As most brands and marketers know by now, Facebook is preparing to announce a redesigned version of its Pages product for businesses tomorrow.

For those that haven’t seen the details on all the likely* changes (*based on materials Facebook has been circulating with advertisers) and things Page owners need to do to prepare for the changes, here’s a quick summary:

1. Pages “2.0″ now look a lot like Facebook profile pages: the Wall is front and center, and almost everything else (including custom HTML and application boxes) is moving to secondary tabs.
2. Pages will now have a powerful tool previously only available to Facebook profiles: Status Updates. Status Updates have the potential to become a VERY powerful tool for marketers large and small.
3. Activity from Pages you’re a fan of will now prominently appear in your home page News Feed. This means you’ll see updates from Pages you’re a fan of mixed in with updates from people you’re friends with.

Sound familiar? That’s because, on the whole, Facebook Pages are becoming a lot more like Twitter in terms of the ways marketers can use them to reach and engage people inside Facebook.

Twitter has proven that the “status update subscription + news feed” conversation model works well for a variety of marketers – from large brands like Dell and Starbucks to self promoters like bloggers, consultants, and real estate agents. Twitter is a simple way for anyone to start participating with social media marketing by sharing updates on company news, commenting on relevant conversations about their industry, and communicating directly with both satisfied and unsatisfied customers.

While Facebook Pages have been successful for many marketers so far, many Page owners have been looking for more ways to engage more Facebook users and keep them coming back to their Page. Many marketers we’ve spoken with have been asking for help figuring out how to solve these core viral growth and user retention problems.

The good news: the new Facebook Pages should help you do just that. While the Pages redesign does move custom HTML content and application boxes to a secondary tab – a not insignificant change for brand owners who have invested in building those modules – the new emphasis on conversation and dynamic updates, combined with greater News Feed integration, should make Facebook Pages a much more powerful tool for marketers overall.

Like Twitter, Facebook’s new Pages make it much more natural for marketers to share fresh content and communicate with their fans (of course, Pages have always allowed owners to post rich content like Photos and Videos, and that will continue). Because status updates and conversations that Page owners have with their fans on the Page will now be much more prominent, Facebook Pages could become much more important conversational venues around the brand at hand than they have in the past.

How will all the details pan out? We’ll have all the updates from tomorrow’s announcement.

There’s been a lot of news about various security challenges Facebook has been fighting recently to protect site integrity, so here’s the latest on all fronts.

1. New Koobface worm variant

Back in August of last year, the “Koobface” worm spread throughout Facebook, tricking users into downloading software that used their login information to post messages on infected users’ friends’ walls in order to propagate itself.

At the time, we detailed the variety of mechanisms and processes Facebook has been developing to both automatically and manually detect and prevent the further spread of Koobface and other worms on Facebook. These measures include:

1. Facebook is deleting content generated by the worm.
2. Facebook is blocking Wall posts that contain links to known phishing sites
3. Facebook is improving its automated systems to automatically detect abuse on the site more quickly.
4. Facebook is posting updates on the status of security issues to the Facebook Security Page.

This week, however, TrendLabs has reported a new Koobface variant spreading on Facebook. While the approach of the new version is fundamentally the same as the old ones, it uses a slightly different landing page and code base, making it hard to instantaneously detect. Facebook says that only a “small percentage” of users have been affected by the new worm, and that is is continually working to contain and shut down all malicious attacks.

2. Lawsuit against prominent spammer

Last week, Facebook filed a complaint against “Spam King” Sanford Wallace and two others in San Jose District Court, alleging that the defendants broke the CAN-SPAM Act (among other laws) via phishing attacks on Facebook users. MySpace won a $230 million judgment against Wallace last year for similar complaints.

Facebook also filed suit against Adam Guerbuez last year for “hijacking users’ accounts” and using them to send embarrassingly spammy messages and wall posts. Judge Jeremy Fogel awarded Facebook $873 million in that case (none of which the company is likely to actually see) last November.

3. Misleading applications shut down

TrendLabs also reported two Facebook applications this week that have violated user trust by sending spammy notifications on users’ behalf:

• One, called “Error Check System,” misleadingly told users that certain friends were not able to see their profile and that messages needed to be sent to their friends in order to correct it. Of course, this was untrue. Facebook has deleted this application.
• A second application, called “f a c e b o o k – closing down!!!” spammed all of a users’ friends with notifications that misleadingly implied that the user had reported their friends for Terms of Service violations. Facebook also quickly shut down this application.

