Jarid's Log

Will Facebook Eat Your Children?

2009-12-18T06:19:00.003-06:00

Yes...Facebook has once again changed privacy controls, added the live feed and will soon implement changes to its fans pages...change happens and Facebook is certainly no exception. Naturally, a large segment of the Facebook community is once again up in arms, complaining about these changes. No statement sums up this sentiment better than the status a friend posted yesterday.

REPOST!! URGENT FACEBOOK UPDATE: As of today, Facebook staff will be allowed to eat your children and pets. To turn this option off, go to settings, then privacy, then meals. Click the top two boxes to prevent the employees of Facebook from eating your beloved children and pets. Copy and post.

Change is inevitable and despite all of our efforts we must accept, adapt, move forward and pave a path
toward the future. Remember last March, when Facebook altered their news feed and did away with the live feed. The Facebook community was livid, groups sprung up to revive the live feed, restore Facebook to its old platform and thousands closed their accounts. Yet, Facebook survived...millions of new users joined the ranks and the rest of us adapted. But here we are 6 months later, arming ourselves with pitchforks and joined by page administrators fearful of the upcoming changes to fan pages.

Settle down...change is not always a bad thing.

Facebook gained popularity due to its privacy controls. Unlike that other major network, it gave us control over who could search for us, what information we shared and who could contact us. The Facebook comunity has grown by leaps and bounds, leading to new concerns over privacy. As a result, FB is adapting to encourage sharing while maintaining control over privacy. Although concerns over their default settings have risen, the new privacy interface allows the same level of privacy as before with additional benefits. For instance, we can now control which friends see certain activity and posts. Naturally, there are growing pains, but ultimately we will adapt and six months from now we will have forgotten those changes.

The bottom line is that Facebook will not eat your children...or pets...or even your beloved laptop. It's simply progressing as we all must. Facebook will continue to change in the future with a change in tab width and the elimination of the boxes tab. Someday they may go too far; and when they do, another social network will take their place. But until then, fear not...because no matter what happens, FACEBOOK WILL NOT EAT YOUR CHILDREN.

Facebook Changes Everyone Should Read About

Changes to Facebook profiles, fan pages and applications

2009-12-18T06:15:00.003-06:00

At the end of October, Facebook rolled out a new roadmap for profiles and fan pages. The uproar among the public has been relatively limited to privacy concerns, but the roadmap also raised the eyebrow of the page administrator and developer community. Throughout the next year, FB will implement new policies for everything from tab width to application bookmarking. To help those engaged in social marketing we have outlined a few changes which every business or page administrator should be aware of.

Email Addresses

Why not start with the best news for page administrators. According to FB, they will soon roll out an option
that will allow Facebook page administrators and applications to ask for and collect the email addresses of their fans and users. For the business and non-profit community, this option will create new opportunities to expand your supporter communications. The new option will be rolled out in mid-January and according to Facebook:

We're excited to announce that you will soon have the ability to ask users for their primary Facebook email addresses, providing you with a direct channel to communicate with your users. This will also serve as a replacement for application-to-user notifications. (We think that Counters and the new News functionality will serve as a better replacement for user-to-user notifications.)

Notifications

With the addition of e-mail address capture comes changes to application notification. According to FB:

We're removing application-to-user notifications and user-to-user notifications. Instead, we encourage you to use other channels to communicate directly with your users, and to enable them to communicate with each other about your application

According to Facebook the notification changes will occur "approximately 30 days after you are able to start requesting a user's email address. (Latest estimate: Early 2010)

Updates and Stream
Facebook will allow pages and applications to send targeted updates as well as posting stories to the stream.

Application News
Facebook will roll out an application news platform allowing you to communicate with users while they are exploring the application dashboard. The news option will also have a per-user targeting option.
Boxes Tab & Profile Boxes

Early in 2010, Facebook will eliminate profile boxes, application info sections and the Boxes tab from user profiles. This move will certainly anger the overall FB community and presents a challenge to developers whose only outlet of free profile advertisement will be an application tab (since many users simply don't like cluttering their profile tabs).

The removal of profile boxes and the boxes tab also presents a design and navigation challenge to page administrators and developers. For instance, I utilize a profile box on many pages I developed to create an index of links to organization websites and other social media outlets. Since many visitors to a page only scan the Wall, it will present a definitive design challenge.

Facebook has stated they are researching additional methods of page and application integration into fan profiles, but it is likely that the planned "early 2010" rollout will occur before an alternative is developed.

Profile and Page Tabs

According to FB:

Application tabs will be the only way to integrate applications into profiles and Pages. Application tabs will shrink from 760 pixels wide (today) to 520* pixels wide to accommodate a slightly revised design. Boxes, info sections, and the Boxes tab will be removed in the near future.

News feed and Stream

In the past all content shared by a friend or page appeared in the stream by default. However, the growing popularity of pages and abusive posting by some page administrators has led to changes in how pages appear in the streams of fans. Many fans have hidden page posts and the changes are directly meant to free up bandwidth while assuring that pages with meaningful content continue to be viewed in the stream. Facebook has implemented a new algorithm that determines what appears for each user, meaning that stream exposure is no longer guaranteed.

