman666
83 videos
21,393 video views
57 subscribers
Joined April 20, 2009
Visual Artist Known as Lord Devilman, to some. real name Christopher Stokes. Lead Member of The Apocalypse. The Apocaypse is very dark and evil trance techno. \m/(- -)\m/ http://devilman16661.fortunecity.com/666INDEX666.htm"
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
OUR FACEBOOK STATUS
our pages are still up. but i havent heard back from facebook/. if i dont ill make a new page very soon. NOTHING IS GOING TO GET IN THE WAY OF MY DREAMS>
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Thanks Facebook for stripping me of your service
Thanks Facebook for stripping me of your service
stored in: Social MediaWelcome to my blog! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my feed. Also, check me out on twitter! Thanks for visiting!
The most random thing happened to me last night and I am not sure how it happened. I went to login to my Facebook account last night and next thing I know I get the following message:
“Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.”
The thing that really gets me is not one piece of communication from Facebook to the user, in this case, me other than at the login screen. There was not one email sent from Facebook possibly stating: “Your account was disabled for the following reason…”
Furthermore, typically when someone violates a terms of services or anything of that nature, there should be a communication sent out to the individual. When you strip someone of any type of product, service, account, etc. there needs to be a valid reason for it and also what they can do to re-initiate their account. Going WAY back into the past with AOL, they use to do this if your account was reported, etc. I remember a specific occurrence where i called someone a name as a joke, in a chat room and I was reported by someone else (yes, I am a geek that lives online practically and I did at some point hang out in chat rooms with friends, insert one of many jokes). AOL still sent an email to us, saying the account was disabled for the following XX number of reasons, the specific comment made, and furthermore, provided steps to getting our account back.
Moving back to Facebook, you can not strip someone of their means of communication and not provide reasoning for doing so. Disabling a users account without any explanation is like stripping a family of telephone and snail mail communication in the 1970′s, you just don’t do that!
So, I went on my way and tried to do a little digging to see if I could find a way to contact customer support or something along those lines. As you can see in the screenshot above there is a fancy little link to the FAQ page, “here”. (Side mistake by Facebook…right…because “here” describes what this beautiful little page is? Why not just link “disabled account FAQ page” to be a little more semantic…sigh)
What do we have here, on this fancy little FAQ page which provides absolutely no contact information? Ooops, I leaked it a bit to early…yes…you heard me right…the FAQ page does not provide ANY contact information to the user attempting to get in touch to find out why their account was disabled. Facebook, seriously? Are. You. Kidding. Me?!
Here is the fully open disabled user FAQ page, with…(yes I’m going to say it again)…NO CONTACT INFORMATION:
Let’s recap for a moment here on where Facebook had a FAIL of EPIC proportions:
•First and foremost, disabled a users account without any absolute reason
•Provided the user with no explanation, let alone a detailed explanation of the problem
•Did not provide any steps to re-enable or bring their account back online
•Worst of all, did not provide any contact information to the user for them to contact facebook.
A lot of the actions above can be easily handled by setting up triggers in your database or code. The disabling action should trigger an email, of which, should contain the reasons for disabling the user. The reasons can be linked to the users profile, provide that string of text in the email. Furthermore the contact details should be provided in the email template and/or a list of things the user can do in the meantime. Rather than getting frustrated and writing a blog post, like me.
Now, I have actually emailed facebook, the disabled email address is disabled@facebook.com. I found that address thanks to Steve Ganz doing a search for me. (Which I’ll admit, I should have thought of doing, but was so confused I didn’t) The url to that page is http://www.facebook.com/help.php?hq=account+disabled. We will see how this comedic drama of my account being disabled turns out. Hopefully Facebook can clean up their customer support and disabled account policies in the meantime as well.
Updates:
7/13 @ 4:05pm: It is a Sunday and typically not a “business day”…but 12 hours since my account was disabled and still no contact from facebook support or a reply to the disabled email address.
7/13 @ 4:30pm: Thanks to a tip from @carlayoung on twitter, I have fwd’ed my email to their appeals@facebook.com email address for yet another attempt at opening communication lines up.
7/14 @ 8:05am: It has been a full day since my first emails have been sent off to Facebook’s disabled support and I still have not received an email. My account is still disabled.
7/15 @ 4:55 pm: Facebook finally re-actived my account and said that I need to browse Facebook less…interestingly enough, they state there are rate limits, but refuse to state what those rate limits are.
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+1 Vote up Vote down Ellen Petry Leanse · 113 weeks ago
I'm commenting on this in hopes that someone from Facebook will read this, and what's above.
To start: I am a HUGE Facebook fan. I often speak at a keynote level on social media, and feature Facebook as my exemplar. I coach VP and C-level execs, often from well-known enterprises, on the business productivity of social networks (again, with Facebook prominently featured), and I host webinars on using social networks (again, Facebook) to build business results.
And I'm a pretty low-key person, I think; not the type to put hate mail, profanities, spam or other offensive content anywhere, really, and certainly not anywhere in my online presence. That would violate my "personal TOS" even more than it might those of any online service I used.
So I was astonished to receive a warning message last week, similar to that above, saying that I had violated Facebook's TOS by putting offensive, hateful, profane etc. content on someone's wall.
To be clear: I didn't.
But my only path to get rid of the message was to "acknowledge" that I had rec'd it, which to me felt like admitting or agreeing to having made an offense.
I would never acknowledge something that I hadn't done. I left the warning message as it was and did not acknowledge.
I did write to Facebook customer support about this, and (although I never rec'd any sort of response) after a few days the warning message just went away.
So many things were wrong with the experience that Facebook delivered when they sent me this message. It was clear, from the workflow and the wording, that they were expecting the worst from their users rather than the best. That is really a bad way for a company to view their users.
Also, they gave me no specific information...and trust me, if something had triggered this punitive message, they had the data; it would have only been fair for them to share that data with me. I had absolutely no idea what post they might of been referring to...where and when I had ostensibly put the inappropriate content, what the content had been, what I should do to set it right.
Can you envision being stopped by some sort of law enforcement official and being told that you had done something wrong, and that you were at risk of being cited for it, so don't do it again—but not being told what you had done wrong? Or, if you're a parent, telling one of your kids to "Stop it!" but not telling them what they should stop? I was truly befuddled by Facebook's message and followed the same path described above (read the info that FB had sent me to) and again...nothing. No relevant content, no specifics, no path to set it right.
Facebook is a world-class service with a ton of vision and very high-quality performance on so many levels. However, the "resolution" part of their customer experience is a violation of their brand promise and a true breakdown in the sophistication of the service. It feels reflexive, not thought out, punitive, caustic and nasty.
If someone from Facebook is reading this, first: thanks, and second: get some of those smart, talented people on your team to flow-chart what might trigger a warning message, what the various causes or possibilities for that message might be, and then create the messaging, specific content, and resolution path that would allow a user to resolve it. And, as you do so, assume the best from your users rather than the worst. I assure you, if you expect that of them, you will be much more likely to resolve issues positivity rather than offend your users and weaken the great brand that you have.
thanks,
Ellen Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Tony Adam · 113 weeks ago
@Ellen Thanks for the great comment and feedback and I totally agree with your points as well! It's amazing they haven't developed a system for this yet. There has been so much bad PR about it and here lies yet another reputation management issue. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Mike Cunningham · 113 weeks ago
You know these Services are set up to make it hard to near impossible to regain your account and information.
Remember he days when it was impossible to quit AOL?
I'm having a similar but not quite alike problem with MySpace. I admit I blew the Email address for logon by putting 2 @'s in it. I admit I can't type. I've written to the help people, sent the "salute" mug shot picture required, only to get back the same form letter from a robot telling me to do what I just did.
Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder, Nice quiet Sunday, good time to devote my energy to tracking down MYSpace leaders. I guess I'll start with Wikipedia as Google hasn't helped.
Get Your Name On!
Mike
http://twitter.com/mike1mb Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down C.J. · 113 weeks ago
I had the same a few days ago - no warning, and I had to find the email address to ask about it from google.
Not only was my profile disabled, but a facebook ad campaign I was runnig disappeared, as did the 'Page' I use to promote a business - all done well within their ToS.
When I got an answer as to why my account had been disabled, it was because I had changed my profile name a few months ago. You have to get approval to change your name, so they had already 'okayed' it - then several months later, close down my profile and my ads for something they'd already approved - with no warning, and no telling me how to communicate with them about it. Sheer stupidity.
They did restore everything after a couple of days, and I'm still at a complete loss to understand what on earth they thought they were playing at. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Clickfire · 113 weeks ago
I think it's a mistake to ban users like this from a service and not give them any way of appeal. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down Roney · 113 weeks ago
It's an unfortunate welcome to the club:(
Each attempt to learn more about the disabling of your account reduces the probability of getting the account reinstated I have discovered.
The only potential upside is that they will not share any information with third parties but their bureaucratic tendencies melts this hope away as well.
Hopefully the new board member will convince FB to have an Amnesty Day to reinstate accounts since the entire disabling approach is rather web2.0-Nazi like:( Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down holly · 112 weeks ago
It seems strange that just a few months ago Facebook was facing issues because users could not fully delete their accounts and now they are doing it for them...with no warning. All very odd. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago Social Media Is Always Changing… But Do You Change With It?
[...] is not a whole lot to talk about in regards to social communities. Outside of Facebook deciding to ban people at random, social communities are pretty much business as [...]
Blog Post - Facebook Deleting Accounts? - eCommerce Forums - eBiz Insider Magazine
[...] TOS. This is an interesting read and offers some helpful tips if you find you've been suspended. Thanks Facebook for stripping me of your service __________________ Jean Lloyd Solid Cactus - Sr. Search Engine Marketing [...]
0 Vote up Vote down terry chay · 112 weeks ago
Is it ironic that I found out about this post because Tony’s notes-blog on Facebook is still active and I saw it on my Facebook feed? Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Tony Adam · 112 weeks ago
@terrychay - I had remove and/or update all the apps that were on my facebook profile...my account was re-activated on 7/15. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down paisley · 109 weeks ago
Tony,
Unfortunately with Facebook and Myspace, it's a free service.. one of the risks with using this is there is not real "agreement" from facebook's end to provide you service.
This is where LinkedIn's account upgrade has a little teeth, at least you do have some expectation of service because you have "purchased" something.
I understand your ire completely, i used to have like 50k friends on myspace which were people that wanted my information on dance music events worldwide. it was about a $5k a month side business, however once that profile was removed, so was my reach.
it does however resemble SEO with Google or Yahoo! (not sure how much today, tho now that we have employees from both focused on search.. unlike the people who accept yahoo! express submit applications)
however, trying to get a listing in yahoo! directory once you have changed a URL is near impossible.. after billing the client for 42 man hours in trying to geta URL changed, we finally had to give up and submit a duplicate URL.
you are lucky you got your profile back.. myspace never replied, nor restored my profile, of course i never renewed my 55k monthly ad spend for 4 different clients either. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago -1 Vote up Vote down Lalah · 95 weeks ago
Facebook disabled my account for no reason. No email or warning. I signed up to run an ad for a non-profit group and it was approved. Within an hour my account was disabled? The group is still up and going but it say, has no administrators. So, Facebook is charging me for an ad, when I can't even log in with my own account? Sounds like a rip off to me. I contacted the State Attorney General's office and filed a complaint. Because when any money exchanges, it's a transaction. And they don't have any way for you to contact them other through emails, which they don't respond to. I'm going to small claims court if it doesn't get taken care of. You can't charge someone for a service and then not give them access to that service. It's ridiculous. I read that some students in Canda are suing Facebook as well over Privacy issues. Too bad Americans don't take that attitude, we'd probably get more satisfaction, instead of complaining about it. I say stop the whining and get some action done. File a complaint with the State Attorney General. When there are enough complaints, Facebook will change their operations and accessibility. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down jessica · 85 weeks ago
my account was disabled yesterday afternoon because i "sent too many messages" i have sent emails to about 4 different facebook emails i've seen and have recieved nothing in return.
what are the chances of them actually reactivating my account? Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Malhaar · 83 weeks ago
Facebook fails when it comes to service, I got disabled once for three weeks, it took that long for my message to get through.. and when I got my account back I got disabled immediately after logging in, so I email again and 5 days later get my account back, and after 24 hours im disabled again! They really need to sort out their methods of disabling accounts its mind blowingly stupid the way they do it right now! Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +2 Vote up Vote down janis · 82 weeks ago
Hi.. yes the very same has happened to me and its just weird cos i barely use my account and i dont send many msgs or take up much space. So strange. I just want my account back you know. There are ppl on there who are gonna start wondering what the hell happened to me. Anyway. If anyone can help.... janis.leroux@gmail.com Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down Kat · 75 weeks ago
I have been trying to get a response from Facebook since May 31st as to why they disabled my account. I have sent numerous e-mails to them to no response. I have e-mailed warning@facebook.com, info+06gfreez@facebookmail.com, appeals@facebook.com, diabled@facebook.com, and info@facebook.com and I have not received one darn response. I mean I am also with other sites and they are never this bad. Pleading means nothing to them. I don't know what else to do. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Lucas · 73 weeks ago
I was on this morning without a problem. Then at lunch time today could not get back in. Saying they disable my account. I was like excuse me?
what did I do, I am just a simple user with friends and family on my list of contacts. Not running no groups or being a admin or whatever. Yes i am in groups, no crime with that since they encourage to have so many different type of groups.
So I email them and suprise I got an email back within the hour. But nothing since over 2 hours now.
Hi,
The Facebook Team has received your inquiry. We should get back to you soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Terms of Use (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php) for more information.
Thanks for contacting Facebook,
The Facebook Team
They should really look toward the bad things going on their site before disabling people accounts without no reason or warning.
Like you know how many porn is on that site or above other stupid things they should really look into before looking at people accounts to see how many friends they have or how much you are browsing on facebook. I mean seriously.....holy moly! Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down HARVEY ANDERSON · 71 weeks ago
Greedings to all FaceBook users my FaceBook account was “DISABLE” 05-03-09 for to many friends request. but when you read the terms of Agreedment it dose not say how many friend request you can add like for example you can only add 50/100/75 something like that but when you read the Agreedment it dose not say anything about that. but at the end of the day i realy like FaceBook thank you.HARVEY Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Daniel James · 70 weeks ago
@Lucas,
Who did you email to get your reply back, because i am in the same situation as you and i am having some confusion over who to contact over at facebook email-wise.
thanks Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Mark A. Dix · 65 weeks ago
May I ask everyone "How should Facebook change its account disabling policy?" at least to me is quite simple. Before I present my answer, I want to ask Facebook if there is anyone at Facebook that knows how to reason and treat people in a humane manner? The reason I ask this question is because Facebook on the surface appears to be user friendly and concerned about its members. However, upon closer examination Facebook does not have a due process and does not care at all about its members rights and feelings. Here are a few examples. Facebook limits the number of friends you can have and limits the number of friends you can make in a given period of time, limits the number of groups you can belong to, limits the number of messages you can send in a given period of time, limits the number of “polks” you can make and no doubt other limits I am not mentioning. All limits are ruthlessly enforced by giving you warnings you are breaching Facebook's limits without telling you what the specific limit number is and then disabling a member, or abruptly disabling a member without a warning and without saying what limit rate was breached and of course without a specific number that is deemed to be to "fast." Most members are permanently disabled and are told that Facebooks decision is final and there is no recourse. To me this is analogous to giving speeding tickets without having a speed limit posted. In Facebook warnings and in their disabling message they call a "guilty" member a scammer or spammer and further say you "may be" infringing upon the rights other members by harassment.
