Along with the rollout of its new Deals group coupon service for businesses, Facebook has updated its overarching legal terms for all users and organizations in order to cover what Deal participants are agreeing to. The “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities” document now includes two new lines under Section 7, referring users to a new Deal Terms document and organization to Merchant Deal Terms.

Both new sets of terms look pretty straightforward (we’ve pasted them in below). People who participate in Deals may have their full names, as they appear on Facebook, shared with the Deals merchant, as well as their email addresses; users will also be bound by any additional terms of the deal. Facebook also says it “may send you information about additional Deals you may be interested in.” It’s not clear what the format of those additional messages would be, but Facebook has generally been conservative about promoting advertising to users so as to maintain a high-quality user experience. While people can’t currently opt out of receiving additional information about Deals, we’d also be surprised to see Facebook abuse the access it is granting itself here.

On the merchant side, the terms are straightforward. Deals need to comply with Facebook’s general Advertising Guidelines, the discounts must be from the regular selling price, they can’t “enroll customers into automatic renewal programs or memberships” and a variety of other terms.

Here are the full version of both new sets of terms, dated April 21, 2011.

Deals Terms

1. If you purchase a Deal on or through Facebook:
   1. Your full name may be shared with the partner or merchant;
   2. Your email address may be shared with the partner or merchant for use only in connection with your purchase;
   3. You will be bound by the additional terms provided by the partner or merchant offering the Deal; and
   4. We may send you information about additional Deals you may be interested in.
2. If you are under the age of 18, you will obtain permission from your parent or guardian before purchasing a Deal.
3. The Deal may include a Promotional Redemption Deadline before which you must redeem your voucher. See “Refunds” below.
4. Deals are not redeemable for cash except where required by law.
5. Deals may not be used to purchase gift certificates or gift cards and may not be combined with other offers.
6. Deals may not be purchased and resold.
7. Neither Facebook nor any partner or merchant involved in providing the Deal is responsible for lost or stolen vouchers.
8. Altered, manipulated, or defaced vouchers are void.
9. By “Deal” we mean the opportunity to purchase vouchers with promotional value or discounts, where the vouchers are offered and redeemable by a third party merchant featured in the Deal.

Refunds

1. The sale of Deals on or through Facebook is subject to our Payments Terms.
2. Refunds are available for unredeemed vouchers for up to 30 days from the date of purchase. If a deal you’ve purchased becomes unavailable before it can be provided to you, you will receive a credit of the paid price which can be used to purchase future Deals.
3. If a partner or merchant refuses to honor your voucher after the Promotional Redemption Deadline has passed, Facebook will credit you the paid price.
4. To determine whether you are eligible to receive a refund, you may:

• Access the “Your Deals” tab in your account;
• Click “Help”;
• Select “Dispute this Deal and request a refund” and click “Continue”; and
• Select a reason from the drop-down menu and fill out the additional info box with your request details.

————————

Merchant Deals Terms

1. Deals offered on Facebook must comply with our Advertising Guidelines.
2. Your deal may include a Promotional Redemption Deadline before which you must honor the full promotional value of the Deal.
   1. The Promotional Redemption Deadline must be clearly and conspicuously disclosed in all materials, including on the voucher itself.
   2. As the merchant, you are responsible for understanding the applicable laws and honoring all vouchers as required by law, including any refund or cash-out obligations.
3. After the Promotional Redemption Deadline, you must fully honor the paid value of the voucher for at least the minimum time required by appliacble laws.
4. Deals must be based on the regular selling price for the offered goods or services.
5. Once a deal has begun, it may not be altered or edited.
6. Deals may not include the following:
   1. Products or services that cannot be advertised on Facebook according to the Advertising Guidelines.
   2. Products or services that, upon redemption, enroll customers into automatic renewal programs or memberships.
   3. Products that are subject in your jurisdiction to minimum selling price or other restrictions that are inconsistent with offering the Deal on Facebook.  This includes, but is not limited to, gasoline, dairy, gambling, or alcohol unless explicitly authorized by Facebook.
7. By “Deal” we mean the opportunity to purchase vouchers with promotional value or discounts, where the vouchers are offered and redeemable by a third party merchant featured in the Deal.

