According to a report from BGR, AT&T has plans to discontinue the HTC First, which is better known as the "Facebook Phone." The device, which was unveiled last month, is the first to come preinstalled with Facebook Home, an Android OS skin that integrates functionality from the social network directly onto the home screen. Poor sales, however, has triggered AT&T to already bring the price of the HTC First down to $0.99.

Our source at AT&T has confirmed that the HTC First, which is the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed, will soon be discontinued and unsold inventory will be returned to HTC. How much unsold inventory is there? We don't have an exact figure, but things aren't looking good. According to our source, AT&T sold fewer than 15,000 units nationwide through last week when the phone's price was slashed to $0.99.

According to several reports, Facebook today announced that "Facebook Home," its Android OS skin, has surpassed one million downloads. This number is significantly lower than expected for the world's largest social network that currently boasts over one billion users. In addition, Facebook announced that it has released an update to Home that fixes several bugs, and is also promising future updates in the coming weeks with improvements.

Facebook VP of Engineering Cory Ondrejka said the company is planning on several improvements to the product in the coming weeks, but today's update will have bug fixes. Also, for any Android devices that don't support Home, Facebook won't block users who want to transfer Home -- in a process called sideloading -- from supported devices. More than 10,000 people were using this method to get Home on unsupported devices shortly after Home launched, Facebook said.

AT&T today revealed that it will begin selling the HTC First, which is also known as the "Facebook Phone" because of its standard integration with Facebook Home, for a mere $0.99, down from the regular $99 pricing with a new two-year contract. In addition, the carrier will be offering the phone off-contract for $350 instead of $450. AT&T didn't say exactly why it is bringing the price down so significantly, but one can assume that the device hasn't been selling as well as predicted.

Facebook today reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2013, announcing a revenue of $1.46 billion, an increase of 38% year-over-year. The world's largest social network reported 665 million daily active users in March of 2013, while monthly active users was at 1.11 billion. The most important number, however, is 751 million, which is the number of mobile monthly active users, up 54% year-over-year. Mobile ad revenue accounted for 30% of Facebook's total $1.25 billion in ad revenue.

Microsoft is currently working on a major overhaul to the app, bringing several requested features such as the ability to share posts, full Facebook Timeline integration, and higher-resolution photos. Users who test the beta app are expected to file bug reports and feedback about the app.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Facebook has hired the former head of the iOS 6 Maps team at Apple, Richard Williamson. Williamson led the Maps team until he was fired by Apple late last year following significant amounts of criticism from consumers about the poor performance of Apple Maps in iOS 6. Williamson is apparently working in the mobile division of Facebook, but his exact job is unknown at this time.

Williamson joined Facebook in the past couple of weeks to be a manager within its expanding mobile-software group, said two of the people, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public.

Following news yesterday that Facebook is working with Apple to bring its "Home" software to the iPhone and iPad, the world's largest social network today released a major update to its native iOS app (App Store link) that brings a redesigned News Feed and the new "Chat Heads" feature.  Chat Heads appear consistently on the side of the Facebook app and contain the profile pictures of friends you're currently chatting with,  allowing you to access the conversation quicker. They can be moved around the screen as needed too.

According to a report from Bloomberg, Facebook is currently in discussions with Apple about bringing a version of its "Home" software to the iPhone and iPad. Facebook Home was released for Android last week as a skin for Android OS devices that provides heavy integration of the world's largest social network. 

A version of Facebook Home for iOS would be more difficult because it would have to conform to Apple's standards. It's difficult to picture what Home would look like on iOS as well because Apple has not provided any app to change the layout of iOS ever.

"It may or may not be Home," he said. "We could also just bring some of the design values to the iOS app. That might be how it ends up. Or we could build just the lock screen. Maybe then it's not called Home, it's called something else."

Facebook late last week launched its "Facebook Home" skin for Android OS devices, giving users easier access to their News Feed and friends through a heavily-integrated version of Facebook on top of Android. Facebook Home, which is available via Google Play (link), has launched to low ratings, however, currently at 2-and-a-half stars. Facebook Home only works on the following devices at this time: the Samsung Galaxy S III, the Galaxy Note II, and the HTC One X+. It will also work on the future HTC One and the Galaxy S IV.

Facebook today announced that it has begun rolling out a new feature that allows users to use emoticons in status updates to tell people what they're doing.

Starting this week, people can express what they're watching, reading, listening to, eating, drinking or how they're feeling in status updates.

