Techno Web Mart

Microsoft India announces three Xbox 360 Holiday Value Bundles

2013-10-10T10:51:00.001-07:00

With the launch of the next generation Xbox One console not too far away, this is far from the perfect time to pick up last generation's console, the Xbox 360. In fact, if you manage to look past the Xbox 360's future-proofing impossibility, even its pricing can be expected to reduce once the Xbox One launches. However, Microsoft India is trying to sweeten the deal for you regardless, with their Xbox 360 Holiday Value Bundles.

Three Microsoft Xbox 360 Holiday Value Bundles have been announced, two featuring Kinect, and all featuring bundled games. The one without Kinect, called the 250GB Core Bundle (Rs. 24,990), seems like the best deal, with four AAA titles bundled (Darksiders II full-game DVD, and three full game download tokens - Batman Arkham City, Halo Reach and Gears of War 3), three of which at least most of the console demographic would be excited to play, or own. The Core bundle has previously been known as the Hardcore Gamer bundle.

As for the Kinect bundles, there are two Xbox 360 storage variants available, of which the first is the 4GB Xbox 360 with Kinect bundle (Rs. 26,990). It gets you a FIFA 14 DVD, and three Kinect Games (Kinect Adventures plus Kinect Disneyland and YourShape Fitness Evolved 2013 or Fruit Ninja, Forza Motorsport 4 combo) alongside the console and the Kinect camera.

The 250GB Xbox 360 with Kinect bundle (Rs. 34,990) will net you Minecraft, Kinect Adventures, Dance Central 2 and Kinect Sports 1. All three bundles will be available in retail stores from October 12, 2013.

Announcing the Microsoft Xbox 360 Holiday Value Bundles (of 2013), Anshu Mor, Business Group Lead - Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd., said:

"This Diwali, we wanted to give you another reason to celebrate. So there it is -- FIFA 14, all yours, absolutely free with the Xbox 360 4GB Kinect Bundle. Also in the bundle, consumers would get three additional Kinect blockbuster games making it the most perfect festive purchase to enjoy with your friends and family."

LG announces curved screen phones to launch in 2014

2013-10-10T10:49:00.000-07:00

The South Korean firm said it hoped to start selling the first handsets to feature the tech next year.
The news comes weeks after Samsung made a similar announcement.

Samsung said it intended to launch its first product - a special edition of the Galaxy Note 3 - later this month.
Both companies already use the technology to offer curved OLED television sets.
Although the displays used in the TVs are in theory "flexible", they are mounted in fixed shells so they cannot be bent or otherwise re-shaped by the owner.

A press release from LG's display division indicated its handset screen would curve from top-to-bottom rather than side-to-side, the design Samsung described in a recent patent.

It said the advantage of using the tech was that the panel was "bendable and unbreakable".
"The new display is vertically concave from top to bottom with a radius of 700mm [28in], opening up a world of design innovations in the smartphone market," LG added.

LG had previously developed a flexible e-ink display

"What's more, it is also the world's lightest, weighing a mere 7.2g [0.25oz] even with a 6in screen, the largest among current smartphone OLED displays."

One industry watcher was not convinced the product, as described, would have much appeal.
"I think LG is doing this to show it is innovative, to do something different and to stand out from the rest of the bar-style screen devices that we have at the moment," said David McQueen, a mobile device expert at tech consultants Informa.

"But I don't think consumers are going to be that interested by a slightly curved design.
"However, we do think there will be interest if flexible screens are used to offer different form factors.
"For example a device that you snap round your wrist or a traditional shaped smartphone whose screen wraps around the sides onto a bit of the back so that the edges become touchscreen rather than hard buttons."

Volkswagen launches Vento TSI for Indian market at under Rs 10L

2013-10-10T10:47:00.003-07:00

Volkswagen, Europe’s largest carmaker, on Thursday announced the launch of the new Vento TSI, priced at Rs 9.99 lakh (ex showroom Delhi).

The new Vento TSI has a fuel-efficient 1.2-litre turbocharged petrol engine, which produces 105 PS of power @ 5000 rpm and a maximum torque of 175 Nm. It also gets a high-tech 7-speed DSG automatic gearbox for outstanding acceleration and ease of driving, without compromising on fuel economy, the company said in a statement.

Volkswagen’s critically acclaimed forced-induction TSI engines are compact, powerful, and use less fuel when compared to bigger, normally-aspirated engines. TSI engines also deliver higher torque output at relatively lower engine speeds, which makes these engines responsive as well as fuel-efficient in a wide range of operating conditions, said the carmaker.

Commenting on the launch of the new Vento TSI, Arvind Saxena, Managing Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Group Sales India said, “With the new Vento TSI, Volkswagen takes the lead with producing cars that are high-tech, powerful and fuel-efficient. With a turbocharged petrol engine and 7-speed DSG automatic gearbox, the Vento TSI provides excellent performance and fuel economy,”
The car is also equipped with a host of safety features like anti-lock brakes, an electronic stabilization program, hill-hold function, dual frontal airbags, 3-point seatbelts at the front and an electronic engine immobilizer with floating code.

Sales of the New Volkswagen Vento TSI will start from October 10, 2013. The car will initially be available in selected cities across India.

Volkswagen offers the Polo, Vento, Jetta, Passat and the Touareg in India.

Apple iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C coming to India on November 1

2013-10-10T10:46:00.001-07:00

Apple will start selling iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C in India from November 1. The launch is part of the company's next phase of iPhone launches worldwide.

iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C were unveiled at an event at Apple's headquarters on September 10 and the phones first went on sale from September 20 in nine countries.

Apple hasn't announced the price for the phone in India.
The price of iPhone 5C in India is expected to be around Rs40,000 while the price of iPhone 5C could be slightly above Rs50,000.

Website Development company mumbai

2013-10-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

Web development is a wide phrase for any activity related to developing a web site for the World Wide Web or an intranet. This includes e-commerce business development, web design, web content writing, and client-side/server-side scripting, technology and web server configuration etc. Successful web development strategies bring in greater profits attracts more visitors & customers and helps to get in touch with the right partners.

We have developed exclusive web solutions starting from plain corporate websites to more complicated ecommerce solutions, elegant web-based applications, Content Management Systems, etc. we are capable enough to deliver full website designing & development services that will enable you to provide a quality service to your customers within your website.

Do You Know Why Website Is Important For Small Business ?