The following is an excerpt from the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive guide to marketing your company, app, brand, or website using Facebook. The full version of this article is available through a Facebook Marketing Bible subscription.

Released yesterday, Facebook’s Send button social plugin for third-party websites allows users to quickly share a web page either as a post to the feed of one of their Facebook Groups, as a Message to specific Facebook friends, or as an email to entered addresses. It complements the Like button, which allows users to share to all of their friends on Facebook.

The Send button can help sites drive traffic and purchases by making it easy to send personal recommendations to friends that recipients may trust and follow more than those broadcasted to a user’s entire set of friends.

Here, we’ll walk through how to generate and embed the Send button, discuss innovative ways to use it to maximize the plugin’s value for businesses, and look at the ways its been implemented by some leading websites.

Generating the Send Button

The Send Button social plugin can be generated as a standalone button for a site, or as a combination Like / Send button so the two plugins are automatically shown next to each other. Since the button is built on XFBML, it dynamically resizes to its allotted space.

Full walk-through of generating standalone and combined Send buttons and a discussion of when to use the two different styles is available in the full version of this entry

Where to Put Your Send Button

Here, we’ll list where different kinds of websites can add their Send buttons, along with analysis of when a Send button may be more appropriate than a Like button.

Media Publishers

• Articles
• Media such as photos, videos, or songs
• Authors
• Content categories
• Paywalls or subscription sign-ups
• Newsletter or RSS sign-ups

Publishers of niche content, such as industry or interest-specific blogs and sites, partisan political news sites, or other publishers where content might only be relevant to, or could offend some of its users’ friends are especially good candidates for the Send button.

Placing Send buttons on paywalls or subscription sign-ups can allow users to inform friends that they’ve just bought a subscription, and encourage them to do the same.

Ecommerce and Brands

• Products
• Group buying options
• Custom designed products
• Product categories such as clothing types or designers
• Sales collections
• “What’s New” sections
• Special promotion details pages for offers such as “free shipping” or “20% off”
• Lookbooks or catalogues
• Gift card options
• Loyalty programs
• About pages
• Customer service
• Mailing List sign-ups

Sites that offer group buying, where multiple users contribute funds to a single purchase, can especially benefit from the Send button’s microsharing options. If a site allows custom design of products, the Send button can make it easy for its customers to collaborate with friends on a design project, such as making uniforms for a team.

Vendors of specialty goods, such as wedding dresses, can encourage users to share by limiting a post’s audience with the Send button.

Implementation strategies for community/review sites, web apps, business to business and enterprise software, and social games available in the full version of this entry.

Best Implementations of the Send Button

As of April 25th, 2011, many prominent websites have installed Send buttons. Some of the best implementations include:

Media Publishers

The Washington Post: Displays a combined Recommend / Send button in the sharing panel shown after the first two paragraphs of its articles. This gives users some time to begin reading the story before they decide whether to share it, but before the end of the article at which point users may have already left the article or might be thinking about what to read next.

Ecommerce and Brands

American Eagle Outfitters: Displays the combined Like / Send button next to its products so users can gain advice from select friends about whether to make a purchase, or show the product to friends who are specifically interested in clothing.

More examples of how these types of sites, as well as community / review sites, business-to-business services and social games, are taking advantage of the Send button, plus more implementation strategies and a walk-through of generating the code for Send buttons can be found in the full version of this entry, part of the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s complete guide to marketing and advertising using Facebook.

Work4 Labs, Vitrue, Involver, BranchOut and Wildfire hired sales executives, customer support, human resources workers, interns and communications staff this week. If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email mail (at) insidefacebook (dot) com, and we’ll get it into next week’s post. Also, please note that information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn.

Looking for new opportunities? Check out the Inside Network Job Board, which shows the latest openings at leading companies in the industry.