Exposure on fan streams will be based upon how many people like your posts, how many fans share your content, how many fans visit your page and which pages fans interact with frequently. If users want to see all page updates they will need to click on the Pages option on their left hand filter.

Why?

The changes Facebook is implementing over the next year are a direct result of ad revenue and server capacity. The changes much of the development community upset, but for now we must prepare for these changes and adapt to these changes.

20 Essential Facebook applications for businesses and pages

2009-11-21T11:51:00.001-06:00

Below are 20 essential Facebook applications for businesses and individuals engaged in social marketing and utilizing Facebook.

Integrating Feeds and Blogs

Networked Blogs

Networked Blogs allows you to integrate your blog feed and build a base of followers on Facebook. The application can publish your feed to both your profile and fan page.

Social RSS

Social RSS is the most popular RSS reader app in Facebook. You can add your blogs, twitter and RSS feeds to your Personal Profile and Business Pages.

Promotions and Contests

Promotions

Promotions Facebook verified application for companies to run branded interactive promotions on their fan pages. Promotion formats include: sweepstakes, contests, coupon giveaways, and more...

Countdown Calendar

Create a custom countdown for your profile. The app features numerour skins, pic integration and more.

Contests

Contests for Fan Pages enables companies to easily create & launch branded photo, video, design & essay-based contests on Facebook Fan Pages within minutes.

Social Profile Linking

Twitter

Links your Twitter account and Facebook Fan Pages

Social Tweet

Social Tweet enables you to tweet directly from Facebook. It updates both your Twitter and Facebook profile. It can also be displayed on your Wall, Boxes tab or a new "Tweet" tab.

Digg.com

You’ll have the option to post anything you Digg, submit, or comment on to your Facebook feed.

Slideshare

SlideShare allows you to link your Slideshare account and share presentations and documents with your Facebook network.

Selective Twitter Status

Update your Facebook Status from Twitter, but only for the tweets you choose.

Selling

Ebay Selling Feed

Post items your selling to your profile and more.

Mobile Apps

Blackberry for Smartphones

Video

YouTube Video Box

YouTube Video Box is the best way to share your favourite YouTube videos on Facebook. Quickly find videos with our integrated search, show off your favourite videos on their very own profile tab, import your favourite videos to your profile or page from an existing YouTube.com account and much more!

Posted Items Pro

Allows you organize and list old posted items such as video, pics, links and more.

Custom Profile & Pages

Application Builder

Create your own facebook application without knowledge of any programming language in few minutes for free.

Extended Info

Extended Info allows you to add extra fields to your profile or page, such as Currently Reading, Favorite Foods, or anything you can think of.

Profile HTML

Add HTML to your Profile

Static FBML

Add customization to your Fan Page by using Static FBML to add select html or Facebook mark-up language to your Fan Page.

Notes

The Notes application page displays notes recently written by your friends, notes in which your friends have been tagged, and links to your own notes.

Flash

This application will add a box to your Page in which you can upload your own Flash Files to achieve advanced customization.

Easy Add - Facebook Share and ReTweet Button To Blogger

2009-11-20T10:58:00.006-06:00

To add Facebook Share and ReTweet buttons to your blogger blog. Follow the steps below.

1. Open up your blog dashboard and click on layout
2. Click on Edit Template and check the expand widgets box
3. Find the <div class=’post-header-line-1′/>
4. Insert the following code below the line of code.

For Small Icons

<span id='tweetmeme-blogger-gadget' style='float: right; margin: 5px; vertical-align: middle; background: transparent;'><script type='text/javascript'>tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';tweetmeme_style = 'compact';tweetmeme_source = 'advancinghope';tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly';</script><script src='http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js' type='text/javascript'/></span><span style='float: right; margin: 5px; vertical-align: middle; background: transparent;'><a href='http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php' name='fb_share' type='button'>Share</a><script src='http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share' type='text/javascript'/></span>

For Buttons with Icons

<span id="tweetmeme-blogger-gadget" style="float: right; margin: 5px; vertical-align: middle; background: transparent;"><script type="text/javascript">tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly';</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script></span><span style='float: right; margin: 5px; vertical-align: middle; background: transparent;'><a name="fb_share" type="box_count" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php">Share</a><script src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share" type="text/javascript"></script></span>

Final Step - Important
Change the tweetme source= from advancinghope to your Twitter ID

For more information on how to install Facebook and Twitter buttons visit:
Facebook Share or Tweetmeme for Blogger

JPMorgan Chase teams up with Facebook to donate $5 million to small charities

2009-11-19T06:12:00.002-06:00

JPMorgan Chase has teamed up with Facebook to allow Facebook users to decide how to give away $5 million to small charities.

The "Chase Community Giving" Application will let Facebook users choose from more than half a million charities with an operating budget less than $10 million apiece.

The 100 charities obtaining the most votes will each receive $25,000 from Chase. In addition, a second round of voting will award a $1 million grant to one of the 100 charities. The facebook vote begins on January 15th.

The $5 million prize pool is part of a marketing campaign designed to target the business of small charities, and represents the a departure from the traditional donation patterns of the banking giant. JPMorgan Chase donates about $100 million annually to non-profits. However, these donations are typically granted to larger, higher-profile organizations.