Facebook features 'fan box' tool

The fan box for Coca-Cola. (Credit: Facebook)

Here's something new from Facebook: the "fan box," which is a new tool for celebrities, brands, products, companies, and other entities with Facebook "fan pages" to effectively embed their Facebook presence into their Web sites.

That means that if you go to the Web site of a participating brand, like Coca-Cola or Lance Armstrong's Livestrong nonprofit, you'll see a widget that lets you add that brand as a "fan" on Facebook, which subscribes you to its updates, as well as a feed of updates and an array of profile photos from members who have already proclaimed themselves to be fans.

Facebook is hoping that people will find the "fan box" to be extremely easy to install, so that it's a no-brainer for companies and sites that might not be quite up to speed on technical expertise. This is a big deal as Facebook continues to expand its presence beyond its famed blue-and-white walls, and keeps pushing the message that its 200 million-plus user base is an invaluable resource for marketers--especially interesting since brand promotion is something that MySpace once had a lock on in the social-networking world.

The Facebook Connect log-in product is now installed on over 10,000 sites, and one start-up executive told me Tuesday that it's boosted their user registration numbers so much that he's astonished the company doesn't charge for it. And last month, Facebook launched a tool called the "live stream box," which embeds a stream of the social network's Twitter-like "status updates" pertaining to a given event, much like the one that CNN and MTV used for this week's memorial for the late pop legend Michael Jackson.

"This is a very nice feature of Facebook!"

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Facebook revising privacy settings

Facebook is revising its privacy settings to give the more than 200 million users of the social network the ability to share as much or as little about themselves online as they want.
Chris Kelly, chief privacy officer at the Palo Alto, California-based company, outlined the changes in a post on the Facebook blog.

Kelly said Facebook would now offer a tiered level of privacy options for its users including "all of your friends, your friends and people in your school or work networks, and friends of friends."

There is also an option to publicly share with everyone on the Web in what is being seen as an effort by Facebook to compete with the hot micro-blogging service Twitter.

"To share with more people and contribute to the general conversation going on in the world, you can select 'Everyone,'" Kelly said.

Kelly said, "the power to share is the cornerstone of Facebook."

"Privacy and the tools for tailoring what information is shared with whom are at the heart of trust."
"We're committed to giving people even greater control over the information they share and the audiences with whom they share it," he said.

"At one extreme, we believe people should have the tools to 'broadcast' information across the Web and make it available to everyone.
"At the other extreme, we want to give people the power to limit who should receive any particular piece of information they want to share," he said.

Kelly acknowledged that the privacy settings on Facebook had become "too complicated" and the changes were an effort to "reduce confusion."
Kelly said the revised privacy settings would be offered first to a select group of users over the next few weeks.
"After the testing and feedback phase is complete, we expect to offer final versions of the tool and the new settings to everyone on Facebook," he said.

"A very nice initiative of facebook on this particular feature so that we can limit the information being seen by people in our Profile."

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Facebook ousts MySpace as reigning US social networking champion

Facebook has finally managed to oust MySpace as the reigning US social networking champion. According to ComScore, FaceBook attracted 70.278 million unique US visitors in May, compared to MySpace's 70.237 million.

The popular social networking site has rapidly expanded its user base over the last year. For example, Facebook recorded appoximately 36 million US visits in May 2008, while MySpace vists hovered at an impressive 73.7 million. By April 2009, Facebook unique vists had shot up to 67 million - with MySpace stalled at 70.9 million.

Facebook has also widened its worldwide lead over MySpace, with a total of 307 million users in May, compared to MySpace's 123 million.

Clearly, the glory days of MySpace have long since waned. According to Nielsen Online, Facebook has become the "largest player on the global stage, dominant in many countries, [replacing] MySpace as the world's most popular social network."

Nevertheless, MySpace still managed to generate $1 billion in advertising revenue during 2008, compared with Facebook's $300 million.

"Whilst part of Facebook's huge appeal is the simple layout of an interface that carries very little ad inventory, MySpace's offering possibly makes its inventory – of which there is a lot more compared to Facebook – easier to monetize, particularly in terms of immersive advertising," explained Nielsen.

"Facebook rules!"

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Facebook Members Register Names at 550 a Second

Facebook Inc., the world’s largest social-networking site, said members registered new user names at a rate of more than 550 a second after the company offered people the chance to claim a personalized Web address.

Facebook started accepted registrations at midnight New York time on a first-come, first-served basis. Within the first seven minutes, 345,000 people had claimed user names, said Larry Yu, a spokesman for Palo Alto, California-based Facebook. Within 15 minutes, 500,000 users had grabbed a name.

“We saw high traffic, higher than usual traffic,” Yu said. “Planning allowed us to handle that traffic well.”

Facebook, which has more than 200 million users worldwide, allowed users to select one unique name, letting them create a Web address for their Facebook profile, such as http://www.facebook.com/david. Previously, addresses typically contained a sequence of numbers. The aim, Facebook says, is to make it easier to find profiles using search engines such as Google Inc.

Each name needs to be unique, which created a rush among users to snag their preferred names before anyone else.