Here’s this week’s list of hires:

BranchOut

• Christy Albright, Corporate Communications – Now in Corporate Communications at BranchOut, previously a Public Relations manager at Monster Worldwide and Tickle, Inc.
• Kari Davidson, Marketing Intern – Currently a student at the University of Washington School of Design.

Involver

• Yuriy Kalynovskiy, Sr. QA Analyst at Involver – Now working at Involver, formerly the Lead QA Analyst at BankServ.

Vitrue

• Karla Caldwell, MBA, HR Generalist – Used to work as an Immigration Program Analyst II at the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Foreign Labor Certification.
• Jason Carlile, Customer Support - Previously worked in Tech Support at Harbor Payments.
• Hajo Smulders, Senior Developer at Vitrue – Formerly at Django Programmer at Rockfish Interactive.

Wildfire

• Luis Manrique, Social Media Strategy – Formerly a Financial Advisory intern at Merrill Lynch.
• Nicole Tagliaferri, Account Executive – Previously worked as an Associate Sales Representative at Stryker Endoscopy.

Work4 Labs

• Kurt Angier, Sales Executive – Now at Sales Executive at Work4Labs, formerly an Account Executive at HotJobs.com.
• Nathan Eads, Sales Executive – Formerly a Sales Executive & Media/Online Marketing Specialist at Vocus.
• Mark Gates, Sales Executive – Now at Sales Executive at Work4 Labs, previously worked in Inside Sales at WorkforceLogic.

About a month ago, Facebook inserted a special story into the news feed and homepage ads asking users to sign up for a Deals service. The company instructed people to subscribe to get information about the service as it rolls out in five cities: San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Austin and Atlanta. Tomorrow, according to The New York Times, this test of Facebook’s competitor to Groupon, LivingSocial and other providers is going live.

We’ve covered Deals (not to be confused with Facebook’s mobile check-in based deals) in detail already, which you can read here. The new report includes a few more interesting pieces of information.

Facebook is planning to include Credits as a payment option along with credit cards, so if users who have stocked up on lots of Credits for virtual goods in games happen to see a Deal show up in their news feed, they’ll be able to buy it.

Companies such as Groupon and LivingSocial already take a very substantial portion of the revenue split with business that their deals bring in, with market leader Groupon grabbing 50% and second-place Living Social taking a competitive 40%. Facebook keeps 30% of the revenue from Credits purchases, and presumably it will retain the same amount from Deals sales. If that’s the case, perhaps it’s keeping the same 30% from transactions that it brokers via user credit cards.

Either way, 30% is competitive in the deals world, even though the percentage has been a serious new cost for platform developers.

[Update: We're hearing that while Credits is a payment method, Facebook will not necessarily do a 30/70 split on revenue through Credits-based purchases of Deals as it has with developers.]

Another interesting point in the report is that Facebook is not only tasking its own sales teams with bringing in deals, but it’s syndicating deals from a number of partners, listed below. The syndication efforts should play an especially important role during the product’s early days, providing deals when Facebook itself might not have as many flowing through to users.

Gilt City
Home Run
FreshGuide
PoweredByTippr
kgbdeals
Plumdistrict
Zozi
OpenTable
Reach Local
Viagogo
aDealio

In another not-quite-a-talent-acquisition, most of the founding team of Dogpatch Labs-incubated startup Recrec is going to Facebook.

Two of the cofounders are going to work under Jocelyn Goldfein on the product engineering team. Recrec was working on an interesting technology that automatically converted images into HTML and CSS. The company’s founders also have some experience on the Facebook platform, as one of them developed an application called Easter Eggs that reached 300,000 users in March 2008.

This was a talent hiring, rather than a a traditional acquisition. A similar situation happened with a social recruiting company called Pursuit earlier this year. That company shut down while two of the three founders joined Facebook.

Facebook’s move comes at a time when the company is aggressively pushing HTML5 in its developer community. Chief technology officer Bret Taylor said earlier this year that mobile would be the primary focus of the platform this year and that long-term, the company favors HTML5 above building native applications.