Now to answer the question " "How should Facebook change its account disabling policy?" To me all Facebook or should I say at this time "Facelessbook" has to do if, dare, I use the terms thinks or feels, it needs limits to guard against real threats to security is to program in limit governors that will stop the breach of policy before it is breached. Limit governors will enforce the Facebook policy of limits and will as well be a security measure to guard against real scammers and spammers. A limit governor is the same thing as a speed governor on a vehicle. As an old farm boy from Iowa I fail to see the difficulty in having a limit governor policy and implementing it with a computer program. With limit governors in place members will not be disabled because they will not be allowed to breach polices and real scammers and spammers will not be able to operate so why be a member?
If Facebook is treating its international members with ruthless complete disregard for their rights and feelings like it treats it domestic members with ruthless complete disregard for their rights and feelings I believe Facebook is not only giving itself a black eye it is also giving the United States of America a BIG black eye in the eyes of the rest of the world. I ask Facebook to please wake up and see the light. If you are so paranoid about your members governing themselves by self enforcement of your unknown limits and rates than at the very least give members an exact number that is considered a breach of your limits and rates and or place your own limit governors on whatever you want to governor and stop disabling members who are actually your friends as well as friends of other members. I believe if Facebook will place its own limit governors to enforce its policies or even better do away with limits and allow freedom to reign you will be creating good will for yourself and most importantly from your members and disabled former members.
One final note. In all fairness (?) to Facebook, Facebook SAYS it has an appeals process, customer support and a disabled contact to assist disabled members to sort through what has happened and evidently to somehow offer hope of membership reinstatement. However, because I know from first hand experience, the contact services are in fact a cruel automated ruse that does not reply at all or replies with an automated reply and nothing is done. There may be a very minuscule minority of disabled members who have been reinstated but a large VAST majority of disabled members are ignored and do not receive a due process and are never again allowed to be a member of Facebook. I want to ask everyone if Facebooks current polices and practices are what the United States of America is founded upon? Thank you for your time and interest in my answer to “"How should Facebook change its account disabling policy?" Sincerely yours, Mark A. Dix, Brooklyn, Iowa, USA Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Debra · 62 weeks ago
Ellen thanks for the above message to us. I have been
on Facebook every day for the last several months. I
created an account back in April. I have worked hard to
get up a list of contacts there. I have gotten quite far in
Farmtown and Yoville.
All of a sudden last evening when I went to log in I couldn't
log in. I finally, after much Googling, found the link above
and wrote the Customer Service people. I received
nothing from them before this happened that my account
had been disabled. In fact, my whole profile has disappeared
and I have disappeared off my friends pages as well.
I am cerainly not going to start all over with Farmtown and
Yoville. I've come too far. Furthermore when I did try to
log in I was sent to a blank page that said Welcome to
Facebook. A new account page? Whatever for?
By the time Facebook Team responded to me, which
was late this morning, they only told me I logged in with
the wrong email address and not to create a new account
or I would make things more confusing.
Where is my profile?!
Debra Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Carole Hunter · 60 weeks ago
I was running along on Facebook since Feb - and leaving comments everytime one of my friends posted a thought. Sometimes those thoughts led to "comment conversations" and that is called chatting on the wall which ie verboten. I never got a warning, never got an email - I just got banned for 4 days. After being allowed back I noticed my posts would stay gray for a long time before hitting the comment box. I got nervous so I deactivated my old account and spent 8 hours building a new one and I also emailed many peeps asking them to req my friendship so not to overuse that and get a warning.
Everything was fine until yesterday. I got a warning in my email - did not see it till too late since my email screen and FB are two different screens. A warning came up on my wall after I commented and then a box telling me I hd violated one of the following terms yadda yadda yadda.
You know what - I don't care - I reached a point where it bores me and I have all the email addresses of peeps I want to contact.
I think that they are running it like a Communist organization because complaints are valid as I read them here. Terms and conditions are too vague. I comment a lot what is the limit??? Has anyone personally reported me? No. If they did then I should get a warning and guess what the warning should say who reported me so I can block them or unfriend them. Wouldn't that be a fairer way to do things?
What do you expect from kids who we have given power to by joining?
Me I am back to email, texting and imagine this - phone calls.
I am an adult I don't need to call them names Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Robin · 60 weeks ago
Today, July 20th. I was sent a warning that my account could be disabled for violation of terms of service. With in 15 minutes, my account was disabled. Of course they do NOT tell you why or what you did. I wrote to the only address I could find and told them I am a 57 year old woman, not some child playing around on the Internet.
I got the same form letter back that all of you got. I still have not heard anything and it's upset me terribly. Anyone can look at my profile and they will not see curse words, they will not see porn.
What is wrong with them? Is this just a program that spits out names at random and they decide to ban them, disable them, or terminate them?? Big Brother is watching, but they don't know what they are looking at.
My family has told me my whole profile is gone and all of my comments on other's pages. I don't know the answer, but I do know this is wrong to do this to innocent people.
What can we do? Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Barbara · 60 weeks ago
I now know of several people, who have been banned or whose accounts have been closed, disabled and/or deleted on FaceBook......they have no idea why, the REAL reason, and as so many comments above, any 'notices' were vague and/or unfounded.
stored in: Social MediaWelcome to my blog! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my feed. Also, check me out on twitter! Thanks for visiting!
The most random thing happened to me last night and I am not sure how it happened. I went to login to my Facebook account last night and next thing I know I get the following message:
“Your account has been disabled by an administrator. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page here.”
The thing that really gets me is not one piece of communication from Facebook to the user, in this case, me other than at the login screen. There was not one email sent from Facebook possibly stating: “Your account was disabled for the following reason…”
Furthermore, typically when someone violates a terms of services or anything of that nature, there should be a communication sent out to the individual. When you strip someone of any type of product, service, account, etc. there needs to be a valid reason for it and also what they can do to re-initiate their account. Going WAY back into the past with AOL, they use to do this if your account was reported, etc. I remember a specific occurrence where i called someone a name as a joke, in a chat room and I was reported by someone else (yes, I am a geek that lives online practically and I did at some point hang out in chat rooms with friends, insert one of many jokes
Moving back to Facebook, you can not strip someone of their means of communication and not provide reasoning for doing so. Disabling a users account without any explanation is like stripping a family of telephone and snail mail communication in the 1970′s, you just don’t do that!
So, I went on my way and tried to do a little digging to see if I could find a way to contact customer support or something along those lines. As you can see in the screenshot above there is a fancy little link to the FAQ page, “here”. (Side mistake by Facebook…right…because “here” describes what this beautiful little page is? Why not just link “disabled account FAQ page” to be a little more semantic…sigh)
What do we have here, on this fancy little FAQ page which provides absolutely no contact information? Ooops, I leaked it a bit to early…yes…you heard me right…the FAQ page does not provide ANY contact information to the user attempting to get in touch to find out why their account was disabled. Facebook, seriously? Are. You. Kidding. Me?!
Here is the fully open disabled user FAQ page, with…(yes I’m going to say it again)…NO CONTACT INFORMATION:
Let’s recap for a moment here on where Facebook had a FAIL of EPIC proportions:
•First and foremost, disabled a users account without any absolute reason
•Provided the user with no explanation, let alone a detailed explanation of the problem
•Did not provide any steps to re-enable or bring their account back online
•Worst of all, did not provide any contact information to the user for them to contact facebook.
A lot of the actions above can be easily handled by setting up triggers in your database or code. The disabling action should trigger an email, of which, should contain the reasons for disabling the user. The reasons can be linked to the users profile, provide that string of text in the email. Furthermore the contact details should be provided in the email template and/or a list of things the user can do in the meantime. Rather than getting frustrated and writing a blog post, like me.
Now, I have actually emailed facebook, the disabled email address is disabled@facebook.com. I found that address thanks to Steve Ganz doing a search for me. (Which I’ll admit, I should have thought of doing, but was so confused I didn’t) The url to that page is http://www.facebook.com/help.php?hq=account+disabled. We will see how this comedic drama of my account being disabled turns out. Hopefully Facebook can clean up their customer support and disabled account policies in the meantime as well.
Updates:
7/13 @ 4:05pm: It is a Sunday and typically not a “business day”…but 12 hours since my account was disabled and still no contact from facebook support or a reply to the disabled email address.
7/13 @ 4:30pm: Thanks to a tip from @carlayoung on twitter, I have fwd’ed my email to their appeals@facebook.com email address for yet another attempt at opening communication lines up.
7/14 @ 8:05am: It has been a full day since my first emails have been sent off to Facebook’s disabled support and I still have not received an email. My account is still disabled.
7/15 @ 4:55 pm: Facebook finally re-actived my account and said that I need to browse Facebook less…interestingly enough, they state there are rate limits, but refuse to state what those rate limits are.
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+1 Vote up Vote down Ellen Petry Leanse · 113 weeks ago
I'm commenting on this in hopes that someone from Facebook will read this, and what's above.
To start: I am a HUGE Facebook fan. I often speak at a keynote level on social media, and feature Facebook as my exemplar. I coach VP and C-level execs, often from well-known enterprises, on the business productivity of social networks (again, with Facebook prominently featured), and I host webinars on using social networks (again, Facebook) to build business results.
And I'm a pretty low-key person, I think; not the type to put hate mail, profanities, spam or other offensive content anywhere, really, and certainly not anywhere in my online presence. That would violate my "personal TOS" even more than it might those of any online service I used.
So I was astonished to receive a warning message last week, similar to that above, saying that I had violated Facebook's TOS by putting offensive, hateful, profane etc. content on someone's wall.
To be clear: I didn't.
But my only path to get rid of the message was to "acknowledge" that I had rec'd it, which to me felt like admitting or agreeing to having made an offense.
I would never acknowledge something that I hadn't done. I left the warning message as it was and did not acknowledge.
I did write to Facebook customer support about this, and (although I never rec'd any sort of response) after a few days the warning message just went away.
So many things were wrong with the experience that Facebook delivered when they sent me this message. It was clear, from the workflow and the wording, that they were expecting the worst from their users rather than the best. That is really a bad way for a company to view their users.
Also, they gave me no specific information...and trust me, if something had triggered this punitive message, they had the data; it would have only been fair for them to share that data with me. I had absolutely no idea what post they might of been referring to...where and when I had ostensibly put the inappropriate content, what the content had been, what I should do to set it right.
Can you envision being stopped by some sort of law enforcement official and being told that you had done something wrong, and that you were at risk of being cited for it, so don't do it again—but not being told what you had done wrong? Or, if you're a parent, telling one of your kids to "Stop it!" but not telling them what they should stop? I was truly befuddled by Facebook's message and followed the same path described above (read the info that FB had sent me to) and again...nothing. No relevant content, no specifics, no path to set it right.
Facebook is a world-class service with a ton of vision and very high-quality performance on so many levels. However, the "resolution" part of their customer experience is a violation of their brand promise and a true breakdown in the sophistication of the service. It feels reflexive, not thought out, punitive, caustic and nasty.
If someone from Facebook is reading this, first: thanks, and second: get some of those smart, talented people on your team to flow-chart what might trigger a warning message, what the various causes or possibilities for that message might be, and then create the messaging, specific content, and resolution path that would allow a user to resolve it. And, as you do so, assume the best from your users rather than the worst. I assure you, if you expect that of them, you will be much more likely to resolve issues positivity rather than offend your users and weaken the great brand that you have.
thanks,
Ellen Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Tony Adam · 113 weeks ago
@Ellen Thanks for the great comment and feedback and I totally agree with your points as well! It's amazing they haven't developed a system for this yet. There has been so much bad PR about it and here lies yet another reputation management issue. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Mike Cunningham · 113 weeks ago
You know these Services are set up to make it hard to near impossible to regain your account and information.
Remember he days when it was impossible to quit AOL?
I'm having a similar but not quite alike problem with MySpace. I admit I blew the Email address for logon by putting 2 @'s in it. I admit I can't type. I've written to the help people, sent the "salute" mug shot picture required, only to get back the same form letter from a robot telling me to do what I just did.
Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder, Nice quiet Sunday, good time to devote my energy to tracking down MYSpace leaders. I guess I'll start with Wikipedia as Google hasn't helped.
Get Your Name On!
Mike
http://twitter.com/mike1mb Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down C.J. · 113 weeks ago
I had the same a few days ago - no warning, and I had to find the email address to ask about it from google.
Not only was my profile disabled, but a facebook ad campaign I was runnig disappeared, as did the 'Page' I use to promote a business - all done well within their ToS.
When I got an answer as to why my account had been disabled, it was because I had changed my profile name a few months ago. You have to get approval to change your name, so they had already 'okayed' it - then several months later, close down my profile and my ads for something they'd already approved - with no warning, and no telling me how to communicate with them about it. Sheer stupidity.
They did restore everything after a couple of days, and I'm still at a complete loss to understand what on earth they thought they were playing at. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Clickfire · 113 weeks ago
I think it's a mistake to ban users like this from a service and not give them any way of appeal. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down Roney · 113 weeks ago
It's an unfortunate welcome to the club:(
Each attempt to learn more about the disabling of your account reduces the probability of getting the account reinstated I have discovered.
The only potential upside is that they will not share any information with third parties but their bureaucratic tendencies melts this hope away as well.
Hopefully the new board member will convince FB to have an Amnesty Day to reinstate accounts since the entire disabling approach is rather web2.0-Nazi like:( Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down holly · 112 weeks ago
It seems strange that just a few months ago Facebook was facing issues because users could not fully delete their accounts and now they are doing it for them...with no warning. All very odd. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago Social Media Is Always Changing… But Do You Change With It?
[...] is not a whole lot to talk about in regards to social communities. Outside of Facebook deciding to ban people at random, social communities are pretty much business as [...]
Blog Post - Facebook Deleting Accounts? - eCommerce Forums - eBiz Insider Magazine
[...] TOS. This is an interesting read and offers some helpful tips if you find you've been suspended. Thanks Facebook for stripping me of your service __________________ Jean Lloyd Solid Cactus - Sr. Search Engine Marketing [...]
0 Vote up Vote down terry chay · 112 weeks ago
Is it ironic that I found out about this post because Tony’s notes-blog on Facebook is still active and I saw it on my Facebook feed? Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Tony Adam · 112 weeks ago
@terrychay - I had remove and/or update all the apps that were on my facebook profile...my account was re-activated on 7/15. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down paisley · 109 weeks ago
Tony,
Unfortunately with Facebook and Myspace, it's a free service.. one of the risks with using this is there is not real "agreement" from facebook's end to provide you service.
This is where LinkedIn's account upgrade has a little teeth, at least you do have some expectation of service because you have "purchased" something.