‘Shirley’

Shirley Ngo, a 26-year-old marketing manager in Singapore, said her palms were sweaty as she counted down the final seconds before she could choose a user name. A friend in Toronto and her brother in Vancouver were also logged onto Facebook to claim their names, he said.

After the clock struck noon in Singapore, someone had already grabbed “Shirley.” Ngo settled for her full name. She said she’s not too disappointed.

“It was a really funny experience,” Ngo said. “Sadly, this is also the most fun I have had all week -- counting down and waiting to register my name.”

Facebook lets people share photos, post updates on what they’re doing, and send messages to each other. After users have set their new name, they have the option publish it in their “stream,” or the rolling list of updates they share with friends, Facebook said.

Squatting

Facebook, whose investors include Microsoft Corp. and venture-capital firm Accel Partners, was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 as a social-networking service for his classmates at Harvard University. The company generates sales through advertising, and expects revenue to climb 70 percent this year, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said in April.

Zuckerberg, 25, has said that he has no plans to sell the company, and spokesman Larry Yu said last month that there are no plans for Facebook to go public.

Facebook said it encouraged individuals or companies that have intellectual-property rights to their names to contact the site to reserve or protect them.

The company is taking steps to prevent so-called squatting -- users signing up for names just to prevent someone else from having them. Users can’t transfer their names to other accounts. The company will also only allow users to claim a name if they had an account before the feature was announced June 9. This will prevent people from creating new accounts just to grab their addresses, Facebook said. That restriction lifts on June 28.

Still, the land grab will likely trigger disputes over corporate names, said Howard Weller, a partner in the New York office of law firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP.

“Facebook is going to spend a lot of time mediating these disputes,” Weller said. For corporations and other trademark owners, “it’s clearly an opportunity to advance the brand, but it also invites a headache.”

"Wow! This is just amazing, a proof of Facebook's popularity."

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A Map Of Social (Network) Dominance

Even on the Web, world dominance must be achieved one country at a time. While Facebook has long been the largest social network in the world, and should soon pass MySpace in the U.S., it is not the largest social network in every country. The map above created by Vincenzo Cosenza resembles more a game of Risk, with Facebook sweeping across the globe from the West.

Using Alexa and Google Trend data, Cosenza color-coded the map based on which social network is the most popular in each country. All of the light green countries belong to Facebook. But there are still pockets of resistance in Russia (where V Kontakte rules), China (QQ), Brazil and India (Orkut), Central America, Peru, Mongolia, and Thailand (hi5), South Korea (Cyworld), Japan (Mixi), the Middle East (Maktoob), and the Philippines (Friendster).

Apparently, Alexa already thinks that Facebook is larger than MySpace in the United States. And Maybe it is, or maybe Cosenza's isn't using the best data. But I love being able to visualize market dominance on a country-by-country basis. I wonder what the map would look like using comScore data, some of which can be found in our recent social network valuation model.

Above is an interactive version of the map.

"Facebook is dominating the world, no questions asked."

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MySpace sinking fast, but Facebook soars

Once the reigning social network, MySpace has been sent tumbling off its throne, according to the media research firm Nielsen.

In a new report, Nielsen reveals that Facebook users spent an extraordinary 13.9 billion minutes on the site – in the month of April alone. Lagging far behind, at 5 billion user minutes, is MySpace, the network launched in 2003, and purchased by News Corp. in 2005. For years, MySpace was the go-to networking site, but it recently lost significant ground to Facebook and Twitter.

If the billions of minutes spent on Facebook aren’t dramatic enough for you, consider this: April’s figure represents a 699 percent increase over the same time last year. By comparison, time spent on MySpace is down 31 percent since 2008 – a ominous figure by any stretch of the imagination. “MySpace is not firing on all cylinders like Facebook,” social networking expert Ray Valdes told CNN.com today. “Their effort to improve the site seems to be fragmented. They need to get on track or they will continue to slide.”

"Facebook's network growth is unstoppable!"

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'Kidnapped son' found on Facebook

Gavin Paros had not seen his mother Avril for 27 years

A mother has been reunited with her son, 27 years after she claims he was kidnapped, after her sister saw him on the social networking site Facebook.
Avril Grube, 62, who lives in Poole, Dorset, says she was given custody of her son Gavin Paros after her marriage to a Hungarian man broke down in 1982.
His father, who died in 2006, had visiting rights but took him to Hungary and Ms Grube has not seen him since.

But Mr Paros, 29, met his mother this week after being found on Facebook.
Ms Grube, who was only discharged from hospital a week ago, said: "I would love it so much to have Gavin back living in Britain."
She and her sister Beryl Wilson, 59, who lives in Liverpool, had spent years trying to trace their relative, even contacting the Hungarian Embassy and taking their case to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Ms Wilson told BBC Radio Solent: "[Mr Paros' father] had visitation rights, he said he was going to the zoo or somewhere and when he didn't arrive back we found out he had taken him back to Hungary.
"My sister was devastated, her health suffered.
"I tried everything... but no-one wanted to know."
In March, Ms Wilson typed her nephew's name into an internet search engine and could not believe it when his Facebook profile came up correctly showing he had been born in Liverpool and naming his mother.
"I was so relieved, it took me 27 years but I never gave up," Ms Wilson said.

"This is how Facebook and other social networking sites connects people from all over the world"

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