Taylor said the company had been building seven different versions of Facebook to work on the mobile web and in native apps. Facebook recently streamlined the way its serves the newsfeed for mobile devices, making them the same in the iPhone app and on http://m.facebook.com. It also redesigned http://m.facebook.com to automatically detect and adapt to whatever device a user visits the site with.

Not only would HTML5 be simpler to manage in the long-term, it would also make it easier for Facebook to earn revenue through its developer ecosystem. At present, it would be difficult for Facebook to successfully bring Credits to smartphones since Apple controls in-app payments on its platform and Google’s terms of service for Android Market pushes developers to use the company’s Checkout product.

Facebook has just released several new updates for its Groups product, including photo album sharing and Questions publishing, in-Group search, and admin approval for new members. Facebook says that over 50 million Groups have been created since the product’s launch in October 2010.

Some admins of old Facebook group — the new deprecated predecessor to Pages — will now also have the option to upgrade to the relatively new version of Groups, porting existing members and content. Facebook has also launched the new “Send” button social plugin that allows users to share third-party websites to Groups, specific friends, or email addresses.

The improvements will increase trust in the privacy of Groups, allow more content types to be shared, answer the requests of old group admins, and give third-party sites and brands a way capitalize on Facebook’s focus on sharing with relevant subsets of friends.

Facebook launched Groups to offer an alternative to sharing with all of one’s friends. Facebook determined that users would share more often if often if given an easy and reliable way to restrict the distribution of content that was more sensitive or only relevant to a few people such as planning an event with friends, splitting bills with roommates, sharing ideas with co-workers or discussing intimate family matters. The tag cloud below shows some of the words most commonly found in the names of Groups started by college students.

New Groups Features

One issue with Group membership, though, was that any existing member could add a new member or approve an admission application. This meant any member could expose sensitive information to those who weren’t meant to see it.

Now admins of Closed and Secret Groups can require all new member additions to be approved by an admin, increasing trust in the product’s privacy. Project Manager Peter Deng tell us that “early adopters have been savvy about learning [the utility of Groups], but we need to educate to make this use case more prominent.” Now, those who’ve never been in a Group before will be shown a tour outlining features and controls.

To help users query the preferences of their Groups, they can now publish Facebook Questions to a Group’s feed. For instance, a jogging Group could ask what the best time to meet up that week would be. New photo albums may also be uploaded to Groups, while previously only single photos could be uploaded. Users can import existing Facebook photo albums, too. A new Group search feature will help users quickly find specific pieces of content within a Group feed.

The Groups product launched in October is much different than the old groups product, which served more as forums for an interest similar to community Pages. Some users started old groups to solve use cases now addressed by the new Groups product, but there was previously no way to upgrade. Over the next few weeks, Deng tells us that admins of some active old groups that are sharing privately and don’t have too many members will see the option to upgrade, bringing all their members and content into the new interface.

The Send Button

Facebook Platform Product Manager Austin Haugen tells us that “Since we first launched Like button, it’s been a great tool for broadcasting, but it never nailed the use case to share something relevant to certain people.” Facebook’s new Send button social plugin for third-party websites solves this in a way that’s complementary to the Like button.

Starting today, users will see the Send button on over 50 websites, including The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, Orbitz, 1-800 Flowers, People.com, Gilt Groupe, and Last.fm. When clicked, the button opens a Facebook post publisher pre-populated with the currently view content. Users can choose to publish to the feed of one of their Groups, to specific friends through Facebook Messages, or to email addresses.

The Send button create a big opportunity for web publishers of niche content users might not want to share with all their friends, or services that benefit from group planning such as travel or gifting. For instance, a user could share a Wall Street Journal article about corporate tax reform to a Group of Econ major classmates, Message a friend who works in corporate law, or email it to their financial advisor. Families could use the Send button to plan a 1-800 Flowers gift for Mother’s day by posting it to their family Group and emailing it to relatives who aren’t on Facebook.

Developers can add a standalone Send button to websites, or create a combined Like/Send button to show the two side-by-side by modifying the Send attribute in their Like button code or through the Like button configurator.

