Tag Archives | Facebook

Bing Search Results Get Liked, Google Should Get Jealous

Posted by Jared Newman on February 24, 2011 at 9:52 am

As Google and Facebook quibble over user data, the relationship between Facebook and Microsoft is only getting cozier.

Since December, Bing has been using Facebook “Likes” to deliver separate results from its main search algorithm. Starting today, Bing is expanding Likes to its algorithmic search results, so every link has the potential to get a nod of approval from your friends.

At a time when search is under fire for being spammy — especially for consumer needs such as product reviews and travel information — the infusion of personal recommendations seems like an antidote. Bing is getting a big boost here by tapping into Facebook’s massive word-of-mouth database — something that Google may never get.

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Facebook: Your Newsfeeds Weren't Changed

Posted by Ed Oswald on February 18, 2011 at 5:18 pm

The issue over the changes to Facebook newsfeeds got a bit more interesting on Friday. While I had surmised on Wednesday that the changes were part of a broader rejiggering of the site (as apparently had Inside Facebook about a week earlier), that’s apparently not the case.

We contacted Facebook to understand more about the changes, and have received an interesting response. “We did not ‘change’ the settings,” spokeperson Jaime Schopflin told Technologizer. “We’ve simplified the News Feed settings that we’ve had in place for over a year. No default behavior has changed.”

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Facebook's Silent Change to Your Newsfeed

Posted by Ed Oswald on February 16, 2011 at 6:50 pm

Facebook has been making a few changes to the way your newsfeed operates, some of which have been very visible. But it’s also made one change which you may have not even noticed, and might not want.

The visible changes are nice. For one, clicking on a picture now opens a pop-up rather than taking you to the page with that photo: nice for those like me annoyed they “lose their spot” and have to rescroll through previously read updates. Another is changes to the fan page design, which now mirror the look of profiles and gives Facebook a uniform design throughout.

Okay, nothing wrong with those tweaks. However if you’re like me, and comment on your friend’s statuses and prefer to just watch others, you may have noticed some people apparently are commenting much more, and others much less. This is due to a change in how the site displays your newsfeed: if you haven’t commented, liked, or looked at a person’s profile regularly, they have now seemingly disappeared.

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Congress Wants Answers on Facebook's Data Disclosure

Posted by Ed Oswald on February 4, 2011 at 1:42 pm

Facebook’s plan to give developers access to users’ addresses and phone numbers has not gone over so well with many, and now the heads of the House of Representatives’ Privacy Caucus want answers. The feature only lasted three days as the social networking site decided to suspend it pending a better (and less controversial) option.

In a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Representatives Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas) are asking for specifics on the plans. Among the questions are how this information would be shared and how the process was vetted, as well as asking for specifics on why Facebook ultimately decided to shelve the plan.

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Facebook Wants to Be on Your Dumbphone, Too

Posted by Ed Oswald on January 19, 2011 at 10:02 pm

While Facebook has definitely been able to expand its reach through its smartphone apps, there is still a signficant portion–a majority, actually–of mobile phone users who do not own a smartphone, or maybe even want one. The social networking giant seems determined to put itself in front of those consumers as well.

In collaboration with Snaptu, a company that specializes in developing stripped down apps for use on so-called “dumb phones,” Facebook has launched an app which will work on about 2,500 devices from a range of manufacturers including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and LG. It aims to provide a similar experience to that of its fancier smartphone counterpart.

It appears that the focus (at least initially) is to expand mobile usage of the site into developing markets. Facebook has struck deals with several carriers across Asia, Europe, and the Dominican Republic to offer use of the app for 90 days without any data charges.

Facebook plans to offer the application to other carriers worldwide over the next several months, it says. The offering is much like “Zero,” its free-to-use low bandwidth website that the company launched last year.

One caveat–if you are downloading Snaptu in an attempt to get Facebook, unless you’re on a launch carrier it will not work (whether you pay for the data charges or not). It’s not clear when this restriction is set to be lifted. Snaptu still has its own unofficial app, which according to TechCrunch is similar to the official one.

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More on Make-My-Baby.com

Posted by Harry McCracken on January 18, 2011 at 11:57 am

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan does great legwork on the Make-My-Baby.com story I wrote about earlier today: Facebook says the company isn’t its third largest advertiser (and in fact was never an advertiser), and Bing says it’s terminating its affiliate relationship.

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A Facebook Advertiser That's Bad News

Posted by Harry McCracken on January 18, 2011 at 9:36 am

[UPDATE: Facebook says Ad Age had it wrong and Make-My-Baby.com wasn’t a Facebook advertiser at all.]

Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb has a post this morning that left me with a chilling sense of deja vu. It’s about a Facebook advertiser named Make-My-Baby.com–according to an Advertising Age story, Facebook’s third-largest advertiser–which has a silly little site that lets you dress up a baby. The site requires you to install a browser plug-in; the plug-in changes your home page and search engine to Bing. From then on, Microsoft gives the Make-My-Baby people a bounty when you click on a search ad in Bing. (Kirkpatrick is reporting on discoveries made by Google’s Matt Cutts.)

It’s all eerily reminiscent of ugly practices of the early-to-mid-2000s in which advertising companies and their partners used a number of practices to install software that pelted PC users with pop-ups and otherwise fouled up their computers. Here’s a 2005 story we did at PC World on the topic.

For the most part, the companies involved in the earlier round of cheesy PC invasions got what was coming to them. The PCW story discusses DirectRevenue, 180Solutions, and WhenU; the first two companies are out of business, and WhenU’s site now leads to information on how to uninstall its software. I wonder how Facebook and Bing will handle the news of this business partner’s behavior?

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Oh no, Facebook is Shutting Down! Umm…

Posted by Ed Oswald on January 8, 2011 at 10:46 pm

File this under the so-ridiculous-its-sad-people-believe-it department: sometime around dinnertime Saturday on the East Coast, somebody thought it funny to start the rumor that Facebook would be shutting down on March 15. A Twitter search shows that people actually are taking this seriously, sadly enough. Sorry to disappoint but Facebook is not going anywhere, especially after that $450 million cash infusion from Goldman Sachs…

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Cityville on Track to Top Farmville

Posted by Jared Newman on December 20, 2010 at 9:06 am

How appropriate that as interest stagnates in Zynga’s hit Facebook game Farmville, players are now moving into the city with Cityville.

Just 18 days after launch, Cityville has 47.9 million monthly active users, Inside Social Games reports. At this pace, Cityville could soon top Farmville, currently with 56.3 million users, as Zynga’s most popular game and the biggest game on Facebook. It’s already Facebook’s fastest-growing game ever.

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Facebook Tries “Pay Later” for Virtual Goods

Posted by Jared Newman on November 18, 2010 at 12:48 pm

Here’s a wild semi-rumor from Inside Facebook’s Josh Constine: Facebook is quietly testing a “Pay Later” feature for virtual goods in games like Farmville.

In other words, when you want to buy a bunch of Farm Coins, but don’t feel like fishing out your credit card, Facebook will let you build up real-life debt and then send you a bill.  I say “semi-rumor” because Constine cites unnamed sources, but has plenty of screenshots and details to back up the story.

A pay later system would help Facebook get around the mental barrier of buying virtual goods. Giving away the product and sending a bill might ease more people into microtransactions, and once they’ve settled the debt, their credit card or Paypal information is on file to allow for easier payments in the future. Make paying for stuff really easy, the logic goes, and more people will be willing to buy.

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