Plink has just announced a Facebook Credits loyalty program in partnership with fast-food chains Dunkin' Donuts, Quiznos, Red Robin and Taco Bell. Users earn Facebook Credits by joining Plink and logging on with their Facebook credentials and credit or debit cards. Like any loyalty program, the more people purchase, the more Facebook Credits they'll rack up.
Members will be able to accumulate Facebook Credits at 25,000 locations nationwide, including Quiznos, Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell. They can use those Facebook Credits for Facebook virtual games, movies or music.
Noticed some Facebook downtime? We have. It's intermittent, but Facebook has some trouble with uptime right now, and a Twitter account representing Anonymous claims responsibility (somewhat obliquely, in order to troll tech bloggers).
In some kind of conflation of Facebook with the government, a puppet representing Anonymous threatened Facebook with an attack in retaliation for SOPA/PIPA (though other Anonymous sources denied involvement). That was scheduled for three days from now. The organization has declared war against Facebook in the past, but Facebook is no ordinary target. It's the cream of the crop. It's practically never down. Has Anonymous finally cracked it?
When Facebook announced 60 new social sharing apps, I wrote about two that weren't joining the party. And now I'm trying to tell you about the top 5 social apps on Facebook?
I know what you're thinking. But as much as we (and I) have issues with Facebook's feelings about privacy and data, sharing intrinsically makes us feel connected. Here are five frictionless sharing apps that do so in a non-creepy way.
Asia Tech News reports that the smash hit Rovio game Angry Birds is coming to Facebook on Valentine's Day.
The release will happen fast, rolling out to all 800 million users at once as opposed to a slow Facebook feature rollout like Timeline, which first became available to New Zealand users, then to all - and now it's being forced upon everyone. The big launch takes place in Jakarta. Indonesia holds the world's second-largest Facebook population, trailing only the United States. With its entrance into the Facebook ecosystem, Angry Birds will transform into a social game complete with leaderboards so users can challenge their friends.
When Mixel — an iPad-based collage app — launched last November, one of its features quickly caused frustration: Its requirement that users log in with Facebook before they could start creating and sharing art.
The reason for that requirement, Mixel co-founder (and former NYTimes.com design director) Khoi Vinh explained, was real names. Vinh wanted to build the Mixel community around real names, not anonymity or pseudonyms. "We think this is essential to the kind of experience we're building: a family-friendly environment that's suitable for just about anyone," he wrote.
At the time, Facebook was pretty much his only option. But that is starting to change. And as proving your online identity becomes more important, it's a valuable race for the players involved to win.
Facebook scammers are spreading a vicious rumor on walls everywhere.
The headline reads: "[video] Chuck Norris dies at age 71! Not a Joke," and is accompanied by a video of the star. You may remember Norris from such films as "The Karate Kid" and "Karate Kommandos," and the CBS series "Walker, Texas Ranger." The Naked Security blog reports that this is in fact another Facebook scam, and that Chuck Norris is still alive. What's the deal behind this spam attack?
It happens to me every time.
I copy and paste it, log-in to Facebook and drop it in. I hit "Post." The link, image or whatever it is publishes. I wait a few moments, then scurry back to the news feed and eventually sign off. I come back later, waiting to see what my post has done on Facebook. How long will it live, and is it going to get many likes or comments?
Sound familiar?
A new study from Edgerank Checker suggests that the average lifetime for a Facebook Page post is only three hours. A post is considered "dead" when its engagement is less than 10% of the largest growth of engagement between hourly snapshots.
Boston-based Nanigans, a firm specializing in the Facebook ads marketplace, recently released new data confirming a year-over-year jump in the Facebook ads marketplace this past holiday season. Facebook ads charged a higher cost-per-click (CPC), otherwise known as pay-per-click (PPC), which means that an advertiser pays each time a user clicks on the listing. This is especially interesting considering Facebook's latest incentive, which offers discounts for Facebook ads that keep users inside the network.
Facebook is pushing Timeline out to all 800 million of its users. And there's no turning back to the "old" profile.
Users have seven days to clean up their profiles before their Timeline goes live, transforming the bulletin board-like profile into a visual scrapbook of their lives.
With Timeline, users have the option to add a second, bigger magazine-esque "cover photo" in addition to the profile photo. The profile photo has changed in size from a rectangle or square to a thumbnail that resembles a driver's license photo. Social apps, which automatically share a user's activity, are one of Timeline's key features.
It's late afternoon, and you're clicking around on Facebook. Then you stumble upon a person who appears to be Facebook friends with many of your mutual friends. This person is active on Facebook, posting links, videos, images and status updates. Still, something just seems off. A bit more digging reveals that this user isn't a real person. But Facebook hasn't noticed. Sound familiar?
"Facebook has always been based on a real name culture," a Facebook spokesperson says to me via email. "We fundamentally believe this leads to greater accountability and a safer and more trusted environment for people who use the service." But what if you need to maintain a fake profile for personal, professional, security or creative reasons?
