The report was published today by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project.

Among the study’s highlights are these numbers:

• Only a small sampling of adults said their experience on social networks was unpleasant. Five percent of adults said that people are mostly unkind on Facebook and other social media channels, while five percent said their answer depends on the situation.
• The remainder of adult social network users said they didn’t know how to answer the question or refused to answer it.

When it came to unpleasant behavior on Facebook, adults have seen their share, but incidents occur far less frequently than with teens.

Pew’s study of adults reveals far different — and significantly more positive data — than a similar report issued late last year about the experiences online of young people aged 12 through 17.

Today’s report says that adults are somewhat more likely to stand back, not get involved, and ignore offensive behavior they find online. Pew’s study of teens revealed that one-quarter of the time a negative exchange on a social network led to a face-to-face argument.

Among the more disconcerting statistics from last year’s report:

• A large majority, 88 percent, of social media-using teens have witnessed other users being mean or cruel on social networks, and
• 15 percent have been the target of online meanness.

However, more teens said they had positive experiences online rather than negative interactions, despite the antisocial behavior that many young people witnessed and experienced.

The data of adults on social networks was collected from a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center July 25 through August 26, 2011.

Do you agree with Pew that adults seem happier and behave appropriately on Facebook?

Courtesy: Pew Research Center

Zynga‘s games already reach an estmated 227 million players on Facebook, but an enormous potential audience could come from the partnership with Hasbro: Players 12 and younger.

Many of Zynga’s games are already suitable for younger players, but they largely haven’t been able to play any of them because Facebook’s minimum age requirement is 13, among other reasons.

The deal with Hasbro enables each company to create licensed versions of the other’s products, along with co-branded applications, toys and souvenir-type merchandise (imagine Zynga characters getting the same kind of plushie treatment that Rovio’s angry birds have gotten).

The two companies expect to release their first product together this fall, and haven’t specified which title comes first — other than listing three of Zynga’s titles as possible examples in the release: FarmVille, CityVille and Words With Friends. 

Speaking of which, it will be interesting to see whether any kind of title merger occurs between Zynga’s category-leading Words With Friends and Hasbro’s Scrabble, which has had a difficult existence on the social network. 

Hasbro’s Scrbble emerged on Facebook through a partnership with Electronic Arts, and after a copyright battle with the defunct Scrabulous, has never captured the kind of popularity enjoyed by Zynga’s Words With Friends.

Zynga Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus said in a prepared statement:

It’s exciting to partner with Hasbro as we share a common vision for play and a mission to connect the world through games. This partnership is so special because it represents an exciting leap forward in enabling people to connect their virtual and real worlds. Hasbro has inspired play through their famous toys, games and action figures and we look forward to working with a company that continually creates meaningful and fun brands.

Hasbro’s President and Chief Executive Officer Brian Goldner said in a prepared statement:

Hasbro is thrilled to have the opportunity to bring Zynga’s immensely popular social games to life in a variety of creative and new expressions that reflect consumers’ growing desire to surround themselves with gaming brands they love anytime, anywhere together with their friends and family.

Zynga is bringing more games to mainstream culture and is redefining how people play. At Hasbro, we’re proud to help bring their games to even more people around the world. This strategic alliance plays off of both Hasbro’s and Zynga’s proven strengths and is emblematic of the new innovations and new platforms we are creating across our entire gaming portfolio.

That’s what each class-B shareholder received in exchange for surrendering voting control to Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg.

Is that $100 per share or $100 per holder, you ask? It looks like the latter, according to the legal agreement signed by the shareholders. The document says [unedited by us]: 

This agreement is being entered into in exchange for a payment of $100 in cash from the Proxyholder to Stockholder and for other good and valuable consideration, the sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged and agreed.

The New York Times’ DealBook reported that notable investors who signed these legal agreements, which were likely formalities, included Facebook’s former President Sean Parker and venture-capital backers Digital Sky Technologies and Accel Partners.

Now before you think Zuckerberg has gone completely mad with power, not everything is rosy in his employment contract with Facebook: It says he’s limited to 21 paid days off per year.

