Barilliance is trying to bring together standard web-tracking technology with Facebook Pages to better target the right products to users.

The software places a cookie in user browsers, then tracks consumer behavior on a commerce website, then translates that behavior to the user’s experience within the brand’s Facebook store. When a consumer visits the Facebook Page, the product recommendations are tailored to the consumer’s search and purchase behavior on the website.

Barilliance co-founder Ido Ariel says the company’s core technology is product recommendations. The back end of Barilliance’s software allows retailers to target by first or returning customer, referring traffic source, location and product. On the website this looks like a banner and on Facebook it’s within an ecommerce tab.

Specifically this could look like a 10% off or free shipping banner, an offer for customers who made a purchase in the last month, specific items of interest, for a particular region, or a combination of these, Ariel says. Visitors to a retail website will see the same or similar offers on both platforms.

Ariel tells us that Barilliance wants to extend this technology from web and Facebook commerce for other products, such as email newsletters and chat. “It’s better to keep customers happy and loyal than acquire new customers,” he says. Barilliance’s technology, then aims to convert visitors into customers via personalizing recommendations.

Barilliances’ 100-plus ecommerce customers are mainly in the United States.

Facebook, Google Pair Up to Fight Anti-Piracy Law – The House Stop Online Piracy Act proposal has brought together Facebook, Google and other companies in an effort to prevent the passing of the law that companies say will place the onus of protecting against piracy on them.

Facebook IPO Rumors Swirl – Business Insider reported that Facebook employees are reporting that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the IPO is coming soon, as early as next month.

Porn, Violence a Recent Problem – Facebook acknowledged to ZDnet this week a series of problems with unwanted pornographic or violent content showing up in their news feeds. The Wall Street Journal reported that it was a “coordinated spam attack” coming as the company ramps up to release Timeline.

FCC, Facebook Settle Over Privacy Issues – The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook reached a settlement over privacy issues, even as the FTC encourages people to Like them on Facebook.

Facebook’s Name Policy Hones in on Salman Rushdie - Writer Salman Rushdie became a target for Facebook’s real name policy this week. After the author took to Twitter to protest the deactivation of his account, the company restored his profile. The New York Times writes about the dilemmas caused by this policy in today’s world. [Image Via david_shankbone]

Google+ Works with Page Management Companies – Google announced last week the creation of Google+ Pages for brands to share information with users on Google+ and Page management companies like HootSuite, Context Optional, Vitrue and Buddy Media are set to work with brands on managing this new platform.

Orange Launches Facebook Phones – Orange is set to release three affordable Android smartphones for customers who heavily use Facebook.

Dems, GOP Participating in DC Hackathon – Congressional members from both parties are set to participate in the first ever DC Facebook Hackathon to find new ways to use social media in the political process. [Image Via Facebook]

Creepy Zuckerberg Fan Appears at Carnegie Mellon – A student at a recent Mark Zuckerberg appearance at Carnegie Mellon University instilled fear in the audience, and CEO, when he made some creepy and cryptic comments. The student apparently snuck into the venue the night before to place some speakers under Zuckerberg’s seat.

PayPal Releases Facebook Payment App – PayPal released a Facebook app, Send Money, that allows users to send money to friends without a fee.

Other Announcements:

Coupons.com for Pages – Coupons.com released its Brandcaster Social platfor to allow brands to create secure, printable coupons directly on their Pages in 48 hours or less.

Napkin Labs Brings Crowdsourcing to Pages – Napkin Labs’ Brainstorm app allows brands to gives brands a way to get feedback from fans anything from new products to coming changes.

NASCAR, ESPN to Livestream Driver’s Camera -  NASCAR and ESPN announced that the two will provide a livestream of driver Tony Stewart’s live in-car camera on Facebook during the season finale on Sunday, November 20.

Buuteeq is a software platform that allows hotels to create engaging content for users across their web, mobile and Facebook sites. We spoke to co-founder and CEO Forest Key about how Buuteeq is working to convert Facebook visitors or fans into customers using research-fueled design.

