Facebook to release C++ library – ZDNet reported that Facebook may open source one of its C++ libraries, the code is used heavily on the platform’s back-end systems.

Facebook, Calif. teacher pension fund at odds – Because of Facebook’s corporate governance rules, a large investor — the California State Teachers’ Retirement System — is worried it may not have a say in how the company is being run even when it goes public. Facebook has put up a series of defenses against proxy battles and unwanted takeover attempts that concerns CalSTRS.

Doritos takes top spot in Super Bowl Ad Meter – The Doritos “Sling Baby” commercial was declared the winner of the first-ever USA Today Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter. USA Today and Facebook partnered to create an Open Graph application for users to view and rate Super Bowl commercials before, during and after the game.

Washington Post Social Reader goes mobile - The Washington Post launched native mobile applications for its popular Social Reader app for Facebook this week. The social reader is now available as an app for iPhone, iPod touch, Android and Kindle Fire.

Facebook COO Shifts Europe focus from privacy to economy -  At a recent conference in Europe, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told the audience that the economy is probably more of a concern than privacy. She said so given an impending privacy law draft that would affect 27 European Union countries. Specifically, she suggested that the law could have a negative impact on the EU economy. [Image via Facebook]

Facebook has a €2.6 billion U.K. impact -  A study from Deloitte found that Facebook’s overall economic impact in the United Kingdom was €2.6 billion, or 35,200 jobs in the U.K. and 32,000 jobs in the European Union and Switzerland.

Facebook ads game categories to News Feed -  Facebook now displays the genre category below game names and stories in News Feed stories. As we reported on Inside Social Games, users might be more likely to click on games when they know more about them.

Facebook engineer creates Google hack -  An project called Focus on the User, created in part by a Facebook engineer, provides a bookmarklet that forces Google Search Plus Your World to display results from social networks besides Google+.

Causes now a standalone website – TechCrunch reported that the charity app Causes has re-launched as a standalone website.

85K Arab Facebook logins hacked – ZDnet reported that Israel and Saudi Arabia are in the midst of a hacking war, and 85,000 Arab Facebook logins are one casualty.

Washington state AG targets clickjackers -  Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna announced suits against two companies thought to encourage clickjacking on Facebook. The suit was announced at Facebook’s Seattle office.

Facebook registers ‘FB Origin’ domain - Facebook registered several domains, .com and .biz for example, for something called FB Origin via the company MarkMonitor.  Fusible speculated that this means the company is set to launch a new product along with Timeline apps.

Facebook partners with Moo.com - Business card company Moo.com is offering Facebook users custom cards inspired by Timeline. In a unique partnership, Facebook has added a button to users’ info sections that leads to Moo.com, where people can design business cards using their cover photo and profile information. The companies are giving away the first 200,000 boxes of cards free.

Facebook announces 2012 Hacker Cup – Facebook made a blog post this week announcing the first Hacker Cup, opening up its famous hackathons to engineers around the world. Contestants will compete in five rounds based on accuracy and speed in solving algorithmic problems. The company will give away cash prizes up to $5,000.

East Palo Alto to review Facebook’s Menlo Park plans – City officials from East Palo Alto are concerned that expansion plans for Facebook’s new headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., could lead to traffic issues or displace residents. East Palo Alto council will meet in a closed session to discuss options to prevent such an impact.

Paid search and Facebook ad marketplace Trada has raised an additional $9 million in an inside round of funding from Google Ventures and Foundry Group, the company announced today. Trada serves small- to mid-sized advertisers by crowdsourcing targeting and creative options from its community of optimizers and designers that specialize in campaigns for Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Bing.

The Boulder-based startup began as a marketplace for paid search, but expanded into Facebook advertising in November. Advertisers come to Trada with a budget and campaign goals, which the company will help define based on current pricing estimates, for instance average cost per fan within a particular demographic. Trada’s community of optimizers, as they’re called, develop copy and make targeting recommendations. A group of designers produces image variations. The client can have final approval on all creative and targeting.

Rather than taking a percent of an advertiser’s budget or charging a monthly fee, Trada and its ad specialists are compensated on a performance basis. For example, an advertiser’s goal is to gain Facebook Likes and it is willing to pay $2 for each new Like an optimizer brings to the page. If an optimizer finds an ad target and creative permutation that results in Likes for $1.50, the optimizer keeps the difference. Of that $0.50 margin, 10 percent goes to the designer ($0.05) and 25 percent goes to Trada ($0.12).