For example, if you share that you're watching a movie like Jurassic Park, your post will contain the movie icon and a link to the movie's page.

The social network says that this feature will be rolling out over the coming weeks as part of Facebook's larger News Feed and Timeline redesigns.

According to a report from TechCrunch, Facebook this past week invited the press to an Android-related event on April 4. The company asks the press to "come see our new home on Android," hinting that the long-rumored Facebook-branded smartphone may finally be arriving. The report claims that the phone will be manufactured by HTC and run a Facebook-modified version of Android OS. It's likely that the version of Android that would ship on the device will be heavily customized with Facebook integration.

Reports of a Facebook phone began all the way back in 2010.

Earlier this week, Facebook announced two new features for its comment section on the social network: the ability for users to directly reply to specific comments, and the ability for comments to be ranked based on the most engaging ones first. The company says that it has automatically turned on comment replies on pages or profiles with 10,000+ followers, and others can manually enable it.

Facebook today updated its iOS app to version 5.6 (App Store link), adding the ability for users to change the cover photo on their profile page while using their mobile device. To change your cover photo on an iOS device, tap on the image and select either "Choose From Library" or "Take Photo." The update also makes it easier for Facebook users to start group conversations in the app, and name conversations.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, Facebook is working on introducing a Twitter-esque hashtag feature for the social network that would allow users to tag conversations to a specific topic. It's not clear how far the project is, and if it will ever reach its final stages to be released, but the thought is definitely interesting.

Hashtags certainly make sense on the social network for two main reasons. One, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, already incorporates hashtags into its service. Also, Facebook's recently introduced Graph Search feature would probably benefit extremely from this hashtag feature - users could simply search for a specific term and see all of their friends' content about it.

Facebook says that it will begin rolling out the new Timeline today, and continue to do so over the coming weeks.

At a press event today, Facebook unveiled a completely redesigned News Feed for the social network that brings one consistent layout across all devices and introduces the ability to filter stories based on categories. Another large focus on the News Feed redesign was making photos and videos larger in the feed. The company used a sidebar design similar to its mobile apps for the web version of Facebook, introducing a blue bar on the left side that holds all of the social network's navigation now, as well as friends available for chat.

Facebook announced earlier this week that it will be acquiring the Atlas Advertiser Suite from Microsoft, a "leader in campaign management and measurement for marketers and agencies." Facebook says that current Atlas customers shouldn't notice a difference in the service, and that the company's headquarters will remain in Seattle. A price for the deal was not revealed.

We plan to improve Atlas' capabilities by investing in scaling its back-end measurement systems and enhancing its current suite of advertiser tools on desktop and mobile. We will also work to improve the user interface and functionality with the goal of making Atlas the most effective, intuitive, and powerful ad serving, management and measurement platform in the industry. Ultimately, Atlas’s powerful platform, combined with Nielsen and Datalogix, will help advertisers close the loop and compare their Facebook campaigns to the rest of their ad spend across the web on desktop and mobile.

Facebook today sent an invitation to the press for an event on March 7th where the company will unveil a "new look for News Feed." The News Feed, which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed was one of the social network's "pillars" earlier this year, hasn't had major changes since September 2011. While not many details about the redesigned News Feed are known at this time, rumors seem to point to a more image-based feed.

It's not clear if this design is intended to be released to the world at some point.

Facebook yesterday updated its iOS app (App Store link) to version 5.5, bringing the ability for United States and Canada users to make free voice over IP (VoIP) calls from the app. The update also introduced redesigned like, comment, and share buttons in the News Feed of the app.

New button design makes it easy to like, comment and share posts in News Feed.

• Improved buttons to like, comment and share posts
• Share button to re-post stories from your News Feed now available in all languages
• Call friends for free right from Facebook (US and Canada) *

* Free calling uses your existing data plan.

Facebook had previously added a similar VoIP service in its standalone Messenger app.

According to several reports, Facebook has begun rolling out a new feature that will allow users to choose a specific emotion that they're feeling or a specific activity they're doing when they make a new status update on the social network. The feature is similar to how one checks into a location or tags a friend on the social network. A new icon will appear next to the photo upload button, or underneath the status update box so users can add this new information.

Facebook today reported its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2012, announcing a revenue of $1.59 billion, beating analyst expectations. 23% of Facebook's advertisement revenue came from the mobile side of things, up 14% from the previous quarter. The world's largest social network also revealed that it now has 1.06 billion monthly active users, and 618 million daily active users on average.