As the definition of a Facebook friend grows to more often include family members, professional colleagues, and others outside of one’s peers, Facebook needs to continue improving it microsharing options as it has today to ensure users are posting as much as possible. By giving websites an in-road to these smaller networks through the Send button, Facebook is unlocking the power of personal recommendations that don’t need to reach hundreds of people to help business.

Check back later today for an excerpt of our new Facebook Marketing Bible entry “How Websites Can Use the Facebook Send Button”.

Photo and video contests were popular on our roundup of featured Facebook campaigns this week. Virgin America, PetSmart and Tourism New Zealand each used a variation on that theme. Meanwhile, film director Peter Jackson used his official Facebook Page to promote a film not due out until next year, Warner Music is set to create a virtual world for one of its featured artists and a Tblisi, Georgia-based bank is using Facebook to engage its customers when they’re out of the store.

We’ve excerpted two of the campaigns below. You can see the full week’s coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of dozens of other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Virgin America’s Flight for Chicago

Goal: Page Growth, Engagement, Network Exposure, Charity, Brand Loyalty, Product Purchase

Core Mechanic: A photo and video contest that users can enter to both win free airfare and donate money to cancer research.

Method: The One Trick Pony-designed promotion is Like-gated and allows users to participate either by voting or uploading photos and videos in line with the Flight for Chicago Challenge. As part of Virgin America’s upcoming new daily flights to Chicago O’Hare International Airport from Los Angeles and San Francisco, the airline is trying to get customers involved in the “fight” to bring more affordable airfare to the Chicago area.

Users may share media that promote “rising above the ordinary” or showing they are not “featherweight flyers” to receive a two-for-one offer on the chicago flights, but Virgin America will also donate $5 per entry to Stand Up To Cancer, a cancer research organization. The winner will fly on one of the inaugural flights between Chicago and the new destinations and there are 10 additional winners. The promotion lasts until May 11.

Impact: There are about 100 entries so far, not bad since the promotion just opened up last week. The Virgin America Page has about 92,000 Likes so far. This particular promotion is a great combination of entering to win a prize, but also being able to make a charity donation, and is an example other campaigns could emulate.

PetSmart’s Just Doggin’ Around Photo Contest and Sweepstakes

Goal: Engagement, Network Exposure, Page Growth, Product Purchase, Brand Loyalty

Core Mechanic: The Just Doggin’ Around Photo Contest and Sweepstakes allows users to submit photos of their dogs, use their networks to get friends to vote for their photo, and have a chance to win prizes.

Method: The contest is Like-gated, so users first must Like the PetSmart Page, then submit photos of their dogs caught “doggin’ around”, with a brief description to enter the contest. Entrants may win a daily drawing, one of 9 runner-up prizes or the grand prize. The runner-up prizes include gift cards, pet apparel or a dog makeover, the grand prize is a four day, three night trip to Miami, Florida where your dog can stay at a per spa, plus a cash prize and more merchandise. Daily winners win $50 gift cards to PetSmart.

Perhaps one of the best things about this campaign is that the branding is wound through and through the contest. Not only with the prizes, the Like-gating of the promotion, but also the promotion directs users back to PetSmart services, such as providing grooming tips for your dogs (PetSmart provides this service. When a user participates in the promotion a feed story with a thumbnail is published to the stream.

Impact: The Votigo-powered promotion ran from March 28 through April 24, the Page’s total Likes recently numbered 245,6500 and entries total about 10,100. Multiply that 10,100 by the network exposure every time someone voted or uploaded a photo and PetSmart likely received a lot of exposure for their money on this particular promotion.

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.

We have quite the mixed bag of applications on our list of top 20 growing Facebook applications by monthly active users this week. While the Turkish video and dating apps are still going strong, the rest of the list was divided among many other different kinds of applications.

