Today Facebook began rolling out its newest update: Sponsored stories will begin appearing in the news ticker, that annoying, never-ending additional noise contributor located in the upper-righthand corner of your Facebook homepage.
Dropping sponsored stories into the news ticker was the next logical move for Facebook. But users weren't happy about the news ticker launch in the first place. It received a ton of complaints; teens, for one, called it a stalker tool. Now the news ticker is more akin to a spammer tool.
There is an epic battle taking place before our eyes, in our pockets and in our wallets. Smarthones have come to dominate consumer behavior and the headlines of media. What is the newest development with the iPhone? What are the newest and hottest Android devices this week? Can Microsoft make a dent in the mobile market? What kind of tricks does Amazon have up its sleeves? Does Facebook have a plan to tap into consumers' wallets through mobile devices?
Make no mistake, the pipeline between users' bank accounts through smart devices is what each one of these companies is looking to tap. Each one of these five major American technology companies is taking a different route to this one goal. Yet, each one of these companies is taking a different route to the same goal. Let's break down the roads that each one of these companies is taking in the quest to win the Mobile Platform Game of Thrones.
"You can always opt out," said the fellow at the other end of the table, reminding me of that most priceless freedom which the Internet, in all its majesty, has given me, given us, given the people. "If you don't want to share anything with anyone, hell, why would you join a social network at all?"
And therein lay the small print, the disclosure at the other end of the asterisk. Opting out* is already carrying with it a social stigma, the personal choice to remain behind doors with locks and windows with shutters, to not be One of Us. At the same time, it is the new symbol of American freedom as professed by its right wing, the inalienable right for each of us to exit, to withdraw, to take the door other fools would take: the right to do the wrong thing.
Facebook's new frictionless sharing features are "ruining sharing," according to a thought provoking article by CNET's Molly Wood. In response, our own Marshall Kirkpatrick argued that Facebook's seamless sharing is badly implemented and flat out "wrong."
Both made great points, but ultimately I don't believe that frictionless sharing is a bad concept. What's more, I disagree that it has ruined sharing. What Facebook has done is re-define sharing. I think it was an ingenious move and I predict that soon Facebook's seamless sharing will be the norm.
On the same day that PayPal announced its peer-to-peer Facebook payments app, it also updated Facebook Credits, the company's virtual currency for buying goods in games and apps on the site.
Facebook Credits now includes a resolved known pay flow issue, updated payment methods for international markets and an updated transfer policy.
Facebook resolved a known pay flow issue that had significantly slowed payments. This issue dealt with callbacks generated by the Pay Dialog. Instead of receiving a callback "status=settled," which resulted in some users not getting what they paid for, Facebook told developers to fulfill orders after receiving the callback "status=placed." This cuts out the middle step so that orders will be fulfilled more quickly. On March 1, 2012, Facebook will eliminate the "status=settled" middle step all together.
PayPal is aiming its peer-to-peer Facebook app, SendMoney, not only to Facebook users who want to send money to each other, but to those who want to drop an e-card in, too. According to a recent study from Pew, 64 percent of online adults use social media to stay in touch with family. Grandma can send her Facebook-addicted granddaugther a birthday card along with a nice chunk of change. Dad can pass along a nice "have fun on me" $50 to his college-aged son after the lad finishes a hard week of finals.
PayPal and Facebook want to bring together the world's biggest social network, and the world's largest online payments company - and e-cards may be the bridge to making that happen.
Today is National Unfriend Day, a day for Facebook users to fess up to their social networking habits. There are two things you can do today: Unfriend many of your Facebook friends and use Facebook as an actual, completely manageable social network, or accept the many virtual friends that your Facebook network has to offer you.
Once upon a time, friends were people you saw often, maybe even every day. You had a small group of friends with whom you shared meaningful, in-person experiences, spoke with face-to-face and - gasp! - talked on the phone with. You didn't only text or tweet or post on their Facebook walls, you actually talked to them. Those were the good old days, right?
Users can now make Facebook-to-Facebook calls within Skype. This new feature is available for Mac users with Skype 5.4 Beta and Windows users with Skype 5.7 Beta. If users chat one-on-one, they'll be able to share screens.
This new announcement is the inverse of the initial Facebook deal with Skype back in July, which let Facebook users make Skype-powered video calls within Facebook.
Is this the best of both worlds, or is this just another Facebook-Microsoft move?
Yesterday Facebook acknowledged that the latest spam attack, which sent pornographic content, violence and animal abuse imagery on users' walls, was the result of a browser bug, not the hacker group Anonymous. Creepy images appeared on users' Facebook walls, including Justin Bieber photoshopped into a compromising sexual situation, an abused dog and a naked grandma, among others.
In a blog post today, MailRank announced that its founders would be moving to Facebook in December. Is Facebook trying to revamp last year's failed email experiment? For now, the answer is no. Facebook is not acquiring any technology or other assets from MailRank. We reached out to a Facebook spokesperson who confirmed that this announcement only has to do with the actual hiring of MailRank co-founders.
Last year Facebook tried to get into the email game. Its Project Titan was dubbed a "Gmail killer" and gave users @facebook.com email addresses. Zuckerberg claimed that it wasn't really about email but still, users didn't bite.