"In 2012, we connected over a billion people and became a mobile company," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "We enter 2013 with good momentum and will continue to invest to achieve our mission and become a stronger, more valuable company."

It's unclear at this time if/when Facebook plans to rollout this (or any) redesign to Timeline.

Facebook today updated its Android app (Google Play link) with performance improvements related to viewing photos, and the ability to send voice messages to friends, a feature that was just recently added into the Facebook Messenger standalone app. The update also adds the ability for users to share friends' stories to timelines, pages, and groups on the social network.

Facebook back in December released a more major update to its Android app with general performance improvements, similar to an update to its iOS app from earlier in 2012.

Facebook yesterday began expanding its new voice over IP (VoIP) calling service inside the Messenger app on iOS and Android to United States accounts. The feature was previously only available in Canada, and allows users to place calls with their Facebook friends using Wi-Fi or cellular data without wasting minutes. To access the feature, click the information button in the top of any chat with a friend on the Messenger app and a new button called "Free Call" should be available.

Facebook today at a special press event announced a new service called "Graph Search," which will allow users to make new connections and view expanded searches for different queries on the social network. The search will now appear as a bigger bar on the top of every Facebook page, and show the following information:

The first version of Graph Search focuses on four main areas -- people, photos, places, and interests.

People: “friends who live in my city,” “people from my hometown who like hiking,” “friends of friends who have been to Yosemite National Park,” “software engineers who live in San Francisco and like skiing," "people who like things I like," "people who like tennis and live nearby"

Photos: “photos I like,” “photos of my family,” “photos of my friends before 1999,” "photos of my friends taken in New York," “photos of the Eiffel Tower”

Places: “restaurants in San Francisco,” “cities visited by my family,” "Indian restaurants liked by my friends from India," “tourist attractions in Italy visited by my friends,” “restaurants in New York liked by chefs," "countries my friends have visited"

Interests: “music my friends like,” “movies liked by people who like movies I like,” "languages my friends speak," “strategy games played by friends of my friends,” "movies liked by people who are film directors," "books read by CEOs"

Graph Search will appear as a bigger search bar at the top of each page. When you search for something, that search not only determines the set of results you get, but also serves as a title for the page. You can edit the title – and in doing so create your own custom view of the content you and your friends have shared on Facebook.

The beta for Graph Search launches today.

According to Engadget, Facebook has begun sending invitations for a press event that will take place next Tuesday, January 15. Unlike prior events, the media knows close to nothing about what Facebook will discuss, other than the invite's tagline: "Come and see what we're building." This could be interpreted in two different ways - the long-awaited Facebook-branded smartphone could finally be unveiled, or the social network is working on some new features that it wants to show off to the public. In regards to that, the rumor of a Facebook-powered search engine has popped up several times over the past month.

It's not clear at this time when all Facebook users can expect to see this new Timeline.

Facebook today released an update to its standalone Facebook Messenger app for both iOS (App Store link) and Android OS (Google Play link). The update adds the ability for users to send voice messages to their friends as an alternative to the traditional text message. In addition, Facebook has begun testing with users in Canada a feature that would allow users to make a Voice over IP (VoIP) call to other users. The social network has yet to announce when this feature will be rolled out globally.

With the Poke app, you can poke or send a message, photo, or video to Facebook friends to share what you're up to in a lightweight way. You can poke an individual friend or several at once. Each message expires after a specific time you've set, either 1, 3, 5 or 10 seconds. When time runs out, the message disappears from the app.

At this time, the app is only available to iOS users.

According to ABC News, Facebook has begun testing a number of design changes to the Timeline profile design with a small number of users. The changes bring tabs back to users' profiles, allowing access to "About," "Friends," and "Photos," with a "More" tab that stores everything else. This new design is in favor of the boxes of information currently at the top of every users' Timeline on Facebook.

Facebook confirmed today that it’s trying some new things. “This is a new design Facebook is testing with a small percentage of people to make navigating timeline even easier,” a Facebook spokesperson told ABC News.

It's unclear at this time if Facebook plans to release the updated design to everyone eventually.

Facebook today announced improvements to its Messages feature, giving users to filter their messages. The social network is dividing filtering into two categories: Basic Filtering, which will allow anyone you may know to send you messages, and Strict Filtering, which will only allow friends to message you.

