Facebook has responded to Congressman Ed Markey’s questions about its plan to allow users to grant applications access to their phone number and home addresses. The response explains that Facebook is considering answering widespread criticism of the plan by highlighting contact information requests in the permissions screen and barring apps from asking minors for this info.

On January 14th, Facebook announced in a post on its Developers Blog that it would begin allowing users to authorize applications to access their mobile phone number and home address through that standard “Requests for Permission” dialog that users see when installing apps.

Inside Facebook and others criticized the plan, saying that though it would facilitate innovation, requests for such sensitive data should be more prominent within the permissions flow. On January 18th, Facebook temporarily disabled contact info requests based on the criticism and feedback from users.

Markey and fellow Congressman Joe Barton, the Co-Chairmen of the Congressional Privacy Caucus, sent Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg a set of questions on February 2nd asking why Facebook would grant access to contact information, if this would violate its own privacy policy, and how a re-deployed version of the requests would address concerns.

However, the letter’s authors seem to have been confused, asking why Facebook was giving third-parties access to user information, when it was actually permitting users to choose if they wanted to share the mobile phone number or home address the same way they can currently share their photos or email addresses.

Facebook’s response declares “This question is premised on a misunderstanding. Facebook enabled users to choose to share contact information with applications. Our Developer Policies require developers to delete a user’s data upon the user’s request.”

Since contact info requests are covered by the site’s privacy policy and fall within the permissions framework that Canada’s Privacy Commissioner deemed adequate to inform users, Facebook says there was no need to change the policy or a notify users of a change. All product changes are pre-approved for privacy policy compliance with Facebook’s Chief Privacy Counsel.

The response does agree with the Congressmen that Facebook could increase the prominence of contact info requests, and explains that the company temporarily disabled the feature pending this review. Regarding the potential changes to a re-deployed version, Facebook say “we are evaluating whether and how we can increase the visibility of applications’ requests for permission to access user contact information. We are also considering whether addition user education would be helpful.”

The Congressmen also asked whether Facebook factored in the risks to children and minors when deciding to enable the feature. Facebook responded saying children under the age of 13 are prohibited from using the site, and that it always considers the safety of minors. However, though not explicitly mentioned in the Developers Blog post about the feature being disabled, Facebook now says “we are actively considering whether to enable applications to request contact information from minors at all.”

Overall, the response shows that Facebook is willing to take extra precautions to protect users while continuing to expand their choices of what to share. The plan for action syncs with our recommendation to make sensitive  user data requests distinct from more benign requests. By bluntly refuting misinformed questions, Facebook shows that it won’t be framed as a villain while politicians seek to appear as privacy defenders.

The March 2011 edition of the Facebook Marketing Bible: The Comprehensive Guide to Market Your Brand, Company, Product, or Service Inside Facebook is now available.

The Facebook Marketing Bible has enabled thousands of marketers, social application developers, publishers, and entrepreneurs to navigate and get the most out of the increasingly sophisticated marketing opportunities on Facebook.

The web edition of the Facebook Marketing Bible is comprised of detailed resource pages, comprehensive how-to guides, and case studies analyzing today’s most successful marketing and advertising campaigns on Facebook.

In addition, Inside Network is pleased to announce that through March 31st all customers who purchase the Facebook Marketing Bible will also receive a free $25 Facebook Ads advertising credit, courtesy of Facebook (see terms).

Now that Facebook has crossed the 600 million active user mark, there’s never been a better time to reach your target audience through marketing on Facebook.