Horoscopes, Q&A quizzes, virtual gifts, photos, Connect, iPad Facebook apps and Page administrator apps were on our list, which grew from between 399,400 and 2.1 million MAU. Our list is compiled using AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook, and covers those that gained the most users in the past seven days.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	MAU	Gain	Gain,%
1.	Gardens of Time	2,949,011	+2,116,218	+254%
2.	Diamond Dash	5,437,853	+1,105,949	+26%
3.	Sanal Video	2,068,153	+1,074,824	+108%
4.	Monster Galaxy	11,030,734	+1,055,673	+11%
5.	Zombie Lane	3,099,500	+1,006,401	+48%
6.	Zoosk	8,081,435	+897,559	+12%
7.	Bubble Saga	1,599,642	+832,183	+108%
8.	iframe + Static FBML + Welcome Tab = iwipa	2,650,450	+630,745	+31%
9.	Cupid	6,629,103	+597,778	+10%
10.	Daily Horoscope	5,735,220	+585,050	+11%
11.	Gourmet Ranch	3,800,458	+567,139	+18%
12.	Friend Buzz	7,910,773	+554,542	+8%
13.	Texas HoldEm Poker	36,262,373	+511,577	+1%
14.	Send Gift	1,473,213	+482,922	+49%
15.	60 Photos	787,795	+480,217	+156%
16.	friend.ly	3,775,839	+443,902	+13%
17.	TrainCity	1,402,419	+433,634	+45%
18.	MyPad for iPad	813,563	+428,193	+111%
19.	Komedi Kral	1,019,186	+401,447	+65%
20.	Welcome Tab for Pages	1,445,116	+399,360	+38%

Sanal Video with 1 million MAU and Komedi Kral with 401,500 MAU each allow viewers to see a list of videos, view, Like and share them. Dating apps Zoosk with 897,600 MAU and Cupid with 597,800 MAU made the list, too. Zoosk grew mostly in the United States, while Cupid grew there, as well as India and the United Kingdom. Cupid’s virality is due in part to a Q&A component asking a user about their friends, posting a story to their Wall upon your answer.

Daily Horoscope made the list with 585,000 MAU; the app grew mostly in Turkey and allows users to receive daily horoscopes on their Wall and share the app with friends who have their same astrological sign. Friend Buzz’s 554,500 MAU is due likely to the viral attribute of the Q&A app, posting a feed story with each answer.

Send Gift with 482,900 MAU first shows users a pop-up window asking them to allow the app to post gifts to their profile with some regularity, but generally allows users to post virtual gifts to friends’ Walls. 60 Photos also involves a user’s friends, with 480,200 MAU the app pulls photos from friends’ Facebook albums, asks you to click “nice” or “pass” and posts a story to your friend’s Wall with each answer.

The friend.ly Connect app grew by 443,900 MAU. The MyPad for iPad Facebook app for iPad grew by 428,200 MAU. Finally, the Page admin apps grew substantially, too. iframe + Static FBML + Welcome Tab = iwipa grew by 630,700 and Welcome Tab for Pages by 399,400 MAU. Each app basically allows Page admins to consolidate social media content onto a tab for their Page.

Check in later this week for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

The Goldman Sachs-DST investment of $500 million in Facebook and the Goldman-managed sale of $1.5 billion of the company’s stock was not the end of its long-running efforts to reward its employees — and control the stock they have earned in the company.

Since that sale, Facebook has reportedly considered a $1 billion sale of employee stock to large investment firms. Meanwhile, outside valuations of the stock continued to climb on private secondary markets, where the stock is sold by former employees and other stockholders to the highest bidder, past the $50 billion mark specified by Facebook and Goldman in the January sale.

Here’s a quick look at the trends and issues, as Facebook heads toward April 30, 2012, when it will begin publicly reporting its financial numbers (and possibly consider plans to go public).

T. Rowe Price is the most recent big investor. As of this month, it has listed Facebook in portfolios of around 20 of its funds, for a total value of $190.5 million. It’s not clear when the investments occurred or at what original valuation, but they were likely recent, and were either arranged by Facebook or had its blessing.

In March, another large investment firm, General Atlantic, reportedly was in the process of buying shares owned by former employees, and at a $65 billion valuation. The CNBC report said that Facebook had not yet agreed to let the deal go through; it’s also not clear who was arranging the transaction.