I understand your ire completely, i used to have like 50k friends on myspace which were people that wanted my information on dance music events worldwide. it was about a $5k a month side business, however once that profile was removed, so was my reach.
it does however resemble SEO with Google or Yahoo! (not sure how much today, tho now that we have employees from both focused on search.. unlike the people who accept yahoo! express submit applications)
however, trying to get a listing in yahoo! directory once you have changed a URL is near impossible.. after billing the client for 42 man hours in trying to geta URL changed, we finally had to give up and submit a duplicate URL.
you are lucky you got your profile back.. myspace never replied, nor restored my profile, of course i never renewed my 55k monthly ad spend for 4 different clients either. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago -1 Vote up Vote down Lalah · 95 weeks ago
Facebook disabled my account for no reason. No email or warning. I signed up to run an ad for a non-profit group and it was approved. Within an hour my account was disabled? The group is still up and going but it say, has no administrators. So, Facebook is charging me for an ad, when I can't even log in with my own account? Sounds like a rip off to me. I contacted the State Attorney General's office and filed a complaint. Because when any money exchanges, it's a transaction. And they don't have any way for you to contact them other through emails, which they don't respond to. I'm going to small claims court if it doesn't get taken care of. You can't charge someone for a service and then not give them access to that service. It's ridiculous. I read that some students in Canda are suing Facebook as well over Privacy issues. Too bad Americans don't take that attitude, we'd probably get more satisfaction, instead of complaining about it. I say stop the whining and get some action done. File a complaint with the State Attorney General. When there are enough complaints, Facebook will change their operations and accessibility. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down jessica · 85 weeks ago
my account was disabled yesterday afternoon because i "sent too many messages" i have sent emails to about 4 different facebook emails i've seen and have recieved nothing in return.
what are the chances of them actually reactivating my account? Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Malhaar · 83 weeks ago
Facebook fails when it comes to service, I got disabled once for three weeks, it took that long for my message to get through.. and when I got my account back I got disabled immediately after logging in, so I email again and 5 days later get my account back, and after 24 hours im disabled again! They really need to sort out their methods of disabling accounts its mind blowingly stupid the way they do it right now! Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +2 Vote up Vote down janis · 82 weeks ago
Hi.. yes the very same has happened to me and its just weird cos i barely use my account and i dont send many msgs or take up much space. So strange. I just want my account back you know. There are ppl on there who are gonna start wondering what the hell happened to me. Anyway. If anyone can help.... janis.leroux@gmail.com Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago +1 Vote up Vote down Kat · 75 weeks ago
I have been trying to get a response from Facebook since May 31st as to why they disabled my account. I have sent numerous e-mails to them to no response. I have e-mailed warning@facebook.com, info+06gfreez@facebookmail.com, appeals@facebook.com, diabled@facebook.com, and info@facebook.com and I have not received one darn response. I mean I am also with other sites and they are never this bad. Pleading means nothing to them. I don't know what else to do. Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Lucas · 73 weeks ago
I was on this morning without a problem. Then at lunch time today could not get back in. Saying they disable my account. I was like excuse me?
what did I do, I am just a simple user with friends and family on my list of contacts. Not running no groups or being a admin or whatever. Yes i am in groups, no crime with that since they encourage to have so many different type of groups.
So I email them and suprise I got an email back within the hour. But nothing since over 2 hours now.
Hi,
The Facebook Team has received your inquiry. We should get back to you soon. In the meantime, we encourage you to review our Terms of Use (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php) for more information.
Thanks for contacting Facebook,
The Facebook Team
They should really look toward the bad things going on their site before disabling people accounts without no reason or warning.
Like you know how many porn is on that site or above other stupid things they should really look into before looking at people accounts to see how many friends they have or how much you are browsing on facebook. I mean seriously.....holy moly! Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down HARVEY ANDERSON · 71 weeks ago
Greedings to all FaceBook users my FaceBook account was “DISABLE” 05-03-09 for to many friends request. but when you read the terms of Agreedment it dose not say how many friend request you can add like for example you can only add 50/100/75 something like that but when you read the Agreedment it dose not say anything about that. but at the end of the day i realy like FaceBook thank you.HARVEY Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Daniel James · 70 weeks ago
@Lucas,
Who did you email to get your reply back, because i am in the same situation as you and i am having some confusion over who to contact over at facebook email-wise.
thanks Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Mark A. Dix · 65 weeks ago
May I ask everyone "How should Facebook change its account disabling policy?" at least to me is quite simple. Before I present my answer, I want to ask Facebook if there is anyone at Facebook that knows how to reason and treat people in a humane manner? The reason I ask this question is because Facebook on the surface appears to be user friendly and concerned about its members. However, upon closer examination Facebook does not have a due process and does not care at all about its members rights and feelings. Here are a few examples. Facebook limits the number of friends you can have and limits the number of friends you can make in a given period of time, limits the number of groups you can belong to, limits the number of messages you can send in a given period of time, limits the number of “polks” you can make and no doubt other limits I am not mentioning. All limits are ruthlessly enforced by giving you warnings you are breaching Facebook's limits without telling you what the specific limit number is and then disabling a member, or abruptly disabling a member without a warning and without saying what limit rate was breached and of course without a specific number that is deemed to be to "fast." Most members are permanently disabled and are told that Facebooks decision is final and there is no recourse. To me this is analogous to giving speeding tickets without having a speed limit posted. In Facebook warnings and in their disabling message they call a "guilty" member a scammer or spammer and further say you "may be" infringing upon the rights other members by harassment.
Now to answer the question " "How should Facebook change its account disabling policy?" To me all Facebook or should I say at this time "Facelessbook" has to do if, dare, I use the terms thinks or feels, it needs limits to guard against real threats to security is to program in limit governors that will stop the breach of policy before it is breached. Limit governors will enforce the Facebook policy of limits and will as well be a security measure to guard against real scammers and spammers. A limit governor is the same thing as a speed governor on a vehicle. As an old farm boy from Iowa I fail to see the difficulty in having a limit governor policy and implementing it with a computer program. With limit governors in place members will not be disabled because they will not be allowed to breach polices and real scammers and spammers will not be able to operate so why be a member?
If Facebook is treating its international members with ruthless complete disregard for their rights and feelings like it treats it domestic members with ruthless complete disregard for their rights and feelings I believe Facebook is not only giving itself a black eye it is also giving the United States of America a BIG black eye in the eyes of the rest of the world. I ask Facebook to please wake up and see the light. If you are so paranoid about your members governing themselves by self enforcement of your unknown limits and rates than at the very least give members an exact number that is considered a breach of your limits and rates and or place your own limit governors on whatever you want to governor and stop disabling members who are actually your friends as well as friends of other members. I believe if Facebook will place its own limit governors to enforce its policies or even better do away with limits and allow freedom to reign you will be creating good will for yourself and most importantly from your members and disabled former members.
One final note. In all fairness (?) to Facebook, Facebook SAYS it has an appeals process, customer support and a disabled contact to assist disabled members to sort through what has happened and evidently to somehow offer hope of membership reinstatement. However, because I know from first hand experience, the contact services are in fact a cruel automated ruse that does not reply at all or replies with an automated reply and nothing is done. There may be a very minuscule minority of disabled members who have been reinstated but a large VAST majority of disabled members are ignored and do not receive a due process and are never again allowed to be a member of Facebook. I want to ask everyone if Facebooks current polices and practices are what the United States of America is founded upon? Thank you for your time and interest in my answer to “"How should Facebook change its account disabling policy?" Sincerely yours, Mark A. Dix, Brooklyn, Iowa, USA Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Debra · 62 weeks ago
Ellen thanks for the above message to us. I have been
on Facebook every day for the last several months. I
created an account back in April. I have worked hard to
get up a list of contacts there. I have gotten quite far in
Farmtown and Yoville.
All of a sudden last evening when I went to log in I couldn't
log in. I finally, after much Googling, found the link above
and wrote the Customer Service people. I received
nothing from them before this happened that my account
had been disabled. In fact, my whole profile has disappeared
and I have disappeared off my friends pages as well.
I am cerainly not going to start all over with Farmtown and
Yoville. I've come too far. Furthermore when I did try to
log in I was sent to a blank page that said Welcome to
Facebook. A new account page? Whatever for?
By the time Facebook Team responded to me, which
was late this morning, they only told me I logged in with
the wrong email address and not to create a new account
or I would make things more confusing.
Where is my profile?!
Debra Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Carole Hunter · 60 weeks ago
I was running along on Facebook since Feb - and leaving comments everytime one of my friends posted a thought. Sometimes those thoughts led to "comment conversations" and that is called chatting on the wall which ie verboten. I never got a warning, never got an email - I just got banned for 4 days. After being allowed back I noticed my posts would stay gray for a long time before hitting the comment box. I got nervous so I deactivated my old account and spent 8 hours building a new one and I also emailed many peeps asking them to req my friendship so not to overuse that and get a warning.
Everything was fine until yesterday. I got a warning in my email - did not see it till too late since my email screen and FB are two different screens. A warning came up on my wall after I commented and then a box telling me I hd violated one of the following terms yadda yadda yadda.
You know what - I don't care - I reached a point where it bores me and I have all the email addresses of peeps I want to contact.
I think that they are running it like a Communist organization because complaints are valid as I read them here. Terms and conditions are too vague. I comment a lot what is the limit??? Has anyone personally reported me? No. If they did then I should get a warning and guess what the warning should say who reported me so I can block them or unfriend them. Wouldn't that be a fairer way to do things?
What do you expect from kids who we have given power to by joining?
Me I am back to email, texting and imagine this - phone calls.
I am an adult I don't need to call them names Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Robin · 60 weeks ago
Today, July 20th. I was sent a warning that my account could be disabled for violation of terms of service. With in 15 minutes, my account was disabled. Of course they do NOT tell you why or what you did. I wrote to the only address I could find and told them I am a 57 year old woman, not some child playing around on the Internet.
I got the same form letter back that all of you got. I still have not heard anything and it's upset me terribly. Anyone can look at my profile and they will not see curse words, they will not see porn.
What is wrong with them? Is this just a program that spits out names at random and they decide to ban them, disable them, or terminate them?? Big Brother is watching, but they don't know what they are looking at.
My family has told me my whole profile is gone and all of my comments on other's pages. I don't know the answer, but I do know this is wrong to do this to innocent people.
What can we do? Reply
0 replies · active less than 1 minute ago 0 Vote up Vote down Barbara · 60 weeks ago
I now know of several people, who have been banned or whose accounts have been closed, disabled and/or deleted on FaceBook......they have no idea why, the REAL reason, and as so many comments above, any 'notices' were vague and/or unfounded.
Puppy Throwing Girl Arrested After Thousands Protest Her On Facebook
Talk about a week of animal abuse. Following one woman who was placed under police protection after thousands of Facebook users protested her for throwing a cat in a trash bin, comes a girl who has been arrested for throwing puppies in a river. The Bosnian girl was arrested following another Facebook protest group.
How To Get Banned From Facebook: Sell Your Status Updates
How To Get Banned From Facebook: Sell Your Status Updates
Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 12th, 2009 12:56 AMShare 10 Comments Yesterday morning Facebook announced changes to their Site Governance documents which as a number of people pointed out removed the ability of users to profit from their status updates. More specifically Facebook states that “you will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain”. While I’m assuming that this is supposed to be straight forward about selling things through your Facebook profile, part of me wonders why Facebook needed to make this explicit statement.
Welcome New Reader!
To stay up to date with all news, analysis, and security tips related to Facebook, complete these 2 quick steps:
« What Developers And Marketers Need To Know About Facebook’s New Inbox And Notification APIsFacebook Lite Leaked: A Simpler Version of Facebook »How To Get Banned From Facebook: Sell Your Status Updates
Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 12th, 2009 12:56 AMShare 10 Comments Yesterday morning Facebook announced changes to their Site Governance documents which as a number of people pointed out removed the ability of users to profit from their status updates. More specifically Facebook states that “you will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain”. While I’m assuming that this is supposed to be straight forward about selling things through your Facebook profile, part of me wonders why Facebook needed to make this explicit statement.
Haters Call It “Selling Out”
Excuse my slang but is there anything wrong with posting updates that generate revenue? While I believe the intention of this new rule is to block pay-per-tweet-like companies, should it be completely banned? Where do you draw the line? If I am to write a post for example about the new Social Media Marketing program that I just launched through New Media School (had to drop a quick plug), is that posting an update for my own commercial gain?
Ultimately the definition becomes unclear but it’s pretty obvious what Facebook is trying to prevent: companies from launching get rich quick services through your Facebook profile and to prevent people like Jeremy Schoemaker from abusing the system (p.s. I’m not a hater Jeremy). In the world of internet marketing, you gotta try out just about anything but there is definitely a line you can cross (as we’ve seen before).
Goodbye Generic Pages
Facebook has also made a few other adjustments to their Facebook Governance document to clarify their stance on things. The largest that will impact the generic page creators is , “Pages are special profiles that may only be used to promote a business or other commercial, political, or charitable organization or endeavor (including non-profit organizations, political campaigns, bands, and celebrities). ” There were a number of businesses that were being generated around building out different generic Facebook Page verticals.
Honestly I thought the idea was really smart but the biggest issue was that it was ripe for abuse. Consider all the groups that were created prior to the limitations on sending out updates. Facebook is most definitely smart to err on the side of over protection to avoid users getting annoyed. There goes all those questionable business strategies though. Wasn’t that what the internet was built on though?
Welcome Iran!
As we previously wrote, some Iranians had interpreted Facebook’s statement that you couldn’t “use Facebook if you are in a country embargoed by the U.S., or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals” to mean that Iran was banned. At the time, Facebook clarified to us that they won’t block Iranians, just commercial activity on the site from the country. As such, Facebook has updated the policy to the following:
If you are located in a country embargoed by the United States, or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals you will not engage in commercial activities on Facebook (such as advertising or payments) or operate a Platform application or website.
So go ahead and welcome all Iranian members! You are free to use the site as you wish … as long as it’s not to make money. If you want to read more about Facebook’s proposed policies. Facebook has also stated that they will be providing a redlined version of the document in the very near future.
Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 12th, 2009 12:56 AMShare 10 Comments Yesterday morning Facebook announced changes to their Site Governance documents which as a number of people pointed out removed the ability of users to profit from their status updates. More specifically Facebook states that “you will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain”. While I’m assuming that this is supposed to be straight forward about selling things through your Facebook profile, part of me wonders why Facebook needed to make this explicit statement.
Welcome New Reader!
To stay up to date with all news, analysis, and security tips related to Facebook, complete these 2 quick steps:
« What Developers And Marketers Need To Know About Facebook’s New Inbox And Notification APIsFacebook Lite Leaked: A Simpler Version of Facebook »How To Get Banned From Facebook: Sell Your Status Updates
Posted by Nick O'Neill on August 12th, 2009 12:56 AMShare 10 Comments Yesterday morning Facebook announced changes to their Site Governance documents which as a number of people pointed out removed the ability of users to profit from their status updates. More specifically Facebook states that “you will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain”. While I’m assuming that this is supposed to be straight forward about selling things through your Facebook profile, part of me wonders why Facebook needed to make this explicit statement.
Haters Call It “Selling Out”
Excuse my slang but is there anything wrong with posting updates that generate revenue? While I believe the intention of this new rule is to block pay-per-tweet-like companies, should it be completely banned? Where do you draw the line? If I am to write a post for example about the new Social Media Marketing program that I just launched through New Media School (had to drop a quick plug), is that posting an update for my own commercial gain?
Ultimately the definition becomes unclear but it’s pretty obvious what Facebook is trying to prevent: companies from launching get rich quick services through your Facebook profile and to prevent people like Jeremy Schoemaker from abusing the system (p.s. I’m not a hater Jeremy). In the world of internet marketing, you gotta try out just about anything but there is definitely a line you can cross (as we’ve seen before).