First it’s important to note that one huge incentive for hotels to have guests book directly — say through Buuteeq — is that they do not have to hand over a slice of their revenue as a commission to a travel agency or booking portal such as Orbitz. When hotels purchase software and service from Buuteeq they are also encouraged to continue to invest in traditional Facebook marketing to boost their Likes so as to better leverage the company’s platform.

The software is set up so that each hotel must only upload content once and it then pushed across web, mobile and Facebook sites by Buuteeq, Key told us. The specific components of Buuteeq’s design are meant to convert visitors into customers; the vast majority of visitors spend 90% of their time perusing photos, room information and interactive maps — all three are central to Buuteeq’s design.

“Guests who look at 15 or more pictures are more likely to make a reservation,” Key told us, noting that Buuteeq’s design is photo-heavy.

Key told us that because Buuteeq is set up on Facebook to take advantage of social recommendation, the customer-facing side of Buuteeq’s Facebook app only show hotels in search results if a user’s friends have Liked that hotel’s Page. In other words, if hotels are not engaging in Page marketing to get their numbers up, the Buuteeq will not yield results for users who are not already connected through their networks. When it comes to booking, even if you find a hotel on Facebook, the actual reservation is made on the hotel’s website.

As far as viral mechanics, Key noted that the future of Buuteeq is set to focus increasingly on its Facebook component. In the meantime, he told us that his clients’ conversion rates are higher and there are Like buttons sown throughout the design, both on Facebook and on the web.

Facebook Hires 3 DC Staffers – Facebook announced the hiring of Director of Privacy Erin Egan and Director of Public Policy Louisa Terrell, and Manager of Public Policy Chris Herndon.

Facebook Fellowship Prog Expands - Facebook Engineer Sanjeev Kumar wrote a note this week explaining that the  2012-2013 Facebook Fellowship application is now available and the company has doubled the number of slots to 10. Of interest was that he noted that the company is “increasing focus in ‘systems’ areas (Compilers, Databases, Distributed Computing, Fault Tolerance, and Networking)” because this is the direction in which the company may grow.

Patent Lawyer Targets Facebook – Prominent patent attorney John Desmarais recently filed a suit against Facebook that alleges the company infringes on a series of patents for “publishing voice and fax messages on the Internet.” This is the same attorney who, in 2007, won $1.5 billion in a verdict against Microsoft.

Messaging Service Beluga to Close Down - Beluga, which was acquired by Facebook in March, is set to shutter starting November 11 and all messages will be deleted December 15.

23% of Companies Offer Facebook Support – Research company MarketTools published a study recently finding that 23% of companies provide customer service via Facebook and only 12% via Twitter.

App Provides COPD Test - The COPD Alliance published an app on its Page in the name of COPD Awareness Month in November. It is a disease that’s the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., and the app tests users for their susceptability to the disease.

Zooppa Releases Crowdsource App – Zooppa announced a Facebook version of its crowdsourcing advertising service, allowing brands to post creative briefs, allow members to shoot commercials for them and then receive submissions via Facebook.

Messages Could Contain Malicious Attachements – Security researcher Nathan Powell blogged about a specific way Facebook Messages can be used to transmit malicious executable files, though Facebook normally doesn’t allow .exe files to be attached to Messages. Facebook’s Security Manager Ryan McGeehan downplayed the threat, noting that this kind of attack would require “an additional layer of social engineering.”

BrightEdge Releases S3 – BrightEdge, the social management platform announced a new integration of its platform this week, BrightEdge S3. One new feature of interest is the social site audit, which promises a tight web integration with Facebook, specific to Open Graph compliance.

Chat Alert is a simple application that informs users when selected friends become available to chat with on Facebook. A common feature of some other instant messaging services, Chat Alert provides provides a service not available on Facebook Chat. The app is free up to a certain point, and then begins to charge users a certain number of Credits to follow more friends.