Conclusion

All in all, Facebook is working on all fronts – spam detection, legal, and platform policy monitoring – to ensure that trust is preserved within the service. Given that over 175 million people use Facebook every month, it’s no surprise that spammers are attracted to the site. While only a small percentage of users have been affected by these security threats, Facebook  must continue to both enhance its automated systems and educate users about the tactics spammers employ. Preserving user trust is absolutely vital for the future of sharing on Facebook.

In case you haven’t heard, Facebook is growing a lot internationally. And in order to promote the development of localized applications, Facebook has been holding international application contests.

Today, Facebook announced the winners of its French Application Contest and Spanish Application Contest. Each of the Grand Prize winners took home 5000 Euros, while the 1st prize winner took home 3000 Euros and 2nd prize took 2000.

And the winners are…

Category: French

Grand Prize: Pour un nouveau capitalisme

This application (which means “For a New Capitalism”) teaches users about “Social Business” through quizzes and slideshows and encourages users to submit ideas for how to harness the power of capitalism for social good. The submitter of the winning idea will get to meet Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohammed Yunis in Paris on March 6.

1st Prize: Que penses-tu de moi?

This app (“What do you think of me?”) is like others we’ve seen in English and lets users evaluate their friends and see what your friends think of you.

2nd Prize: Suceurs de Sang

This is a game (called “Blood Sucking”) reminiscent of Blake Commagere’s Vampires…

Category: Spanish

Grand Prize: Publistars

This app is a game where you take quizzzes on your knowledge of the advertising world. It’s a well designed Flash game by SocialPoint that feels a lot like the high quality games made by Playfish.

1st Prize: Mariposa Mensajeras

Mariposa Mensajeras (“Butterfly Messengers”… I actually knew that one) is a virtual gifting app where users can send different kides of butterflies to their friends.

2nd Prize: Carnival Party

This is a virtual gifting app around Carnival, which we hear is pretty popular.

Congratulations to all the winners! And for those interested in reaching the French and Spanish markets on Facebook, be sure to check out La Bible du Marketing sur Facebook (Francais) and La Biblia del Mercadero en Facebook (Espanol)!

Our sister site Inside Social Games has just released the top 25 Facebook games for March 2009, and here’s the list.

It was a big month for Zynga, as the company now holds six titles within the Facebook Top 25. Normally, this chart has been dominated primarily by Playfish’s suite of six apps, but now the charts are evening out.

Green Patch, David Maestri’s Psycho Monkey, Serious Business, and 6 waves all placed games in the top 25 as well.

Read more at Inside Social Games for details.

Three months after Facebook announced it had hired Oodle to run its classifieds business, Marketplace “2.0″ is launching on Facebook tonight.

Like Facebook’s original Marketplace application, Oodle’s new Marketplace application will primarily focus on the “private party” market – individuals selling things to other individuals – instead of primarily focusing on local advertisers.

How has Oodle revamped Facebook Marketplace?

1. The new Marketplace takes a “conversational” approach to classifieds listings. The listing process is light, and asks users “Why are you selling it?” This is intended to start a conversation around the listing, and comments are aggregated on a listed item’s “Wall.”

“We think a lot of fun things happen in classifieds, and it’s not all about selling. The fact that you’re selling your couch provokes an interesting conversation, and we want to fit classifieds into that,” Craig Donato, Oodle’s CEO, told Inside Facebook today.

2. Marketplace places a large emphasis on items listed by your friends – not just people in your local area. Why? Marketplace aims to take advantage of the way communication on Facebook works to make it easier for people to list things on Marketplace that they would never email their friends about.

For example, take the example of trying to borrow a power washer to give your driveway its annual spring cleaning, Donato says. While emailing your friends about that may seem a little too in-your-face, putting up a Marketplace listing and hoping someone sees it in their feed is a lower priority way to share that that could feel more appropriate for some people.

3. Marketplace makes it easy to “sell for a cause.” The Causes application on Facebook has shown that people like to express themselves through the causes they support. Oodle is leveraging this by creating a way for Facebook users to sell items to benefit charity.

