Am really excited to see this movie. What do you think of the trailer?
Trailer for The Social Network
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Category Archives: Facebook
The New TweetDeck Let’s Me Use Facebook Without Being on Facebook
It’s true. I’m kind of in love with TweetDeck. It’s a Twitter client that lets me see everything that’s going on in my world with all of my friends.
Well they just did something which took the usefulness of the product to a whole new level. They integrated Facebook statuses, to which I can dedicate a whole column of my TweetDeck. It’s pretty AWESOME.
I wish Facebook would let TweetDeck pull down more then just the status updates because then I could really abandon going to Facebook.com but this is good for now.
Mafia Wars by Zynga is Like Mafia LIVE But on Facebook
So… my current iPhone app addiction has a competitor for my attention, Mafia Wars. It’s a Facebook game from the folks at Zynga.
The functionality is almost EXACTLY the same as Mafia LIVE. Would be interesting to see who came out first.
While this game is awesome, I like that Mafia LIVE is based on the iPhone because then I can play it during the down time that I have that’s not infront of my computer.
I’d love for Mafia LIVE to take a cue from Mafia Wars and pull Facebook Friends into it when Facebook Connect comes to the iPhone.
So which of these Mafia games are you playing? I see that SGN just released a Mafia game for the iPhone. I’m going to review that one next.
Businesses Connecting with Customers via Facebook…
I spend a lot of my time out and about talking to folks about how they’re using social media within their lives and the lives of their businesses.
When it comes to businesses using social media, seems like one response I’ve been getting a lot of lately is… “We have a page on Facebook. I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do with it but we have one.”
Seems like most people who’re approaching social media see the tools as just boxes on a check list that they need to check off and are not thinking about how they are actually going to use it. How are you going to use your business’ Facebook to reach to new audiences and generate better relationships with your existing users?
But who’s actually doing this? There are many pages for businesses on Facebook but once I’ve become a fan of the company, what next? Do you send out “fan updates”? I’ve become a fan of so many pages that those are really hard to keep up with and have become noise.
Some businesses create branded Facebook apps but those seem to be more “throw-away” apps. I’ll use them for a few days and then I’ll get bored with them and move on or “throw them away”. How can you use Facebook to create long term engagement between you and your business?
So… have you seen any examples? What am I missing?
What Facebook/Social App Do You Use Often?
Appssavvy’s recent round of investment made me rethink about the question… What Facebook/social app do you use often? For me, it’d be none. I don’t actively use any Facebook Apps. How about you?
My Thoughts on the Facebook iPhone App
I’m surprised the more folks aren’t writing about the different iPhone apps. Thought maybe I’d put down some notes about the different ones that I’ve used.
I’ve already spoken about my love for the Pandora app. The next one I thought I’d write about was the Facebook app (iTunes Link).
It has 5 major sections: Home, You, Friends, Chat, and Inbox.
The Home Screen doesn’t give me access to my newsfeed but it shows me all the recent status updates of my friends. From here I can quickly update my own status or post a photo.
The You section allows you to see your own profile information, wall, and photos. It’s not that exciting.
For the Friends section, you can quickly page through all of the different friends that you have in Facebook. This is awesome. If more of my friends posted their contact info on Facebook, I could see this becoming kind of an Address book in the cloud. In this section you can also, view your friends photos and write on their walls.
The next section is really cool. In the Chat tab, you can talk with your friends from your iPhone to their Facebook Chat accounts.
Lastly, you can check your Facebook message inbox. Nothing to exciting here.
One thing that is noticeably absent is the ability to accept friend requests. This is something that you can do from the iPhone Web app.
This raises the question. Why does this need to be an iPhone app? Other then having access to the camera, which is kind of compelling but not that big of a deal, why does this need to be an iPhone app.
With the Web app, you can actually see the whole newsfeed and not just status updates. Generally the design seems to be more inlign with what your used to seeing on Facebook.com. With 3G, the Web app is just as responsive as the software application.
So… why get the Facebook iPhone software app?
Washington Post’s Blog Profile of Washington DC-based Company Social Cash
There is a really great profile of Washington DC-based company Social Cash in the Washington Post blog The Wash Biz Blog.
And that’s in part because he has partnered with SocialCash, a District company that has launched an ad network for all the slight, entertaining applications developers have built. Some apps with seemingly basic utility — sending a virtual gift to a friend, for example — can go unexpectedly viral.
SocialCash wants to be there to help developers turn some of the hundreds of thousands of users into profit–and share in some of the proceeds as well. “It used to take years to get the traffic you can now get overnight,” said Rob Jewell, chief executive of Gratis Internet, which owns SocialCash.
I met Gordon and the crew from Social Cash at an event in San Francisco a few months ago. They rock. They party hard just like all of us at Clearspring.
I’m confident that these guys will go far.
Random Thoughts from Facebook’s F8…
So I’m here in San Francisco at Facebook’s F8 conference.
At the beginning of the afternoon, everyone filed into the main auditorium room for Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote. I think everyone had that same Steve Jobs Keynote like anticipation about what he was going to say and if it was going to be something new and exciting.
They officially officially kicked off development around Facebook Connect, which is really cool but will be more fun when there are some more working examples to play with. Sounds like this will come later this summer.
They also spent a lot of time talking about what the principles of good Facebook applications are and what they’re going to try and encourage moving forward. This wasn’t that exciting.
What impressed me more was the setup of the conference.
Theses guys throw an impressive party. It’s a big space. Each section is cordoned off so that they can talk more indepth about different aspects around building for the platform.
They’re serving a variety of really good food. It looks like they raided the local IKEA and got all kind of hipster furniture for folks to sit on. Plus… the drinks are flowing and the music is pumpin’.
You can defintely tell that they’re trying to maintain the level of excitement around the platform that they got last year when it started. Will they be able to get people pumped? I dunno. Only time will tell.
Kind of interesting… they did announce that there are 400,000 developers on the Facebook platform. Now I wonder whether those are the number of active developers or the number of folks who installed the Facebook Developer application, which includes folks like me who’ve installed it once and haven’t touched it.
Regardless, 400,000 developers for one platform is A LOT of people.
Well… I’m back to the party. More blogging later.
Washington DC-based LivingSocial Raises $5 Million
My friends and the Washington DC-based LivingSocial company just raised $5 million dollars. Congrats guys!!!
LivingSocial, a company that started out as a Facebook developer and is now creating social app across many social networks, raised $5 million in a series A financing that was led by Grotech Ventures. Steve Case also personally invested. (LivingSocial’s CEO and co-founder, Tim O’Shaughnessy, is a former AOLer who also worked for Case at Revolution Health).
Wanna Help Stop Rumors… Be Transparent. Give people some real news to talk about.
In a recent post on Facebook’s corporate blog, Carolyn Abram talks about how Facebook users should not be listening to rumors about Facebook that are passed around via chain letters, Wall messages, and third-party applications.
So… let me think about this…
If you’re transparent about what you’re doing and actually give people real information, why would they spread rumors?
If Facebook actually talked more about what was going on people wouldn’t spread stupid rumors. They’d be talking about all the amazing things Facebook has going on.
Doesn’t this make sense?