The March 2011 edition includes updates on the following topics:

• All new strategies to help you navigate Facebook’s recent major Page redesign, whether you’re representing a major brand, small business, or public figure.
• Facebook’s expanding options for advertisers, and how any advertiser can get more from new features like Sponsored Stories, self-specified landing tabs, and more.
• The latest featured Facebook’s campaigns that show you how other brands are testing Facebook’s evolving marketing opportunities.
• New frontiers in brand and performance marketing on Facebook, including opportunities within social games.
• Offline promotion for your Facebook Page, Place or campaign through the company’s recently launched Like Button stickers and QR codes.
• Facebook Places and Deals, the company’s evolving location-based feature that presents new marketing opportunities for businesses both on and offline.
• Facebook Groups, a new way for users to connect and collaborate with others who share their interests and affiliations, and new ideas for marketing with Groups on Facebook.
• Facebook Questions, and how these new user-facing feature can offer a new ‘no-cost’ marketing channel for brands, advertisers, and developers.
• Facebook’s Open Graph, Social Plugins, and Connect, the features and code that brings “instant personalization” to your website off Facebook.
• Facebook’s latest advertising guidelines updates and what they mean for advertisers throughout the ecosystem.
• Audience growth and engagement, including best practices for holding on to fans, keeping marketing channels open, and re-engaging your audience on Facebook.
• Plus, comprehensive walk-throughs of Facebook’s tools for advertisers, web content publishers, and Page administrators.

Learn more about the March 2011 edition of the Facebook Marketing Bible at FacebookMarketingBible.com.

Table of Contents excerpted from the full March 2011 Edition

Building Your Brand through Facebook Pages

• Page Destination Tab Ad Campaign Strategies
• Facebook Pages and Public Profiles
• The Profile Page – A Walk-Through

Designing Your Facebook Page

• The Wall Tab for Making Pages Dynamic and Viral
• How to Choose a Landing ‘Tab’ for your Facebook Page
• Adding Custom Modules to Your Page

Communicating Through Your Facebook Page

• The Basics of Status Updates for Pages
• Demographic Targeting for Status Updates
• Updating Facebook Page Status Via Text
• Receive Page Status Updates Via Text
• How to Avoid Having Your Page, Open Graph Object, or Application Unliked, Removed, Muted, or Blacklisted

More Ways to Promote Your Facebook Page

• How Brands Can Advertise within Social Games
• The Basics of Status Updates for Pages
• Increase Engagement and Insight through Status Tagging
• How to Grow Your Page’s Audience through Page Invitations
• SMS Subscription Service for Pages
• Branded Virtual Gifts on Facebook Pages for Viral Advertising

Advanced Strategies for Facebook Pages

• The Best Facebook Page Strategies and the Pages That Use Them
• Strategy: How to Promote Your Page in 6 Steps
• Marketing Strategy: 4 Reasons Why Marketers Should Invest in Pages Before Groups
• 10 Key SEO Strategies Every Facebook Page Owner Should Know
• 8 Best Practices for Retailers on Facebook
• Marketers Actively Bidding for Generic Facebook Pages

More Ways to Market on Facebook: Questions, Places, Open Graph, and Deals

• Facebook Connect Integration Best Practices from the Platform Showcase
• How to Create a Deal with Facebook Deals
• The Places We’ll Go: How marketers can use Facebook’s new location features
• Facebook Questions – A Walk-Through
• How Marketers Can Get The Most Out Of Facebook Questions
• Implementation Options: Like Button
• Facebook CTO Bret Taylor Discusses the Open Graph
• Quick Note on Groups and SEO

Facebook Ads for Brand Marketers

• Sponsored Stories Ads: Walk-Through and Marketing Campaign Strategies
• Facebook Ads: Read Before You Get Started
• Facebook Ads – A Walk-Through
• The Facebook Ads Manager
• Facebook Self-Serve Ad Types: Page Ads
• Facebook Self-Serve Ad Types: Event Ads

Tools and How-Tos for Marketers

• Facebook “Insights” Metrics Dashboard for Page Managers
• Using Third Party Tools to Manage Your Facebook Page
• How Page Owners Can Restrict Content for Underage Users
• How to Export Your Facebook Page Updates to Twitter

Ads Targeting on Facebook

• 10 Powerful Targeting Methods Facebook Ads Every Performance Advertiser Should Know
• Friends of Connections Targeting
• Facebook Ads: Language Targeting
• 4 Connection Targeting Tests Every Advertiser Should Run
• From Keyword Targeting to People Targeting: Understanding Performance Advertising with Facebook’s Tim Kendall
• Time Scheduling

