Facebook Talk

In case you hadn’t heard (and trust me, within a few days, you will have…) Facebook has come out and released what some think is a bombshell in the form of Facebook Ads. Now some of you might be thinking, “Doesn’t Facebook already offer ads by placing those stupid Facebook Flyers on every page?” Well, yeah, but this is much more than that and something which I predicted long ago.

Basically, advertisers have three different avenues to pursue when they sign up for Facebook Ads.

Social Ads: Ads which are targeted using the profile data of Facebook members.
Beacon: Ad widgets that advertisers can put on their own sites. Thus, Facebook members can use the widgets to spread the word about a product via their own personal feed.
Insight: Detailed profile information that is sent to Facebook advertisers, telling them who and when people are clicking their ads.

You can read more about the new Facebook Ads in Facebook’s Press Release, but suffice to say, this is just another new way for companies to shill their products to you. Basically, like I mentioned earlier, this is a way for Facebook and companies to use the information in your profile to judge what kind of products you’d actually be interested in and then send ads for those products to you. Now on the surface, some might cringe at the idea of targeted ads and personal information being used in them, but targeted ads have been around for a while. Anybody with Gmail knows that if they log into their account and read an e-mail, the Google Ads will usually have something to do with the text in your letter.

And when you think about this from the other side of the coin, how many times have you complained when you saw an ad you weren’t interested in. No offense to parents, but I’m not in the market for diapers or baby formula. So why should I have to see ads for those? At the same time, Facebook knows I love The Simpsons and there might easily be a new DVD or book out about that that I might not otherwise had heard about unless it were for targeted ads.

As of now, there are 12 large brands and companies that you’ll most likely be seeing the most of until more join. They are: Partners joining the stage at a launch event in New York for Facebook Ads included senior executives from Blockbuster, CBS, Chase, The Coca-Cola Company, Sony Pictures, Verizon, CondéNet (Epicurious.com and flip.com), Crest Whitestrips, Dove Cream Oils, Herbal Essences, The New York Times Co., and Saturn.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve spent way too much time reading and typing about Facebook for now. The Australian beach is calling me and I think I have a beer or two with my name on it. Until I get home stateside to write about this more, you can read a pretty cool analysis of the newly launched Facebook and Myspace ads campaigns here.

Facebook, Ads, Facebook Ads

The Sydney Morning Herald recently ran a short blurb pondering the overzealousness of Facebook to hold their users guilty until proven innocent when it comes to stuff that can get you banned. Which got me thinking and Googling and before I knew it, I’d turned up at least a dozen stories written in the past year or so about users who had their Facebook account disabled for pretty bland violations. To make matters worse, most of the people had trouble getting a straight answer out of Facebook as to why their accounts were deleted in the first place.

Now granted, they did break the rules in some form, but in most case the infractions were ones that are being committed by tens of thousands of others (for instance, using a nickname as your Facebook name instead of your legal name.) But still, there are many good reasons for most of these rule infractions. For instance, some of my friends are almost forced to use their nickname instead of their real name because most people they know don’t even know their real name!

Facebook might want to consider hiring a few more people in their customer relations department, either to police these rule infractions a little more vigorously or to at least speed up the process of letting people know what’s going on when they suddenly can’t log into their account anymore.

Facebook

Facebook, I need your help. I like to drink. There’s no real shocking or Earth-shattering news there. But what you don’t already know is that I like to get on Facebook when I’ve had a little too much delicious alcohol. There, I said it. I’m a Drunk Facebooker.

Now, short of implementing some breathalyser test before people can log onto Facebook, there’s not much that can stop me from destroying every shred of dignity I have left once I get the brilliant idea in my head that it’s a great time to get on Facebook after 10 Tequila shots! First, you’ve got the obligatory drunken wall posts. That’s just an absolute given. In fact, I’ll probably spent an hour making three drunken wall posts.

But then we move onto the more complicated matters. Like leaving a Facebook group and putting down a horribly stupid reason why. Who even does stuff like that? Oh yeah, drunk people. Very drunk people.

But you know what? It’s all good. Because when you wake up the next morning, it doesn’t take long to stroll through your browser history and see all the drunken comments you left on people’s walls. Or to look in your news feed and see all the stupid things you shouted out to everybody. And with just a few clicks of your mouse, you can make them all go away, as if they never happened. Ahh….

But wait! Suddenly you notice that you visited your old high school girlfriend’s profile. And after that, you went to the profile of that smoking hot chick in your chemistry class that you never talk to. And is that your History professor’s profile next on the list? And suddenly you vaguely remember adding them all as your friend and accompanying each request with a “hilarious” personal message explaining to them why you should totally hook up. And yes, that even goes for your professor.

In short, Facebook, help a brother out and make it so that we can rescind a friends request! There’s no reason that request should just float out there forever, even indefinitely if the receiving party decides to not answer it so that they can look at it and laugh whenever they want. Us alcoholics are pleading with you, Facebook! Do something to help us avoid living in eternal shame!

This goes further than Drunk Facebooking though. What if you send a friend request to Jim Smith only to quickly realize that’s not the Mr. J. Smith you happen to know. Should you really have to wait until he signs on, sees it, and starts messaging you asking who you are and how you know him? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be able to decline it on your own?

Call me crazy, but I think this would be a great additional feature to Facebook.

Facebook, drunk facebook, drunk facebooking

If you go to Stanford and wonder what you should take next semester to help further solidify your nerd status, then look no further than the official Facebook Application class being offered now.

It promises to…I don’t know, probably do something with Facebook. Honestly, I looked around on the net for a mission statement or something on this class and I found about 20 different things. All I can assume is their going to be studying Facebook and Applications and, if they finish early with all that, why in the world they took this stupid class. You can follow along on the excitement class by joining their Facebook group.

