Inside Facebook

Hearsay Social, an enterprise software-as-a-service Facebook Page and social media management company, has raised an $18 million Series B round led by New Enterprise Associates. The money will be used to hire for its sales and engineering teams, and NEA’s Jon Sakoda will join the board, bringing along enterprise sales experience

Hearsay Social also added several new features to its product for companies with a corporate / local structure, including granular roles management, and the ability to run integrated social campaigns that combine Facebook ads, Page posts, and Page tab applications.

The funding and features will help Hearsay Social address the social marketing needs of more corporations that oversee many local branches, and box out more general brand-focused Facebook Page management companies.

Hierarchical Page Management

Hearsay Social launched in February to become the only company focused on addressing the problems of local branch social media management and regulatory compliance for companies with both a corporate Facebook Page and Pages for each of their franchises. Corporations could use it to monitor the performance of their local branches, and deliver Page posts and applications to them for publishing.

With unique features, powerful Silicon Valley angels backing it, and deep-pocketed potential corporate clients, Hearsay Social had the power to disrupt more established players in the Facebook Page management industry. Early results showed that the product could help corporations achieve full regulatory compliance across their social media presences and attain more fans.

At that time, Facebook had no user interface or API designed for managing businesses with a hierarchical corporate / local structure. Hearsay Social worked with Facebook, and earlier this month the social network began testing both a basic UI for managing “parent” and “child” Pages, as well as an API that lets corporate admins make changes to settings or install applications on multiple local branch Pages simultaneously.

While these additions provides some rudimentary corporate / local functionality for those without a third-party tool, the API also strengthens Hearsay Social’s product. Facebook’s native tool only supports two-tier hierarchies, while Hearsay Social can support many levels and different sets of permissions for each.

Funding and Features

NEA and previous investor Sequoia Capital have just put $18 million towards building out the Hearsay Social team, currently led by CEO Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era. Shih tells us that “on the hiring front, sales and engineering are top priorities, but we’re hiring across the board, every department.” NEA’s Sakoda, formerly of IMlogic, acquired by Symantec, will lend enterprise sales expertise to the growing team tasked with getting huge, often multi-national corporations to execute their social media marketing through Hearsay Social.

Thanks to the product’s new integrated social campaigns feature, clients can schedule and run coordinated marketing campaigns that tie together Facebook ads, Facebook Page tab applications, and Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn posts. For example, State Farm insurance could install a promotional Facebook app on the Pages of all its local branches, run localized Facebook ads pointing to the app, and post links to the app on the news feed from all the Pages every four hours.

Shih explained to us that this “lets corporate bundle up its marketing genius” and ship it out to local branches that wouldn’t be able to design or execute such sophisticated campaigns. Ads are run through the Facebook Ads API, which allows the roughly two dozen companies with access to efficiently run Facebook ads at a massive scale. Apps used in integrated campaigns can be pulled from Hearsay Social’s basic suite, but clients can also integrate apps developed for them by their agencies.

Hearsay Social now also include the Rogue Page Finder, which identifies local branches with social media presences that haven’t yet been brought under a corporation’s control, as well as unofficial fan-created presences. Corporations can monitor the performance and regulatory compliance of these presences on Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp, so they can decide whether to contact the hosting Platform and have them shut down or rolled into their own official presence.

Lastly, Hearsay Social now lets clients customize granular roles and permissions for all users. They can permit admins at certain levels of hierarchy to post, edit, view analytics, and use other specific parts of the product. Shih tells us one client is using the feature to set up different roles for all twelve levels of its hierarchy.

The tool has proved useful for attaining Facebook fans. Hearsay Social says that local branch agents using it gained over three times more fans than those without it. Once Google+ releases brand pages and an API, Hearsay Social will support that platform as well. Shih tells us “Brands are asking about Google+. People are kicking the tires and trying to understand if there will be traction.”

Shih believes her licensable tool can integrate naturally into the marketing flows of large corporations, and that it “leaves plenty on the table for media buyers and creative agencies.” Regarding the trend of partnerships and acquisitions in the Page management industry, Shih says there’s a”healthy level of consolidation. In terms of the landscape, I still see a number of Page management companies that can’t divest themselves from the agency model, which makes them less attractive. You really need to work closely with a brand’s ecosystem of partners.”

She adds that there’s room for other Page management companies because there’s “plenty of brands without a local presence. We’re laser focused on global-local brands, and we can go deep because of our focus.”

Local branches are able to cultivate an intimate connection between a brand and its customers. Taking advantage of location-based technology such as Facebook Places and Check-In Deals and running coordinated marketing campaigns requires more expertise than most local branch managers have, though, so expect growth for corporate / local Page management tools like Hearsay Social as more global businesses invest in social media.

