Facebook turns 6 years old today, and meanwhile more screenshots of the company’s long-planned home page redesign are showing up. We first saw similar screenshots last fall, the latest one, tweeted by Drop.io’s Sam Lessin today, looks a little different. And the new interface has apparently gone live for him already, suggesting it may be coming out soon for others.

In the screenshot, you can see the left-hand navigation column as Facebook has previously shown. The top section is for Facebook features and in-house apps like Photos and Events. The middle section is for bookmarked third-party apps (and games). However, the term “bookmarks” appears to have been taken out from the default view, as have the dashboard links (at least for now).

Something else we haven’t seen before: the lower part of the column shows friends are online to Chat with.

The top navigation bar has consolidated to show notifications (although not those from third-party apps), messages and friend requests. The search box appears in the middle of the top bar.

All in all, Facebook has basically taken the bottom toolbar away, and folded everything in it back into other navigational parts of the site; the news feed and the right-hand side of the site saw the most significant changes last fall.

Chat, a straightforward interface feature, is the only part of the bottom toolbar that we have not yet seen in the test screenshots that have surfaced. This suggests the redesign is imminent.

Speaking of, this screenshot has shown up on Facebook’s birthday — could that signify a wider rollout today? Maybe not, though, because Facebook said that notifications for third-party apps are going away on March 1.

Update: Here’s another screenshot, from reader Cameron Woodward. As he notes, Facebook is now displaying the “Credits Balance” in the new “Accounts” drop-down menu, a far more prominent location than its current location buried in the Settings menu.

[Top image via Sam Lessin/Drop.io]

Yesterday, Facebook announced updated terms of service for third party advertising and offer providers on the Facebook Platform. You can see our full analysis here.

Most of the terms relate to compliance with all existing Facebook terms of service and advertiser policies. However, one part in particular relates to the disclosure of third party information – including “payment details” – for any third party ad provider on the Platform. It reads (emphasis added):

3. The ad provider agrees to provide to Facebook the names, email addresses, and business addresses of all operators and employees of the ad provider and any other related information requested by Facebook for the purpose of maintaining a direct relationship with the ad provider. The ad provider also agrees to share with Facebook the contact information, implementation specifics and payment details, for each developer or application on Facebook for which the ad provider provides services.

We asked Facebook for more information on what it meant exactly by “payment details” in the new terms. i.e. Does that mean that third party monetization providers must share developer revenue numbers, revenue sharing terms, and the like, with Facebook?

The company told that payment information “will only be requested if there is a very clear need to do so.”

What we believe Facebook means by this is that they will only request this kind of sensitive financial data from third parties when substantial questions arise about the legitimacy of what either party is doing in order to investigate potential abuse. Nevertheless, many people in the developer ecosystem are concerned about the theoretical possibilities that could occur according to a strict reading of the new terms.

Ultimately, while we do not think Facebook is going to suddenly go around asking everybody to disclose their finances, this is the first instance that we are aware of in which Facebook has explicitly written a condition like this into the Platform terms of service. It’s a reflection of how Facebook views its expanding role in Platform governance – if you’re doing something suspicious or abusive, Facebook is reserving the right to look at your books and see where the money’s going.

Zynga is partnering with Microsoft’s MSN Games site today and providing its hit game FarmVille using Facebook Connect. This is the first time a Zynga game has gone live on a destination gaming site, and the partnership will include more titles and game availability on Windows Live Messenger in the coming months. It is also the first of what we expect will be several examples of social gaming driving the adoption of Facebook Connect across the web.

FarmVille, with around 75 million monthly active users, has been the breakaway social gaming hit on Facebook. While Zynga offers its games on many other social networks, it has only previously branched out to its own destination sites, like FarmVille.com. As the game does on MSN Games, FarmVille.com uses Facebook Connect as its sole user identity service.

Between the games site and Messenger, Microsoft says it reaches more than half a billion users each month. That’s a huge number of people, and notably more than Facebook’s self-reported 350 million. Of course, if the site were already a social platform, Zynga would not be using Facebook Connect. Connect allows users to participate in the game using their real Facebook identity and social graph, sharing what they’re doing back to Facebook. Games can use the Platform APIs through Connect to communicate to users and their friends about games. This is how they grow, then monetize.

Another note: The integration with Messenger isn’t yet clear, so neither is that channel’s value to Zynga. Perhaps Messenger could serve as an alternate communication channel for Zynga’s games?