Goodbye Generic Pages
Facebook has also made a few other adjustments to their Facebook Governance document to clarify their stance on things. The largest that will impact the generic page creators is , “Pages are special profiles that may only be used to promote a business or other commercial, political, or charitable organization or endeavor (including non-profit organizations, political campaigns, bands, and celebrities). ” There were a number of businesses that were being generated around building out different generic Facebook Page verticals.
Honestly I thought the idea was really smart but the biggest issue was that it was ripe for abuse. Consider all the groups that were created prior to the limitations on sending out updates. Facebook is most definitely smart to err on the side of over protection to avoid users getting annoyed. There goes all those questionable business strategies though. Wasn’t that what the internet was built on though?
Welcome Iran!
As we previously wrote, some Iranians had interpreted Facebook’s statement that you couldn’t “use Facebook if you are in a country embargoed by the U.S., or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals” to mean that Iran was banned. At the time, Facebook clarified to us that they won’t block Iranians, just commercial activity on the site from the country. As such, Facebook has updated the policy to the following:
If you are located in a country embargoed by the United States, or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals you will not engage in commercial activities on Facebook (such as advertising or payments) or operate a Platform application or website.
So go ahead and welcome all Iranian members! You are free to use the site as you wish … as long as it’s not to make money. If you want to read more about Facebook’s proposed policies. Facebook has also stated that they will be providing a redlined version of the document in the very near future.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
FACEBOOK PAGES NEWS
RemoveFACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS FACEBOOK NEWS Facebook Pages We just launched an improved Notes application to make it easier to communicate on Facebook Pages.
a few seconds ago · Comment ·LikeUnlike · Promote
FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS New features include: formatting notes more easily with a familiar text editor, tagging Facebook Pages, and a cleaner layout to help you find relevant notes. Check it out!
New Tools for Facebook Notes | Facebook blog.facebook.com
Writing a Fa...cebook note can be a great way to start a discussion with friends about life's big decisions or moments. What's not always so great is creating a note or going back to one you already started.Want to make something bold? You need to know the HTML tag for that....See More
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
a few seconds ago · Comment ·LikeUnlike · Promote
FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS New features include: formatting notes more easily with a familiar text editor, tagging Facebook Pages, and a cleaner layout to help you find relevant notes. Check it out!
New Tools for Facebook Notes | Facebook blog.facebook.com
Writing a Fa...cebook note can be a great way to start a discussion with friends about life's big decisions or moments. What's not always so great is creating a note or going back to one you already started.Want to make something bold? You need to know the HTML tag for that....See More
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Since Facebook first launched Credits
Since Facebook first launched Credits, its own in-game virtual currency, for externally developed applications in May of 2009, app developers have been worried about the potential the hefty 30 percent fee Facebook charges for the currency and the potential that it might enforce their use for all apps.
But another group had been watching, and worrying about, Credits for much longer: payment and monetization companies. If Credits are made mandatory across Facebook, a whole swathe of payment companies started on the platform will be at risk.
One of those companies is Jambool, which was founded by two former Amazon.com payment executives. Despite the threat from Credits, Jambool is still hard at work with its Social Gold payment platform on Facebook and elsewhere; this morning, in fact, it’s releasing a significant update to its inventory management, Flash payment, analytics and other features.
However, CEO and co-founder Vikas Gupta has also made no secret of his opposition to Credits. Below, we interview Gupta to get an in-depth look at his arguments against the currency.
Note that some of the arguments below assume specific policies and actions from Facebook that the company has not yet made clear; we covered many of these uncertainties in our own June article.
Inside Social Games: You’ve said that you’re not completely against Credits.
Vikas Gupta: I think there are definitely some advantages to Credits, that we believe in and have always believed in. For example, I believe Credits as a store value system makes sense for certain kinds of purchases. Credits also does well at eliminating the need for a developer to have multiple different currencies around the world.
The third thing they have as an advantage is that more consumers would have trust and loyalty to Facebook with Credits. How much of an additional benefit that will have is the question, but it’s definitely an intangible benefit that we see Credits could bring. And from the user’s point of view there’s an advantage in being able to use their Credits across multiple applications.
ISG: OK, now let’s talk about the downsides. What’s the big picture?
VG: There are definitely cons to Facebook Credits as a universal currency. The first one is the way many of these games work — they’re mini-economies of their own. If you look at games like FarmVille, the currency is an integral part of the game.
Facebook has been saying that Credits will work like the Euro, which works across the European economies, but we believe that’s very wrong. Credits is a stored value system — the only people who participate are those who purchase credits.
Right now there are only 1-2 percent who will spend money to buy goods in a game. That’s a big distinction between this and a true economy. In a true economy it should be in the hands of 50-60 percent of the people. Facebook hasn’t seeded credits through its own platform — it is relying on the applications to help spread their adoption.
They have experimented with Credits on their site but we haven’t seen any of those experiments succeed — for example, they’ve even shut down the gift store. Developers are helping Facebook build the Credits, and it is evolving into a pre-paid stored value system, that as we discussed sits in the hands of a small percentage of the user base.
Facebook Credits doesn’t really work like the Euro — the applications do not contribute to the currency. As an example, problems in Greece’s economy resulted in the entire Euro being affected. However, any one application on the Facebook platform cannot disrupt Credits or any other application. Instead of a universal currency, it works as a stored value system — where users can buy credits from Facebook and spend it in applications.
ISG: What’s the difference between a real currency and what Facebook is doing, then?
VG: One example of a real currency is a [Second Life] Linden Dollar. It has many aspects in which it works like a real currency, there’s a lot more transparency into where people get it and what people can do with it. The Linden Dollar did not need an external ecosystem to build it — it evolved amongst its users and content. The way Credits work is more like prepaid cards. So how many people would buy prepaid cards anywhere?
Pre-paid systems have traditionally had limited success. They’ve had lower conversion and lower adoption because people have to commit to buying more up front, even though they don’t know how much they’ll spend or in what amounts. That leads to breakage. An example is Amazon gift certificates — you could buy them but there’s always a large amount of remnant value on the card that isn’t used. In an economy like this platform, that will lead to developers never seeing the value even though they created it.
ISG: Let’s move on to other potential problems with Credits.
VG: The second thing that has come up a lot is the fee. There’s a 30 percent fee, and this is the first time ever on the web that someone has taken such a high a fee for payments. People have taken that fee on closed platforms, but on the web it’s the first time. And when you add in things like breakage, it’s more like 50 percent.
And fraud is a very serious issue with Facebook. It’s not that fraud gets built into the 30 percent, and Facebook won’t issue money back to developers. The assumption is that Facebook is giving the Credits earnings to the game even if they’re generated from fraud. What we’re hearing is that’s not what’s happening. If the money came from fraud it never makes it to the game developer.
ISG: Let’s talk about some of these points in more depth, starting with the last. Isn’t fraud already a problem for developers?
VG: When I am building my game and people are buying my currency, I see the complete process end to end. When I see fraud, it affects me and I can manage and control that. But when people are coming through an intermediate step, it’s very difficult to figure out who perpetrated the fraud and how it affects any game using Credits.
ISG: So transparency is a problem in fraud. Is it also a problem elsewhere?
VG: When a user is playing my game, the user comes in and spends maybe $10. I know the fact that they spent $10, and that’s how much currency I’m giving away. When it comes to using a third party system, I don’t know what they spent overall, there’s just what they spent in my game. I don’t know how much the user could have spent in the game.
When the user spends $10 today I can actually change the game experience to get the gamer to spend all that currency in the game. I can’t do that as effectively when only Facebook knows how much they spent. That’s a bigger issue when, at the end of the month, you get paid and you don’t know anything about the users. It’s more effective when developers can see the end-to-end flow of money.
ISG: You brought up breakage. What are the issues around that?
VG: Right now, when a user knows they have money that can be spent across games, they’ll become very cautious about where they spend the money. There was a promotion in Hello City, in which they gave away 5 Credits. I got them, and never spent them — they’re in my account today. That’s because I know that I can spend it anywhere.
The thing with virtual currency is that it should feel very cheap. Now you have this system of currency that you can spend in other places, so users are perceiving value in it, and they don’t want to spend it as easily in a particular game. Users will be very cautious about where they actually spend the money, because they have the option to spend it on other games, not just the game they’re playing right now.
A less obvious problem is that on Facebook there have been a lot of similar games being built, farming games and so forth. In any genre there are multiple titles. For users there have been high switching costs, because a user who couldn’t switch their currency couldn’t move. Now you can have a game that convinced the user to spend money on virtual currency, but the user can take it elsewhere. The switching costs with currency, especially, have gone down. Can games keep users engaged, or can other developers take the users away along with the money they got them to spend?
ISG: Is Facebook justified in charging 30 percent?
VG: There has never been a precedent where someone took 30 percent on the web purely for payments. If it was done in a way that developers saw value, or if it was really cheap and easy, it would be understandable. But I think that we all know at this point that Facebook is not that straightforward for distribution — we all have to spend money on distribution. So you’re not just paying 30 percent for payments, you have to spend on top of that for advertising. If all I was doing was spending for distribution, it would be a lot easier, you’d have that extra 25 percent margin.
A big difference between Facebook and Apple or Microsoft is that there’s no other distribution channel other than Facebook itself. On the Xbox, if I’m building a game, I’m selling directly to users in the retail channel, and the distribution channel is up to me; the viral channels are not dependent on Microsoft. But here’s a platform that I’m dependent on for distribution as well as monetization — that’s a problem.
I believe we’ll start seeing that there will be a lack of motivation for people to build on Facebook. That’s a big thing we’ve seen in the last few months, that every developer is much more excited about building for off-Facebook distribution.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
But another group had been watching, and worrying about, Credits for much longer: payment and monetization companies. If Credits are made mandatory across Facebook, a whole swathe of payment companies started on the platform will be at risk.
One of those companies is Jambool, which was founded by two former Amazon.com payment executives. Despite the threat from Credits, Jambool is still hard at work with its Social Gold payment platform on Facebook and elsewhere; this morning, in fact, it’s releasing a significant update to its inventory management, Flash payment, analytics and other features.
However, CEO and co-founder Vikas Gupta has also made no secret of his opposition to Credits. Below, we interview Gupta to get an in-depth look at his arguments against the currency.
Note that some of the arguments below assume specific policies and actions from Facebook that the company has not yet made clear; we covered many of these uncertainties in our own June article.
Inside Social Games: You’ve said that you’re not completely against Credits.
Vikas Gupta: I think there are definitely some advantages to Credits, that we believe in and have always believed in. For example, I believe Credits as a store value system makes sense for certain kinds of purchases. Credits also does well at eliminating the need for a developer to have multiple different currencies around the world.
The third thing they have as an advantage is that more consumers would have trust and loyalty to Facebook with Credits. How much of an additional benefit that will have is the question, but it’s definitely an intangible benefit that we see Credits could bring. And from the user’s point of view there’s an advantage in being able to use their Credits across multiple applications.
ISG: OK, now let’s talk about the downsides. What’s the big picture?
VG: There are definitely cons to Facebook Credits as a universal currency. The first one is the way many of these games work — they’re mini-economies of their own. If you look at games like FarmVille, the currency is an integral part of the game.
Facebook has been saying that Credits will work like the Euro, which works across the European economies, but we believe that’s very wrong. Credits is a stored value system — the only people who participate are those who purchase credits.
Right now there are only 1-2 percent who will spend money to buy goods in a game. That’s a big distinction between this and a true economy. In a true economy it should be in the hands of 50-60 percent of the people. Facebook hasn’t seeded credits through its own platform — it is relying on the applications to help spread their adoption.
They have experimented with Credits on their site but we haven’t seen any of those experiments succeed — for example, they’ve even shut down the gift store. Developers are helping Facebook build the Credits, and it is evolving into a pre-paid stored value system, that as we discussed sits in the hands of a small percentage of the user base.
Facebook Credits doesn’t really work like the Euro — the applications do not contribute to the currency. As an example, problems in Greece’s economy resulted in the entire Euro being affected. However, any one application on the Facebook platform cannot disrupt Credits or any other application. Instead of a universal currency, it works as a stored value system — where users can buy credits from Facebook and spend it in applications.
ISG: What’s the difference between a real currency and what Facebook is doing, then?
VG: One example of a real currency is a [Second Life] Linden Dollar. It has many aspects in which it works like a real currency, there’s a lot more transparency into where people get it and what people can do with it. The Linden Dollar did not need an external ecosystem to build it — it evolved amongst its users and content. The way Credits work is more like prepaid cards. So how many people would buy prepaid cards anywhere?
Pre-paid systems have traditionally had limited success. They’ve had lower conversion and lower adoption because people have to commit to buying more up front, even though they don’t know how much they’ll spend or in what amounts. That leads to breakage. An example is Amazon gift certificates — you could buy them but there’s always a large amount of remnant value on the card that isn’t used. In an economy like this platform, that will lead to developers never seeing the value even though they created it.
ISG: Let’s move on to other potential problems with Credits.
VG: The second thing that has come up a lot is the fee. There’s a 30 percent fee, and this is the first time ever on the web that someone has taken such a high a fee for payments. People have taken that fee on closed platforms, but on the web it’s the first time. And when you add in things like breakage, it’s more like 50 percent.
And fraud is a very serious issue with Facebook. It’s not that fraud gets built into the 30 percent, and Facebook won’t issue money back to developers. The assumption is that Facebook is giving the Credits earnings to the game even if they’re generated from fraud. What we’re hearing is that’s not what’s happening. If the money came from fraud it never makes it to the game developer.
ISG: Let’s talk about some of these points in more depth, starting with the last. Isn’t fraud already a problem for developers?
VG: When I am building my game and people are buying my currency, I see the complete process end to end. When I see fraud, it affects me and I can manage and control that. But when people are coming through an intermediate step, it’s very difficult to figure out who perpetrated the fraud and how it affects any game using Credits.
ISG: So transparency is a problem in fraud. Is it also a problem elsewhere?
VG: When a user is playing my game, the user comes in and spends maybe $10. I know the fact that they spent $10, and that’s how much currency I’m giving away. When it comes to using a third party system, I don’t know what they spent overall, there’s just what they spent in my game. I don’t know how much the user could have spent in the game.
When the user spends $10 today I can actually change the game experience to get the gamer to spend all that currency in the game. I can’t do that as effectively when only Facebook knows how much they spent. That’s a bigger issue when, at the end of the month, you get paid and you don’t know anything about the users. It’s more effective when developers can see the end-to-end flow of money.
ISG: You brought up breakage. What are the issues around that?
VG: Right now, when a user knows they have money that can be spent across games, they’ll become very cautious about where they spend the money. There was a promotion in Hello City, in which they gave away 5 Credits. I got them, and never spent them — they’re in my account today. That’s because I know that I can spend it anywhere.
The thing with virtual currency is that it should feel very cheap. Now you have this system of currency that you can spend in other places, so users are perceiving value in it, and they don’t want to spend it as easily in a particular game. Users will be very cautious about where they actually spend the money, because they have the option to spend it on other games, not just the game they’re playing right now.
A less obvious problem is that on Facebook there have been a lot of similar games being built, farming games and so forth. In any genre there are multiple titles. For users there have been high switching costs, because a user who couldn’t switch their currency couldn’t move. Now you can have a game that convinced the user to spend money on virtual currency, but the user can take it elsewhere. The switching costs with currency, especially, have gone down. Can games keep users engaged, or can other developers take the users away along with the money they got them to spend?
ISG: Is Facebook justified in charging 30 percent?