With filters, the following types of messages may reach your Inbox that before would not:

• Someone using Messenger for Android, who is not on Facebook but has your contact info in their phone, wanted to send you a message
• A friend of a friend wanted to include you in a message about a party along with some of your mutual friends
• A friend wanted to send a message to your @facebook.com address

If you see a message from someone you don't want to hear from in your Inbox, you can always select “Move to Other” or “Report Spam” from the Actions menu. You can also block people that you don’t want to hear from on Facebook.

In addition, Facebook revealed that it has begun a test with a small amount of its users that will allow them to charge $1 to people who want to message them, but aren't friends with them on Facebook. The feature is being tested only in the United States, and there isn't any news on whether it could eventually be rolled out to everyone.

Today we’re starting a small experiment to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance. This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the Inbox rather than the Other folder of a recipient that they are not connected with.

Facebook today announced a refreshed version of its "Nearby" feature for both iOS and Android devices, allowing users to discover places that their friends have liked or checked into. In addition, Facebook has added the option for users to share places they like with their friends, who can then do the same with their friends. Finally, the social network is calling this an "early release" and that it will continue to improve as more people use Nearby. The company confirmed that it would be adding "places info from third party services in the near future."

Find New Places 

From the app menu, open the tab to find local spots your friends have recommended, checked into, or liked. If you’re looking for a place to eat, choose a category like Restaurants to see what’s nearby. When you find a place that looks interesting, tap to see info like friends who’ve been there and business hours.

Share Places with Friends

In addition to discovering new places to visit, you can share what you think by rating or recommending places to your friends. Your own suggestions become more personalized the more you and your friends rate, recommend, and check into places.

The new Nearby features will be available later today.

Following an update to bring performance enhancements to its Android app, Facebook today also released a smaller update to its iOS app (App Store link) that features a faster loading News Feed and a rebuilt Timeline to load faster. The native Facebook for iOS app saw a more major performance overhaul earlier this year. The new update also features the ability for users to choose an album when uploading photos through the app.

Post your photos to albums and enjoy a speedier app.

• You can now choose an album when uploading photos
• News feed loads more quickly
• Completely rebuilt timeline opens faster on your iPhone

Following an update to Facebook's native iOS app earlier this year focused on improvements to performance, the social network today released a similar update to its native Android app (Google Play link). Version 2.0 of Facebook for Android is both faster loading the app and News Feed, as well as other content such as photos. Facebook notes that the update loads photos and Timelines twice as fast as the previous version.

Today, we're releasing a new version of Facebook for Android that's been rebuilt in native code to improve speed and performance. To support the unique complexity of Facebook stories across devices, we're moving from a hybrid native/webview to pure native code, allowing us to optimize the Facebook experience for faster loading, new user interfaces, disk cache, and so on.

We rebuilt several of Facebook for Android's core features in native code, including news feed and Timeline, to create a faster experience whether you're opening the app, looking at photos, or interacting with friends. Now, you can comment and like a story more quickly, and photo loading is optimized to be much faster. We also built a new, automatically updated story banner to bubble up the newest stories, no matter where you are in news feed.

Alongside Google, Facebook today also published its own review of 2012, giving users the top memes, events, songs, movies, check-ins, public figures, books, technology, politics, television, and sports topics of the past year. The social network also began compiling a customized 2012 review for every user of Facebook. The review is available on users' timelines and displays their top content over the past twelve (12) months.

Facebook today announced an update to its Messenger app for Android-powered devices (Google Play link), introducing the ability for users to signup using just their name and phone number, rather than logging in using a Facebook account. The app will import contacts from the user's phone book and allow them to start messaging them just as they would if they would have used a Facebook account to login. The update to the app is available beginning today and accounts will be launching sometime in the coming weeks. A similar update will be coming to the iOS version of Messenger soon as well.

Once you enable the feature, you’ll get a social sidebar with your Facebook chat and updates, like new comments and photo tags. You’ll also get notifications for messages, friend requests and more that you can respond to right from your Firefox toolbar.

Mozilla says that it is working to bring more social integration directly inside Firefox for the future.

According to a report from TechCrunch, Facebook has begun rolling out a new feature for its native iOS app dubbed "Photo Sync" that will automatically upload all pictures a user takes on their iPhone to a private album on the social network. The feature is designed to make sharing photos easier on Facebook.

Here’s how Facebook Photo Sync works, at least for those lucky enough to be in the test. You go to the Photos app in the Facebook For iOS app’s sidebar navigation or the photos section of your Timeline and scroll to the bottom. There you may find an option to check out Photo Sync and then enable it, as seen in this photo sent in by tipster YoloFahad (an Instagrammer-extraordinaire).