Policies, Privacy, and Guidelines to Watch

• Promotional/Sweepstakes Policies for Facebook Pages
• The Future of Sharing on Facebook: A Hybrid Public/Private Model
• Facebook’s Guidelines for Promoting Pages Outside Facebook

Join the Facebook Marketing Bible at FacebookMarketingBible.com

How are top brands in the industry designing their Facebook marketing campaigns? See the Facebook Marketing Bible for detailed breakdowns of dozens of Featured Campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

AVG and Hyundai hoped to accomplish their goals on Facebook by using games this week, while People Magazine gave away free subscriptions using and Linkin Park worked to make the world a better place with a livestreamed event.

AVG Gives Away Free Farmville Virtual Gifts

Goal: Product Purchase, Engagement

Core Mechanic: AVG Technologies is set to give free Farmville virtual gifts to customers who purchase their PC Tuneup between February 24 and March 2.

Method: Farmville players and AVG customers who purchase the product receive 1 free Biplane and 3 applications of Instant Grow. To promote the deal, AVG produced a video about Farmville and is blogging about Zynga’s game, too. The company is promoting the package as something that will help Farmville players with PCs enjoy the game more, while saving money.

Impact: AVG currently has 235,100 Likes on its Facebook Page and hundreds of fans have commented and Liked posts on the Wall about the deal.

Hyundai’s Compact Hype Blaster Game

Goal: Engagement, Branding, Product Purchase

Core Mechanic: A game located on the Car Blaster tab of the Hyundai Page, Compact Hype Blaster Game.

Game: The game is very simple and straightforward. The player uses the space bar and arrow buttons to move left or right and uses the space bar to “shoot” cars that represent the hype associated with compact cars. Every time you hit a car, it explodes and a word describing the hype surrounding compact cars appears, such as “Gets Great Mileage,” “Dependable” and “Reliable.” As the player is shooting the cars, they shoot back and keep inching closer to the player, getting shot or smashed by the cars ends the game, as does shooting up all the cars. There’s no publish to the stream option after playing the game.

Method: As players also don’t have to Like the Page to play the game, Hyundai misses an opportunity here to grow its Page with the Compact Conspiracy campaign and as people play the game. The campaign includes a video, other apps on the Page and the game itself. One thing missing from the game that could encourage virality is the option to publish your score, or the fact that you played the game, to the feed, or even a pop-up window to invite friends to play the game. The only option for network exposure with this game is a Share button, which requires much more work on the part of the player to spread the word.

Impact: The Page admin has been promoting the game and the Compact Conspiracy campaign and the posts have been receiving hundreds of Likes and comments. Currently the Page numbers about 129,500 Likes.

What are today’s most effective Facebook marketing best practices, and which campaigns have profited most? Visit the Cases section of Inside Network’s Facebook Marketing Bible for the full summary of brand campaigns on Facebook from the past week.

There was a wide and interesting variety of Facebook applications on our list of the top 20 growing titles by monthly active users this week. Everything from app downloads to profile banners, horoscopes, birthday cards, chat applications, IQ tests, videos, dating and more found its way onto our list this week. Data in this post comes via AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Conduit	15,581,133	+6,573,913	+73%
2.	Profilbanner auf Deutsch	2,296,902	+966,351	+73%
3.	Daily Horoscope	1,459,511	+920,499	+171%
4.	Birthday Cards	6,990,584	+864,357	+14%
5.	Friend Buzz	8,032,593	+676,066	+9%
6.	Profile Banner	4,598,806	+635,752	+16%
7.	Intelligent Elite	2,008,258	+598,777	+42%
8.	Ravenwood Fair	10,618,282	+592,949	+6%
9.	Monster Galaxy	6,654,969	+592,312	+10%
10.	Video Yeri	2,098,112	+587,472	+39%
11.	Who Loves You More	1,279,282	+535,484	+72%
12.	Diner Dash	1,445,174	+514,722	+55%
13.	BandooChat	3,365,729	+507,112	+18%
14.	Are YOU Interested?	15,297,455	+412,065	+3%
15.	Windows Live Messenger	16,880,178	+390,991	+2%
16.	Glory of Rome	1,269,759	+388,082	+44%
17.	Monopoly Millionaires	809,905	+383,416	+90%
18.	TIK TAC TOE	1,423,309	+319,235	+29%
19.	Yahoo!	11,699,434	+297,401	+3%
20.	Gourmet Ranch	997,265	+294,332	+42%