With this model, Trada and its specialists have incentive to bring down costs, but they benefit more when there is greater disparity between a client’s target CPA and the price optimizers get. Some advertisers might be concerned Trada’s goals don’t necessarily align with their own. However, if advertisers have previous experience with search or Facebook ads, and they know what CPA delivers a return on investment, then Trada can be a good solution. The client does not need to pay for designers or stock photography, nor do they have to write dozens of variations of copy and manage complex campaigns.

On the Facebook ad side, Trada works with clients who are spending a minimum $25,000 per month. It will typically run thousands of ad combinations over the course of the month. So far, the company has seen half of its clients running lead-generation campaigns driving to a site off of Facebook. The other half has been interested in campaigns to increase Likes on their page. Trada says it is capable of managing Facebook’s relatively new Sponsored Story campaigns, as well.

With its latest round of funding, Trada is looking to hire more designers and extend the marketplace approach that has been successful for the company on Facebook to other types of graphic-based advertising, beginning with search retargeting. The company expects to be profitable by the end of the year.

Facebook’s acquisitions in 2011 suggest a strong focus on mobile technology and talent, as six of the 11 startups acquired this year had previously been working on mobile ventures.

In September, Facebook announced it had 350 million monthly active users accessing its services through mobile devices. This was 100 million more than it had said were active on mobile in March. As the social network introduced a mobile app platform to third-party developers in October, we expect it to continue to build its expertise in this area next year.

Rel8tion – January

The stealth hyper-local mobile advertising startup was acquired and brought into Facebook’s Seattle office. The social network hasn’t yet announced plans to bring ads to its mobile experience, but there have been reports that this could happen before Spring 2012.

Pursuit – February

Facebook hired two of the three founders of this professional network startup that helps employers promote job openings by using their employees’ social networks. So far we haven’t seen Facebook add more professional networking tools, though there are several third-party job apps growing on the platform.

Beluga – March

Five months after Facebook acquired this group messaging startup, the social network released a standalone messaging app that has been one of iOS’ top free apps since it debuted. The success of Messenger could encourage Facebook to develop more standalone apps, for instance one for quick photo-sharing.

Snaptu – March

After partnering with the Israeli startup earlier in the year to bring the app to 2,500 different kinds of mobile devices, Facebook brought the team on presumably to continue to build smartphone-like experiences on basic feature phones.

Recrec – April

This was a talent acquisition, rather than a a traditional acquisition, but most of the founding team of Dogpatch Labs-incubated startup Recrec joined Facebook. Recrec had been developing technology that automatically converted images into HTML and CSS.

Daytum – April

When Facebook hired the two founders of this New York-based startup, we suggested the new employees could help the social network track and visualize activity such as photo uploads, checkins or wall posts. As it turns out, the new monthly and yearly summary boxes on Timeline look a lot like Daytum, which lets people manually enter data such as trips to the gym, films watched or food consumed.

Sofa – June

The social network acquired this Dutch development and design startup for its talent, not its software products, which include Kaleidoscope for tracking differences in text and images, Versions for code version control, and ecommerce platform Enstore.

Digital Staircase – November

Facebook fueled speculation about a possible standalone photo-sharing app when it acquired Digital Staircase, maker of a handful of photo and video editing apps, including MovieCam.

MailRank – November

The social network picked up two former directors of engineering of Second Life-maker Linden Lab in a talent acquisition of MailRank this fall. It did not provide details about what the pair would be working on.

WhoGlue – November

Unlike others, this acquisition was not for talent. Facebook bought Baltimore-based social networking software firm WhoGlue Inc, a company it had sued for patent infringement two years ago. The renamed WhoGlue LLC continues to develop private social networks for its clients.

Gowalla – December

Most recently, Facebook brought Austin-based Gowalla co-founders and other key team members to Palo Alto to work on product and engineering. The social network did not acquire Gowalla technology. The location-based service will be closing sometime in January, according to a blog post by co-founder Josh Williams.

Image credit: Gowalla

BeKnown explains their strategy for helping users and companies leverage Facebook to find job matches this week in our featured Facebook campaigns. There was also Starz’s new game to generate excitement for the premiere of “Spartacus,” Lexus’ charity campaign, Starbucks’ new drink and the Gap’s gift card contest.

Below is an excerpt of this week’s full Featured Facebook Campaigns entry in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of over 100 other Facebook marketing campaigns by top-performing brands and other organization on Facebook.