VG: There has never been a precedent where someone took 30 percent on the web purely for payments. If it was done in a way that developers saw value, or if it was really cheap and easy, it would be understandable. But I think that we all know at this point that Facebook is not that straightforward for distribution — we all have to spend money on distribution. So you’re not just paying 30 percent for payments, you have to spend on top of that for advertising. If all I was doing was spending for distribution, it would be a lot easier, you’d have that extra 25 percent margin.
A big difference between Facebook and Apple or Microsoft is that there’s no other distribution channel other than Facebook itself. On the Xbox, if I’m building a game, I’m selling directly to users in the retail channel, and the distribution channel is up to me; the viral channels are not dependent on Microsoft. But here’s a platform that I’m dependent on for distribution as well as monetization — that’s a problem.
I believe we’ll start seeing that there will be a lack of motivation for people to build on Facebook. That’s a big thing we’ve seen in the last few months, that every developer is much more excited about building for off-Facebook distribution.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Facebook: "Tip from Facebook Security: On Facebook, there's no way to see who has visited your profile. We've also prevented others from providing this functionality. We're working hard to block and remove websites, Pages, and applications that claim to do this. If you see one, don't be fooled, and report it to us immediately."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Thursday, July 22, 2010
How To Secure Your Facebook Account In 5 Seconds
How To Secure Your Facebook Account In 5 Seconds: "« Free Facebook Credits Now Showing Up In GamesFacebook Launches Stories To Celebrate 500 Million Users »How To Secure Your Facebook Account In 5 Seconds
Posted by Nick O'Neill on July 21st, 2010 10:33 AMShare1343 11 Comments Want to keep your Facebook account safe from hackers? A little known feature in Facebook will help you stay on top of your Facebook account and everyone who’s accessing it. The feature, provides you with notifications every time a person accesses it from a new computer. You can receive both email and SMS notifications about the access. It’s a feature that Facebook doesn’t heavily broadcast, but it’s definitely useful. Here’s how to secure your account in 5 seconds.
Step 1
Log in to Facebook and simply click on the “Account” drop down in the top right corner of the site. Then click on “Account Settings” as pictured in the image below.
Step 2
After you are in your account settings, simply click on the “change” link directly next to “Account Security” toward the bottom of the page (as shown in the image below). From there you will be able to turn on notifications for each login that takes place from a new device.
You’re Done!
That’s it! You will now receive notifications every time someone logs in to your account from a new computer. Thanks a million to Mari Smith who pointed out this feature on here Facebook wall."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Posted by Nick O'Neill on July 21st, 2010 10:33 AMShare1343 11 Comments Want to keep your Facebook account safe from hackers? A little known feature in Facebook will help you stay on top of your Facebook account and everyone who’s accessing it. The feature, provides you with notifications every time a person accesses it from a new computer. You can receive both email and SMS notifications about the access. It’s a feature that Facebook doesn’t heavily broadcast, but it’s definitely useful. Here’s how to secure your account in 5 seconds.
Step 1
Log in to Facebook and simply click on the “Account” drop down in the top right corner of the site. Then click on “Account Settings” as pictured in the image below.
Step 2
After you are in your account settings, simply click on the “change” link directly next to “Account Security” toward the bottom of the page (as shown in the image below). From there you will be able to turn on notifications for each login that takes place from a new device.
You’re Done!
That’s it! You will now receive notifications every time someone logs in to your account from a new computer. Thanks a million to Mari Smith who pointed out this feature on here Facebook wall."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Top 20 Facebook Pages: Music, Big Brands, Celebrity and Bob MarleyJuly 20th, 2010
By Sara Inés Calderón 1 Comment » Share
Bob Marley made a surprise appearance on our list of Top 20 Facebook Pages this week, compiled by our PageData tool, which counts the number of fans added to a Page each week. It took between 942,800 and 438,000 fans to make the list this week and most were entertainment-related, although there were a few outliers and some official Page consolidation."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Sara Inés Calderón 1 Comment » Share
Bob Marley made a surprise appearance on our list of Top 20 Facebook Pages this week, compiled by our PageData tool, which counts the number of fans added to a Page each week. It took between 942,800 and 438,000 fans to make the list this week and most were entertainment-related, although there were a few outliers and some official Page consolidation."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "The original owner of an ad account may now “Add a User to This Ads Account” and assign them an access level, including “General User” with full control, or “Reports Only” which merely allows for monitoring of results but not editing of campaigns. In the text, Facebook reassures managers that adding others to a shared ads account won’t give anyone else access to their personal profile or other ads accounts they operate. This relieves privacy concerns, both personal, and for companies who share an ads account manager with other businesses.Top Gainers This Week
Name Fans Gain Gain, %
1. Family Guy 12,657,886 +942,791 +8.05
2. Facebook 13,345,516 +802,944 +6.40
3. House 10,110,166 +796,383 +8.55
4. Vin Diesel 11,678,073 +744,534 +6.81
5. The Twilight Saga 9,652,222 +704,959 +7.88
6. Bob Marley 6,614,497 +691,025 +11.67
7. Linkin Park 8,353,779 +681,533 +8.88
8. Starbucks 10,459,408 +620,257 +6.30
9. Shakira 5,012,217 +602,038 +13.65
10. Cristiano Ronaldo 8,325,181 +589,347 +7.62
11. Oreo 6,663,826 +518,367 +8.43
12. Red Bull 6,477,214 +517,411 +8.68
13. Adam Sandler 5,178,013 +503,794 +10.78
14. Justin Bieber 7,635,942 +500,912 +7.02
15. David Guetta 5,151,761 +484,568 +10.38
16. Taylor Swift 7,359,368 +478,310 +6.95
17. The Simpsons 3,801,326 +464,770 +13.93
18. Metallica 6,645,584 +459,318 +7.42
19. Drake 4,302,610 +448,626 +11.64
20. Barack Obama 10,909,764 +438,000 +4.18
First place this week was “Family Guy,” a popular Fox show that added 942,800 fans to grow to 12.6 million. Medical drama “House” took third place, adding 796,400 fans to total 10.1 million and “The Simpsons,” another Fox show, came in at number 17 by adding 464,800 fans to come out with 3.8 million.
There was also a group of big brands on the list this week.
Facebook came in second place, adding about 803,000 fans to pass 13.3 million; this week Microsoft launched a Facebook capability for its Outlook products. Starbucks, which was the first brand to earn 10 million Likes, added 620,300 fans to grow to 10.4 million this week. Starbucks is promoting an in-store coupon special for customers.
Oreo came in at 11, adding 518,400 fans to reach 6.3 million and is currently asking fans across the world to pose with its products to win a spot as the Page’s profile photo for fan of the week. Red Bull followed in twelfth place, adding 517,400 fans to hit the 6.4 million mark.
Movie- and celebrity-related Pages made up a chunk of the list, too.
Vin Diesel came in fourth, adding 744,500 fans to his Page last week to grow to 11.6 million with steady growth. “The Twilight Saga” followed at number 5, adding 705,000 fans to grow to 9.6 million, mostly by posting movie-related news.
Football (soccer) megastar Cristiano Ronaldo took tenth place, promoting himself with vacation photos and his endorsement advertisements, adding 589,300 fans to reach an 8.3 million audience. Comedian Adam Sandler’s Page seems to have benefited from official Page consolidation at number 13, as his Page grew by 504,000 fans to 5.1 million after not having been updated for a year. President Barack Obama, arguably a celebrity, also made the list at number 20, adding 438,000 fans to come in just under 11 million at 10.9 million Likes.
Finally, there were the musicians, who pretty much owned this list.
Bob Marley came in sixth, seemingly due to official Page consolidations, as there was huge growth on his Page but nothing spectacular happening on his Page to warrant 691,000 new fans. His Page totals 6.6 million. Linkin Park followed at number 7, adding 681,500 fans to grow to 8.3 million. Shakira took ninth place, adding 602,000 fans to pass 5 million mostly, it seemed, due to promotion of her World Cup song “Waka Waka.”
Then there was Justin Bieber, who came in at number 14, adding 501,000 fans to reach a base of 7.6 million. At number 15 was David Guetta, who added 484,600 fans to reach 5.1 million total, apparently partly because of his promoting a new collaboration with rapper Flo Rida. Taylor Swift followed at 16, adding 478,300 fans to her 7l.3 million total. Metallica at 18, adding 459,300 fans to a total of 6.6 million by promoting a music tour. Finally, Drake took the number 19 spot, adding 448,600 fans to now boast 4.3 million via promotion of his new album.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Name Fans Gain Gain, %
1. Family Guy 12,657,886 +942,791 +8.05
2. Facebook 13,345,516 +802,944 +6.40
3. House 10,110,166 +796,383 +8.55
4. Vin Diesel 11,678,073 +744,534 +6.81
5. The Twilight Saga 9,652,222 +704,959 +7.88
6. Bob Marley 6,614,497 +691,025 +11.67
7. Linkin Park 8,353,779 +681,533 +8.88
8. Starbucks 10,459,408 +620,257 +6.30
9. Shakira 5,012,217 +602,038 +13.65
10. Cristiano Ronaldo 8,325,181 +589,347 +7.62
11. Oreo 6,663,826 +518,367 +8.43
12. Red Bull 6,477,214 +517,411 +8.68
13. Adam Sandler 5,178,013 +503,794 +10.78
14. Justin Bieber 7,635,942 +500,912 +7.02
15. David Guetta 5,151,761 +484,568 +10.38
16. Taylor Swift 7,359,368 +478,310 +6.95
17. The Simpsons 3,801,326 +464,770 +13.93
18. Metallica 6,645,584 +459,318 +7.42
19. Drake 4,302,610 +448,626 +11.64
20. Barack Obama 10,909,764 +438,000 +4.18
First place this week was “Family Guy,” a popular Fox show that added 942,800 fans to grow to 12.6 million. Medical drama “House” took third place, adding 796,400 fans to total 10.1 million and “The Simpsons,” another Fox show, came in at number 17 by adding 464,800 fans to come out with 3.8 million.
There was also a group of big brands on the list this week.
Facebook came in second place, adding about 803,000 fans to pass 13.3 million; this week Microsoft launched a Facebook capability for its Outlook products. Starbucks, which was the first brand to earn 10 million Likes, added 620,300 fans to grow to 10.4 million this week. Starbucks is promoting an in-store coupon special for customers.
Oreo came in at 11, adding 518,400 fans to reach 6.3 million and is currently asking fans across the world to pose with its products to win a spot as the Page’s profile photo for fan of the week. Red Bull followed in twelfth place, adding 517,400 fans to hit the 6.4 million mark.
Movie- and celebrity-related Pages made up a chunk of the list, too.
Vin Diesel came in fourth, adding 744,500 fans to his Page last week to grow to 11.6 million with steady growth. “The Twilight Saga” followed at number 5, adding 705,000 fans to grow to 9.6 million, mostly by posting movie-related news.
Football (soccer) megastar Cristiano Ronaldo took tenth place, promoting himself with vacation photos and his endorsement advertisements, adding 589,300 fans to reach an 8.3 million audience. Comedian Adam Sandler’s Page seems to have benefited from official Page consolidation at number 13, as his Page grew by 504,000 fans to 5.1 million after not having been updated for a year. President Barack Obama, arguably a celebrity, also made the list at number 20, adding 438,000 fans to come in just under 11 million at 10.9 million Likes.
Finally, there were the musicians, who pretty much owned this list.
Bob Marley came in sixth, seemingly due to official Page consolidations, as there was huge growth on his Page but nothing spectacular happening on his Page to warrant 691,000 new fans. His Page totals 6.6 million. Linkin Park followed at number 7, adding 681,500 fans to grow to 8.3 million. Shakira took ninth place, adding 602,000 fans to pass 5 million mostly, it seemed, due to promotion of her World Cup song “Waka Waka.”
Then there was Justin Bieber, who came in at number 14, adding 501,000 fans to reach a base of 7.6 million. At number 15 was David Guetta, who added 484,600 fans to reach 5.1 million total, apparently partly because of his promoting a new collaboration with rapper Flo Rida. Taylor Swift followed at 16, adding 478,300 fans to her 7l.3 million total. Metallica at 18, adding 459,300 fans to a total of 6.6 million by promoting a music tour. Finally, Drake took the number 19 spot, adding 448,600 fans to now boast 4.3 million via promotion of his new album.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Facebook Allows Advertising Accounts to Have Multiple Users [Updated]July 20th, 2010
By Josh Constine 9 Comments » Share
Today, Facebook began to allow multiple personal accounts to be granted permission to access a single advertising account. Previously, an advertising account or campaign could only be accessed by a single personal account. This prevented cooperative management or transfer of control of an ad account, and led many advertisers to technically violate the Facebook terms of service by creating fake, generic personal accounts whose login info could be shared or reassigned.
[Update, 7/21/10: Some readers tell us that they're not getting access yet. Here's what commenter Aaron says he heard from Facebook support: “Unfortunately it’s still not ready and I don’t have a time frame as to when it will be available. I really apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we try to get it rolled out to advertisers.”]
The new addition has been one of the features most heavily requested by advertisers, we’ve heard, and will pave the way for orchestration of complex advertising campaigns by multiple managers working in parallel."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Josh Constine 9 Comments » Share
Today, Facebook began to allow multiple personal accounts to be granted permission to access a single advertising account. Previously, an advertising account or campaign could only be accessed by a single personal account. This prevented cooperative management or transfer of control of an ad account, and led many advertisers to technically violate the Facebook terms of service by creating fake, generic personal accounts whose login info could be shared or reassigned.
[Update, 7/21/10: Some readers tell us that they're not getting access yet. Here's what commenter Aaron says he heard from Facebook support: “Unfortunately it’s still not ready and I don’t have a time frame as to when it will be available. I really apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we try to get it rolled out to advertisers.”]
The new addition has been one of the features most heavily requested by advertisers, we’ve heard, and will pave the way for orchestration of complex advertising campaigns by multiple managers working in parallel."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Despite Controversy, Pencake Is the Largest Known Quiz Developer on FacebookJuly 20th, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
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.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
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.
"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Wildfire is launching a Groupon or LivingSocial Deals-style application on Facebook this week, called Group Deals. It’s designed to allow brand Page administrators to set up group promotions on a Facebook Page within a matter of minutes, then get their discount offers shared among friends.
Group Deals works for Facebook Pages and via Facebook Connect like the others — group discounts require a minimum number of participants in order to be profitable for the business, and Facebook provides distribution to make that happen.
Wildfire’s product costs at least 99 cents a day to run, and provides a variety of pricing and customization capabilities. Setting up a Group Deal on Facebook via the Wildfire social application wizard is designed to be fast and simple, requiring three parameters: the value of the deal, the critical mass of takers needed for the deal to activate and the time period during which the deal will be valid."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Group Deals works for Facebook Pages and via Facebook Connect like the others — group discounts require a minimum number of participants in order to be profitable for the business, and Facebook provides distribution to make that happen.
Wildfire’s product costs at least 99 cents a day to run, and provides a variety of pricing and customization capabilities. Setting up a Group Deal on Facebook via the Wildfire social application wizard is designed to be fast and simple, requiring three parameters: the value of the deal, the critical mass of takers needed for the deal to activate and the time period during which the deal will be valid."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FACEBOOK MOVIE
The first few years of Facebook’s existence has already been closely scrutinized in court and in the media. This fall, there’s even a feature-length movie coming out about one version. The common theme is that, during late 2003 and early 2004, founder Mark Zuckerberg was both working on his own Facebook precursor sites while talking or even working with rivals. But now all of those stories could be getting updated, if claims in a new court case against Facebook turn out to be true.