2012-04-15T03:41:00.003-07:00

The impact of globalization has changed the business as it was a decade ago, many big companies are spending millions of money yearly on internet promotions and on there websites. It does not matter you are running a multi billion company or a small real estate office in some state. These days it is the requirement of every business that you have your business hosted online, so that the people can get access to it easily. There is huge number of local searches about different businesses online. These are from real estate to some doctor inquiry in some rural areas. Now many of the people realizing the need for going online, there are number of realtors who are focusing there business online via there website. They can target customers when someone searching for condos or beach homes in Miami and doctors can target patients through website. A good professional website can take your small business to your next level. Even if you are not familiar with internet or any website designing stuff, you can hire Us. A professional website for your small business can target more customers to your website; recent surveys show that there are almost daily millions of searches about some particular niche, product or services. Good website for your business cab generates more sales for your business, if you are running a bakery and there are special cakes being bakes in your bakery. A good website can target the customers in your area, a listing on local search engines and on Craig list will help your business to have more sales.

Like a good recipe, many things are needed to go into good website design.

A Website Has To:

· Be appealing

· Look professional

· Load quickly

· Be easy to navigate without confusion

· Get people to what they are looking for

· Be compatible with many types of computers

· Be easy to update

TWM Feature takes care of all of this and more. Our sites look great and function even better.

The bottom line is, you want your website to get results. You want your business website to work for you, be profitable and give you a return on your investment. We understand that and that’s our goal. When you hire TWM feature. you hire our expertise, knowledge . We’ve created hundreds of websites in different industries and we bring all of our expertise to the table to help your website be a success.

If you need a website, TWM Feature has specialists in the skills.

Understand What Type Of Website Is Best For You And Your Business :

· Static Website.

· Content Management System(C.M.S) Website.

· Custom Feature Website.

Online shopping - an easy way out

2012-04-15T03:35:00.001-07:00

The latest fashion of shopping over the Internet is to make use of a portal that can serve like an entrance into the small as well as major online stores. Online shopping is just like walking through some conventional or land based shopping store but the main difference lies that the online shopping malls offer some cash back offers to the customers.

These online shopping stores offer the list of their merchandise virtually of almost all categories as well as the sub categories. Some of these categories include arts, accessories, health, garden, beauty, home, music and leisure. These online malls surely make the experience of the buyers a true breeze. There are some stores that offer free merchandise, free shipping and monthly specials as well.

INTERNET AND ITS USE

2012-04-15T03:33:00.000-07:00

Internet is for sure a time saving and hassle free mode of getting latest information these days. People use internet so as to get social, economic, political, terror, educational, sports and religious news happening all around there is the world. In Europe internet is considered as a prime source to get news and TV and radio are given least importance by the Europeans to get news. With an internet at home, one can earn money via pursuing online jobs and can increase income from the very comforts of home. Internet has made the entire world one single family as with it one can stay in regular touch with friends and familiars residing abroad or in afar countries.

Profesional Website Designing Company Mumbai

2012-04-15T03:31:00.002-07:00

We are a Web Design Company in Mumbai, India. We provide Web Development and E commerce Solutions at affordable prices

Internet is one thing that has actually revolutionized our lives in a major way. There is not a single soul that is oblivious regarding the uses and benefits of the internet in the contemporary times. It has actually become an indispensable part of our daily lives and we also find it very convenient to conduct our various jobs online very easily. Be it education, profession or domestic arena, internet always comes in as a very handy way to deal with all theses spheres of life. In fact, these days socialization, entertainment and shopping, all is also possible through the virtual medium. Online conduction of various tasks saves time, energy and money and area comfortable option for those who have a busy lifestyle.

visit www.technowebmart.com

Techno Web Mart: Google+ ranks 8th position in top 10 US social net...

2012-01-03T03:33:00.000-08:00

Techno Web Mart: Google+ ranks 8th position in top 10 US social net...: Nielsen’s, a global leader in measurement and information has released their infamous Nielsen’s tops 0f 2011 report by reviewing top onlin...

Google+ ranks 8th position in top 10 US social networks and blogs according to Nielsen’s report!

2012-01-03T00:32:00.000-08:00

Nielsen’s, a global leader in measurement and information has released their infamous Nielsen’s tops 0f 2011 report by reviewing top online destinations, social media sites and smartphones.

Summary of Nielsen’s Tops of 2011 report

Google+ was #8 out of top 10 social networks and blog in the US

Google is ranked #1 of the Top 10 US Web brands in 2011 with an average of 153,441k unique visitors
Facebook is ranked #1 of the Top 10 US social networks and blogs
Google+ is ranked #8 of the Top 10 US social networks and blogs
YouTube ranked #1 of the Top 10 U.S. Online destinations for video
Apple ranked #1 in Top 5 smartphone device manufacturers

The original report can be read here. This is a remarkable achievement by newcomer Google+ reaching #8 spot on the Top 10 US social networks and blogs category. Being relatively new to the social network market with just few months under the belt after opening up for public signup and gaining a spot in the top 10 spot, Amazing huh?
Guess what? This chart (image) is going to be very interesting to watch by end of next year i.e 2012. If our prediction and guesses are right, we could easily see Google+ being the #2 spot in the above chart.

Reasons why we think #2 spot in 2012 is achievable

Almost every google product that we use daily (search, gmail, youtube, picasa, etc) is getting a social integration touch with Google+
Over billion users use Google and by just clicking on the +You link they’ll be able to join Google+ instantly (remember google is the #1 in top US web brands category)
Blogger or BlogSpot (a google property) is currently holding #2 spot in US social networks and blogs category. Blogger undergone tremendous changes and integration for e.g. connect blogger with Google+, replace blogger profile with Google+ profile, renaming of blogger, etc.
YouTube which holds #1 spot among top US online destinations for video has received rich integration with Google+ for e.g. Watch youtube through hangouts, search watch youtube videos in google+, launch hangouts from youtube, recording hangouts, etc.
Unique features and frequent updates to the network almost every day (Google is very serious with their social strategy)
Listening to user feedback and incorporating changes (key to any project success)

Google+ or google plus was the #2 fastest rising search in 2011 on google search engine!

2012-01-03T00:29:00.000-08:00

In just few days we are going to say good bye to year 2011 and welcome new year 2012. Inorder to re-coup popular searches on google search engine, zeitgeist has released top searches for the year 2011.

According to Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist 2011: How the World Searched
What mattered in 2011? Zeitgeist sorted billions of Google searches to capture the year’s 10 fastest-rising global queries and the rest of the spirit of 2011.