BeKnown’s College Pages, Jobs Tab on Facebook

Goal: Network Exposure, Product Use, Brand Loyalty

Method: BeKnown has recently released two integrations of its job search application. One is called College Pages and utilizes a user’s alumni and school networks to help them find work. The other, Job Tab, allows companies to post jobs on their Pages.

Core Mechanic: We spoke to Tom Chevalier, Global Product Manager for Monster Worldwide (parent to BeKnown) and he told us there were two main reasons the company had rolled out the integrations. One was to help users take advantage of their school networks on Facebook when searching for work, and secondly, to give brands another opportunity to engage users by bringing their human resources departments into the Facebook marketing game.

“College Pages play into the way in which we can help a school, help its alumni and help students come together. We really think Facebook is the place to do that,” Chevalier told us. In the College Pages BeKnown users may post jobs to the app, users may also see other people in their network affiliated with the school.

The company Pages are free to use for any company, Chevalier told us. The point of the integration is to bring in the HR department to be a part of the conversation on Facebook. It allows companies to look at fans as potential talent, he said.

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges of implementing this software on Facebook is that searching for work is often a private affair, thus BeKnown has limited sharing opportunities in order to secure trust with its users, Chevalier explained. “We do not take every possible opportunity to share information on Facebook. While user adoption and numbers are important to us, we are not willing to compromise the trust factor,” he said. That said, Chevalier did hint at a phased rollout of new features taking advantage of the custom open graph.

Ultimately, Chevalier said the BeKnown apps on Facebok would help users advance their careers in brands and schools they are connected to, and help companies connect with talent already invested in their brand.

Impact: These integrations allow BeKnown/Monster to spread all over Facebook, but according to AppData the number of users of BeKnown is currently down. Currently the app has about 210,000 MAU.

Starz’s Spartacus Campaign, Take Up Arms

Goal: Brand Loyalty, Network Engagement, Viewership Growth

Method: Starz has created a game-sweepstakes combo in anticipation of the beginning of the “Spartacus” TV show.

Core Mechanic: The Like-gated app is both a sweepstakes with a grand prize of a trip to New Zealand to visit the set, as well as branded gift packages. Users may enter the sweepstakes alone, or also play the game, Take Up Arms, and engage in the plot of the show, which is a rebel fight against Roman slaveowners. In the game users may take the side of the rebels or the Romans.

Impact: The Page comes in just under 2 million Likes but the real success of this campaign will be measured by the number of folks watching the show. PageData shows a recent spike in growth on the Page.

Want to learn how top brands are 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.

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.

Games, charity, in-store marketing and giveaways characterized our campaigns this week. Innocent Drinks and Hastsune Miku Fashions created branded games, Target and Walgreens offered users deals and value, Grand Marnier harnessed the holiday season with a charity app and Clarins is giving away a spa weekend. Below is an excerpt of this week’s full Featured Facebook Campaigns entry in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of over 100 other Facebook marketing campaigns by top-performing brands and other organization on Facebook.

Innocent Drinks’ Fruit Picker Game

Goal: Page Growth, Network Exposure, Brand Loyalty

Method: Innocent Drinks’ Fruit Picker Game involves users in trying to gather the fruit to make the juice for the company. Playing the game generates a ticker story and scores may be published to the feed.

Core Mechanic: The game is tightly wound into the idea that Innocent Drinks is a fun, simple, healthy product. Users must play a simple, fun game to help pickers deliver the fruit for the juice. Users then my collect badges to share with friends on Facebook and may win prizes, such as an iPad 2.

Impact: The Page has 209,000 Likes and PageData shows relatively steady growth.

Clarins’ Spa Life Photo Contest

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

Method: Clarins created a game, Spa Life, where users build their own virtual spa, and then enter to win a spa trip by submitting a photo of their spa created within the game.

Core Mechanic: Users play the Spa Life game, then take a photo of their spa from within the game, then upload that to the contest page. By getting others users to vote on their photo, users may win the spa getaway. The photo with the most votes wins.

Impact: The Clarins Page has 137,900 Likes with steady growth, according to PageData. The promotion is very involved, tightly branded and allows for good opportunities for network exposure, since users have to share to win.

Want to learn how top brands are 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.

Movies, music but most interestingly, Black Friday Pages were popular on our list if the fastest growing by the number of Likes this week. There were also a pair of game Pages and football (soccer) Pages on the list, too. Pages on our list this week grew from between 222,600 to 925,800 Likes. We compile this list with our PageData tool, which tracks Page growth across Facebook.