The app allows users to add up to 10 friends free of charge and receive alerts when they are available to chat. Alerts can sent to users via email, Facebook Message or SMS.

A user’s friends need not register for Chat Alert in order for the app to work and a single alert will be sent per friend who logs into chat. Users may also customize these alerts within the app itself.

Unless one is logged into chat, there is no way of telling when a friend becomes available to instant message with. Even when logged in, it’s easy to miss someone appearing in the buddy list. Given that users often have hundreds of friends, constantly logging in and out of chat and scrolling to see who’s online just to find a specific friend is inefficient. While only a niche of users may require its services, Chat Alert fulfills its purpose effectively.

Several of the campaigns featured in our post this week incorporated games into the ways they highlighted products. Car and Driver magazine began a long-term partnership with the Facebook game Car Town that makes the magazine’s content a central part of its print product and brings its print products directly into the game. Then Einstein Bros Bagels and Maybelline ran some interesting contests. Finally, Best Buy’s CityVille integration seemed successful enough that the company is going to bring it back in November.

You can see the full week’s coverage in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of over 100 other featured campaigns by top-performing brands and businesses on Facebook.

Car and Driver’s Car Town Integration

Goal: Network Exposure, Brand Loyalty, Product Purchase

Core Mechanic: Car and Driver, a car magazine, will be featured in Car Town, a game about cars on Facebook. The partnership started last week and will continue into 2012.

Game: Within the Car Town game, users will see new car releases, announcements and other information in the form of the magazine’s cover. Plus, users who create virtual car and garage designs within the game will be awarded Car and Driver magazine’s 10Best award.

Every month winners will have a chance to be featured in the magazine, as well as in the magazine’s website and social media channels. Then, Car Town news updates will be featured in the magazine with the latest tips from the game.

Method: This partnership seems to be very extensive, leveraging both the game’s and the magazine’s audiences and their interests to intertwine in seemingly sensible and effective ways. It takes something that happens in real life— new cars being featured on the cover of Car and Driver magazine — and translates it into a social game. Brands should consider where their products would appropriately fit into social games and seek to partner with the developers of those games as Car and Driver has done here.

Impact: The Car and Driver Page’s Likes have seen an uptick by a few thousand in the past week, according to PageData; currently the total is 92,500. It’s not clear if this comes directly from the game integration, though, especially since most of the Page’s activity is related to cars and not the game.

Einstein Bros Bagels’ Darn Good Coffee Motto Contest

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

Core Mechanic: The contest invites users to Like the Page, then enter their choice motto that could end up on the company’s coffee t-shirts.

Method: Users who enter the contest are eligible to win free coffee and bagels for a year, in addition to smaller prizes of $100 gift cards.

Impact: The Page currently stands at 678,600 Likes and PageData shows that, as the contest began on September 5, the Page experienced moderate growth during the past week. A longer contest entry period may have helped promote momentum for the contest.  By publishing to the stream a fun feed story about a user’s entry, the contest could have attracted more participants.

Inside Games’ AJ Glasser contributed to this report.

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

Project Spartan to Include iOS, Android – The scope of Facebook’s HTML5-focused developer project has expanded from mobile Safari to include desktop, Android, iOS and the possibly completed but unlaunched iPad app, TechCrunch reported today. The goal is to extend Facebook’s app platform further into mobile.

Facebook Signs German Privacy Code – Facebook voluntarily signed a code of conduct in Germany to protect user privacy.

German Company Recreates Like Button – Then a German website, Heise, changed Facebook Like buttons to gray versions that must be clicked in order to be activated, underscoring German privacy efforts. [Image via Zdnet]

8th Bridge Releases Social Commerce Report – 8th Bridge released its study, “Social Commerce IQ: Retail” report this week. It includes information about social shopping engagement rates, product sharing, Likes, recommendations and more. About 16% of users are driven to purchase by social recommendations and 35% said more Likes on a product increase the chance of purchase.

Facebook Page Hijacking Easier than Thought – Sophos published a report about Facebook Page hijacking, noting that it’s very simple for a third-party to takeover a Page. Here’s a video and more information.