Conduit, which gained the most MAU this past week with a rise of 6.5 million, is an app that allows users to download a variety of other kinds of applications, such as Groupon, Flickr, YouTube and Travelocity apps for your browser. The app has a Like button and has also benefited growth-wise from a news feed item generated every time an app is downloaded with Conduit.

There were two profile banner apps on the list this week. Profilbanner auf Deutsch saw growth of 966,400 MAU. The app publishes your use of it to the stream, along with the photo album to create the profile banner selected. Then there was Profile Banner, which grew 635,800 MAU the past week; this app had an extra viral feature that spurred growth, asking users to tag themselves and friends in the photos to be used to create the profile banner before completing the install.

Daily Horoscope, which publishes a daily horoscope to your stream, saw 920,500 MAU this week. Rock You’s app, Birthday Cards, saw a rise of 864,400 MAU; the app allows users to share birthday cards to friends’ Walls, even suggesting friends to whom to send the cards. Friend Buzz, which asks silly and raunchy questions about your Facebook friends, publishes questions you answer to the stream, spurring a 676,000 MAU growth spurt this week.

Intelligent Elite is an app that purports to test your IQ, and grew by 589,800 MAU this week; the app has a peculiar way of getting into the stream. After you answer about two dozen questions to get your IQ results (you actually have to login to the web site via Facebook Connect to get the results), the app asks the user about half a dozen questions about their friends. Questions such as, “Who has the best memory?” are asked and the user must tag three friends to progress to the end; using the app once results in tagging about 20 people.

The instant messaging, audio and video chat app, BandooChat, grew by 507,100 MAU this week. Another chat app, Windows Live Messenger, saw growth of about 391,000 MAU, perhaps partially due to the global rollout of a Messenger/Facebook integration. And Yahoo’s Connect app grew by 297,400 MAU. The Are You Interested? dating app grew by 412,000 MAU this week and most of the rest of the apps were games, which we’ll be covering over on Inside Social Games this morning.

Today, social games analytics tool provider Kontagent releases its Real-Time Social Application Monitoring System for tracking actions and metrics such as installs, invites sent, notification email clicks, and revenue. Animated graphs in the tool update as frequently as every ten seconds, allowing developers to immediately recognize a breakdown of code for a viral channel, an error in their servers, or the success of a new virtual good.

The real-time data will allow developers who use the tool to take more risks and deploy code faster without doing as much testing, since problems can be identified before their opportunity costs get too high.

Kontagent’s tools track over 100 million social and mobile application users a month, and are in some form employed by game developers including EA/Playfish, Sony, Ubisoft, Digital Chocolate, and Tencent. Funded by fbFund, Altos Ventures, and Maverick Capital, Kontagent released its last major update in October, offering developers user action tracking and funnel analysis through its Social Analytics Suite v2.0.

The Real-Time Social Applications Monitoring Systems, or Real-Time SAMS, tracks over 10,000 events per second, and developers can choose to see their stats update every ten seconds, one minute, or five minutes. They can quickly determine the impact of a new landing page, altered flow, new game mechanic, or virtual good price change on a variety of metrics. If they see a certain count drop to zero, they know something is broken and can attempt to fix the bug before more users are affected.

Developers can design their own dashboards, selecting from many standard metrics, or create their own custom formulas such as revenue per paying user in the last seven days. Without the tool, developers would have to rely on their potentially slower, internal server monitors to notice operation problems. They would also have to painstakingly test edge cases that are difficult to predict — unless they have built similar tools themselves, or found other third-party options — but with Kontagent they can push code live and respond to issues on the fly.