The highest valuations to date have been coming out of secondary stock markets like Second Market, which operate by selling former employee stock to accredited investors (current employees are banned by Facebook from independently selling stock). The amount of stock being sold here keeps shrinking, as Facebook does everything it can to manage the sales process itself, and meanwhile demand has continued to go up. For example, after some weeks with shares sold numbering in the millions, SecondMarket’s most two recently leaked emails about auction results show it brokering auctions of just around 100,000 shares — but at valuations of $70 billion and then $85 billion.

Facebook isn’t just trying to control the shareholder account to below the 500-holder marker where it’s forced to publicly share financials. Its own internal valuation is affected by outside markets, as they create a marker for demand normally lacking among non-public companies.

On that note, Facebook’s last reported stock price put its valuation at only around $25 billion, according to filings tracked by VC Experts — the last one of which was received on January 4, 2011, apparently not reflecting the price of the Goldman deal.

Based on Facebook’s need to keep employees happy through stock sales, its increasing costs from expansion, its need to control its stock — and its reported plan to sell $1 billion in employee shares — we expect to hear more news in the coming weeks and months about expensive stock purchases by large financial firms given Facebook’s blessing to buy.

We’ve come a long way from 2008, when Microsoft’s $240 million investment in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation shocked the technology world.

Here are all the stories last week from Inside Mobile Apps, Inside Social Games and Inside Facebook.

Inside Mobile Apps

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

Monday, April 18

• Apple May Have Tweaked App Store Ranking Algorithm, Making Downloads Matter Less
• Emerging Paid iOS Apps: Gamevil’s Air Penguin, Civil War Top the Charts
• Facebook’s iPhone App Vaults to #1 on Suspected Ranking Algorithm Changes
• Penguins Fly With Gamevil’s Air Penguin on iPhone

Tuesday, April 19

• Apple Appears to be Cracking Down on Incentivized Installs
• Geek Beach Goes 3D With iOS Title A Monster Ate My Homework
• Odd Rankings Fluctuations Continue in Apple App Store
• Emerging Top-Grossing iOS Apps: Tax Apps, KORG and Navigon Rise

Wednesday, April 20

• Emerging Top Free Apps on iOS: New Games Bubble Up Amid Suspected Rankings Tweak
• Path Drawing & Tower Defense Meet in A.I.R. Defense
• New Jobs This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Breaktime Studios, NaturalMotion, wooga & More
• Apple’s Q2 iPad Sales Fall Short of Estimates at 4.69M, While iPhone Sales Beat Them
• Mobile Game Developers Grapple With Apple Crackdown on Incentivized Installs

Thursday, April 21

• New Hires in Mobile: Atakama Labs, Gameloft, InMobi, & More
• Glu Churns Out More Casual Titles for iOS as Bug Village Reaches #8
  
• Japan’s GREE Picks Up Mobile-Social Gaming Network OpenFeint for $104 Million

Friday, April 22

• Poor Controls & Usability Problems Hurt The Relic’s Potential
• Pocket Gems’ Tap Pet Hotel Scales to #2 on iOS Free & Grossing, Offer Wall Conspicuously Absent
• Mobile Apps Roundup: Intuit, Nokia And Microsoft, iPhone Sales, and More

Inside Social Games

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

Monday, April 18

• Diamond Dash Still Leading This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by MAU
• Academic Project Prom Week Points to Problems With Truly Social Social Games
• MXP4′s Bopler Games Opens Revenue Stream for Musicians by Letting Users Pay Facebook Credits to Play With Songs
• PopCap Games Monetize “Better Than You’d Think” on Facebook

Tuesday, April 19

• Exclusive: Playfish Ending Playfish Cash, Going (Almost) All-In On Facebook Credits
• MySpace Founders’ MindJolt Buys Game Companies SGN and Hallpass Media
• Report: JamLegend Talent Hired By Zynga
• An Early Look at Serf Wars Before a Big Gameplay Shift