The companies describes the move as a way to bring social games to new players, but far from distancing Zynga from Facebook, this move will also bring Facebook Connect to new people. Given the many existing connections between the three companies — Microsoft is a strategic Facebook investor, and Facebook board member Peter Theil is an investor in Zynga — it’s not surprising that this new partnership benefits all of them.

Last week, we wrote about privacy concerns regarding the upcoming application and games dashboards which are planned for launch to all users sometime this month. The issue was the automatic display of application activity to all of a user’s friends; the dashboard would list the most three recently used applications, and how recently the interaction happened. Although for the most part users would likely have no issue with this, there were two privacy concerns that we highlighted:

• The first was that some applications were of a type that a user may not want all of their friends knowing that they’re using. Dating apps were an obvious example.
• The second was that as everything was visible, game activity would be displayed, making it fairly easy for employers to keep tabs on what employees are doing with their lunch breaks (or possibly not just their lunchbreaks), for example.

Facebook appears to have addressed the first issue with a developer update announcement yesterday which is intended “to ensure that the dashboards meet user and developer expectations for a trustworthy experience.” Applications will now be able to hide user activity from these dashboards with a new developer setting:

If you think your application might be of a nature that your users wouldn’t want to share with friends (your application lets users discuss health issues, for example), we encourage you to enable the Hide User Activity option on the Advanced tab of your application settings in the Developer application… While your application will still be featured in the user’s personal dashboard, it will not be visible to that user’s friends. By giving your users greater protection of their privacy, you can ensure that they will feel more comfortable continuing to use the applications they would like to keep personal.

This relies on developers making the choice as to whether their application is one that users will or won’t be happy having their friends see them using. Developers with “private” applications, such as dating, can select this option and their app won’t appear in the dashboards.

Facebook is also working on a way for users to control the dashboard content themselves, which will likely address the second of the privacy concerns. Although there’s no indication of how this might look or an exact date for when it will be ready, Facebook says, “We’re also working on giving users the ability to control how their application activity is featured in the dashboards, and it will go live shortly after the dashboards launch to users.”

As to be expected with a system as complex as the Facebook Platform, there are inevitably issues that arise as new features are introduced. In this case it’s good to see Facebook addressing these concerns as it continues to toe the line between openness and user privacy.

Facebook slightly altered its friends request page interface recently: once you add somebody as a friend, Facebook will recommend that you add up to 4 of their friends. This is essentially just the long-standing friend suggestions interface but in another part of the site.

The company continually experiments with new ways of connecting people, because the more people are connected to others they care about, the more valuable Facebook is. In another example, it promoted its friend finder feature last month in a top toolbar on users’ home pages. Although the in-house ad was new, that feature has also been around for years, lets users import contact lists from email, IM and other services, then find and friend those contacts on Facebook.

The new suggestions interface is still in testing, the company says, although it appears to already be live for a large number of users. “We’ve started experimenting with ways to make these tools even more accessible and easy to use,” a spokesperson tells ReadWriteWeb, meaning that the two most recent tests are part of a bigger push.

Facebook wants to stimulate its increase the number of connections between people on the site. Because these connections are real, they reinforce a user’s authentic identity in Facebook — accompanied by real-world information which can be easily parlayed into ad revenue.

[Screenshot via ReadWriteWeb]

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

Today, Inside Facebook has released the February 2010 edition of the Facebook Global Monitor, tracking Facebook’s growth in detail around the world. The Facebook Global Monitor tracks Facebook’s international metrics for marketers, developers, and analysts to spot trends and opportunities.

The Facebook Global Monitor provides vital data and insight to media industry executives, global marketing and communications firms, analysts, and developers for whom Facebook’s rapid international expansion poses significant opportunities or threats.

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.

Each month, the Facebook Global Monitor provides the latest comprehensive data on the expansion of Facebook’s audience in nearly 100 global markets. In addition, the 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 of the first newsletter below. All reports are based on primary research by Inside Facebook using data from Facebook, and each section is designed to elucidate key actionable trends.

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

February 2010

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

Domino’s Pizza UK and Ireland is sponsoring a new application that challenges Facebook users to become “Superfans” of the brand, with prizes for the male and female contestants who recruit the most fans to the Domino’s Page. The application is also handing out special coupon codes and deals to all fans of the page as fan numbers hit certain levels.