Larger developers spend millions and years to create these types of tools. By offering them as a service, Kontagent is trying to level the playing field, allowing smaller developers to gain the same deep, instant insights that the giants of the industry have. While we haven’t tested it first hand, the granularity of the data available through Real-Time SAMS should help application developers iterate more quickly.

When users click the Like or Recommend button on a third-party website or within a Facebook app, it now publishes a full news feed story instead of just a one-line Recent Activity story. Previously, full stories with headlines, thumbnail images, and captions were only published if the website chose to implement the “Like with Comment” version of the button and users chose to add this additional context.

As the Like button now encompasses the functionality of the Share button, which Facebook has removed from its documentation, Facebook may phase out the Share button entirely. The change gives more prominence to outbound links in the news feed and on a user’s wall, and so will increase referral traffic and draw more sites to add the Like button.

Full stories appear larger, more compelling since they often include an image, and are ranked better in the news feed than Recent Activity stories. Therefore, the stories generated from clicks of the Like / Recommend button will been seen by more of a user’s friends and drive more traffic to third-party websites and apps than before.

Since Facebook launched its social plugins including the Like button at last year’s f8 conference, over 2.5 million websites have integrated them. In July, Facebook introduced Like with Comment, allowing some implementation to publish full feed stories.

By August, 350,000 sites had Like buttons, and that count is probably much higher now. Facebook has since allowed developers to integrate Like buttons with social games and other Facebook apps, and is trying to increase third-party awareness of their ability to publish news feed stories to those who click their buttons.

Up until now, Facebook had supported three different ways to share third-party content to the news feed:

• The Share button –  When clicked, users see a Facebook Publisher dialog pop up allowing them to add a comment. It publishes a full feed story, similar to if the user had copied the link into the Publisher on Facebook.com. The Share button doesn’t subscribe users to future updates from the owner of the button.
• The Like / Recommend button without comment – When third-parties use the standard iframe Like button with a width less than 400 pixels, the button_count, or  box_count version of the Like / Recommend button, users aren’t given the option to comment. A simple, one-line story linking to the content is published to the Recent Activity feed of the user’s wall, and the story is less frequently displayed in the news feeds of friends. Users are subscribed to future updates from the button’s owner.
• The Like / Recommend button with comment – When third-parties implement the XFBML version or the standard iframe version with a width of 400 pixels or more, users are always given the option to comment. If they comment, a full story is published. If they don’t comment, a simple story is published. Users are subscribed to future updates from the button’s owner.

Now, all versions of the Like / Recommend button publish a full feed story, whether a comment is added or not. The change has been applied retroactively, so old Recent Activity feed simple stories from Likes now appear as full stories. One exception is Like buttons that don’t represent real world objects and instead use the Open Graph og:type tag “Article”. These Likes for things including news articles, video clips, and photos do not appear in a user’s profile nor can those who Like these Open Graph pages be published to in the future.

Likes allow third-parties to publish future updates to a user, and therefore drive more traffic and create more lifetime value than Shares. This value lures additional third parties to implement Facebook’s social plugins, so it’s in Facebook’s interest to shift everyone from Share buttons to Like buttons.

The Share button is often displayed amongst a set of other buttons for Twitter, Digg, bookmarking, and email, but Facebook would rather have its own real estate opposed to being lost amongst the competition. Now that Facebook has given the Like button almost a year to prove its worth, third-parties would probably implement a Like button if they could no longer use the Share button, granting Facebook this improved placement.

The phase out of the Share button is evident in Facebook’s documentation. The “Facebook Share” typeahead result  shown when searching for “Share” on the developers site directs to the Like button documentation page.

One potential downside for users is if they participate in contests run by sites or apps that use Like buttons to tabulate votes. Some users might not want to publish a full feed story for each vote, and would have to delete the posts one by one after they’re published.

Overall, the change will benefit users, third-parties, and Facebook. Compelling Liked content from around the web will appear in the news feed more frequently, initiating discussions between friends. Third-parties will gain traffic from new users, inspiring more to implement Facebook’s social plugins.