Google+ or Google Plus search on #1 search engine shot up by > 10000%

Guess what was the keyword that took the #2 spot?
You guessed it right, keyword Google+ or Google Plus grabbed the #2 spot on Google’s list of fastest rising searches in 2011 with searches shot up by greater than 10000%, wow!!
On another note, between July 3rd and July 17th search / interest for the keyword Google+ or Google Plus surpassed that of keyword Sports.
Here is a list of some of the popular keywords people used to search to learn about Google+

google+
google earth plus
google plus facebook
google chrome plus
chrome plus

Interested in knowing more about this? Google Zeitgeist 2011 has nice slides about this story, you may want to stop by and check it out.

Facebook Is Testing a “Translate” Button for Comments on Pages

2011-09-16T07:09:00.000-07:00

Facebook may be poised to let users translate comments from other languages — that’s 750 million users around the world who are going to have an easier time talking to each other.

In tests that we and others are now seeing on some parts of the site (only on Pages, at this point), comments in languages other than your account’s current one now include “Translate” button next to them. If you click on the button, the comment is automatically translated to your account language. The Translate button is then replaced by “Original,” which if clicked will untranslated the comment.

Facebook has already successfully crowdsourced the translation of its site to dozens of languages, connecting millions of people to each other around the world in new and unexpected ways. For an interesting example, take a look at the aggressive international cooperation that happens between users trying to mutually advance in a social game like FarmVille.
Most users are not currently communicating much with people who speak other languages, simply because they can’t understand each other (unless they’re manually doing so through a third party service like Google Translate, as we sometimes do with commenters on our Facebook plugin for our site). And of course, users who already speak multiple languages won’t always need this tool.

But you can still see how there are some potentially very big use cases here. Page owners, especially for popular international icons, are deluged by comments across the languages that Facebook now supports. Chances are they don’t understand everything every fan has been saying, so they’ve had to rely on Google Translate or other tools instead. As the feature is only working for Pages now, Facebook seems to be focusing on solving that problem.

If Facebook introduces this feature to personal profiles and apps as well, one can also imagine some other interesting ways it’d be used. For example, immigrant families who speak more than one language often have generational communication divides, typically where older members speak the language of the home country while younger generations speak the language of the host country. They’ll now have an easier time using Facebook to relate to each other. Meanwhile, social gamers with international friends could have a much easier time collaborating to get more points in a game, organize protests, or anything else.
More pessimistically, users might use this feature to better understand each others’ flames, particular on Pages for controversial topics.

For now, it only seems to be available in a few languages, including Spanish, French, Hebrew and Chinese. And it also doesn’t always recognize the comments, delivering a “There is no translation available for this story at the moment” response or sometimes not finding the right individual words within sentences. But in testing that we’ve done or had reported by readers, it appears to be familiar with slang — see the example in the screenshot from reader Amit Lavi, who tipped us off about the change. The translation technology figured out how to communicate “totally cool” from Hebrew to English, for example. It’s possible that the tech is making use of existing translation input from users that it has already gathered in its translation app.

The feature could have far-reaching consequences for how people use Facebook, if not how they understand the rest of the world. We’ll see how the company decides to expand it from here. We’ved asked to for more details on how the feature works and what the plans for it are, and we’ll update with any response.

Facebook for iPhone 3.5 Hitting 50M DAU, Ports Recent Privacy Changes, Still Includes Check-Ins

2011-09-16T07:03:00.000-07:00

Facebook for iPhone mobile app. The update includes many of the new privacy, friend tagging, and location features that were added to the web interface two weeks ago. Users can also now post rich feed stories with thumbnails and captions by copying links into the publisher or tapping “Share” in the web view.
Despite Facebook saying it would shift Places from focusing on check-ins to applying location as a layer, users can still view the Places check-in feed and map. However, now these features show all friends who’ve recently tagged a Place in an update, even if they were discussing somewhere they’d been or plan to go and not their current location.

On August 23rd, Facebook announced an overhaul of its privacy settings, bringing controls in-line with content. The changes have since rolled out to the web interface for most users, but now Facebook has begun porting the changes to its mobile interfaces starting with its most popular mobile app. Facebook for iPhone grew 2.4 million daily active users this month and today will reach 50 million DAU.
The mobile site m.facebook.com now includes the revamped publisher, and an updated privacy settings page. The iPhone app offers access to the privacy setttings page through its internal browser so users can set default post privacy, past post privacy, and whether they must approve tags before they appear on their profile. The Android, BlackBerry, and other mobile apps still lack the new publisher.

Location, Friends, and Privacy in the Publisher

When iPhone users go to add a status update, they’ll see their city-level location as determined by their IP and other signals at the bottom left of the publisher. They can tap this or the Places button to reveal the option to remove city-level location, tag an existing Place, or add and tag a new Place. Specific location tags are appended to the end of the update as “- at [Place]“. Photos can also be added to any update.
Previously a major deficiency of the iPhone app compared to the Android app was the inability to tag friends in updates. Now users can select to tag friends in posts by tapping the friends button, with the tags appended to the update as “- with [name]“. Upon opening the tag selector they’re first presented with “Recents” for easy access to their closest friends, as well as a search option and a browsable list of all their friends.

A gear icon reveals the audience the post will reach, whether thats “Public”, “Friends”, a custom audience, or one of their friend lists. This feature is very streamlined, and actually requires several fewer clicks than the web interface to select to post to a friend lists. It should make it easier for users to share wider variety of content by being able to restrict its visibility to those for whom its relevant and appropriate.

Rich Link Sharing

The update notes for Facebook for iPhone 3.5 note that this version “Added the ability to share external links from a web view.” This means that when users are browsing the internet through the app’s internal browser, the can now tap a forward and then a Share button to initiate a status update linking to the currently viewed URL.

What’s more interesting is how Facebook now formats these links. Previously, links posted through the iPhone publisher appears as simple hyperlinks. Now, whether through the Share button or by copying and pasting a URL into the publisher, Facebook converts URLs into rich feed posts that include a headline, caption, and thumbnail image the same way URLs are formatted when pasted into the web interface’s publisher. This lets users create much more compelling stories out of URLs that attract more clicks. This could help Facebook drive more referral traffick and become more important to web publishers.