I did, however, absolutely love this quote from their group. It was recently posted in the update as to how the first meeting of this class went.

When we asked if the new apps on Facebook made it better, the energy in the room went flat, like a huge group sigh. (Interesting contradiction: A course about FB apps attracted people not thrilled with apps.)

Hahahaha. The very people who are taking the class aimed at analyzing Facebook applications don’t even think they add much to Facebook. Beyond awesome.

Just to add onto what I posted earlier today about Facebook application invitations, take a look at the picture below.

That photo is a shot of the settings you can edit in regard to what items show up on your Facebook Home page. I can edit how much news I’m told about updated profiles, new photos, even relationship statuses. But I can’t edit how much news I get about my friends adding new applications to their profiles? Are you serious?

I don’t care if my friend recently added the Super Wall application to her profile or if my buddy just added the Booze Mail application. I’m going to immediately minimize them both upon viewing their profiles and never look at them again. So why do I need to be told when they add yet another pointless app? What is the logic behind this? Why doesn’t Facebook’s What’s New page mention a fix or update for this problem?

Facebook, you’re starting to tick me off here. This is the kind of customer support I expect from AOL, not from one of my favorite sites of all time.

Facebook recently announced that a new feature is in the works, which will allow you to group your friends into different categories (ie, Friends, Family, Drunken Hookups) so that you can control who exactly sees what on your profile. But knowing Facebook, this will take forever to actually become a functioning feature on the site and in the mean time, there are still concerns over how to stop people from seeing things you want to keep private. Well, let me see if I can’t help.

We all know how Google can now show up some limited Facebook info in their search results, which leads some people to worry that one day their private data might start to show up as well. While that hasn’t happened yet, the thought of a potential employer Googling your name and then seeing your profile isn’t the most calming idea to me. Sure, you might have thought it was a good idea to upload those photos of yourself from last week’s Toga Party, but you’ll probably start to regret it as the director of Human Resources at Company X looks through them and then reads your notes posted the next afternoon about the Walk of Shame you just embarked upon.

Plus there’s the option that your potential employer is already a Facebook member and looks you up using Facebook’s own search feature. But fear not, fair citizens, for you can hide all that precious and incriminating data with just a few keystrokes.

First, click the “privacy” link at the top of Facebook’s page, then “Edit Settings” next to the Search option, before making sure you have everything set up correctly. If you’re using Facebook primarily as a social site to keep up with your friends (which is what most people do), then there is no need to let Google show you up in their search. Uncheck “Allow my public search listing…”, which is the highlighted box in the picture below.

Of course, if you’re super paranoid about being rooted out on Facebook, you can completely hide yourself from everybody on Facebook who isn’t your friend. But this obviously makes it harder for new friends to find you, but if you don’t mind finding all your Real Life friends on Facebook, then this might be a good option for you. To do this, simply change the “Which Facebook users can find me in search” option from “Everybody” to “Only my friends.”

But let’s say that you don’t want that new hot chick you just added as a friend to see how nerdy you are by looking at your favorite movies and TV shows. Well, then, don’t let her! You can set up a “Limited Profile,” which does just what the name implies. Again, you can edit this setting from the main Privacy page and after you tweak it, anybody you put in this category will only be able to see the certain sections of your profile that you want them seeing.

Another setting you might not know about is the ability to make sure your professors aren’t looking at your profile. That’s right, that evil Math professor whom you hate might very well be on Facebook reading all the mean things you’re saying about him on yours and other people’s walls. So let’s cut him out of the picture!

Go back to the Privacy page and this time edit the settings next to the “Profile” section. Here, you’ll see a vast array of crap you and tweak and fiddle with. But about half-way down the page, you’ll see some check boxes that you can mess with that will make sure Professor Pain-In-The-Ass won’t ever be able to see your profile again.

In fact, students at the University of Oxford found out about this setting the hard way, as university officials began going through people’s photos and looking for rule violations this past summer. Let’s make sure you don’t get any fines or even worse, kicked out of the dorms thanks to your Facebook profile!

Obviously, there are plenty more settings here on this page and you should look at all of them and make sure you have them set to exactly what you want. Who do you want seeing your phone number? E-mail addresses? Current Address? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Don’t wait to limit what personal information about you is out there until something happens that makes you regret it!

If you’ve recently made a Facebook application and you’ve gotten yourself some users, you’re probably wondering what the hell to do with it now. Well never fear, for I’ve compiled a short list of all the websites out there were you can sell your application and make a little quick cash or where you’ll find ways to monetize your application for the long haul.

AppMrkt - I guess AppMarket.com was already taken. Anyways, this is by far the coolest site out there if you’re in the market for selling your application in the present. It’s basically like a Facebook Application E-Bay, where creators can list their applications and people can in turn bid on them. There’s a Buy It Now feature as well, so that you can go for the quick sell if you need to. The only downside is that people don’t seem to be using it all that much.

Social Media - They’ll help match you with advertisers for your application. Both advertisers and apps creators can join the site and then they magically pair you. Or something like that. It still seems worth it to sign up with them if you think you might be interested in displaying ads in your app.

Adonomics - They track Facebook application stats, ranking the most popular ones based on total users as well as showing you a top 10 weekly shakers. They also claim to help users monetize their apps, but I’m not entirely sure how and their website is absolutely no help in explaining this any further.

Sitepoint Marketplace - There’s already been a few apps showing up on Sitepoint’s marketplace, so it deserves to be here. You can pretty much sell any web service imaginable there and Facebook apps are no exception.

Do you know of any other websites that specialize in buying/selling apps? Then share it with me either in the comments or through the contact link above!