Eti Suruzon, vice president of planning and media at Blink, sent the screenshot pictured here, showing more granularity in the visibility settings than has previously existed in chat — with the ability to only allow certain individuals or lists of friends to see you.

Readers, have you seen anything along these lines when you’re on Facebook?

The powerful visual and graphic elements of timeline give politicians and candidates the chance to present a more complete image — even humanize them.

Don Seymour, director of digital communications for the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner, believes that timeline will provide lawmakers with a powerful communications tool:

I think timeline will open new opportunities for lawmakers to really tell a story, whether it’s about the Speaker’s background as a small businessman or the work being done in the House to create a better environment for private-sector job growth.

Seymour adds that the House has passed nearly 30 bipartisan jobs bills in the last year that are stalled in the Senate, and timeline would give him a way to graphically highlight when each bill was passed, what they do, where they stand, and more.

There are times when a campaign or lawmakers’ office may want to emphasize their support for a bill, but that view might change over time. Consider votes to go to war or regarding the budget.

That dynamic will make the role of a Facebook page administrator more important especially during a transition to timeline, when an administrator can adjust privacy settings and remove posts from the page history.

Will Robinson, a partner in The New Media Firm, which integrates traditional and social media for issue campaigns and progressive political causes, describes timeline this way:

Timeline is like visiting your childhood home, taking out all the drawers in your old room and throwing the contents on the bed. Some politicians have been on Facebook since 2006, so the transition to timeline will allow them to edit as well as reintroduce a lot of concepts and affirm their commitment to a cause.

A politico should want their timeline to be representative of who they are. Posts that seemed normal in the heat of a partisan battle, might not be so artfully expressed in hindsight.

Facebook is like C-SPAN. There’s a lot of long-form content that requires context.

Members of Congress have an additional dynamic to consider. Under current House rules, members have an official page and a separate page for their campaign (they are up for re-election every two years.) That means maintaining and editing two distinct but related timelines while maintaining a consistent brand and message for both.

Timeline Cover And Open Graph Apps

The large cover image on timeline profiles will be the most exciting addition for pages, Robinson believes. He says:

It will be really interesting to see what people include and how regional differences across the country are represented. The normal branding for campaigns is a photo of the candidate with a little logo.

We’ll see whether people go with traditional political branding or use something that’s more connecting. I would encourage people to view the cover as something other than a billboard.

The 2012 presidential campaigns have already started incorporating custom Facebook applications and tabs for fundraising, purchases or photo sharing on pages.

When timeline is available for pages, a campaign or advocacy initiative could add open graph actions such as “donate,” or “buy,” which would appear more prominently in timeline.

Robinson believes that people in the political field are going to use more apps with timeline. He said:

For one issue campaign page we ran, a post to Facebook would get 50,000 views.  An app would allow us to share the content and capture other people’s information, like why they support the issue, which would increase the persuasiveness of the post.

The key for politicos is creating apps that are seamless and intuitive, added Robinson.

Campaigns and elected officials will eventually embrace timeline, possibly with some trepidation at first, which is common whenever Facebook makes a change.

The cover and open graph apps are elements that political types should embrace because of the branding potential.

Page administrators should think carefully before implementing timeline, however, spending some time to think strategically about their boss’s image before making the transition.

How do you think political types will curate timeline on their pages?

The Wall Street Journal reported that the fbStart program has signed up early stage business-investment groups including Seedcamp, sFund, 500 Startups, TechStars, and Y Combinator.

In its initial public offering filing earlier this month, details were included on Facebook-centric developers including Zynga, BranchOut, and Color Labs.

TechStars Founder and Chief Executive David Cohen (no relatiton to yours truly) told the Journal that about one-half of the fund’s 80 active developers will take advantage of fbStart to various degrees, adding:

We’ve been asking Facebook for ways to get better access and advance information for our companies, and this is their way of doing that.

And Christine Tsai, a partner in 500 Startups, told the newspaper most of the 70 companies under its umbrella use Facebook to some extent, adding that fbStart benefits Facebook by allowing it to see how developers are using its new tools, and saying:

They’re putting a lot more manpower behind working with us in a more formal way.