BrightWhistle is a customer and patient acquisition platform that uses the Facebook Ads API and its own landing page optimization technology to lower acquisition costs for health care providers, as well as multi-location businesses. Currently a managed spend service, BrightWhistle has just raised $1.1 million seed round led by Hamilton Ventures to fund development of a licensable tool for marketing departments and their agencies.

BrightWhistle automatically generates special landing pages for every ad its clients run so those who click through immediately see relevant content that increases the likelihood of conversion.

Landing Page Optimization to Reduce Customer Acquisition Costs

Here’s how the company’s service works once BrightWhistle signs a health care provider client:

1. Websites are created for each of the clients doctors, locations, or products to drive organic leads and search discoverability.
2. Content pertaining to the client’s services such as blog posts from journalists and physicians is licensed and published to these sites.
3. A client’s Facebook ads are loaded into BrightWhistle, which optimizes them around click through rate and other ad metrics.
4. Landing pages incorporating the licensed content are automatically generated for each ad creative and targeting permutation.
5. These landing pages are published where they’ll drive the highest conversion, either as a tab app on the client’s Facebook Page, or on their website.
6. Potential customers see relevant ads, click through to a landing page of relevant content that qualifies the lead, and they fill out a form to use the client’s services.

Managed Spend Service Available, Licensable Tool to Come

The 8-person BrightWhistle team is based in Atlanta. Its board will be joined by Jamie Hamilton, managing partner of Hamilton Ventures, Emerson Fann, managing partner of Eastside Partners which participated in the $1.1 million seed round, and former Disney and Weather Channel executive Paul Iaffaldano. BrightWhistle will use the seed round to hire for its development team so it can finish building its licensable tool. Its sales team will also be expanded to court more health care providers and agencies.

The company was approved in February to join the limited set of Facebook partners with access to the Ads API. BrightWhistle now manages hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in Facebook ad spend for several clients that pay 10 to 15% of total spend and a per-site per-month fee. It can also handle Google, Twitter, and LinkedIn marketing. Once the tool is finished, it will be licensed to agencies that will integrate the developer’s cut into what they charge clients. Eventually, BrightWhistle hopes to license its tool directly to health care providers as a software-as-a-service.

Over the past few months we’ve seen some consolidation within the Facebook Page management and Ads API industries, with Efficient Frontier acquiring Context Optional, Vitrue partnering with TBG Digital, and other deals. When asked if he thought this consolidation would continue, Foster said “Absolutely. It feels like we’re maybe a year from companies with more sales or money in the bank starting to consolidate the ecosystem to build a more robust service.”

With an performance-boosting customer acquisition service that could be translated from health care providers to other verticals, BrightWhistle itself could become a target for partnership or purchase. Foster tells use “We aren’t stupid. We want to find the best outcome for us and our investors. We may be the acquirers, who knows. Right now we think we’re in the place (the Facebook Ads API) where there’s the highest willingness for clients to pay.”

Israeli social game monetization platform and Facebook approved offer partner SupersonicAds today announced that is has raised a $4.2 million first institutional round of funding led by Greylock Israel. The money will go towards building a sales team so it can solicit more European and Middle Eastern game developers and advertisers using its BrandConnect product. This  allows brands to place video ads in games and reward users with virtual goods or virtual currency such as Facebook Credits.

In related news, major social game developer Crowdstar has partnered with social video ad network Jun Group to allow its gamers to earn rewards for watching commercials. The SupersonicAds funding and Crowdstar deal should both help expand incentivized view video ads to more Facebook games, and accelerate the shift of ad dollars away from television and towards social games, particularly those on the Facebook Platform.

Supersonic Ads came out of stealth in April 2009 to provide offer walls for european games. It later added video ads to its offer walls, but with time discovered that serving opportunities to complete video offers during gameplay caused more users to partake so it launched BrandConnect.

The product places a widget within a social game that displays signage such as “Earn Free Credits”, and when clicked opens the video offer. It has been used by Kellogg’s, Intel, and Disney, and boasts stats including over 50% (and up to 80%) of people exposed to a campaign view the entire video, 20% then Like the Page of the brand advertised, and 40% later visit the brand’s website.

In May of this year, Facebook announced that it would deepen its partnership with TrialPay to serve video offers from the Facebook sidebar and within games, and that SupersonicAds and several other video ad networks would contribute inventory. Then in June, SupersonicAds became Facebook approved offer partner, meaning it could reward users with Facebook Credits for completing “hard offers”  – direct response offers that require a user’s personal information such as making purchases or signing up for subscriptions.