It’s the latest example of a brand using a giveaway to get more fans. While the practice at one point appeared to go against Facebook’s terms, the company has clarified that in many cases it is okay.

The first coupon available is a discount off the total order should fan numbers reach 20,000. The current number is around 15,700, and totals have been slowly rising since the start of the campaign. The rest of the deals are still a mystery, and each deal will presumably be revealed as the benchmark below it is reached.

The top male and female fans with the most friends who are also fans of Domino’s Pizza UK and Ireland will receive a collection of branded prizes at the end of the congtest. The pizza maker is also giving out free pies each week to the fans with the largest group of friends who are also fans of the page.

The Superfans application can be found under a dedicated tab on the Domino’s UK fan page and was developed by BLM Quantum, a company that handles digital media strategies for a wide range of European clients.

Facebook has been investing in tools to detect and block automated systems and scripts created by spammers heavily in recent years. When it comes to user email addresses on Facebook profiles, Facebook for years has taken the extra step of listing user emails in an image format in order to make it harder for scripts to scrape massive numbers of email addressess. However, it has recently switched to providing them in plain text. Why?

A Facebook spokesperson told us today:

Showing email addresses in plain text makes it easier for people to use the information to connect with their friends.  We’ve improved our tools for detecting and preventing profile scraping over the last few years such that this additional precaution is no longer necessary.

For the average user, the change’s impact is only that they can now copy and paste email addresses from Facebook profiles.

OCR, or optical character recognition, has become a more widely understood technology in recent years. Formatting text within an image, as Facebook has done, does not necessarily provide meaningfully greater security. In fact, some companies have used such tools to scrape email addresses from within Facebook (that didn’t work out for other reasons).

Facebook is also trying to make email sharing easier in other ways, like allowing users to provide emails or email aliases to developers on the platform.

Budweiser has taken its message of responsible driving to Facebook with the I’m The Designated Driver app on its Bud Designated Driver Page. Designated drivers are people who volunteer to not drink or limit their alcohol consumption in order to drive others who didn’t.

The app is located on the Wanna Go? tab and is an offshoot of Budweiser’s designated driver web site. Essentially the site allows users to take Facebook Events and match up designated drivers for each event.

Other features of the app are included in another set of tabs.

The Designate a Driver tab is where users can coordinate events with drivers, the Badges for DDs tabs allows users to award badges to each other on Facebook, My DD Profile tab shows how many times the users has either been a designated driver or carpooled with one and there’s also a feature that places an app box on the left-hand side of the user’s profile to let people in their network see how many times they’ve driven or carpooled and how many people they’ve driven.

All of these functions spread the word about the app throughout a user’s network in different ways via the news feed.

The app asks permission to post to the user’s news feed, as well as modify RSVPs, events and send direct emails. By setting up an event through the I’m The Designated Driver app Facebook users can see the guest list for an event, who the designated drivers are, who they are driving home and how many seats they have left.

Budweiser says on the app’s Page it’s meant to be simple, easy and “a great way to make sure you and your friends get home safe after a night out.” It’s also a tool that adds utility to the Events function on Facebook that users can utilize more than once and keep them interested in Budweiser’s page.

The Facebook page for the app, with more than 5,800 fans, is an extension of a separate web site Budweiser had created promoting the Facebook page, but also encouraging customers to thank or become designated drivers.

[Editor's note: This article was co-authored by Eric Eldon.]

When Facebook began enforcing new policy changes in mid December, the company called the move a “philosophical approach to platform governance.” As we covered, “instead of trying to spell out all the rules in detail, it is laying out more general principles and reserving the right to make policy enforcements when its policy team deems doing so to be necessary.”

Looking at what has and hasn’t been enforced since the changes were implemented helps provide some insight into the policy team’s thinking thus far.

When is Gifting Okay?

The policy: “You must not prompt users to send invitations, requests, generate notifications, or use other Facebook communication channels immediately after a user allows access or returns to your application.”

Just about every game launched prior to the changes in December had gifts — where users send gifts to friends, in most cases to users not already playing the game — first and foremost in their viral marketing strategy. This is still still evident by the number of games where the first menu tab is “Free Gifts” or “Send Gifts.” In reviewing 98 game applications with over 100,000 daily active users (DAU), only about 20% of them did NOT have a gifts component at the start of the game (the largest was Popcap’s Bejeweled Blitz with 2.8 million DAU).

> Continue reading on Inside Social Games.