During his sophomore year at Harvard, in late 2003, Zuckerberg became famous for launching a site called Facemash. A college version of Hot or Not, it scraped students’ names and photos from university sources, then asked students to rank each others’ photos for attractiveness.
Aaron Greenspan, meanwhile, had launched a student web portal of sorts called houseSYSTEM, that he says he discussed with Zuckerberg in great detail over the course of the fall. By the end of the year, Zuckerberg was also doing contract work for HarvardConnection, a site intended to serve as a student portal, per an oral contract agreement. Greenspan has up to this point laid claim to the earliest date, having launched his houseSYSTEM site on August 1st of that year.
The new court case implies that Zuckerberg was actually working on “The Face Book” back in the spring of 2003, apparently before any of the others.
A wood-pellet company owner named Paul Ceglia is suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in New York federal court, claiming that the two had an agreement whereby Ceglia would get a large ownership portion of a Zuckerberg project called “The Face Book.” The two signed the agreement on April 28, 2003.
Ceglia was a designer at the time, looking for Zuckerberg’s help on a separate project, and happened to sign on for a good chunk of Facebook stock as part of a contractor agreement. Or so the story went in New York today, as Bloomberg reports:
[Ceglia lawyer Terrence Connors] told the judge that Ceglia was a Web designer trying to develop a project called “StreetFax” in the spring of 2003. Ceglia’s plan was to put millions of photos of streets into a database and charge insurers money to access it.
“What he needed was a coder,” Connors told the judge.
Ceglia solicited bids to do the work. The lowest bidder was Zuckerberg, then a Harvard freshman. Zuckerberg said he would do the job for $1,000, Connors said.
“But I’ve got a project of my own,” Connors said Zuckerberg told his client. “I’m developing an online yearbook for Harvard kids now, but I’m thinking of expanding it.”
The contract was intended to cover the coding work on StreetFax and Ceglia’s investment in Zuckerberg’s “fledgling project,” Connors said. “Who knew then that it would turn into what it is today?”
VentureBeat has taken a closer look at the documents submitted by Ceglia. Although riddled with typos, and in parts not clearly phrased — it refers to Ceglia being granted ownership of the software language that Zuckerberg was to use, for example, rather than the code — it would give him most of Facebook’s shares. From VentureBeat:
The contract itself says that Ceglia agreed to pay Zuckerberg $1,000 for StreetFax and $1,000 for another project called PageBook. The contract also mentions an expanded project called The Facebook to be completed by January 2004, saying “an additional 1% interest in the business will be due the buyer for each day the website is delayed from that date.”
Ceglia attached a $1,000 receipt from his checkbook, dated six months after the contract, as evidence that he paid Zuckerberg for his work. But it wasn’t the full $2,000 amount and the agreement doesn’t describe what happens if there is a default.
Facebook, for its part, has not yet completely denied the specific claims. In court, one of the company’s lawyers confirmed that Zuckerberg did have a contract with Ceglia, but also said that there are “many substantial questions surrounding the authenticity” of the particular document provided by Ceglia, and was “unsure” such as whether Zuckerberg had actually signed it.
The company’s general statement on Ceglia’s claim sounds confident, in any case: “We believe this suit is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously.”
Whether or not the document is real, Ceglia’s case has other problems, beyond some of vague phrasing. For example, his claim is more than six years old, seemingly disqualifying it under New York’s statute of limitations. And his document oddly has Zuckerberg using the term “Facebook” nine months before Zuckerberg actively began using the term. Legal experts have noted both as major issues. And Ceglia himself has been in trouble with the law recently, getting arrested for failure to fulfill wood pellet orders after having taken their money — maybe he was just having business problems, but the timing makes his Facebook suit (and character) look more suspicious.
Given the many frivolous lawsuits brought against major companies, only to be summarily dismissed, one wouldn’t be surprised to see the judge relegate Ceglia’s claims to the same category. But if the document does somehow turn out to be authentic, Facebook’s legal team will no doubt contest its language, the time-lapse, and anything else it can find, and look for a quick settlement. We have a hard time seeing Ceglia’s desired outcome — 84% ownership of Facebook — ever happening.
And, if the claim is found true, there’s another twist coming: the Harvard Connection (now ConnectU) team and Greenspan will need to explain how Zuckerberg was working on his idea many months before they say he stole it from them. Sure, ConnectU’s long-running lawsuit is mostly done, and Greenspan has moved on to other projects, but ConnectU’s version of events appears slated for a retelling in The Social Network, the new movie coming out on October 1st of this year. The new headlines about the Celia case — which, to our knowledge is not addressed in the movie — might confuse the movie’s plot, or at least its audiences.
If Ceglia’s case turns out to be somewhat true, but not true enough to give Ceglia anything like the stock he wants, the result could be an odd sort of public relations win for Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
During his sophomore year at Harvard, in late 2003, Zuckerberg became famous for launching a site called Facemash. A college version of Hot or Not, it scraped students’ names and photos from university sources, then asked students to rank each others’ photos for attractiveness.
Aaron Greenspan, meanwhile, had launched a student web portal of sorts called houseSYSTEM, that he says he discussed with Zuckerberg in great detail over the course of the fall. By the end of the year, Zuckerberg was also doing contract work for HarvardConnection, a site intended to serve as a student portal, per an oral contract agreement. Greenspan has up to this point laid claim to the earliest date, having launched his houseSYSTEM site on August 1st of that year.
The new court case implies that Zuckerberg was actually working on “The Face Book” back in the spring of 2003, apparently before any of the others.
A wood-pellet company owner named Paul Ceglia is suing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in New York federal court, claiming that the two had an agreement whereby Ceglia would get a large ownership portion of a Zuckerberg project called “The Face Book.” The two signed the agreement on April 28, 2003.
Ceglia was a designer at the time, looking for Zuckerberg’s help on a separate project, and happened to sign on for a good chunk of Facebook stock as part of a contractor agreement. Or so the story went in New York today, as Bloomberg reports:
[Ceglia lawyer Terrence Connors] told the judge that Ceglia was a Web designer trying to develop a project called “StreetFax” in the spring of 2003. Ceglia’s plan was to put millions of photos of streets into a database and charge insurers money to access it.
“What he needed was a coder,” Connors told the judge.
Ceglia solicited bids to do the work. The lowest bidder was Zuckerberg, then a Harvard freshman. Zuckerberg said he would do the job for $1,000, Connors said.
“But I’ve got a project of my own,” Connors said Zuckerberg told his client. “I’m developing an online yearbook for Harvard kids now, but I’m thinking of expanding it.”
The contract was intended to cover the coding work on StreetFax and Ceglia’s investment in Zuckerberg’s “fledgling project,” Connors said. “Who knew then that it would turn into what it is today?”
VentureBeat has taken a closer look at the documents submitted by Ceglia. Although riddled with typos, and in parts not clearly phrased — it refers to Ceglia being granted ownership of the software language that Zuckerberg was to use, for example, rather than the code — it would give him most of Facebook’s shares. From VentureBeat:
The contract itself says that Ceglia agreed to pay Zuckerberg $1,000 for StreetFax and $1,000 for another project called PageBook. The contract also mentions an expanded project called The Facebook to be completed by January 2004, saying “an additional 1% interest in the business will be due the buyer for each day the website is delayed from that date.”
Ceglia attached a $1,000 receipt from his checkbook, dated six months after the contract, as evidence that he paid Zuckerberg for his work. But it wasn’t the full $2,000 amount and the agreement doesn’t describe what happens if there is a default.
Facebook, for its part, has not yet completely denied the specific claims. In court, one of the company’s lawyers confirmed that Zuckerberg did have a contract with Ceglia, but also said that there are “many substantial questions surrounding the authenticity” of the particular document provided by Ceglia, and was “unsure” such as whether Zuckerberg had actually signed it.
The company’s general statement on Ceglia’s claim sounds confident, in any case: “We believe this suit is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously.”
Whether or not the document is real, Ceglia’s case has other problems, beyond some of vague phrasing. For example, his claim is more than six years old, seemingly disqualifying it under New York’s statute of limitations. And his document oddly has Zuckerberg using the term “Facebook” nine months before Zuckerberg actively began using the term. Legal experts have noted both as major issues. And Ceglia himself has been in trouble with the law recently, getting arrested for failure to fulfill wood pellet orders after having taken their money — maybe he was just having business problems, but the timing makes his Facebook suit (and character) look more suspicious.
Given the many frivolous lawsuits brought against major companies, only to be summarily dismissed, one wouldn’t be surprised to see the judge relegate Ceglia’s claims to the same category. But if the document does somehow turn out to be authentic, Facebook’s legal team will no doubt contest its language, the time-lapse, and anything else it can find, and look for a quick settlement. We have a hard time seeing Ceglia’s desired outcome — 84% ownership of Facebook — ever happening.
And, if the claim is found true, there’s another twist coming: the Harvard Connection (now ConnectU) team and Greenspan will need to explain how Zuckerberg was working on his idea many months before they say he stole it from them. Sure, ConnectU’s long-running lawsuit is mostly done, and Greenspan has moved on to other projects, but ConnectU’s version of events appears slated for a retelling in The Social Network, the new movie coming out on October 1st of this year. The new headlines about the Celia case — which, to our knowledge is not addressed in the movie — might confuse the movie’s plot, or at least its audiences.
If Ceglia’s case turns out to be somewhat true, but not true enough to give Ceglia anything like the stock he wants, the result could be an odd sort of public relations win for Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Who’s Using Facebook’s Top Apps?
Who’s Using Facebook’s Top Apps? Newer Games Attract More Older WomenJuly 22nd, 2010
By Chris Morrison Add Comment » Share
[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.]
Last month we shared data for selected Facebook apps that showed diverse audiences across some of the top social gaming titles on the social network. Today we’re following up with stats on another popular set of games that have one key difference: they’re much newer than those we examined in June.
We chose four: FrontierVille and Treasure Isle, both by Zynga; Social City by Playdom; and Hotel City by Playfish. All date back no earlier than March. Looking at newer games allows us to gain some insight into how the audience has changed in the hectic first half of this year.
The first and most obvious insight we came across is that these apps, among the most popular of 2010, have a higher percentage of women than our last sample, which found about a 60/40 split between women and men:
As you can see, the gender distribution has swung even more strongly toward women. In part, this is because there have been few male-friendly hits released this year, like Zynga’s classic Texas HoldEm Poker.
Here’s how the breakdowns look for all four apps:
Women have long been the dominant force in the casual gaming industry, helping to produce estrogen-friendly hits like Diner Dash. While it’s also common knowledge that women play games in greater numbers on Facebook as well, the divide appears to be becoming starker than it was last year.
Of course, the force in casual gaming isn’t just women; it’s middle-aged women. Our next chart shows the age distribution for each of the four games:
Here, we have an interesting split. While the Zynga and Playfish games are almost identical in their age splits (Treasure Isle was exempted for clarity, but is very similar to FrontierVille), Hotel City stands out from the pack with a much younger audience.
Without the presence of Hotel City, it might seem that Facebook gaming is destined for the same almost exclusively female and older audience that casual games target. However, it’s entirely possible that developers are simply playing to the largest audience, while underserving the men and younger players.
For marketers, these results are also notable, for their suggestion that young people and kids who are gaming are moving (or being pushed) into more niche titles — even Hotel City, with its huge base of 8.3 million monthly active users, is smaller than the other games shown above.
The full demographic breakdown by app, as well as extensive audience demographic data for Facebook’s markets around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Applications, Games, Marketing, Metrics
Facebook’s Hires This Week: Austin, Google and eBayJuly 22nd, 2010
By Sara Inés Calderón Add Comment » Share
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.
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Filed in Development, Facebook, Google, International, Policy
RockYou Also Signs on to Exclusive Five-Year Deal for Facebook CreditsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
Last week, RockYou began telling users (and us) about its plans to make Credits the exclusive payment option in its Facebook applications. Today, the company has gone further, announcing a five-year deal to exclusively use Facebook’s in-house virtual currency on the platform.
RockYou is one of the largest developers on the platform, with around 34.6 million monthly active users and 2.70 million daily active users, according to AppData. By getting this commitment, Facebook is ensuring that the company’s user base will start using the currency, thereby furthering its reach across the platform.
Facebook intends for Credits to get more users buying more virtual goods on third party applications than they have through third party payment options. It is experimenting with a variety of promotions to help spur the currency along, including giveaways, and special advertising for third-party developers who adopt it — also signing up other developers to exclusive five-year deals, including CrowdStar and Lolapps.
Meanwhile, some developers have balked at Credits, because Facebook takes a 30% cut — whereas it has taken 0% up until now — and because the implementation of Credits can create additional costs for developers.
For more, see our coverage from last week about RockYou’s Credits integration.
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Filed in Applications, Business, Credits, Monetization, Payments
Facebook Adds Team Focused on Games and Plans New Communication ChannelsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
More big changes are coming to Facebook’s communication channels this year, as Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor told us in an interview recently. They’re worth a closer look, as they’re likely to impact all developers, and especially social game developers.
The first is an automated spam filter for all Facebook communication channels. Granted, the spam problem has lessened as Facebook has removed some entirely, like notifications, or scaled back others, like news feed stories and requests. Here’s the relevant excerpt, from Taylor:
So rather than saying you’re not allowed to do X, Y, and Z with a dialog box in your game, if you’re sending useless messages from your game, we just won’t deliver them, and we’ll give you that feedback. And then you can change the way you send messages to send higher signal-to-noise content. This is something that we just haven’t invested enough in, but we now have a very large team working on spam and quality. That will touch all of our communication channels, and news feed. This is going to be a year-long project though, because we’re not going to remove the policies until we know that the system that replaces it is high quality.
Expect Facebook to start sharing more about its plans here in the coming months. If it wasn’t obvious already, given Facebook’s changes to date, developers should think about how to provide useful communication in their apps.
But it’s not just more automated punishment ahead. Taylor also said that the company is giving social gaming a new focus, describing games as a “killer app” on the platform.
> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.
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Filed in Applications, Business
User Survey Results: What Do Young Female Users Think of the Facebook Privacy Debate?July 21st, 2010
By Chris Morrison 1 Comment » Share
[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.]
Facebook privacy is a big issue — at least to some people. In our latest user survey, we set out to research whether ordinary Facebook users are concerned about the social network’s changing privacy policies.
A quick recap on the issue: Facebook has repeatedly run into criticism over user privacy following various product launches, including news feeds, Connect, and the ill-fated ad platform Beacon. This May, public anger at Facebook appeared to reach a fever pitch as the company released new features that would bring up user information on external websites like Yelp and Pandora.
We covered the issues exhaustively on Inside Facebook. However, even our coverage left a question open: do ordinary users care? The loudest voices against Facebook came from the tech community, which one might reasonably expect to have high expectations for being able to customize privacy options. Other users, with less web expertise (and without megaphones) may not feel very strongly.
This question is an important one for brand advertisers, marketers, app developers and other websites that plan to integrate social features. All of these groups are eager for more contact with Facebook’s half-billion users, but they also need to know where the comfort boundaries are.
Below, we focus specifically on survey responses from several dozen female users who are mostly under 25 — an age group one might expect to be fairly tech-savvy.