These partnerships make SupersonicAds one of the only companies allowed to serve both hard offers and soft offers (those that don’t require user personal information such as video offers) on the Facebook Platform. Now to fill this inventory SupersonicAds needs a bigger sales force, so it secured this round of funding.

Meanwhile, Crowdstar’s partnership with Jun Group will bring video offers to popular games such as It Girl and Happy Aquarium. However, since the Jun Group is not an approved offer partner, it can’t distribute Facebook Credits to users that completing any type of offer. Crowdstar will be able to distribute its own earned currency or virtual goods to users that watch Jun Group video ads, though.

With television watchers increasingly using digital video recorders that let them skip commercials, advertisers need to consider where else they can place their compelling, high-production video ads. Along with video streaming services such as Hulu, which recently implemented Facebook Connect, social games are becoming lucrative real-estate. By solving a gamer’s needs by providing virtual currency or goods for watching ads run through services such as SupersonicAds and Jun Group, brands can not only make users watch the entirety of their ads, but instill a positive impression on them as well.

After years of anticipation, this morning the Spotify music streaming service launched in the United States with support of all the major record labels. The launch is the continuation of a partnership between Spotify and Facebook that could evolve into a special integration including prominent placement on Facebook. This alliance has the potential to threaten Apple, which chose to partner with Twitter for social integrations in iTunes Ping and iOS 5.

For now, the Spotify-Facebook experience is limited to the use of Connect in the Spotify desktop client. This allows one to import their friend list so they can listen to music from the playlists of friends, and to easily share songs to Facebook.

The current Facebook Connect integration should help Spotify ramp up traction in the United States, and doesn’t raise any privacy concerns. Beyond the iTunes rivalry, a deeper Facebook integration could help Spotify become a serious competitor to other established music services such as Pandora, Amazon, and Rhapsody.

Spotify is now distributing invites to its free service to pre-registered users and honoring invites already passed to users by friends from abroad. Soon, anyone in the US will be able to stream music for 10 hours through the free but ad-supported Spotify Open service. US users can get immediate access by paying $4.99 a month for Spotify Unlimited which has no listening cap or ads, or $9.99 for Spotify Premium which also includes access from mobile devices and enhanced sound quality.

Spotify has also partnered with Klout to give the influence scoring service’s users Spotify invites. However, the overwhelming demand crashed Klout and it has run out of invites, but will distribute more tomorrow.

As we’ll describe below, US users can now listen to the music of their friends and share links to songs to the news feed. Spotify properly protects user privacy by not publishing a user’s playlists without permission. Those in the US will also now be able to use Facebook apps such as branded promotions that are powered by Spotify. Users will not see a bookmark to Spotify in the Facebook navigation menu, or be able to simultaneously listen to a song with friends — two features that could be released in the future as either a special integration or as part of Facebook’s Music Dashboard.

Social Music Discovery With Respect for Privacy

Once users have downloaded and launched the desktop client, they’ll see a big “Connect to Facebook” prompt on the right side of the music player which tempts users to “Discover what your friends are listening to”. Facebook is Spotify’s premiere social partner, powering identity and interconnection between users. A Twitter integration is present, but merely allows users to launch a tweet composer in their browser to share songs. This draws some battle lines, as Apple has chosen Twitter to power single-sign on and quick sharing in iOS 5 as well as it’s in-app social network Ping.

If users click through the Facebook Connect button and grant the app extended permissions, they’re informed that upon completing the connection, their playlists will be shared publicly. However, in a smart privacy move, users are given a chance to first edit their privacy settings and select to hide the playlists they created in Spotify or that have been automatically imported from iTunes. Users can also choose whether newly created or imported playlists will be visible by default.

As some users might have playlists with sensitive names or content, such as ones dedicated to friends or romantic partners, it’s important that Spotify provides the option to hide playlists before they’ve ever published.

Once users finish the Facebook Connect proces, they see all their friends who are on Spotify in the right sidebar. Clicking on these friends displays their published playlists, which users can stream. Users can click to compose and publish a news feed story linking to a song or playlist within Spotify. Links can also be easily shared directly with Facebook friends that are on Spotify through an in-app messaging, or be published to Twitter or Windows Live Messager through web popups.

When users click through Spotify news feed stories while on Facebook, songs do not play in-line. Instead the song will automatically play in Spotify if the app is open, or the user will be prompted to get the app if they don’t have it. Until Spotify completes its rollout in the US, these links could be a little infuriating to users waiting for an invite.