All Location Tags are Now Check-Ins

After a year of users announcing their current location as verified by GPS proximity through check-ins, Facebook confirmed with us that it would scrap the check-in feed and map. This was because users would now be able to any add location to any post no matter their current coordinates. We criticized this decision because the feed and map of just current locations had made it easy to find nearby friends and arrange meet-ups.
In this iPhone update, the check-in feed and map are still available, except now they feature any friend who’s added location to a post, regardless of whether they were currently at that Place or not. If users click the Check-In button or go to tag a Place in a status update, they’re prompted “Where are you”, indicating that Facebook hasn’t quite sorted out whether location tags and check-ins are the same thing.

As users change their behaviors and start tagging Places they aren’t currently at, the feed and map will become confusing because it will show a friend at local restaurant when they’re actually across the country but had just posted a recommendation tagging the eatery. While its value will diminish as users adopt the new location capabilities, this stay of execution of the Places feed and map should come as good news to those like me who use the features to find clusters of friends on the weekends.
With the 3.5 update, Facebook for iPhone now approaches parity with most of the web interface’s core features. Of the recent privacy changes, the only thing noticibly lacking is the option to change the privacy settings of previously published content on a post-by-post basis. With the basic functionality, Facebook can now concentrate on prepping the iPhone app to be compatible with its HTML5 mobile site that could offer gaming that is expected to launch at the f8 developer conference later this month.

Report: Facebook Nears $500M Net Income on $1.6B Revenue in First Half of 2011, Mostly Tracking Projections

2011-09-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

Facebook appeared to be on course to make $4 billion in revenue for 2011, we and other publications heard from sources close to the company in January, with net income at around $1 billion. Reuters has an update on that estimate today, citing a source that says Facebook actually made $1.6 billion in the first half of the year, with net income near $500 million so far.
Looking at the past and present numbers together, revenue is lower than projected at this point, but net income is on track. That in turn suggests that costs have come in lower than expected.
Facebook doesn’t currently provide information on its finances, so we don’t know for sure what has caused its business to grow. But financial documents leaked in January during Goldman Sach’s fundraising efforts indicated that Facebook had made roughly $2 billion in 2010, with profits up to $600 million. That was more than double 2009.
Two additional trends have started to kick in, that could cause revenue to grow more sharply in this second half of the year, and continue the annual doubling trend.

One is that Facebook has finalized Credits as the only paid currency for third-party canvas apps on its platform. While Zynga and other top social game developers began transitioning as early as a year ago, the policy only went fully into effect on July 1st. From that point, we can say for certain that Facebook is getting 30% of revenue from basically all virtual goods transactions in apps.
The other trend is what’s been happening in Facebook’s marketer ecosystem. The Ads API, a way for larger advertisers to buy big, automated, fine-tuned ad campaigns through third-party tools, has launched publicly after spending years in private beta testing. The result is that companies who have figured out how to get a good return on investment from ad campaigns can now spend in bulk, like they do with online ad leader Google through Adsense and Adwords. In the meantime, Facebook has been busy building up its own sales teams around the world, and introducing a variety of new products and advertiser services to make spending easy and worthwhile.
While revenue is an increasingly important indicator for the company as it matures, it still has lots of growing left to do. It has opted against short-term revenue boosters like homepage takeover ads, in contrast to distant competitors like MySpace. Overall, it just needs to show some sort of serious revenue growth every year in order to get investors excited about its long-term future. If and when an offering happens, public investors will be hoping the company repeats the post-IPO success of many other companies over the years, and ultimately more than justify the $70 billion and $80 billion valuations that the private-market stock has been trading at.

Platform Update: Graph API Additions, App Changes and Insights, Data Export

2011-09-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

Facebook has published two Platform Updates and another post to the company developer blog over the past few days, detailing a variety of additions to the Graph API of features from the REST API, a new option for the Credits payment flow, alterations to developer resources, and the relocation of App Insights to the Developer app. The changes will allow developers to migrate more of their functionality to the Graph API, streamline the payment flow, and more quickly access technical assistance and metrics for their apps.

Graph API Changes

Here are the functionalities that can now be handled through the Graph API, followed by possible uses for them.
From the Labor Day update:

Reading friend requests – developing Facebook clients
Managing banned app users – programmatically enforcing app ground rules
Getting and setting app migrations – programmatically toggling migrations to efficiently test for bugs
Checking if a user is an admin of a Page – managing roles for Facebook Page management tools

From the September 2nd update:

Reading and managing notifications – developing Facebook clients, determining if additional notifications need to be sent
Reading achievements – determining a user’s accomplishments to date in your app, their progress in other games, and the progress of their friends

App and Games Changes

As we covered on Inside Social Games, Facebook now allows developers to use a streamlined Credits payment flow in their games. This permits them to omit the bulk discounted Credits packages from the purchase options. By showing using fewer options, developers may be able to get users to make an impulse decision to buy and get back to the game before they can drop out of the payment flow.

The Developer app now features a summary of App Insights at the bottom of the profile for a developer’s app. Devs can click through to view all their User, Sharing, News Feed, Performance, Diagnostics, and Credits Insights. This should make checking Insights a more natural part of administrating Facebook applications.

With the recent changes to the Games and Apps Dashboards, Facebook has deprecated the ability for developers to publish news and activity to the Dashboards. In turn, it has deprecated the following APIs associated with these old functionalities:

dashboard.addGlobalNews
dashboard.addNews
dashboard.clearGlobalNews
dashboard.clearNews
dashboard.getActivity
dashboard.getGlobalNews
dashboard.getNews
dashboard.multiAddNews
dashboard.multiClearNews
dashboard.multiDecrementCount
dashboard.multiGetNews
dashboard.publishActivity
dashboard.removeActivity

In a change to session redirect behavior, Facebook explained that it has “started adding a fragment #_=_ to the redirect_uri when this field is left blank.” Developers should test to make sure this doesn’t cause any issues of their apps.

There have also been some bugs with FB.Canvas.setAutoResize causing app heights to be set improperly. Facebook is working on a solution.

Developer Resources

Facebook is now sending warning emails to apps that cross the threshold of having too much negative feedback as benchmarked in App Insights. Developers then have 48 hours to correct the issue before they are reevaluated by Facebook’s automated enforcement systems. If the problem isn’t addressed, a developer’s apps may be disabled. This should reduce the incidence of developers being surprised with enforcement, as they were before Facebook instituted its improved enforcement system.

A “Support” section has been added to the Developers site which aggregates links to Facebook’s new Stack Overflow technical Q&A, the bug tracking system for reporting reproducible bugs, the official Facebook Group for developers for community discussion, and the beta tier where upcoming code changes can be tested.