Facebook will then automatically upload photos you shoot to an unpublished album only you can see. From there you can authorize which photos you want posted.

Each user gets 2 GB of storage space for their automatically uploaded pictures.

Facebook today announced that it has begun rolling out a redesigned version of friendship pages on the social network that resembles the Timeline profile view. Friendship pages allow users to see all the activity they share in common with their friends. The new design will be rolling out over the coming days. 

Starting today, we're introducing a new layout for friendship pages. Friendship pages combine posts, photos and events that you and another person have shared. Click the gear menu at the top of a friend's timeline to see a friendship page. If you've listed yourself as "in a relationship" with someone, you can also visitfacebook.com/us to see the friendship page you share with that person.

According to a report from The Next Web, Facebook has confirmed that it has begun testing a slightly refreshed version of the Timeline profile view. The update moves all content-related posts, such as status updates, Wall posts from friends, pictures, to the left side of the page, while other boxes are now on the right, such as friends and app activity. The current Timeline displays content posts under both columns, which has shown to be confusing to users.

We reached out to Facebook to confirm this isn’t just a glitch, and boy were we thankful it isn’t. “This is a new design Facebook is testing with a small percentage of people to make navigating timeline even easier,” a Facebook spokesperson told The Next Web. Great, now roll it out to me so that I can finally scroll down someone’s Timeline without feeling like my eyes are playing ping pong.

Facebook today reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2012, announcing a revenue of $1.3 billion, which beats analyst expectations. Despite that, Facebook still reported a net loss of $59 million in the quarter. 86% of Facebook's revenue in the quarter came from advertising, but for the first time ever, the company made money from mobile advertising, accounting for 14% of the total.

"As proud as I am that a billion people use Facebook each month, I'm also really happy that over 600 million people now share and connect on Facebook every month using mobile devices," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. "People who use our mobile products are more engaged, and we believe we can increase engagement even further as we continue to introduce new products and improve our platform. At the same time, we are deeply integrating monetization into our product teams in order to build a stronger, more valuable company."

The social network says that as of September 2012, it has 1.01 billion monthly active users.

Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a status update today that Facebook has surpassed one billion users, marking a major milestone for the world's most popular social network. Facebook, which is just eight years old, surpassed 500 million users back in 2010, making this milestone even more amazing.

Facebook also revealed the following statistics since the site launched:

• 1.13 trillion "Likes"
• 219 billion photos
• 140.3 billion friend requests
• 17 billion "check-ins"

Following an update to its Android app earlier this month, Facebook has released an updated version of its Messenger app for iOS devices (App Store link) with a refreshed user interface and some new features. The app now allows users to swipe to the left to see a list of friends available on chat, and set "favorites," which are friends you talk to the most. Individual conversations have also been overhauled to look more like the Messages app on iOS with each message inside its own "bubble."

- Swipe left anywhere in the app to quickly see who's available and send a message
- Add friends you message most to the top of your Favorites
- New design for conversations
- Improved speed and reliability
- Support for iOS 6 and iPhone 5
- Bug fixes

Facebook today announced that it has begun rolling out a new feature to users on the social network that will allow them to send actual gifts to their friends for their birthdays. Gifts can be sent from either the birthday reminders section in the sidebar of Facebook, or on a person's timeline.

Choose a gift, attach a card and send. You can post your gift to your friend's timeline or send it privately. Your friend can then unwrap a preview of the gift and it will show up on their doorstep a few days later.

You can pay right away or add your payment details later. Your friend provides their address.

To make sure they love the gift, they can choose the color, size or flavor that they want, or even exchange it for something else of equal value.

The social network says that the feature will be rolling out "gradually," first to those in the United States.

Facebook yesterday announced version 3.1 of its iOS SDK, bringing support for iOS 6 and Facebook integration in iOS.

Native, ready-to-use UI controls: The SDK includes several pre-built user interface controls:

• Friend Picker to help apps easily pick friends. Example: use a friend picker to choose friends to tag in an Open Graph action.
• Places Picker so apps can easily integrate with Facebook places. Example: use this picker to let users include a place with their posts.
• Profile Picture control so your app can easily show the profile picture of a user, their friends, places, or other kinds of Facebook objects.
• Login controls for easily building Login and Logout experiences.

The new SDK also comes with standard interfaces for logging in using Facebook, and share sheets using Facebook for third-party apps. In addition, new APIs and analytics information is available for developers to use.