The Journal cited a September study by the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, which found that U.S.-based developers of Facebook applications accounted for 182,744 full-time jobs in 2011

The author of the study, Associate Professor of Information Systems Siva Visawanathan, told the newspaper:

Traditionally, the model has been to keep your platform closed from competitors, but people are realizing that opening it up can be a big advantage, because more apps and services attracts more users.

Right now, retail marketing executives are still learning how advertising on Facebook offers a return on investment in a way that’s different from other types of promotions — as this understanding grows, so will social ad spending.

Based on our client data, 40 to 60 percent of all transactions that start on a Facebook ad end in a different channel. That can make the return on investment in Facebook ads look poorer than it really is.

However, online interaction on Facebook seems to lead to more monetization offline; consumers who interact with brands on Facebook tend to buy their products more frequently and at higher values.

New ad formats will also inspire advertisers to spend more. Sponsored stories is just the beginning, as there’s huge potential in making ads and apps even more inherently social while tapping more of the user data Facebook already has.

Shift In Media Mix

Money for social media ads will continue to come from budgets for ads on TV and print rather than search and display.

Consumers’ behavior when they see ads on Facebook is a lot like when they see ads on TV. They initially respond well and strongly but when they see the same ads again the response rates drop significantly.

Thus, the best-executed marketing strategies on both TV and Facebook have:

Many people use Facebook while they’re watching TV and engage with shows’ brands most while they’re on the air. So, if a brand wants to reach out to an audience of a particular show it should advertise on Facebook, too.

So, we expect to see more coordinated TV and Facebook campaigns as well as a shift of media dollars away from TV and print to Facebook.

Guest writer Sid Shah is director of business analytics at Adobe.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Angry Birds for Facebook will include social features, allowing players to compete against their friends, boast about their scores, and earn gold, silver, or bronze crowns for achieving the top three scores at any of the game’s levels.

The Facebook version of the game will also feature the following power-ups:

• Sling Scope, which gives players access to laser targeting for precise aim;

• King Sling, an upgrade that provides maximum power and velocity;

• Super Seeds, which “turn any bird into a pig-popping giant”; and

• Birdquake, which helps players take out the pigs’ defenses.

There will be a launch event on Facebook, as well as local activities in Jakarta, Bangkok, and Mumbai, Rovio said.

Create Your Deliciousness, running through February 17, allows Facebook users who like the Seattle’s Best page to concoct their own caffeinated concoctions by choosing their favorite blend, cream, sugar, and toppings including birthday cake, salted toffee, peanut butter puffs, candy canes, mini marshmallows, chocolate chips, and cotton candy.

Seattle’s Best will choose 100 Create Your Deliciousness participants each day through February 17, who will each receive a free 12-ounce bag of coffee.

Create Your Deliciousness is similar in concept to Virtual Coca-Cola Freestyle, which encouraged Facebook users who like the Coca-Cola page to create virtual soft drinks by combining the available carbonated and non-carbonated offerings.

Seattle’s Best Chief Marketing Officer Chris Bruzzo said:

We’ve always known how much people love their coffee, and what an important part of their day it is. What surprised us was that most consumers are really thinking outside of the mug when it comes to what they are coupling with their coffee to make it delicious. More than 80 percent of those surveyed have gone to interesting lengths playing barista themselves, adding items like cayenne pepper, balsamic vinegar, grape soda, and even gummy bears to their coffee.

Readers, what do you think of this particular branding exercise?

Martin Huml, managing partner and founder of Runway Capital, joins Socialbakers and president and chief operating officer in the U.S. Huml also has experience in private equity at Credit Suisse First Boston in London and New York.

The vice president of marketing at the new division is Katrina Wong, who led corporate marketing for subscription billing company Zuora.

Socialbakers also has offices in London and Prague, and it claims more than 750 customers and 275,000 registered marketing users, as well as more than 60 brands in the U.S. already using its analytics technology. Clients include Lufthansa, L’Oreal, Danone, Vodafone, Samsung, GE Money, Ogilvy, Kraft, and Peugeot.