Wednesday, April 20

• Playdom Commands This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Games by DAU With Gardens of Time
• MetroGames’ Auto Hustle Builds on Facebook Mafia Theme, Looks for Hardcore Gamers
• Facebook Launches New Feature Asking Users How Often They Want to Discover New Games
• New Jobs This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Wooga, Lolgames, Breaktime Studios & More
• PlayFirst Sunsets Chocolatier as Diner Dash Ramps Up Monetization, Social Features
• Social MMO Glitch to Monetize Through Android, iOS Apps

Thursday, April 21

• New Hires in Social Gaming: Atakama Labs, Digital Chocolate, GSN, & More
• Playdom Co-Founder’s New Facebook Game Inspires Faith In Flash, Innovation
• Knight’s Story Straddles Multiple Gameplay Mechanics
• Bejeweled Bliz, Diamond Dash Dominate the Top 5 Match-3 Facebook Games by Traffic
• Japan’s GREE Picks Up Mobile-Social Gaming Platform OpenFeint for $104 Million

Friday, April 22

• Gambling Games Show Some Growth On This Week’s List of Emerging Facebook Games
• Developers Uncertain After Changes to Apple’s iOS Rankings, Incentivized Install Rules
• The Better Game: Mystery Manor vs. Gardens of Time
• Social Gaming Roundup: Shadow Government Funding, Playfish EIR, Mafia Wars MySpace Closure, and More

Inside Facebook

Tracking Facebook and the Facebook platform for developers and marketers.

Monday, April 18

• Phrases, Dating, Pages, Video, Friends and Spanish on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by MAU
• Featured Facebook Campaigns: Virgin America, Seattle’s Best Coffee, DreamWorks, Toyota and More
• Facebook Adds “Friends Not on a List” View to the Friend Lists Editor
• Facebook’s iPhone App Vaults to #1 on Suspected Ranking Algorithm Changes
• MXP4′s Bopler Games Opens Revenue Stream for Musicians By Letting Users Pay Facebook Credits to Play with Songs
• Buddy Media’s Facebook Page Tool Update Includes Tab App and Hourly Analytics

Tuesday, April 19

• New Facebook Platform Industry Hires: Context Optional, Wildfire and Syncapse
• Facebook’s Traffic, Advertising, and Trends by the Numbers – at Inside Facebook Gold, April 2011 Edition
• Facebook Studio: A Guide to Facebook’s Marketing Showcase
• Facebook Adds Two Factor Authentication for Login and Redesigns Family Safety Center
• Facebook Makes Badoo Change Its Viral Mechanics, Leading to a 75% Drop in DAU

Wednesday, April 20

• Horoscopes, Connect, Video, Zoosk, Formspring and More on This Week’s Top 20 Facebook Apps by DAU
• Facebook Page Admins Can Access Page Notifications Without Switch to “Use Facebook as Page”
• Facebook Asks Users How Often They Want to Discover New Games
• New Jobs This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Youtopia, Arkadium, NaturalMotion & More
• Ad.ly Removed From Facebook for Monetizing the News Feed Through Paid Page Update Endorsements

Thursday, April 21

• Facebook Hires and Departures: Engineer, Recruiting, Mobile, Singapore, Dublin and More
• Facebook Careers Postings: Communications, Data Analyst, Recruiting, Communications and More
• Facebook Climbs Toward 700 Million Users Worldwide, With Steady Growth in the US
• Facebook’s iPhone and Android Apps Let You Find Friends From Your Phone Book, Grow the Site
• Facebook Celebrates the Like Button’s 1st Birthday By Showing Off Its Footprint

Friday, April 22

• Video, Photos, Orkut, Connect, Quizzes and Roses on This Week’s Top 20 Emerging Facebook Apps
• Facebook Ads Can Now Include or Exclude Existing Fans in “Friends of Connections” Target
• Facebook Canvas Apps vs Facebook Connect for Websites: A Quick Guide to What’s Best for You
• Facebook Roundup: Stock, Vietnam, Oregon Data Center, Adaptly, Questions, Pixable, Cars and More