The Developers Blog has been experiencing issues with delivering emails to subscribers about new posts, but Facebook will have a fix ready by September 14th.

Data Export, Photo Tag Apps

Facebook has recently added microformats the HTML included with zip file users receive from the Download Your Information tool, TechCrunch reported today. This will help the file be more compatible with apps a user has given access to the file to. That access could then pave the way for apps that help users recreate their social graph outside of Facebook.
The change is being accompanied by a warning to developers that those looking to export social data from Facebook should have their users acquire and submit the Download Your Information file, and not use the Facebook Platform. Developers that try to export data from Facebook via Platform applications will have their apps disabled.
Facebook even explicitly names Google, with which it’s had data portability arguments, explaining “If you are building an app whose purpose is to export data to another social network such as Google+, you should use Download Your Information, not Facebook Platform.”
Photo tags applied by users are now clearly attributed as part of Facebook’s new privacy system. In accordance, apps that apply photo tags will be have the tags attributed to them in news feed stories.

Facebook Smart Lists Automatically Group Friends With Shared Characteristics for Use With Privacy Settings

2011-09-16T06:54:00.000-07:00

Facebook is currently testing a new feature called Smart Lists that automatically groups friends with common characteristics into Friend Lists that dynamically update themselves over time. Previously, Friend Lists had to be manually assembled and updated — a chore that contributed to them being used by only 5% of the user base. Smart Lists are now being created for the coworkers, classmates, and friends who live within 50 miles of users in the test group. Since Smart Lists can be selected within privacy settings and the news feed publisher to determine who can see profile or posted content, they could encourage users to micro-share to specific subsets of their friends. This allows them to post a wider variety of content to Facebook, enriching the site. With Smart Lists, Facebook has leveraged the wealth of data it has about the interconnections between its users to drastically reduce friction in the Friend List creation process, and one-up Google+ Circles that must be laboriously built by hand.

Facebook is also now showing a tool tip explaining how the previously available “Friend List Feed Filters” work when users choose to filter the news feed by selecting a Friend List from the Most Recent drop-down menu. While viewing the filtered feed users can manage the members of the Friend List and confirm Facebook’s suggestions for additions to the list. This change educate users about Friend Lists and make manually created ones easier to keep up to date.

Since December 2007, Facebook has allowed users to assign friends to Friend Lists that can used as news feed filters, distribution parameters for posted content, and visibility settings for the profile. However, their buried place in the interface, the slow creation process, and the fact that explicitly categorizing friends is somewhat unnatural made Friend lists a feature that only attracted power users. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the launch event for the Groups feature in October 2010 that only 5% of users had created friend lists.
Over the years, Facebook has tried to surface the feature in more places around the site and make them a little easier to create. While creating friends lists, users gained the option to sort them by parameters such as Recently added as well as profile characteristics including those used to create Smart Lists to speed up assignment. Later Facebook started allowing users to add someone to a list when they confirmed their friend request.
In October 2010, Facebook began showing suggestions of people to add to existing lists based on similarities with previously added members — the closest thing to a predecessor to Smart Lists. Previously these suggestions appeared only in the Friend List editor interface, accessible through Account0 -> Edit Friends, but now they appear beside the news feed when filtering the feed with a Friend List.

Contact sorting and micro-sharing have become bigger issues over the past few months. Google+ was applauded for its drag-and-drop Circle building process that was faster than building Facebook Friend Lists. Third-party developer Katango recently built a product that “auto-magically” build Friend Lists by clustering similar friends and allowing users to export the lists to Facebook. Both products raised the question of why Facebook, with all its biographical and behavior data, couldn’t automatically create Friend Lists for users.
Now Facebook has shown that it can automatically build Friends Lists. Users currently in the limited tester base for Smart Lists have lists for coworkers, classmates, and local friends automatically created for them. The feature doesn’t go as far as Katango, which uses a wide variety of signals to create more than a dozen lists for users such their closest friends or people met on a vacation, as well as those made by Smart Lists.
Facebook very well may improve the feature in the future to create Smart Lists from more subtle clusters of friends and not just those who share an explicitly listed characteristic. The tool tip explaining the feature notes that users can remove friends from Smart Lists at any time, allowing them to expel friends mistakenly admitted to lists where they don’t belong.
The fact that Smart Lists update themselves in response is a huge improvement over Katango and Google+. As more friends move to a user’s city or join their company, they’ll be automatically added to the corresponding Friend Lists. With the friction of building and maintaining lists removed, a roll out of Smart Lists could significantly increase adoption of the Friends Lists and micro-sharing.
Users may be more likely to share professional, nostalgic, and local-focused content by restricting the visibility of these posts to just those they’re relevant to. Without lists for these subsets automatically created and ready, users might have never shared these types of content, making Facebook a less interesting place for their friends to visit.

Smart Lists could also erase one of Google+’s core advantages over Facebook. The feature’s launch underscores a deficiency in Google+’s growth strategy of rolling out to early adopters first without a clear way to bring mainstream users aboard they way Facebook did by opening at one college at a time. As such Google revealed its Facebook-besting features but hasn’t been able to gain massive traction since, giving Facebook time to catch up.

How to Use Facebook’s Hidden Wall and Other Page Moderation Tools to Protect Brand Reputation

2011-09-16T06:50:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt of entry in our Facebook Marketing Bible. The full version contains walk-throughs and strategies for hiding comments and banning users.
As your Facebook Page grows in size and stature and begins to attract a healthy number of fans, so too will the level at which those same fans interact with your Page. Highly engaging Pages can quickly blossom into a valuable community, but the messages posted to your Wall by fans will not always be positive.
Here we’ll provide walk-throughs of Facebook’s native Page moderation tools, and explain how to execute a moderation strategy that protects your brand but doesn’t silence discussion.

Moderation Strategy

Popular Pages can and should expect customer complaints and criticism, irrespective of the quality of product or service being provided. Examples of situations that could lead to customers submitting negative posts or comments to your Page’s Wall include:

Delays in shipping a product
Faulty or damaged products
Poor service or perceived rudeness
A public relations crisis

Complaints beget complaints, with customers who might previously have said nothing now speaking up when they realize that other people are suffering the same problems. This behavioral cycle will quickly repeat itself, and a Page Wall can move from positive to negative in a matter of moments.
Overall, you need to remember that the medium is social: customers expect to be able to have an open and honest conversation about your company and the service they experience. Any action you take, from hiding comments, to replying in public, to banning users, is going to be judged as representative of your company. You must balance the natural desire to keep your Page as positive as possible with maintaining credibility among your fans. This can sometimes mean leaving negative comments public.
Page Permissions
Facebook allows Admins to change the permissions on their pages, giving them control over a number of different aspects such as country restriction, age restriction and the posting ability of users, plus word and profanity blocklists.
To edit your Page’s permissions, select Edit Page and then click on the Manage permissions tab on the left sidebar.