Our broadest question about Facebook privacy turned up only a small group, 25 percent, that was concerned. A plurality, 39 percent, were neutral, while about an equal number, 36 percent, felt comfortable with the privacy of their information on Facebook.
Interestingly, another question we posed to users (full results are only available on Inside Facebook Gold) shows a change toward a more neutral opinion when we asked specifically about Facebook’s efforts.
Below we asked about user’s confidence levels in using the privacy tools Facebook provides:
Here, a full 50 percent of users have only a moderate level of confidence that they know how to use the tools. This contrasts with another finding, which showed that users were by and large happy with the tools.
This is an area that Facebook could certainly improve upon; many users have been confused about how to add or remove specific information from their pages. Facebook’s regular redesigns likely make this task more difficult.
However, the picture is by and large one of satisfaction. While there is a significant minority, at least of young female users, who feel that privacy is a problem on Facebook, that user group is not currently sizeable enough that it should cause Facebook serious concern — although as we’ve already seen, new problems are only a redesign away.
What does this demographic of users think of privacy on a feature-specific level, and what changes (if any) have they made in how they interact with Facebook? The full results of this survey, as well as extensive demographic data for Facebook’s audiences around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Advertising, Facebook, Metrics
Facebook Releases C# SDKJuly 21st, 2010
By Mike Knoop 2 Comments » Share
Recently Facebook announced the alpha release of their new C# SDK. This release marks the first C# SDK produced by Facebook, “built to meet the needs of the significant community of Facebook developers using C#”. The new C# SDK has several features, according to Andrew Gode who built it during a recent Facebook hackathon:
•Works with both Web (ASP.NET) and desktop applications.
•Uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication.
•Supports a convenient way of making calls to the new Graph API using the OAuth 2.0 access token.
Notably, C# is a primary platform for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. Facebook already has an iPhone and Android SDK, so a C# SDK fits well. No word from Facebook on whether this alpha release adheres to the differences between C# for Microsoft’s upcoming mobile operating system and its web/desktop counterpart.
Developers can access and download the Facebook C# SDK from Github today. As this is an alpha release, feedback and support are welcomed.
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Filed in Applications, Development
Facebook Announces 500 Million Users, Stories and Thanks ApplicationsJuly 21st, 2010
By Eric Eldon 3 Comments » Share
Facebook says it has reached 500 million monthly active users “as of this morning,” according to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. In a blog post today, he also announced a new in-house Stories application that features positive stories from users around the world, relating how they did things like reunited with long-lost family members through the service. Another application, a photo album of sorts called Thanks, shows Zuckerberg and company employees thanking everyone for using the service.
From his post:
We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world. These stories include:
Ben Saylor, a 17-year-old high school student, who turned to Facebook to organize a community effort to rebuild the Pioneer Playhouse, the oldest outdoor theater in Kentucky, after it was damaged by floods in May.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who, during his time in office, would go jogging with 100 of his fans from Facebook.
Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, who credits a friend’s status message telling women to check for breast cancer with her being diagnosed in time to treat the disease. She used Facebook for support during treatment and became a prevention advocate herself.
Here are some more details on the app. There are dozens of themes including “Love” and “College.” A “popular” section will feature the stories with the most likes. Other companies, 31 in total, are featuring some Stories as tabs within their own Pages. And the app is going to be around for awhile: “A team from Facebook will be hitting the open road in the U.S. to meet the people, towns and organizations behind these stories in our first Facebook Stories road trip. We’ll be sharing more details of the trip and initial stops in future posts on this blog and the Facebook Page. Finally, note the Bing integration, as it’s another example of Facebook working with strategic partner Microsoft.
Facebook’s rapid growth in the past few years has made it one of the largest web sites in the world — it gained 100 million users in the last 5 months, by its own measure. That success has also made it a big new target for everyone else in the world, from rival businesses to lawyers, politicians, pundits and even religious leaders. The application is a way for the company to remind everyone that it has grown to 500 million users because its products provide special value to people.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
By Chris Morrison Add Comment » Share
[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.]
Last month we shared data for selected Facebook apps that showed diverse audiences across some of the top social gaming titles on the social network. Today we’re following up with stats on another popular set of games that have one key difference: they’re much newer than those we examined in June.
We chose four: FrontierVille and Treasure Isle, both by Zynga; Social City by Playdom; and Hotel City by Playfish. All date back no earlier than March. Looking at newer games allows us to gain some insight into how the audience has changed in the hectic first half of this year.
The first and most obvious insight we came across is that these apps, among the most popular of 2010, have a higher percentage of women than our last sample, which found about a 60/40 split between women and men:
As you can see, the gender distribution has swung even more strongly toward women. In part, this is because there have been few male-friendly hits released this year, like Zynga’s classic Texas HoldEm Poker.
Here’s how the breakdowns look for all four apps:
Women have long been the dominant force in the casual gaming industry, helping to produce estrogen-friendly hits like Diner Dash. While it’s also common knowledge that women play games in greater numbers on Facebook as well, the divide appears to be becoming starker than it was last year.
Of course, the force in casual gaming isn’t just women; it’s middle-aged women. Our next chart shows the age distribution for each of the four games:
Here, we have an interesting split. While the Zynga and Playfish games are almost identical in their age splits (Treasure Isle was exempted for clarity, but is very similar to FrontierVille), Hotel City stands out from the pack with a much younger audience.
Without the presence of Hotel City, it might seem that Facebook gaming is destined for the same almost exclusively female and older audience that casual games target. However, it’s entirely possible that developers are simply playing to the largest audience, while underserving the men and younger players.
For marketers, these results are also notable, for their suggestion that young people and kids who are gaming are moving (or being pushed) into more niche titles — even Hotel City, with its huge base of 8.3 million monthly active users, is smaller than the other games shown above.
The full demographic breakdown by app, as well as extensive audience demographic data for Facebook’s markets around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Applications, Games, Marketing, Metrics
Facebook’s Hires This Week: Austin, Google and eBayJuly 22nd, 2010
By Sara Inés Calderón Add Comment » Share
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.
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Filed in Development, Facebook, Google, International, Policy
RockYou Also Signs on to Exclusive Five-Year Deal for Facebook CreditsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
Last week, RockYou began telling users (and us) about its plans to make Credits the exclusive payment option in its Facebook applications. Today, the company has gone further, announcing a five-year deal to exclusively use Facebook’s in-house virtual currency on the platform.
RockYou is one of the largest developers on the platform, with around 34.6 million monthly active users and 2.70 million daily active users, according to AppData. By getting this commitment, Facebook is ensuring that the company’s user base will start using the currency, thereby furthering its reach across the platform.
Facebook intends for Credits to get more users buying more virtual goods on third party applications than they have through third party payment options. It is experimenting with a variety of promotions to help spur the currency along, including giveaways, and special advertising for third-party developers who adopt it — also signing up other developers to exclusive five-year deals, including CrowdStar and Lolapps.
Meanwhile, some developers have balked at Credits, because Facebook takes a 30% cut — whereas it has taken 0% up until now — and because the implementation of Credits can create additional costs for developers.
For more, see our coverage from last week about RockYou’s Credits integration.
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Filed in Applications, Business, Credits, Monetization, Payments
Facebook Adds Team Focused on Games and Plans New Communication ChannelsJuly 22nd, 2010
By Eric Eldon Add Comment » Share
More big changes are coming to Facebook’s communication channels this year, as Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor told us in an interview recently. They’re worth a closer look, as they’re likely to impact all developers, and especially social game developers.
The first is an automated spam filter for all Facebook communication channels. Granted, the spam problem has lessened as Facebook has removed some entirely, like notifications, or scaled back others, like news feed stories and requests. Here’s the relevant excerpt, from Taylor:
So rather than saying you’re not allowed to do X, Y, and Z with a dialog box in your game, if you’re sending useless messages from your game, we just won’t deliver them, and we’ll give you that feedback. And then you can change the way you send messages to send higher signal-to-noise content. This is something that we just haven’t invested enough in, but we now have a very large team working on spam and quality. That will touch all of our communication channels, and news feed. This is going to be a year-long project though, because we’re not going to remove the policies until we know that the system that replaces it is high quality.
Expect Facebook to start sharing more about its plans here in the coming months. If it wasn’t obvious already, given Facebook’s changes to date, developers should think about how to provide useful communication in their apps.
But it’s not just more automated punishment ahead. Taylor also said that the company is giving social gaming a new focus, describing games as a “killer app” on the platform.
> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.
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Filed in Applications, Business
User Survey Results: What Do Young Female Users Think of the Facebook Privacy Debate?July 21st, 2010
By Chris Morrison 1 Comment » Share
[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.]
Facebook privacy is a big issue — at least to some people. In our latest user survey, we set out to research whether ordinary Facebook users are concerned about the social network’s changing privacy policies.
A quick recap on the issue: Facebook has repeatedly run into criticism over user privacy following various product launches, including news feeds, Connect, and the ill-fated ad platform Beacon. This May, public anger at Facebook appeared to reach a fever pitch as the company released new features that would bring up user information on external websites like Yelp and Pandora.
We covered the issues exhaustively on Inside Facebook. However, even our coverage left a question open: do ordinary users care? The loudest voices against Facebook came from the tech community, which one might reasonably expect to have high expectations for being able to customize privacy options. Other users, with less web expertise (and without megaphones) may not feel very strongly.
This question is an important one for brand advertisers, marketers, app developers and other websites that plan to integrate social features. All of these groups are eager for more contact with Facebook’s half-billion users, but they also need to know where the comfort boundaries are.
Below, we focus specifically on survey responses from several dozen female users who are mostly under 25 — an age group one might expect to be fairly tech-savvy.
Our broadest question about Facebook privacy turned up only a small group, 25 percent, that was concerned. A plurality, 39 percent, were neutral, while about an equal number, 36 percent, felt comfortable with the privacy of their information on Facebook.
Interestingly, another question we posed to users (full results are only available on Inside Facebook Gold) shows a change toward a more neutral opinion when we asked specifically about Facebook’s efforts.
Below we asked about user’s confidence levels in using the privacy tools Facebook provides:
Here, a full 50 percent of users have only a moderate level of confidence that they know how to use the tools. This contrasts with another finding, which showed that users were by and large happy with the tools.
This is an area that Facebook could certainly improve upon; many users have been confused about how to add or remove specific information from their pages. Facebook’s regular redesigns likely make this task more difficult.
However, the picture is by and large one of satisfaction. While there is a significant minority, at least of young female users, who feel that privacy is a problem on Facebook, that user group is not currently sizeable enough that it should cause Facebook serious concern — although as we’ve already seen, new problems are only a redesign away.
What does this demographic of users think of privacy on a feature-specific level, and what changes (if any) have they made in how they interact with Facebook? The full results of this survey, as well as extensive demographic data for Facebook’s audiences around the world, is only available to members of Inside Facebook Gold, our data membership service. To learn more or join, please see gold.insidenetwork.com/facebook
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Filed in Advertising, Facebook, Metrics
Facebook Releases C# SDKJuly 21st, 2010
By Mike Knoop 2 Comments » Share
Recently Facebook announced the alpha release of their new C# SDK. This release marks the first C# SDK produced by Facebook, “built to meet the needs of the significant community of Facebook developers using C#”. The new C# SDK has several features, according to Andrew Gode who built it during a recent Facebook hackathon:
•Works with both Web (ASP.NET) and desktop applications.
•Uses OAuth 2.0 for authentication.
•Supports a convenient way of making calls to the new Graph API using the OAuth 2.0 access token.
Notably, C# is a primary platform for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. Facebook already has an iPhone and Android SDK, so a C# SDK fits well. No word from Facebook on whether this alpha release adheres to the differences between C# for Microsoft’s upcoming mobile operating system and its web/desktop counterpart.
Developers can access and download the Facebook C# SDK from Github today. As this is an alpha release, feedback and support are welcomed.
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Filed in Applications, Development
Facebook Announces 500 Million Users, Stories and Thanks ApplicationsJuly 21st, 2010
By Eric Eldon 3 Comments » Share
Facebook says it has reached 500 million monthly active users “as of this morning,” according to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. In a blog post today, he also announced a new in-house Stories application that features positive stories from users around the world, relating how they did things like reunited with long-lost family members through the service. Another application, a photo album of sorts called Thanks, shows Zuckerberg and company employees thanking everyone for using the service.
From his post:
We’re launching a new application called Facebook Stories where you can share your own story and read hundreds of others, categorized by themes and locations around the world. These stories include:
Ben Saylor, a 17-year-old high school student, who turned to Facebook to organize a community effort to rebuild the Pioneer Playhouse, the oldest outdoor theater in Kentucky, after it was damaged by floods in May.
Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who, during his time in office, would go jogging with 100 of his fans from Facebook.
Holly Rose, a mother in Phoenix, who credits a friend’s status message telling women to check for breast cancer with her being diagnosed in time to treat the disease. She used Facebook for support during treatment and became a prevention advocate herself.
Here are some more details on the app. There are dozens of themes including “Love” and “College.” A “popular” section will feature the stories with the most likes. Other companies, 31 in total, are featuring some Stories as tabs within their own Pages. And the app is going to be around for awhile: “A team from Facebook will be hitting the open road in the U.S. to meet the people, towns and organizations behind these stories in our first Facebook Stories road trip. We’ll be sharing more details of the trip and initial stops in future posts on this blog and the Facebook Page. Finally, note the Bing integration, as it’s another example of Facebook working with strategic partner Microsoft.
Facebook’s rapid growth in the past few years has made it one of the largest web sites in the world — it gained 100 million users in the last 5 months, by its own measure. That success has also made it a big new target for everyone else in the world, from rival businesses to lawyers, politicians, pundits and even religious leaders. The application is a way for the company to remind everyone that it has grown to 500 million users because its products provide special value to people.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Friend lists, launched in late 2007, made this narrow-casting possible. However, few people have used them even when they were featured more prominently on the site. Per the latest redesigns, they are buried behind the “Friends” navigation button on the home page’s left sidebar, and require a long series of clicks to apply as a privacy parameter for posts. Zuckerberg said “Most people don’t want to create lists of things, but the act of adding friends is a very nice feeling. No doubt it would be better if everyone had these friend groups [automatically] created.” "
This hint at a new version of the feature suggests Facebook will analyze user data such as people you are frequently tagged in photos with, who likes your posts, or other relevant information, like location, age, or mutual friends. If combined with instructions for use, a more prominent placement in the interface, and an easy way to share only to a certain list, friend lists could become integral to the future of engagement on Facebook.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end. The product and policy decisions are going to be the most important decisions we make in the next 5 years,” Zuckerberg stressed throughout the talk. “We’re not in maintenance mode, there’s a lot of innovation to do”, he said, emphasizing their work as a platform and utility which can make any website social.
But a threat to Facebook’s longevity is the nagging user worry that the site could use their vast stores of data for evil. “The Social Network” has the potential to increase this worry if audiences think it is factual. In order to minimize reactions to the film coloring the public’s opinion of Facebook, Zuckerberg said he probably won’t see it, repeatedly using the word “fiction” to describe the film. “I wish when people did media or journalism about Facebook that they would at least try to get it right. We try to focus on building the best product and I hope that’s what people remember us for, not the stories along the way.”