Oodle has partnered with Network for Good to build a list of thousands of non-profits that users can “sell for.” When a Facebook user donates an item to sell for the cause, Marketplace promotes that along with the listing. (However, because Oodle is not getting in the middle of transactions, you’re essentially making a pledge when you “sell for a cause” – Oodle will send you an email to actually enter your payment information and complete the donation later.)

“While my wife wouldn’t go and clean out the garage for a yard sale, she might do it if it would benefit the Samaritan House,” Donato said.

Cracking the Classifieds Nut on Facebook

While Facebook’s original Marketplace application never gained widespread adoption, Donato said he is optimistic about the company’s new version rolling out tonight.

“We designed the classifieds experience around the way conversation happens in Facebook,” Donato says. “In addition, we have a lot of infrastructure we’ve been building for the last 4 years designed to maintain quality control, do fraud and spam detection, auto-categorization of listings, and so on.”

“Ultimately, classifieds are very social. You meet the person online first, but you always end up in a face to face interaction. A lot of people are freaked out by the anonymity of sites like Craigslist, because they end up at your house the next day. There’s the nice weirdo filter aspect that now you’re dealing with people you at least know something about.”

Oodle’s Relationship with Facebook

While Donato wouldn’t detail the nature of the company’s business relationship with Facebook, general signs point to a revenue sharing agreement as the Marketplace service grows. In addition, Donato said the application won’t get any special treatment from Facebook in terms of APIs or promotion.

The company is inheriting the Marketplace name, but other than that, “Anyone could have built this,” Donato says.

Facebook Connect? Listings Staying Inside Facebook For Now

Donato said that Facebook Marketplace listings will not be syndicated out to the rest of the Oodle network because they company “still needs to figure out the right boundaries.” However, Donato said that Oodle will be allowing users to do so in the future.

In addition, Donato said that while Oodle has not yet implemented Facebook Connect, it is “coming soon.” Connecting Oodle’s web marketplace to Facebook through Connect is certainly a logical next step to expand the size of the overall marketplace.

Conclusion

The new Marketplace is by far the best approach we’ve seen yet to integrating classifieds with the way people use Facebook. Oodle’s “conversational” approach takes the right direction by making classifieds about more than just a sales pitch, but rather the story behind the person selling the item.

What categories will Marketplace on Facebook be strongest in? Besides merchandise, most likely things that have to do with finding other people. “Jobs, roommates, personals,” Donato predicts. (While dating isn’t a part of the release tonight, personals have done well in general on the Platform so far.)

“We tried to understand what would motivate someone to post in an environment where you’re sharing personal information with your friends,” Donato says. “We want to help users share even more.”

In a move likely to at least incrementally increase ad revenues, Facebook has added Social Ads on the right side of business Pages. This means that advertisers can now reach their target demographic in more places across the site.

Previously, most of Facebook’s performance ad inventory was shown on the profile page and application pages. (For detailed background on how Facebook’s performance ad system works, see our recent interview with Tim Kendall, Facebook’s Director of Monetization.)

However, Facebook has NOT enabled targeting ads to viewers of a specific Page or type of Page. Pages are still targeted by user profile data. Were Facebook to enable Page-level targeting, it would likely lead to bidding on inventory from competitors’ Pages. Facebook has decided not to go down this route for now.

“We thought it was important to expand the opportunities for your ads to be shown across another popular section of the site… As with all Facebook Ads, the enhanced distribution is based on the audience you have selected when you created your ad, not based on the content of that Page,” Facebook says.

Over 3.5 million people become Fans of Facebook pages each day. As Inside Facebook recently detailed, Pages are slated to undergo a major redesign perhaps as soon as this week – for all the details on the changes, click here.

As Facebook prepares to relaunch its Pages product possibly as soon as this week (full details & tour of the redesigned Pages here), we thought we’d take a look at which Pages have achieved the most popularity amongst Facebook users so far to date.

Since Pages launched in late 2007, they have become the easiest way for brands to get started marketing on Facebook. Today, 3.5 million users become Fans of one of the several hundred thousand Pages on Facebook each day.

So here’s the list of the 30 Most Popular Pages on Facebook. The results?