Admins managing very popular pages should consider the use of certain keywords in the Moderation blocklist – for example, the names of competitors or overly negative words. When users try to include blacklisted words in their posts these will automatically be marked as spam and moved to the Hidden part of your Page’s wall (more on this in a moment). The Profanity blocklist works in the same way (although Facebook doesn’t list which words it is looking for) and should also be adjusted accordingly.

Hidden Posts – Your Page’s Secret Wall

Facebook will analyze posts made to your Page’s Wall and automatically filter out spam (or what it perceives to be spam), which you can view in the Hidden Posts link on the left sidebar of your Page.
Admins can also move posts to the Hidden part of the Wall by selecting the Hide Post option from the drop-down menu accessible via the options cog on each post.
Popular pages therefore can expect to manage two different Walls – the public and freely-readable main Wall, and the private and (mostly) Admin-only Hidden Wall. Posts can be moved freely between each wall.
Hidden posts will no longer be visible to users reading your Page’s Wall, and the original poster will not be aware that their post has been hidden so they don’t think to immediately repost.
It also important to be aware that Facebook’s spam filter is a little inconsistent, and will trigger a number of false positives that will need to be moved back to the main part of the Wall. It’s good practice to regularly peruse your Hidden posts and unhide any posts that have been mistakenly labelled as spam by Facebook.
The full version of this article, complete with walk-throughs of the comment hiding and user banning tools can be found in the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing and advertising through Facebook.

Facebook Officially Launches Smart Lists, and Special Friend Lists That Influence the News Feed

2011-09-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

Facebook today officially launches several improvements to its Friend Lists feature that can be used to define privacy settings and filter the news feed, including some changes that leaked last week. As we covered in depth then, users now have automatically created, populated and updated Smart Lists of their family, co-workers, classmates, and local friends. Additionally, users can now add friends to an “Acquaintances” list whose members will appear less frequently in the news feed, and a “Close Friends” list of people who will appear more frequently in news feed and whose updates will trigger notifications.
By building or starting these lists for users, Facebook may be able increase adoption of the Friend Lists feature, leading users to control their privacy more nimbly, increase the relevance of their news feeds, and share a wider range of content with more specific audiences. However, a lack of granular control of Close Friends’ opt out notifications may push users to quickly turn them off or forgo adding friends to the special list, and the fact that members of lists are revealed when users publish to them might scare users away from the feature.

We recapped the history of the four year old Friend Lists feature last week, describing how they’ve never been widely used due to the chore of making them and their buried place in the interface. Their potential to get users to publish content more often but to fewer people is important to the long-term health of Facebook and its ability to fend off competitors focused on micro-sharing such as Google+.
The addition of characteristic-based Friend Lists could get users to share more personal, professional and local content with relevant audiences, rather than spam friends on the other side of the country about making dinner plans, or offend co-workers or family with racier photos and jokes.

Bookmarks, Smart Lists, and Special Lists

With today’s update, manually created Friend Lists, Smart Lists, and the special lists are now easily accessible from bookmarks in the site’s left sidebar. When clicked, they filter the news feed to only show updates from their members. More, fewer, or no bookmarks will appear depending on user’s engagement with the feature. Users will also be able to easily publish a post to one or more Friend Lists, as they’re now included in the new audience drop-down of the news feed publisher.

Facebook’s Director of Product Blake Ross tells us their old location “was not discoverable” and that the bookmark system will make Friend Lists optional for those who want them without “fundamentally changing the behavior” of those who don’t.
The Smart Lists are populated based on information explicitly included in the profiles of friends. Users will have one list of family members, one for each of their work places, one for each of their schools and colleges, and a local friends list of those living within 10 miles of their current city. Users can customize the mile radius of the local friends Smart List using a slick map feature to include friends in nearby cities.

Mimicking some of the most frequently manually created Friend Lists, Facebook now creates Acquaintances and Close Friends lists by default, but doesn’t auto-populate them. Those added to the former, like distant friends and old colleagues, will only have their most important content, such as marriages and moves, appear in a user’s news feed. Those in the Close Friends list will have more of their content appear in a user’s news feed, and each update they post will trigger Facebook and optional email notifications.
Users can manually add or remove members to any of their lists, and Facebook is making this editing process easier too. With a very similar design to Google+, user profiles now display a button allowing for instant admission into a list, rather than forcing users to go back to the Friend List editor. Users can even preemptively assign a potential friend to lists while they await a response to their friend request. Suggestions for people to add to a list, based on their similarities with existing members, will now appear beside the news feed when that list is applied as a feed filter.

Notification Overload and Privacy Concerns

As we saw when Facebook temporarily made game requests trigger notifications, those about other users can drown out more pressing notifications about posts to a user’s wall or photo tags. Ross tells us Close Friends is designed for users with fewer friends, but the site’s early tests showed they aren’t annoying for those with large, active networks. Still, those who don’t want a big influx of notifications may have to choose whether to simply turn them off or not get the full value out of the list’s ability to influence the news feed by only adding a very small number of friends.
One significant privacy issue is that when users see a post in the news feed because they’re a member of a Friend List published to by a friend, they can see who else is included in that list. Ross explains that this lets users know how public any comments they leave on the post will be, and that users won’t see the name of the list. Still, Friend Lists and their members have always been private unless explicitly featured in a user’s profile, and being forced to reveal their members might make users weary of publishing to them.
Ross tells us with time Facebook may add more types of Smart Lists, but only ones based on explicitly stated profile information. The changes to Friend Lists, which will roll out soon, have the potential to bring on a new era of micro-sharing on Facebook if the site can learn how users want to apply them. To help it improve the feature and quiet claims that it doesn’t listen to its users, Facebook is encouraging people to leave feedback on a newly created “Facebook Lists Team” Facebook Page.

Facebook’s New Subscribe Button Allows Assymetrical Following of Non-Friends’ Public Updates

2011-09-16T06:45:00.000-07:00

Facebook today launches the Subscribe button – an option for users to receive the publicly visible updates published by non-friends. Similar to Twitter, this assymetrical following (sometimes known as asynchronous) capability will expand the types of relationships users can have on Facebook beyond friendship, allowing users to conveniently view content in news feed from people they don’t know but are interested in.