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
This hint at a new version of the feature suggests Facebook will analyze user data such as people you are frequently tagged in photos with, who likes your posts, or other relevant information, like location, age, or mutual friends. If combined with instructions for use, a more prominent placement in the interface, and an easy way to share only to a certain list, friend lists could become integral to the future of engagement on Facebook.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end. The product and policy decisions are going to be the most important decisions we make in the next 5 years,” Zuckerberg stressed throughout the talk. “We’re not in maintenance mode, there’s a lot of innovation to do”, he said, emphasizing their work as a platform and utility which can make any website social.
But a threat to Facebook’s longevity is the nagging user worry that the site could use their vast stores of data for evil. “The Social Network” has the potential to increase this worry if audiences think it is factual. In order to minimize reactions to the film coloring the public’s opinion of Facebook, Zuckerberg said he probably won’t see it, repeatedly using the word “fiction” to describe the film. “I wish when people did media or journalism about Facebook that they would at least try to get it right. We try to focus on building the best product and I hope that’s what people remember us for, not the stories along the way.”
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers
Inside Facebook - Tracking Facebook and the Facebook Platform for Developers and Marketers: "Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that Facebook is working on improvements to the friend lists feature during a talk yesterday –“hopefully soon we’ll have something more to talk about,” he said.
Friend lists allow users to categorize friends into named subsets which can be used to restrict distribution of posts, quickly invite a selection of friends to an event, view only certain people in the news feed, and organize Facebook Chat’s buddy list. Zuckerberg explained how sharing something with “friends” used to mean it was relatively private. Now, since people have friends from across their social spheres, it’s important that they be able to share with exactly who they want."
Zuckerberg also reiterated key company talking points yesterday during his talk at the Computer History Museum, formatted as an interview with David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. One point is that Facebook is nowhere near the end of the product roadmap; the other is that the upcoming film about Facebook’s origins, “The Social Network,” is fictional.
Friend list changes are an intriguing part of that product roadmap. “More and more people have subgroups”, Zuckerberg said, explaining how the definition of friends has evolved since the college-only days when users typically only added their peers. Since registration was opened to everyone, friends began to include co-workers, family members, and others with whom it might be inappropriate to share the same posts that you share with friends. Creating a system with which users feel comfortable sharing personal hardships only with family, jokes and wild stories exclusively with best friends, and only the most benign content with their co-workers or bosses is essential to Facebook maximizing its utility and relevance.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Friend lists allow users to categorize friends into named subsets which can be used to restrict distribution of posts, quickly invite a selection of friends to an event, view only certain people in the news feed, and organize Facebook Chat’s buddy list. Zuckerberg explained how sharing something with “friends” used to mean it was relatively private. Now, since people have friends from across their social spheres, it’s important that they be able to share with exactly who they want."
Zuckerberg also reiterated key company talking points yesterday during his talk at the Computer History Museum, formatted as an interview with David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect. One point is that Facebook is nowhere near the end of the product roadmap; the other is that the upcoming film about Facebook’s origins, “The Social Network,” is fictional.
Friend list changes are an intriguing part of that product roadmap. “More and more people have subgroups”, Zuckerberg said, explaining how the definition of friends has evolved since the college-only days when users typically only added their peers. Since registration was opened to everyone, friends began to include co-workers, family members, and others with whom it might be inappropriate to share the same posts that you share with friends. Creating a system with which users feel comfortable sharing personal hardships only with family, jokes and wild stories exclusively with best friends, and only the most benign content with their co-workers or bosses is essential to Facebook maximizing its utility and relevance.
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News: "Indian cosmetics giant Emami launched the first skin-whitening cream for men in 2005, called 'Fair and Handsome' and advertised by Bollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan. It came 27 years after the first cream for women.
Since then a half dozen foreign brands have piled into the male market, including Garnier, L'Oreal and Nivea, which promote the seemingly magical lightening qualities of their products in ubiquitous advertising.
In 2009, a poll of nearly 12,000 people by online dating site Shaadi.com, revealed that skin tone was considered the most important criteria when choosing a partner in three northern Indian states.
'More and more, there's an anxiety in the mind of men about having fair skin,' sociology professor T. K. Oommen at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi told AFP.
'Indians believe that if you have fair skin you belong to the higher caste, the Brahmins,' he added, explaining that a succession of light-skinned colonisers in India reinforced the association of fairness with power.
'The Aryans, who came from central Asia, in addition to the Portuguese, the French and the British colonisers ruled over the country and probably contributed to this negative perception of dark-skin.'"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Since then a half dozen foreign brands have piled into the male market, including Garnier, L'Oreal and Nivea, which promote the seemingly magical lightening qualities of their products in ubiquitous advertising.
In 2009, a poll of nearly 12,000 people by online dating site Shaadi.com, revealed that skin tone was considered the most important criteria when choosing a partner in three northern Indian states.
'More and more, there's an anxiety in the mind of men about having fair skin,' sociology professor T. K. Oommen at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi told AFP.
'Indians believe that if you have fair skin you belong to the higher caste, the Brahmins,' he added, explaining that a succession of light-skinned colonisers in India reinforced the association of fairness with power.
'The Aryans, who came from central Asia, in addition to the Portuguese, the French and the British colonisers ruled over the country and probably contributed to this negative perception of dark-skin.'"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News
Vaseline launches skin-whitening Facebook app for India - Yahoo! News: "NEW DELHI (AFP) – Skincare group Vaseline has introduced a skin-lightening application for Facebook in India, enabling users to make their faces whiter in their profile pictures.
The download is designed to promote Vaseline's range of skin-lightening creams for men, a huge and fast-growing market driven by fashion and a cultural preference for fairer skin.
The widget promises to 'Transform Your Face On Facebook With Vaseline Men' in a campaign fronted by Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur, who is depicted with his face divided into dark and fair halves.
'We started campaign advertising (for the application) from the second week of June and the response has been pretty phenomenal,' Pankaj Parihar from global advertising firm Omnicom, which designed the campaign, told AFP."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
The download is designed to promote Vaseline's range of skin-lightening creams for men, a huge and fast-growing market driven by fashion and a cultural preference for fairer skin.
The widget promises to 'Transform Your Face On Facebook With Vaseline Men' in a campaign fronted by Bollywood actor Shahid Kapur, who is depicted with his face divided into dark and fair halves.
'We started campaign advertising (for the application) from the second week of June and the response has been pretty phenomenal,' Pankaj Parihar from global advertising firm Omnicom, which designed the campaign, told AFP."
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Reviewed facebook applications will have a review rating and a link to the actual review. You can also use the search box to find the facebook application review.
30 Boxes Calendering Widget Rating: read review
Rating:
Radical Buy Challenges eBay:It allows users to list and sell items on facebook. read review
Snowboard Challenge Video Game
Rating: Addictingly fun game. Read the review
Amazon Book Reviews Widget Rating: read review
BallHype: Sports Centric Widget
Box:File storage & sharing widget Rating: read review
Delicious:
Digg: Recent diggs widget Rating: read review
Feedburner:
Flixster:Movie centric widget Rating: read review
Flickr:
Stock Tracker By Forbes Rating: read review
Graffiti Drawing Widget Rating: read review
Hot or Not App. Rating: read review
Scrapblog: Photo Scrapbooking widget
Slideshow Photo Sharing Rating: read review
Top Friends Display Rating: read review
Trackzor
Messaging Centric Widget Rating: read review
Veoh Video
Voiceplayer:
Yackpack:"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
30 Boxes Calendering Widget Rating: read review
Rating:
Radical Buy Challenges eBay:It allows users to list and sell items on facebook. read review
Snowboard Challenge Video Game
Rating: Addictingly fun game. Read the review
Amazon Book Reviews Widget Rating: read review
BallHype: Sports Centric Widget
Box:File storage & sharing widget Rating: read review
Delicious:
Digg: Recent diggs widget Rating: read review
Feedburner:
Flixster:Movie centric widget Rating: read review
Flickr:
Stock Tracker By Forbes Rating: read review
Graffiti Drawing Widget Rating: read review
Hot or Not App. Rating: read review
Scrapblog: Photo Scrapbooking widget
Slideshow Photo Sharing Rating: read review
Top Friends Display Rating: read review
Trackzor
Messaging Centric Widget Rating: read review
Veoh Video
Voiceplayer:
Yackpack:"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Now that the election is over and you are coming down from that high, there is another election for you to participate in. Facebook is in the final stage of the fbFund competition.
Help facebook choose the top five teams with the best applications. Each will be awarded $225,000 in addition to the $25,000 they […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Help facebook choose the top five teams with the best applications. Each will be awarded $225,000 in addition to the $25,000 they […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Facebook has been trying to encourage application developers to create more engaging and useful applications for the platform. Part of that encouragement has come from financial rewards from the facebook fund. Facebook started a contest a few months back. They chose finalists and then let the facebook user community vote for the the apps they […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Don’t believe Facebook Platform is gaining traction? Last fall New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) released a Subway Status application that allows Facebook-savvy rail-riders to share their commute stats with others of similar ilk.
Subway Status creates a sort of sub-Facebook social network based around which trains one rides. For instance, […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Subway Status creates a sort of sub-Facebook social network based around which trains one rides. For instance, […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "On Friday, Facebook made yet another progressive (and unexpected) move, with the release of of a Javascript-based client library that allows developers to host applications on their own servers. The impact of this could be immense.
Now, rather than being confined to coding within Facebook, developers can build and host apps natively. The update allows […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Now, rather than being confined to coding within Facebook, developers can build and host apps natively. The update allows […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "A lot has happened since the launch of Facebook Platform last May. The company has seen some controversy, launched some other products (controversially), gotten investments and it continues to grow exponentially — all while Platform matured. Although many developers still haven’t figured out what to do with it, others are making keen uses of Platform […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Facebook announced last night an important update to Platform that will throttle the number of notifications allotted to each app. Currently every application has a static upper limit of 40 notifications per user per day. That number will now be variable and will be adjusted according to various forms of feedback.
One of the methods […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
One of the methods […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "There is a fundamental flaw in the overall state of Facebook applications. The issue as I see it is that for a venue with as much potential Facebook, the apps built on its platform have no real use (other than diversionary). It seems as though almost every Facebook app is something irrelevant, some way to […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "TechCrunch today caught an interesting emergence on the Adonomics valuation chart. A mystery company dubbed The UADA has recently topped the chart of App companies with over 97 million installs, 3.1 million active users and a valuation of about $223 million — over a week before it’s even launched.
Research done into The UADA has uncovered […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Research done into The UADA has uncovered […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks
FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks: "Digg-competitor Mixx has launched its own Facebook app, aiming to bring its own brand of social news to the social network. Mixx has been making headlines lately, first with the implementation of clustered, meme-style stories and more recently with the announcement that it had secured $2 million in Series A1 capital.
So what’s the verdict on […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
So what’s the verdict on […]"
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
Sunday, July 18, 2010
WOMEN AND FACEBOOK
FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Young women are becoming more and more dependent on social media and checking on their social networks, according to a new study released earlier today by Oxygen Media and Lightspeed Research. In fact, as many as one-third of women aged 18-34 check Facebook when they first wake up, even before they get to the bathroom.
The study sampled the habits of 1,605 adults using social media between May and June of this year in an attempt to break down their social media habits. While some of the results are in line with previous studies we’ve read, others simply shocked us (e.g. 42% of young women think posting photos of themselves “visibly intoxicated” is okay).
last Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Are Young Women Addicted to Facebook?
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While the study covers all of social media, it’s clear that women in the 18-34 range are focused on their Facebook accounts. More than half of young women (57%) say they talk to people online more than face-to-face. A full 39% of them proclaim themselves Facebook addicts, while 34% of young women make Facebook the first thing they do when they wake up, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom.
Here are some other interesting stats regarding young women and Facebook:
21% of women age 18-34 check Facebook in the middle of the night
63% use Facebook as a networking tool
42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
79% are fine with kissing in photos
58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers
What conclusions can we draw from this data? It’s not just that young women are using Facebook religiously: it’s that they’re very open with what they post and who they accept as friends. Combined, it can lead to a privacy mess.
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Social Media’s Role in Dating
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We already knew that Facebook has radically changed dating, and Oxygen Media’s stats only back up that assertion. 50% of women believe that it’s just fine to date people they’ve met on Facebook, compared to 65% of men. 6% of women use it to “hook up” (20% of men do the same).
It gets murkier for relationships. 49% of women believe it’s fine to keep tabs on a boyfriend by having access to his accounts (42% of men think the same way). 9% of women have broken up their relationships via Facebook, as compared to a full 24% of men.
Luckily, most women don’t believe that breaking up via Facebook is okay: 91% to be exact. I don’t want to meet the 9% who think it’s just fine.
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Women and Privacy
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The Oxygen Media/Lightspeed Research survey is filled with a lot of other interesting data points, but it all circles back to the privacy issue. 54% of 18-24 year old women do not trust Facebook with their private information, and 89% agree that “you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see.” That seems contradictory to the 42% that think it’s fine to post pictures of themselves drunk.
Our habits are changing due to social media technology, particularly Facebook. It’s not just a connection tool for many women, but a research tool, a dating network, and a way to keep tabs on both boyfriends and enemies
see more http://www.facebook.com/GiftandQuizApps
http://www.facebook.com/STOKESAPPS
The study sampled the habits of 1,605 adults using social media between May and June of this year in an attempt to break down their social media habits. While some of the results are in line with previous studies we’ve read, others simply shocked us (e.g. 42% of young women think posting photos of themselves “visibly intoxicated” is okay).
last Tuesday · Delete Post.FACEBOOK GIFT / QUIZ APPLICATIONS Are Young Women Addicted to Facebook?
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While the study covers all of social media, it’s clear that women in the 18-34 range are focused on their Facebook accounts. More than half of young women (57%) say they talk to people online more than face-to-face. A full 39% of them proclaim themselves Facebook addicts, while 34% of young women make Facebook the first thing they do when they wake up, even before brushing their teeth or going to the bathroom.
Here are some other interesting stats regarding young women and Facebook:
21% of women age 18-34 check Facebook in the middle of the night
63% use Facebook as a networking tool
42% think it’s okay to post photos of themselves intoxicated
79% are fine with kissing in photos
58% use Facebook to keep tabs on “frenemies”
50% are fine with being Facebook friends with complete strangers
What conclusions can we draw from this data? It’s not just that young women are using Facebook religiously: it’s that they’re very open with what they post and who they accept as friends. Combined, it can lead to a privacy mess.
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Social Media’s Role in Dating
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We already knew that Facebook has radically changed dating, and Oxygen Media’s stats only back up that assertion. 50% of women believe that it’s just fine to date people they’ve met on Facebook, compared to 65% of men. 6% of women use it to “hook up” (20% of men do the same).
It gets murkier for relationships. 49% of women believe it’s fine to keep tabs on a boyfriend by having access to his accounts (42% of men think the same way). 9% of women have broken up their relationships via Facebook, as compared to a full 24% of men.
Luckily, most women don’t believe that breaking up via Facebook is okay: 91% to be exact. I don’t want to meet the 9% who think it’s just fine.
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Women and Privacy
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The Oxygen Media/Lightspeed Research survey is filled with a lot of other interesting data points, but it all circles back to the privacy issue. 54% of 18-24 year old women do not trust Facebook with their private information, and 89% agree that “you should never put anything on Facebook that you don’t want your parents to see.” That seems contradictory to the 42% that think it’s fine to post pictures of themselves drunk.
Our habits are changing due to social media technology, particularly Facebook. It’s not just a connection tool for many women, but a research tool, a dating network, and a way to keep tabs on both boyfriends and enemies
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