Ceglia Update: Passwords Leaked – The latest in the Paul Ceglia drama, in which Ceglia claims to own half of Facebook and the company claims he’s a fraud, is that he says his opponent’ lawyers published his email passwords in court papers.

BranchOut Creates Vanity URLs – BranchOut announced the creation of vanity URLs for users, such as www.branchout.com/firstname.lastname, that may be changed via the “edit URL” section of their BranchOut profiles.

Oprah Interviewed on Facebook – Facebook COO interviewed Oprah Winfrey on Facebook this week.

Other Announcements:

Votigo Premieres Beta Platform – This week Votigo announced a Beta verion of its self-service platform including sweepstakes, photo/video contests and more.

BranchOut Offers Free Postings – BranchOut told Inside Facebook this week that, responding to President Barack Obama’s job creation push, the company would be offering 5 free job postings to any U.S. company (worth $225).

Booshaka Creates Small, Medium Biz Platform – Booshaka announced the creation of a marketing platform specifically for small-to-medium businesses, brands and agencies this week that includes rewards, newsfeed optimization, targeting options and more.

More Info on Facebook’s Spartan – TechCrunch reported more information about BoltJS, a UI framework designed by Facebook and written in JavaScript that runs in the browser. Apparently it’s part of Facebook’s Project Spartan, which may not be fully revealed until f8.

Facebook Settles With Lamebook – Lamebook, a humor site publishing funny Facebook posts, and Facebook settled this week. The judge refused to move the suit to California, and thus, some speculate that Facebook settled to avoid jury sympathy for the Austin-based company.

Facebook Extends Comment Period – Facebook extended the comment period for its new privacy policy to 5 p.m. Pacific on September 7. Comments may be left at Facebook’s Site Governance Page.

Facebook Testing Comment Ordering? – AllFacebook reported that Facebook seems to be testing a way for Page admins to order comments based on social ranking, chronology or reverse chronology. [Image via AllFacebook]

Facebook Pays $40,000 in Bounty Program – Facebook’s Bug Bounty program has, thus far, paid out $40,000 to people around the world who have reported issues to the company. Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan wrote a blog about the program this week with more information.

Interesting Insights on Facebook Ads – SocialCode reported some interesting trends about Facebook ads, including: women are 11% more likely to click, older women are more likely to click through and men are slightly more likely to Like an ad.

HTML5 Mobile App Allows for Connect – Nitobi, creators of PhoneGap, launched a new plugin, PhoneGap Facebook Connect. Essentially it allows users to login to HTML and JavaScript apps with their Facebook login.

Social Networks and Patents – Business Week published an interesting story examining the lack of a “patent war” when it comes to social media companies like Facebook and Twitter. One reason the magazine speculated, is that Facebook (for example) only holds 12 patents, which is to say, there aren’t as many patents to fight over.

Facebook Developer Blog: Fluid Canvas – Facebook’s Developer blog posted this week about how to build an app on Facebook with Fluid Canvas, to expand the size of apps, depending on a user’s screen resolution.

Other Announcements:

Appbistro Announces PPI Ads for Page Apps – Appbistro announced that the company now installs apps for Page admins, thus the company has seen a 190% increase in installs, recently hitting 100,000 registered Page admins.

Vitrue Releases SaaS 3.0 – Vitrue released version 3.0 of its social media platform, which includes new localization features, analytics and metrics.

Hootsuite Deepens Facebook Integration – AllFacebook reports that HootSuite has deepened its Facebook integration, specifically adding events, photos, groups, and geo-tool updates.

15% of Posts are Likejacked – Norton’s analysis of 3.5 million video posts in August found that 15% were scams, or like jacking. Norton Safe Web for Facebook is an app that may guard against this type of attack.

RoomSync has been quietly building a business around helping college students find the right roommate, through a service that integrates Facebook profile data. Enabled by a growing number of universities for on-campus housing, it accesses very particular portions of a user’s profile information, then allows students to enter their own information into the app, and lets them browse and locate their own roommate matches.