• Facebook users like soft drinks, pizza, chips, and fast food: Coca Cola, Pringles, McDonalds, and Pizza are all in the top 30.
• TV shows, music, and movies are also extremely popular: House, Rihanna, Family Guy, and 2 Pages for Twilight are all in the list too.
• The Facebook audience is international. The most popular Pages on Facebook overall are those which have built global brands over many years – like Coke, Ronaldo, and McDonald’s. The most popular Simpsons Page is actually in Spanish (Los Simpsons).
• And of course, Barack Obama dominates the list. With nearly 6 million Facebook fans and growing, Obama’s Page is nearly twice as popular as #2 Coke. And there are no other politicians on the list – future contenders are going to need to start working now to even get close to Obama’s reach on Facebook in time for future elections.

1. Barack Obama – 5,740,677 supporters

2. Coca-Cola- 3,130,495 fans

3. Nutella – 2,906,814 fans

4. Pizza – 2,839,644 fans

5. DR. HOUSE – 2,624,202 fans

6. Pringles – 2,614,281 fans

7. Cristiano Ronaldo – 2,561,864 fans

8. kinder surprise – 2,453,960 fans

9. Windows Live Messenger – 2,362,203 fans

10. Facebook – 2,336,473 fans

11. Sid – 2,286,026 fans

12. Boo – 2,198,970 fans

13. YouTube – 2,185,632 fans

14. Rihanna – 2,105,659 fans

15. Michael Phelps – 2,025,760 fans

16. Twilight – 2,004,922 fans

17. dormir – 1,933,272 fans

18. Donkey – 1,919,974 fans

19. Adam Sandler – 1,912,110 fans

20. Los simpson – 1,855,006 fans

21. Stewart Griffin – 1,839,059 fans

22. Coldplay – 1,795,923 fans

23. ICE CREAM! – 1,794,544 fans

24. Converse ALL STAR – 1,766,759 fans

25. F.R.I.E.N.D.S (Tv Series) – 1,764,783 fans

26. FERRERO ROCHER – 1,747,122 fans

27. Twilight – 1,685,236 fans

28. BobMarley – 1,684,321 fans

29. Dormir 5 minutos Mas – 1,671,635 fans – Become a Fan

30. Mc Donalds – 1,660,448 fans

Learn more about building your brand and growing your audience with our comprehensive guide to marketing on Facebook. The Facebook Marketing Bible is available at FacebookMarketingBible.com

At this point it is well documented that Facebook has crossed 175 million global users, and is adding 5 million new users per week. But where is that growth coming from?

During recent weeks, Facebook has been growing faster than ever before. In fact, Facebook has just crossed major milestones in several major European markets:

Purchase this report The Facebook Global Monitor – Current Edition Buy PDF: $99 USD OR Buy 6 Month Subscription: $395 USD

• Last week, Facebook crossed 2 million users in Belgium, Sweden, and Denmark
• Facebook also recently passed 1 million users in Egypt, Malaysia
• And Facebook is on the brink of crossing 10 million users in Turkey

Facebook continues to grow faster than ever in North American markets as well.

• In February, Facebook added 9 million active users in the US – it’s now at nearly 55 million monthly users in the US, according to Facebook.
• In Canada, nearly 35% of the entire national population is active on Facebook each month – over 11.5 million of its 33 million residents.

All of this and much more is now available in the Facebook Global Monitor – March 2009 Edition! Each month, the Facebook Global Monitor provides the latest comprehensive data on the expansion of Facebook’s audience in nearly 100 global markets for media industry executives, global marketing and communications firms, analysts, and developers.

In addition, the Facebook Global Monitor provides alerts on breakout and cooling markets, as well as our latest in-house projections on Facebook’s growth in each country 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months into the future. See the full table of contents below for details on this 170 page report.

For those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $99 per issue, or $395 for a six month subscription. Future monthly updates will be delivered directly to your inbox. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic. (Custom reports are also available.) You can reach us at mail AT insidefacebook DOT com with questions at any time.

We believe big opportunities exist for developers and marketers to reach and engage the Facebook audience in these rapidly emerging and expanding markets. Cheers to continued growth in 2009!

