Facebook Roundup: Ads, the Like Button, Media, Photos, IPO Bets and Your Ethnicity
Facebook Ad Revenue Grows, More Acquisitions Coming - Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg revealed this past week that the company’s largest advertisers increased their spending with the site 10 times over in the past year. She also shared that some advertisers have increased spending by 20 times. As ad revenue increases, the company is set to purchase other companies to recruit talent and improve its ad system, according to Director of Corporate Development Vaughan Smith.
Like Button on 350,000 Sites, Growing on Shopping Sites – The Like button has been installed on 350,000 websites as of July, most of them news, sports and publishing. Recently, shopping sites have also begun to implement the Like button, so far increasing the number of visits from Facebook users.
New Ad Format – Facebook has updated the way some ads appear to users. While ads already feature friends who Liked the ad, new ads now feature friends’ reviews (anywhere from 1 to 5 stars) and a quote/review from them. [Image via].
Facebook Debuts New Album Layout – Facebook has changed the way photo albums appear on the site. More photos, if not all, from an album are not viewable by clicking on an album, as opposed to having to click to see the next page of photos like before.

Facebook’s Osofsky Talks Media – Facebook’s Justin Osofsky, who heads up the company’s media partnership team, gave an interesting interview to PBS this week. He discussed Facebook’s new Media Page, as well as other ways media companies are using the social network.
Bet on Facebook IPO Date – A betting site called Bodog is now taking wagers on when Facebook will reach 1 billion users and when it will go public. odog, however, places the odds of Facebook hitting a billion users prior to January 1, 2010 at 4/6 and the company’s IPO before then at 11/10.
Facebook Testing Like Box – Facebook is testing a new box on user profiles displaying which Pages the user Likes. This box will apparently appear on the profile’s side bar. [Image via]
Questions Tested by Easter Eggs – An interesting experiment on Facebook’s new in-house Questions app came from Sean Percival this week. See a YouTube video of the experiment at the link.
Facebook Knows Your Ethnicity – Facebook has figured out, with remarkable accuracy, what your ethnicity is based on the data you share on the site. A Facebook Data team recently won a team award for best paper at a conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in Washington, D.C. Using U.S. Census data and users’ names, Facebook researchers can identify a users’ most likely ethnicity. One example is, if your last name is Mueller, they’ve determined there’s a 97% chance you’re white; if your surname is Washington, there’s an 89.9% chance you’re black.
CA Agency Wants Rules for Candidates on Facebook - California’s Fair Political Practices Commission recommended that political candidates on Facebook stick to the same rules governing mailers, fliers and other advertisements this week. The recommendations don’t equate to laws, but state agencies will consider the rules later this month.

Vonage Releases Facebook App – Vonage released a mobile app for Facebook this week allowing Facebook users to make free mobile calls to Facebook friends who also have the app all over the world.
Facebook Best Company to Work For – Facebook was named the best tech company to work for according to employee reviews at Glassdoor.














August 7th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Just wanted to thank facebook for keeping the sight clean and not letting things in that offend your users.
August 9th, 2010 at 1:54 am
Facebook Like buttons do magic for online store owners. All you have to do is create a good product to grab some positive feedback from clients and then just watch how is your Facebook traffic grows.
September 13th, 2010 at 10:44 am
[...] les articles populaires, ce qui est d’autant plus incitatif au partage. A ce jour, plus de 350 000 sites ont déjà adopté le “like button”. Et vous [...]