Robert J. Castellucci, one of four co-founders of RoomSync, tells us the idea for the company started when he was tasked with roommate matching in a previous job. This type of work is always tedious, he said, largely because it’s done by third parties. What RoomSync does is allows students to determine their own types of preferences for roommates, throwing Facebook profile information into the mix, something the company currently does for 21 institutions across the United States.

Thus far the company has a total of 27,000 users, with many coming in just the last few months. RoomSync offers as a subscription to which institutions subscribe, which includes an initial setup fee and an annual fee, but is free to students, the users.

Castellucci adds that RoomSync has managed not only to match roommates, but to build community and help students make friends before they start school at some of the company’s participating institutions. One school’s reported roommate conflicts went down, as did the severity of the conflicts, and that diversity was unaffected between roommates by use of the app.

First, students receive an email from the institution with an access code. On Facebook, the app culls Likes, such as music and TV and books, and then places students into matching networks. Users can share their use of the app to the stream as a feed story, too. There are five default questions asked by the app and the institution may add up to five more for matching purposes; these questions include their smoking preference or to describe their ideal roommate, for example. There’s a box where they can fill in additional information (that’s moderated for inappropriate content), too.

Then users search the app via academic majors, residence halls where they would like to live, they can view suggested roommates (based on Likes) and then communicate with them over Facebook before selecting their roommates via the Request Roommate option. The recipient of this invitation must confirm, and all dual confirmations are sent to the university for final assignations; once these are made, the app closes for users.

[Courtesy Images]

UK Won’t Ban Facebook – Facebook, Twitter and Research In Motion met with United Kingdom officials Thursday regarding the social networks’ role in summer riots there. The government ended up not moving to restrict access to the social networks in emergencies such as riots.

Facebook Takes Third Spot for Video – Facebook becomes the third largest video site on the Internet, comScore reported. That is 51.5 million people who watched videos on the platform in July.

AT&T to Discontinue Facebook Phone – AT&T is reportedly set to drop its “Facebook phone” called the Status, according to TechCrunch.

Places More Popular Than Foursquare – London developer Golden Gekko reports its clients report much more Facebook check-ins than Foursquare in Europe. Magnus Jern reported that the ratio ranged from 5-10 to 1. However, the future of the service is unclear.

Facebook Hit 1 Trillion Pageviews - Facebook surpassed 1 trillion pageviews according to Google’s Ad Planner tool, although comScore says otherwise.

Facebook Mobile App to Offer Photo Filters - Facebook looks to be competing with Instagram’s classy mobile app by offering almost a dozen photo filters to its mobile own application — following Facebook’s attempt to buy the startup, according to The New York Times. News of the feature first leaked out in June.

Recapping Facebook’s Bug Bounty – Neal Poole did a basic rundown of Facebook’s Security Bug Bounty program, which included information about multi-line JavaScript URI, redirects preserving fragment portions of URLs, XSS filters and more.

Facebook Wraps Up Farm Bureau Dispute – Facebook and the Farm Bureau had a dispute over Facebook trademarking “FB,” but it seems like the lawsuit is set to be wrapped up.

Milyoni Chart for Credits – Milyoni created a nice chart and whitepaper that includes ways that Facebook Credits can, and cannot, be used.

Facebook to Open Second Campus - Facebook is set to open up an additional campus from its current Menlo Park, Calif. headquarters. The second campus pwill be southwest of the current location, to be constructed in 2013 to accommodate about 2,800 employees.

Ticketmaster Allows Users to Find Friends – Line Nation’s Ticketmaster service launched an app that allows users to see where their friends are sitting on seat maps and tag themselves.

BBC Does Facebook On-Demand Video – BBC has developed an on-demand Facebook application allowing users to rent episodes from the show “Top Gear” for 48 hours.

ShopIgniter, Involver Partner – The two companies are entered into a partnership to help online retail businesses with a management content system.