The Facebook Global Monitor

Tracking Facebook in Global Markets

March 2009

Contents

I. Introduction: The Year That Facebook Went Global

II. Global Market Report

1. Audience Size Today

2. Fastest Growing Audience

• Last 12 months
• Last 90 days
• Last 30 days

3. Market Penetration Today

4. Largest Market Penetration Increases

• Last 12 months
• Last 90 days
• Last 30 days

III. Emerging Market Analysis

1. Growth Projections

• Next 30 days
• Next 90 days
• Next 12 months

2. Technical Alerts

• Breakout Markets: Last 90 Days
• Cooling Markets: Last 90 Days

IV. Regional Summaries

1. Africa
2. Asia / Pacific
3. Europe
4. North America
5. South America

V. Country Updates

1. Argentina
2. Australia
3. Austria
4. Bahamas
5. Bahrain
6. Bangladesh
7. Belgium
8. Bolivia
9. Bosnia & Herzegovina
10. Brazil
11. Bulgaria
12. Canada
13. Chile
14. China
15. Colombia
16. Costa Rica
17. Croatia
18. Cyprus
19. Czech Republic
20. Denmark
21. Dominican Republic
22. Ecuador
23. Egypt
24. El Salvador
25. Finland
26. France
27. Germany
28. Ghana
29. Greece
30. Guatemala
31. Honduras
32. Hong Kong
33. Hungary
34. Iceland
35. India
36. Indonesia
37. Ireland
38. Israel
39. Italy
40. Jamaica
41. Japan
42. Jordan
43. Kenya
44. Kuwait
45. Lebanon
46. Lithuania
47. Luxembourg
48. Macedonia
49. Malaysia
50. Maldives
51. Malta
52. Mauritius
53. Mexico
54. Morocco
55. Netherlands
56. New Zealand
57. Nicaragua
58. Nigeria
59. Norway
60. Oman
61. Pakistan
62. Palestine
63. Panama
64. Paraguay
65. Peru
66. Philippines
67. Poland
68. Portugal
69. Puerto Rico
70. Qatar
71. Romania
72. Russia
73. Saudi Arabia
74. Serbia
75. Singapore
76. Slovakia
77. Slovenia

Purchase this report The Facebook Global Monitor – Current Edition Buy PDF: $99 USD OR Buy 6 Month Subscription: $395 USD

78. South Africa
79. South Korea
80. Spain
81. Sri Lanka
82. Sweden
83. Switzerland
84. Taiwan
85. Thailand
86. Trinidad and Tobago
87. Tunisia
88. Turkey
89. Ukraine
90. United Arab Emirates
91. United Kingdom
92. United States
93. Uruguay
94. Venezuela
95. Vietnam

Footnotes & Methodology

Starting this morning at 8:30am PT, Facebook users will be able to watch the new startups presenting at this year’s DEMO Conference using Facebook’s Live Feed widget with Facebook Connect.

As with previous Live Feed integrations around President Obama’s inauguration, the NBA All-Star Game, and the Oscars, Facebook users can publish status updates from the DEMO site, and see the stream of status updates from all their Facebook friends or everyone watching the conference.

DEMO, which recently announced it will be taken over by VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall later this year, is one of the first major conferences to integrate Facebook’s Live Feed widget. Facebook has shown that its Live Feed widget is a great way for users to bring their Facebook friends around events happening anywhere on the web, making media more social.

Three months ago, reports surfaced that Facebook and Twitter were in discussions for a $500 million takeover, but couldn’t get a deal done. Today, early Facebook investor and board member Peter Thiel of Clarium Capital publicly explained what happened for the first time in an interview with BusinessWeek.

Says Thiel,

“It became pretty clear it wasn’t going to happen,” Thiel says from the mid-Manhattan office of his hedge fund Clarium Capital. “The deal would have to be done with Facebook stock. And then you have to figure out how much the stock is worth.”

The article continues,

Representatives of Twitter liked the sound of $500 million but balked when Facebook said its stock was worth $8 billion to $9 billion. Twitter’s team knew that Facebook was letting employees sell stock on the secondary market at company valuations ranging from $2 billion to $4 billion…

At that point, Facebook offered Twitter around $100 million in cash, with the rest of the deal in stock. Facebook said it would come up with the $100 million by selling more of its stock to outside investors. Twitter agreed on one condition: that the Facebook stock it received be valued at the price company shares garnered on the open market. Facebook blinked and the deal talks ended…

Facebook and Twitter haven’t completely walked away from one another. The two companies continue to talk, though there are no serious discussions going on, says the person close to Twitter.

Given how highly Facebook leadership thinks of Twitter, it’s likely that the two companies will always have some level of ongoing dialogue. However, since the talks last fall, Twitter has gone on to raise $35 million from Benchmark and IVP at a valuation rumored above $200 million, which would make a $500 million all stock deal much more tough. Twitter will likely be going it alone, at least for a while.