This increased presence across the internet will spread awareness of Facebook, raise barriers for its competitors, and seed a client base for a potentially monetizable plugin, such as an Open Graph ad unit.

[Thanks to Amit Lavi and Paula Ford for the tips]

Here are all the latest headlines from around Inside Network.

Inside Mobile Apps

Tracking the convergence of mobile apps, social platforms, and virtual goods.

Monday, February 21st, 2011

• Verizon Launch Pushes Facebook for iPhone Usage, But Less Than Christmas Did

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

• Telltale Games Brings Us Back To The Future on the iPad
• Inside Network Happy Hour This Friday — Berlin
• Are In-App Payments and Facebook Credits on a Collision Course?

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

• Basic Path Drawing & RPGs Meet in Battleheart for iOS
• SponsorPay Raises $5 Million From Nokia Growth Partners as It Moves Into Mobile

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

• New Hires in Mobile: EA Mobile, Brooklyn Packet, Glu Mobile & More
• Booyah’s Upcoming Nightclub City DJ Rivals Strives to Blend What’s Worked on iOS, Facebook
• Capcom’s Smurfs’ Village, Zombie Cafe Grab 10 Million Downloads on iOS
• Mobile App Roundup: MocoSpace, Android 3.0, iPad2, & More

Friday, February 25th, 2011

• Apsalar Looks to Usher in the Next Generation of Mobile Analytics
• Inside Network Happy Hour Tonight in Berlin
• Andreessen Horowitz Bets TinyCo is Poised to Become the Zynga of Mobile with $18 Million Round

Inside Social Games

Covering all the latest developments at the intersection of games and social platforms.

Monday, February 21st, 2011

• Football Life Takes Another Approach to Sports RPGs on Facebook
• Ravenwood Fair Crosses 10 Million Players on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

• The National Basketball Association Makes a Play for Facebook Users in NBA Legends
• Interview: Playfish’s Adam Gutterman on Designing Monopoly Millionaires for Facebook
• After Dramatic Year on Facebook, Digital Chocolate Raises $12 Million From Intel Capital
• Inside Network Happy Hour This Fridays — Berlin

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

• Social Game Platform Hi5 Launches SocioPay for Cross-Platform Game Monetization
• FrontierVille Rises to the Top of This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by DAU
• Highlights This Week from the Inside Network Job Board: Arkadium, Daglow Entertainment & More
• A Closer Look at Monopoly Millionaires on Facebook
• Are In-App Payments and Facebook Credits on a Collision Course?

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

• New Hires in Social Gaming: Kabam, KlickNation, Loot Drop, & More
• DNA Games Builds Up a Hit With Casino City

Friday, February 25th, 2011

• Andreessen Horowitz Bets There Will Be A Zynga of Mobile With $18 Million on TinyCo
• Fantasy and Pirates Shine on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games
• Sibblingz Talks WebGL and Cross-Ported Games
• King.com Launch Follows a Strong 2010, With a Maturing Stable of Games on Facebook
• Social Gaming Roundup: Zynga, MySpace, Funding, & More

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, February 21st, 2011

• Badoo Tops Leading Facebook App Gainers by MAU, Joined by Hearts, Connect and Profile Banner
• Heartbroker Facebook Dating App Recruits Friend Feedback
• Featured Facebook Campaigns: Zynga, Oreo, NBA, Pizza Hut, Subaru and Black Eyed Peas
• Page Destination Tab Ad Campaign Strategies

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

• Are In-App Payments and Facebook Credits on a Collision Course?
• Microsoft Rolls Out Facebook Chat to All Hotmail Users, but Only Imports 1000 Friends
• Inside Network Happy Hour This Friday — Berlin
• CityVille, Badoo, Birthdays and Horoscopes on This Week’s Top 20 Growing Facebook Apps by DAU

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

• Highlights This Week from the Inside Network Job Board: Digital Chocolate, Come2Play, & More
• Facebook Announces More Ways to Publish to Users Who Click Like Buttons
• Launch Conference 2011 Day One: Top Facebook Integrations