The Subscribe button also appears on the profile of friends, and gives users options to control the volume and types of updates they see from someone in their news feed. This will allow users to select to only receive or hide from their news feed a friend’s major life events, status updates, photos and videos, and games content. This last option could help serious gamers hide all non-game content from people they met while playing but aren’t friends with. However, it will also allow users to shun games content published by friends, which could hurt growth rates for games and applications.
Until today, there were only two types of relationships one could have on Facebook: symmetrical friendship where both users confirmed they wanted to see each other’s content in the news feed, and Liking of Pages where one user chose to see updates in the news feed from a public entity such as a business. Many thought Facebook would have already launched such a feature. However, the company appears to finally be ready to expand its scope after implementing an increase in the transparency and ease of publishing to specific audiences including the public.

Assymetrical Following Through the Subscribe Button

Now, users will have the ability to opt in allowing subscribers. This places a Subscribe button on their profile which non-friends can click to begin viewing the updates they publish with the privacy setting of public. The user being subscribed to doesn’t have to confirm each connection, and won’t see content of their subscribers in the news feed.

Technically, the Subscribe button just makes consumption of public updates more convenient and its opt in, so there aren’t any serious privacy concerns. Someone could already visit the profile of a non-friend and see their public updates, but now they’ll be sent them through the news feed. Those opting into subscriptions can select to allow or disallow comments by subscribers, and activate notifications about gaining new subscribers.

Assymetrical following will create a middle ground between personal profiles for private updating and Facebook Pages that are totally public. If a user has opted in to allowing subscriptions and they reject a friend request from someone, that person will automatically become a subscriber. The option should be especially helpful to self-promoters who’ve hit Facebook’s 5,000 friend limit. If users amass a subscriber base and later want to become a Page with update targeting, applications, and analytics, Facebook has confirmed that they’ll be able to convert their subscribers into Likes.
The Subscribe button puts Facebook in direct competition with Twitter, as well as Google+, which are both built around assymetrical following. Journalists, thought leaders, celebrities, or anyone who chooses to publish publicly will be able to amass a subscriber base, gain more impressions for their posted content, and engage with strangers by tapping into Facebook’s enormous user base and familiar discussion tools. Facebook’s Director of Product Naomi Gleit tells us “We want you to be able to broaden your conversations — comment and interact with people who are outside of your friend circle.”

Refining the News Feed Presence of Friends

If users are already friends with someone, they’ll see a Subscribe button on their profile with a drop-down allowing them to receive all, most, or only important updates by that person in the news feed, as well as select the types of stories they see. Previously, the only way users could influence the presence of a friend in the news feed was to completely hide all their updates. Now they can see more or less of them using the new Close Friends and Acquaintances Friend Lists, or by using the Subscribe button.

These new options will add user preference to Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm for determining what’s relevant to surface in the news feed. Users will no longer have to suffer the annoying stories about high scores or new items earned by their little brother in social games. Another example Gleit cited was that if a user has an acquaintance who is a great photographer, they can select to just see their photo updates, not status updates about their daily lives.
Users will no longer have to use multiple services in order to handle different relationships such as those based on real-life friendship, interests, or acquaintanceship. Twitter may have already built up a graph of 100 million people based on connections, but Facebook could bring the knowledge accessible through assymetrical following to the mainstream while improving the quality of the news feed.

Facebook’s Subscribe Button to Come With Personalized “Suggested User” Subscription Recommendations

2011-09-16T06:43:00.000-07:00

14 Sep

Facebook’s Subscribe Button to Come With Personalized “Suggested User” Subscription Recommendations

Posted by Josh Constine, under Facebook, Subscribe

Facebook will be adding a personalized recommendation feature to the Subscribe button that it launched earlier today, helping users find interesting non-friends to receive public updates from. Similar to friend suggestions that are based on who users have mutual friends with, Facebook Director of Product Naomi Gleit tells us the “People to Subscribe to” sidebar module will base subscription recommendations on who a user’s friends subscribe to.
[Update: The "People to Subscribe to" sidebar module is now live. It displays subscription suggestions along with friends who've subscribed to someone, or where the suggested user works.]

In addition to this forthcoming feature, Facebook has implemented several other ways for users to discover people to subscribe to. The news feed now displays stories about the new subscriptions of friends, the friendship panel on the right side of the profile displays friends who subscribe to someone, and Subscriber and Subscription tabs on profiles provide lists of people users might want receive updates from.

These personalized recommendations contrast with Twitter’s original king-making “Suggested User” list that provided new registrants with recommendations of people to follow from a limited list. That feature was criticized for causing certain celebrities and friends of Twitter employees to rapidly gain tens of thousands of followers. Instead, Facebook’s subscription recommendations will promote authors who publish updates especially relevant to a user and their network.
As the Subscribe feature just launched, most users currently have no subscriptions or subscribers. However, once some of a user’s friends have organically discovered authors to Subscribe to, Facebook will begin asking users if they also want to follow those authors.
Gleit explains that the recommendations will be “fairly algorithmic. The Subscribe recommendations engine will mainly show people your friends are subscribing to.” Facebook’s “Subscribe for Public Figures” .PDF document details that the feature will come in the form of a sidebar module users see while browsing the site, similar to the People You May Know module for friend suggestions.
Facebook does have some features in place to assist with subscription discovery. Activity stories are posted on a user’s wall and to the news feeds of their friends when they Subscribe to new people. This provides viral exposure for those receiving subscriptions.

When users visit the profile on a non-friend, they’ll see if any of their friends have subscribed to that person. This information appears in the friendship panel on the right side of the profile that usually displays mutual friends Likes.

Users can also visit Subscriptions and Subscribers tabs in the profile’s left navigation menu. If a user has a friend who’s opinion that trust, they could go through the Subscriptions tab and begin following all the people that friend has subscribed to.
Facebook is using the fact that assymetrical following isn’t its primary feature to help it improve on Twitter’s blunder. Most users will have forged friendships before they start subscribing to people, giving Facebook the data necessary to power a personalized subscription recommendation engine rather than blindly suggesting the same authors to everyone.

