
Inside Facebook
Inside Facebook |
- Facebook Now Allows Merged Places Pages to Unmerge
- Why MixApp’s Listening Chat Rooms Could Change Music Consumption
- Facebook Temporarily Blocks j.mp Links Due to Spam and Malware Issues
- Facebook Careers Posts: Communications, Rutherford Data Center, Mobile, Vietnam and Dublin
- Featured Facebook Campaigns: CVS, Sony Ericsson, Southwest Airlines, NBC Sports and Miami Dolphins
Facebook Now Allows Merged Places Pages to Unmerge Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:55 PM PST Facebook today added an unmerge option to Pages which had been merged with Places. Facebook has allowed an admin of a similar official Page and claimed Places location page to merge these two entities since the launch of the Places location-sharing services in August, but offered no way to undo the combination. Merged Place Pages are unable to set a default landing tab, frustrating admins who use custom tabs but had merged without knowing the consequences. The new unmerge option restores all the functionality of the separate entities. We discussed a need for the option in our post on the disadvantages of merging earlier this month. Followers of the protest Page “Unmerge Places & My Business”, which has requested the option since early November, are currently rejoicing and thanking Facebook. Facebook’s move has successfully turn some outraged admins back into loyal supporters of the site. Admins of merged Place Pages now see an “Unmerge all merged Places” button in the bottom left of their Page. When clicked, admins are shown the following confirmation message:
Admins of merged Places Pages which want to be able to set a landing tab or show a more familiar interface (at least until Facebook rolls out the Page redesigned that leaked last week) should take advantage of the option. Meanwhile, admins of Pages which haven’t merged, have a single physical location, and who want to focus on driving foot traffic can now experiment with merging without being stuck with the result. [Thanks to Kim Bui of KPCC Los Angeles for the tip] |
Why MixApp’s Listening Chat Rooms Could Change Music Consumption Posted: 23 Dec 2010 11:14 AM PST Occasionally, entrepreneurs create a great social product but don’t have the resources to accrue the critical mass of users necessary to demonstrate its worth. MixApp by Square Products Corp., a free web service in which songs can be played to everyone in a chat room simultaneously, has developed a small but dedicated user base who love to share and talk about music with friends. However, MixApp is in danger of folding if it doesn’t receive funding or a surge of donations to pay for operational costs and development of a better way to onboard members of different social clusters. Music listening in the physical world always had a synchronous social component until the popularization of headphones and mobile devices. Friends would attend concerts together or play records for each other while discussing what they heard. Yet most online music services separate these actions, playing songs to individuals without offering discussion mechanisms, like Pandora, or with asynchronous mechanisms, like Last.fm or Soundcloud. MixApp ports the natural desire to say “did you hear that? I love that part” into an online environment where friends can respond, “you’re right, that was awesome. Thanks for sharing”, in real time. Development of a downloadable client version of MixApp formally began in 2007 while the founders were at MIT. It switched into a AJAX-powered, browser-based service in May 2010. Square Product Corp has now spent its initial friends and family funding but has been scraping by thanks to user donations. When users visit MixApp, they see a facepile of friends who already use the service, and login through Facebook Connect. They can join any listening room with at least one friend in it or start their own room and distribute its unique URL to invite friends. Users queue songs to the room’s playlist by uploading mp3s or adding YouTube links. Everyone in the room hears the current song at the same time and can participate in the chat, edit the playlist, and manipulate their individual volume controls. Early usage stats are promising. Those logging in four days or more a month average 35 hours on site per month — more than the average user spends on Facebook. Roughly half the service’s monthly active users average over 19 hours of listening a month. If combined with an AJAX-friendly advertising network, this type of prolonged usage could translate into significant monetization potential. The site could also serve as a recorded music-focused alternative to Ustream for musicians. MixApp has conducted successful listening parties for album releases and focus groups for artists looking for feedback on their works-in-progress. But the synchronous experience of MixApp creates obstacles to growth. Since a user’s friends must be using MixApp at the same time as them to get the true value, it’s difficult to retain the first users from any social cluster. The MixApp team says a notification system for alerting friends when a user logs in and a room for users without friends online are two things they’d like to develop given more resources. Some users have been resistant to the exclusive use of Facebook Connect for login, so MixApp plans to add Twitter, email, and OpenSocial registration options. Discovering, discussing, and listening to music with friends is a fundamentally enjoyable experience. MixApp has developed the technology to span this experience across physical divides. If it can attain the funding and stickyness necessary to survive, MixApp could redefine how we consume music. |