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

• Syncapse Gets $25 Million in Funding from ABS Capital For Enterprise Social Marketing
• Payvment’s Shopping Mall App is a Competitor to Amazon on Facebook
• Facebook Hires and Departures: Latin America, Litigation, Recruiting, India and More
• Facebook Careers Postings: Journalism, Data Centers, Dublin, Austin, and More
• Bing Now Displays Facebook Likes In-Line With Search Results
• Facebook Makes It Easier for Developers to Share Application Admin Access

Friday, February 25th, 2011

• Inside Network Happy Hour Tonight in Berlin
• Hearts, Videos, Chat and Enrique Iglesias on This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Apps
• Facebook Hires Founders of Professional Social Network, Pursuit
• Facebook’s Publishes Re-Imagined Privacy Policy for the Average User
• Facebook Increases Number of Visible Tab Apps on Pages, Changes Tab Reordering
• Facebook Roundup: Renren IPO, Trademarks, Sprout Social, Advertising, College and More

The Platform Update for this week on the Facebook Developers Blog discussed how the pic_big Graph API call will soon return a slightly smaller version of a user’s profile picture, Facebook’s efforts to reduce its backlog of bugs, and its recent Startup Day.

The December 2010 profile redesign slightly reduced the maximum size for profile pictures from 200 pixels wide to 180 pixels. Since newly uploaded profile pics won’t have a 200 pixel version, Starting March 1st the Graph API call pic_big that returns the largest available version of the profile pic may only return 180 pixel wide photos.

The two ways to access the pic_big are

• Using the Graph API to get the user’s profile photo (e.g.,http://graph.facebook.com/dmp/picture?type=large)
• Querying the user FQL table for pic_big

The transition from 200 pixels to 180 pixels for pic_big “will be gradual, occurring as more users upload new profile pictures.” Developers should make sure their apps are ready to gracefully process the slightly smaller photos.

Facebook has recently been touting its rededication to combatting the growth of the backlog of developer submitted bug reports. The post explains that the bug triage team holds a “Roach Motel” event once a month where they attempt to produce bugs from the backlog and assign them to engineers. Oddly, this makes it sound as if the team only works on triage one day a month, when really the team works on new bugs every day but focuses on the backlog once a month.

Last week, Facebook held a Startup Day in conjunction with the Startup America Partnership, “a private-sector alliance intended to dramatically increase the development, prevalence and success of innovative, high-growth U.S. firms” initiated by the White House. Over ten startups attended, and there’ll be more chances for developers who are looking to participate as Facebook will hold 12 startup days in 2011.

Chinese Facebook, Renren, Planning IPO – A Chinese competitor to Facebook, Renren, is set for a $500 million IPO.

Sprout Social Raises $10M – Sprout Social, a Facebook community mangement company, raised $10 million from NEA, putting the company’s total valuation at $50 million.

Facebook’s Sandberg Named to Jobs Council – Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was named with other tech chiefs to President Barack Obama’s council on jobs and competitiveness.

Facebook’s Early Advertising Data – Documents from Facebook’s early days, like really early when it was still TheFacebook, were released to TechCrunch this week. The information is interesting mostly in comparison to Facebook today. For example, only 800 schools were in the network then and there were only 2.7 million registered users.

Facebook Obtains Trademark for Zero - Facebook’s application to trademark its mobile site, Zero (0), was approved this week.

80% of Colleges Use Facebook for Recruiting – Kaplan Test Prep’s 2010 survey of college admissions officers has shown that 82% of respondents reported that Facebook is being used to recruit students.

Job Interviewer Asks for Facebook Login -The Maryland Department of Corrections requires applicants to submit social media logins and passwords for background checks, including Facebook.

News Web Site Moves to Facebook – Rockville Central, a community news web site based in Maryland, is set to move its entire operation from RockvilleCentral.com to its Facebook Page. About 1 in 10 of the hits for the site come from Facebook, and although advertising revenue will be lost with the move, those that run the site say there are other ways to generate revenue.