“View Shares” Link Shows Who Has Reposted Any Facebook News Feed Story

2011-09-16T06:34:00.000-07:00

Facebook users are seeing a new “View Shares” link beneath news feed stories by friends, Pages, and those they subscribe to. When clicked, it opens a popover window displaying who has reposted that story and any additional context they added. Users will only see shares visible to them, meaning any post published publicly or by one of their friends.
View Shares constitutes the third news feed story feedback metric visible to users, joining Likes and comments. It indicates what news feed stories are most popular and that users might therefore want to read, click through, or repost themselves. The link’s presence could help alert users to the availability of the Share option and increase its usage. It will help Page admins who previously had no way of telling how frequently their updates were reposted. View Shares might also push content publishers to more directly encourage their readers to share their posts.

The feature now appears on posts by both users and Pages. In the popover revealed by the View Shares link, reposts where users added an optional description display that text, while those without additional context read “Name shared a page: [Page name]“. The feature respects privacy, as only users who could already view a repost will see it in the View Shares pop over.
Users have long had the “Share” option to repost the news feed stories they see, but data about the quantity of reposts was never displayed on the original story. Likes and comments both benefit from having the volumes of these feedback types displayed on posts. Now the Share link has the same expanded presence, which may serve to remind users about the option.

Somewhat oddly, the volume of Shares of a Page’s posts is not included in a Page’s Insights. Admins can now find this data by viewing their Page’s own posts, and the data will also probably be added to Insights in the near future.
While reposts previously helped publishers gain a burst of additional impressions, they didn’t provide a social recommendation for the original story to its viewers the way Likes and comments do. Those feedback types can help improve a post or publisher’s EdgeRank, or prominence in the news feed, but they usually don’t expose the post to a user’s own network.
The View Shares feature means Shares will give posts both immediate exposure to a user’s friends and a permanent recommendation. Since there are more benefits to Shares for publishers, they may want to increase the frequency with which they ask users to Share their posts.
Page admins might not be entirely happy about the change, though, as now when a user Shares one of their posts, it doesn’t include a “via [Page name] link back to the Page that originally posted the story. This means Shares no longer offer Pages an opportunity to gain new fans.

Facebook Careers Postings: Mobile Apps Analyst, Legal, Tokyo, Recruiting and More

2011-09-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

Facebook added openings for several mobile-related jobs, a few counsel or attorney positions, an engineering spot in Tokyo, data center jobs, recruiting positions, as well as sales and account management openings this week. This is all according to the company’s Careers Page and its LinkedIn feed.

It is notably looking for a mobile apps analyst, which could be for covering the company’s own mobile apps, or could have something to do with an upcoming mobile app platform launch.

Facebook Locks the Top Navigation Bar in Place as Users Scroll

2011-09-16T06:32:00.001-07:00

Many Facebook users are seeing the site’s top navigation bar locked to the top of the browser window no matter where they scroll. This floating navigation bar gives users access to their notifications, friend requests, messages, and links to the home page, profile, and account settings at all times. Previously, if users scrolled down the news feed, a profile, or other page on the site the top navigation bar would scroll with it and become hidden from view.

By giving users access to navigation functions even when they’re scrolled down a page, Facebook may be able to reduce the likelihood that they’ll leave the site when they finish viewing something. Instead, they’ll be tempted to visit another part of the site, especially if they have pending notifications, requests, or messages.

Users may recognize the floating navigation bar as it’s used on both Twitter and Google+. Some might say this is one more way Facebook has followed the lead of its competitors when its comes to design.

Users may also notice that while playing certain social games such as CityVille, their right sidebar that contains the games ticker and ads stays fixed when they scroll. This is not the case on all games and apps or at all window widths, though. We believe the fixed sidebar for games depends on how third-party developers utilize the fluid canvas option released last month, and is not related to Facebook’s cross-site implementation of the floating navigation bar.

The rollout of persistently visible navigation options, along with several recent product releases and site changes, could be groundwork for a more significant redesign to be launched at f8 next week. Rather than shock users by changing many things about the site at once, Facebook may be opting to push changes one at a time.

Facebook tested a design of the news feed a few months ago that removed the Most Recent feed and locked both the top navigation bar as well as the left navigation bar of bookmarks. If our theory holds true, Facebook might be trying to get users accustomed to the fixed navigation bar before it alters the news feed at f8.

It’s safe to assume that removing the second tab of the news feed would significantly alter user behavior and cause some backlash. Minimizing additional confusion by keeping other design elements stable, even if just for a week, could increase the chances of a successful reception.

We’re seeing the locked navigation bar across our accounts, so it may have been rolled out to a majority or all of the user base. If you’re not seeing it yet, or have feedback on the new design, let us know in the comments.

2011-09-16T06:31:00.001-07:00

Facebook Locks the Top Navigation Bar in Place as Users Scroll Many Facebook users are seeing the site’s top navigation bar locked to the top of the browser window no matter where they scroll. This floating navigation bar gives users access to their notifications, friend requests, messages, and links to the home page, profile, and account settings at all times. Previously, if users scrolled down the news feed, a profile, or other page on the site the top navigation bar would scroll with it and become hidden from view. By giving users access to navigation functions even when they’re scrolled down a page, Facebook may be able to reduce the likelihood that they’ll leave the site when they finish viewing something. Instead, they’ll be tempted to visit another part of the site, especially if they have pending notifications, requests, or messages. Users may recognize the floating navigation bar as it’s used on both Twitter and Google+. Some might say this is one more way Facebook has followed the lead of its competitors when its comes to design. Users may also notice that while playing certain social games such as CityVille, their right sidebar that contains the games ticker and ads stays fixed when they scroll. This is not the case on all games and apps or at all window widths, though. We believe the fixed sidebar for games depends on how third-party developers utilize the fluid canvas option released last month, and is not related to Facebook’s cross-site implementation of the floating navigation bar. The rollout of persistently visible navigation options, along with several recent product releases and site changes, could be groundwork for a more significant redesign to be launched at f8 next week. Rather than shock users by changing many things about the site at once, Facebook may be opting to push changes one at a time. Facebook tested a design of the news feed a few months ago that removed the Most Recent feed and locked both the top navigation bar as well as the left navigation bar of bookmarks. If our theory holds true, Facebook might be trying to get users accustomed to the fixed navigation bar before it alters the news feed at f8. It’s safe to assume that removing the second tab of the news feed would significantly alter user behavior and cause some backlash. Minimizing additional confusion by keeping other design elements stable, even if just for a week, could increase the chances of a successful reception. We’re seeing the locked navigation bar across our accounts, so it may have been rolled out to a majority or all of the user base. If you’re not seeing it yet, or have feedback on the new design, let us know in the comments.