	Name	Likes	Daily Growth	Weekly Growth
1.	Scary Movie	1,167,989	+2,822	+925,834
2.	Target	7,023,171	+73,002	+571,634
3.	Clear	536,638	+94	+535,465
4.	Small Business Saturday	2,767,723	+2,954	+426,503
5.	Titanic	13,486,119	+57,296	+409,479
6.	facebook realesed the new Dislike Button™! Add it Now!! not a fake!	445,351	0	+333,025
7.	Texas Hold’em Poker	53,343,455	+41,798	+312,907
8.	Fast & Furious	11,148,166	+31,290	+298,382
9.	Te quiero ♥… Ver BIEN lejos :D	408,752	+61,101	+296,513
10.	Temptations	306,379	-61	+290,906
11.	Adele	8,875,617	+45,840	+285,565
12.	Burberry	9,747,370	+41,351	+269,563
13.	Macy’s	3,293,424	+1,451	+265,447
14.	Facebook	55,989,019	+36,162	+259,448
15.	Angry Birds	10,155,779	+38,961	+245,763
16.	Cristiano Ronaldo	36,627,265	+34,494	+240,968
17.	FC Barcelona	22,889,852	+33,121	+231,427
18.	I Love My Daughter	723,308	-1,529	+230,356
19.	Levi’s	9,278,885	+96,752	+227,108
20.	LMFAO	8,172,466	+32,817	+222,642

“Scary Movie” grew by 925,800 Likes and appeared to be a Page consolidation, “Titanic” grew by 409,500 Likes and “Fast & Furious” by 298,400 Likes, partly it seemed due to a Blu-ray giveaway. Musicians on the list included Motown singers The Temptations with 290,900 Likes (a consolidation), Adele with 285,600 Likes and LMFAO with 222,600 Likes.

Black Friday Pages started off with Target, which saw 571,600 new Likes thanks to Like-gated Black Friday deals. Then there was Small Business Saturday with 426,500 Likes; the Page promoted local business shopping on Saturday and included Like-gated content. Burberry grew by 269,600 Likes after releasing its new collection on Facebook. Macy’s promoted its Black Friday deals and Thanksgiving Parade and grew by 266,500 Likes. Then Levi’s, which had huge deals and Facebook savings codes, grew by 227,100 Likes.

Games included Texas Hold’em Poker with 312,900 Likes and Angry Birds with 245,800 Likes.

The rest of the list included Clear shampoo with 535,500 Likes, facebook realesed the new Dislike Button™! Add it Now!! not a fake! with 333,000 Likes, Te quiero ♥… Ver BIEN lejos :D with 296,500 Likes and Facebook with 259,500 Likes. Then there was Cristiano Ronaldo with 241,000 Likes, FC Barcelona with 231,400 and I Love My Daughter with 230,400 Likes.

Harley-Davidson is soliciting feedback from its fans in its latest campaign, Simplehuman is giving fans a chance to play a game to win some of its new products. EmpowHer is reaching out to its fans to answer health questions and bring their friends into the health community. There were a few games promotions and Ultimat Vodka took a users’ social life and gave it a score by way of promoting its product.

Below is an excerpt of this week’s full Featured Facebook Campaigns entry in the Facebook Marketing Bible, which also includes detailed breakdowns of over 100 other Facebook marketing campaigns by top-performing brands and other organization on Facebook.

Harley-Davidson’s Fan Machine

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

Method: Using an application called the Fan Machine Harley-Davidson the company is soliciting feedback from users on a marketing campaign for the company’s products.

Core Mechanic: Fan Machine presents an advertising brief from the company and asks users to submit and vote on ideas for that campaign. Users can submit ideas, vote, share ideas to the stream.

Impact: The Page currently stands at 2.8 million Likes and according to PageData the Page has seen steady growth.

Simplehuman’s Hello Design Game

Goal: Engagement, Network Exposure, Product Purchase

Method: The Hello Design game allows users to play an engaging and fun game matching up items “meant” for each other, such as Simplehuman’s soap container and sensor pumps.

Core Mechanic: The Like-gated game prompts users to match up items, such as a hot dog and bun, that go together. Playing the game creates a ticker feed story, then once a user gets a score they are entered to win prizes and may publish their score to the feed.

Impact: PageData shows that the Page, currently at 5,100 Likes, has gained momentum in recent weeks.

Want to learn how top brands are 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.