Facebook Temporarily Blocks j.mp Links Due to Spam and Malware Issues Posted: 23 Dec 2010 11:01 AM PST While Facebook has its own URL shortener for mobile links, fb.me, it also works with third-party shortening services, like Bit.ly — that service provides a variety of shortened URLs, as well as analytics and other features. This allows users and Page owners to share their own, custom URLs in status updates and other links. But today, the Bit.ly-operated j.mp URL has been blocked by Facebook. Why? The reason doesn’t appear to be competitive, as expected. Facebook says: As part of our effort to keep Facebook and the people who use our service secure, we closely monitor the content shared on the site for spam and malicious content. At the time we blocked j.mp, more than 70% of j.mp links pointed to spam or other security issues. We are working with bit.ly to resolve the issue. Facebook has occasionally blocked third parties due to these sorts of issues, and as long as spammers and other ill-intentioned actors use URL shorteners to go after users, we expect it to sometimes do so in the future. |
Facebook Careers Posts: Communications, Rutherford Data Center, Mobile, Vietnam and Dublin Posted: 23 Dec 2010 10:46 AM PST
Other positions that appear to have been filled include a Partner Development Manager position in Paris, a South Korea engineering position, the IP Counsel job we had written about previously, the Corporate Immigration Coordinator job and the Manager, Policy and Growth – Contract job in Vietnam. A half dozen positions in online operations and platform/product marketing were also filled in Dublin. About a dozen jobs were added in Dublin for online operations as fraud and payment analysts; interestingly among these positions there were several advertised for Asian language speakers such as Cantonese, Indonesian, Malay and Mandarin. A job for Datacenter Manager, Engineering Infrastructure Systems was added for Facebook's new Forest City, North Carolina Rutherford Data Center. This person will do much of the work to ensure the future engineering infrastructure in the yet-to-be-built building will be completed as needed. Several positions opened up for Communications and Public Policy over the past few weeks. Corporate Communications added an Associate position, France is seeking a Communications Manager, as is Russia & Eastern Europe — though the position will be based in London. Finally, the Brussels office is seeking a Policy and Privacy Manager, no doubt to help the company handle European governments’ ongoing interest in privacy issues and legislation. A few new positions opened up in Platform and Product Marketing at Facebook's Palo Alto, Calif. headquarters: Measurement Researcher and Manager of Partner Insights. But perhaps most interesting was the add of Head of Mobile Partnerships, which would also seem to be based out of California. This position requires someone to build partnerships in the mobile industry with Facebook and to "support the continued growth and success of our partners and social mobile applications built on Facebook Platform." For more Facebook-related jobs, check out the Inside Network Job Board. |
Featured Facebook Campaigns: CVS, Sony Ericsson, Southwest Airlines, NBC Sports and Miami Dolphins Posted: 23 Dec 2010 08:30 AM PST
Southwest Airlines and Make-A-Wish FoundationGoal: Exposure to the networks of users Core Mechanic: Places Check-Ins for Charity through Facebook Deals Method: Southwest Airlines donates $1 to Make-A-Wish Foundation for each check-in to an airport served by Southwest. These check-ins are published to the stream, exposing Southwest and Make-A-Wish to a user’s network, increasing awareness, and generating good will towards Southwest for it’s donations. Impact: According to our PageData service, Southwest's fan count was about 991,200 when this promotion started on November 26; now it's about 1.2 million. Sony EricssonGoal: Exposure to the networks of users; Page growth Core Mechanic: The creation of an avatar that publishes to a photo album and the stream and the promise of prizes Method: Sony Ericsson’s Mini Magic campaign allows users to create miniature avatars of themselves — down to the type of jewelry they wear — publishes these to the stream and creates a photo album for these images and allows users to enter a contest to win company prizes. Impact: According to our PageData service, Sony Ericsson’s Page has grown from 2.6 million Likes on November 26 to just over 3 million currently. You can find more listings coming today in the The Facebook Marketing Bible. Check it out to see other new campaigns featured this week, including an engagement campaign by The Jelly Bean Factory, a campaign to increase foot traffic to CVS convenience stores, and a sweepstakes by jewelry maker Ritani. |
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