Once Spotify is publicly available to the 150 million or so Facebook users in the United States, you can expect more brands to integrate the music streaming service into the tab applications they host on their Page. Spotify API-powered apps let brands offer compelling experiences cheaply and easily, while providing exposure for the streaming service. For instance, a Page could display a playlist and ask users to vote for what song best describes their brand.

There’s certainly room for deeper social integration, especially on Facebook.com. Turntable.fm has shown that users are interested in synchronous listening with friends. The ability to perisistently display one’s recent listens in the Facebook profile, or a central hub where one could view all the songs shared by friends could drive conversation and Likes of musician Pages.

Facebook gave Spotify some love this morning, posting an announcement of the launch and a link to the service to several of its official Pages. Former Facebook President Sean Parker also published an emphatic Facebook Note heralding Spotify as the successor to his old company Napster and the answer to the music industry’s financial woes. Those are nice tokens, but placement on the Facebook home page could give Spotify the exposure it will need to displace iTunes and the other music download and streaming services.

The most interesting job Facebook seems itching to fill this week is a post for Facebook is looking to hire a variety of different people for its offices across the United States and in Dublin, Ireland, according to listings we retrieved from Facebook’s Careers Page, other listings came from their LinkedIn feed. The positions varied, several were for legal counsel, there were sales positions, several measurement researcher jobs, and more.

Posts added this week on Facebook’s Careers Page:

• Corporate Communications Associate Manager, Internal Communications
• Commercial Counsel
• Sales Training Consultant (Singapore)
• Commercial Transactions Counsel
• Lead, Risk Management (Austin)
• Team Lead, User Operations (Austin)
• Measurement Researcher (Chicago)
• Analyst, Pricing and Yield (New York)
• Measurement Researcher (Palo Alto)
• Measurement Researcher (New Yok)
• Analyst, Online Sales Operations (Hyderabad)
• Local Sales Operations Manager (Palo Alto)
• Local Sales Associate (Palo Alto)
• Local Sales Associate (Austin)
• Corporate Communications Manager

Jobs posted by Facebook on LinkedIn:

• Engineering Recruiting Lead
• HR Business Partner
• Product Training Specialist
• Sales Training Consultant (Singapore)
• Commerce Manager (Palo Alto)
• Product Manager, Feed Quality
• News Feed Analyst
• Communications Manager, APAC (Singapore)
• Corporate Communications Associate Manager, Internal Communications
• Group Technical Program Manager
• Infrastructure Build & Operations Engineer
• Commercial Counsel
• Commercial Counsel, International (Dublin)
• Account Executive (Sydney)
• Analyst, Platform Operations – Spanish (Dublin)
• Associate, Platform Operations (Dublin)
• Manager, Platform Operations (Dublin)
• Team Lead, User Operations – Asia Pacific Team (Palo Alto)
• Product Marketing Manager- Marketplace Ads
• Partner Engineer – Marketing Solutions
• Partner Engineer – Marketing Solutions (New York)

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

ShareThis: 56% Of Sharing Is Via Facebook – ShareThis, the maker of a sharing widget available on a variety of web sites, conducted a study finding that 56% of all content shared online goes through Facebook.

Facebook, Tech Companies Back AT&T, T-Mobile Merger – Facebook, along with Yahoo and Microsoft, filed letters supporting the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T mostly because of how the merger would affect wireless broadband.

Buddy Media IPO? – It would appear that Page management giant Buddy Media is set for an IPO based on the hiring of former Yahoo-er Dennis Morgan as CFO.

Facebook Likes Flash Servers, Fusion-io’s IPO Shows – Fusion-io’s IPO this week for $1.8 billion revealed some interesting data about Facebook, specifically that the company accounts for 52% of flash memory chip maker Fusion-io’s revenue in the first quarter.

Apple Builds Facebook Integration into iOS5 – Apple’s new iOS5 for iPhones and other mobile devices allows users to add Facebook handles into the entries in its native Contacts app.

Emotions Spread Among Friends Via Facebook – A new study by Facebook’s data scientist Adam D.I. Kraner found that emotions such as happiness or sadness are contagious when shared between friends using the Facebook news feed. Writing positive words such as “happy” and “hug”, and negative words such as “sick” in status updates can impact the emotions of friends for up to three days.

TopProspect Reports Top Tech Companies – TopProspect reported that more workers are flocking to work at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Apple while Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, eBay, and Amazon are losing employees. Facebook is winning the talent war, though, with it gaining employees from most of the others tracked. It is poaching especially efficiently from Microsoft, from whom it gained 30.5 employees for each one it sent to the Seattle-based company.

Bing Mobile Enables Facebook Sharing – Bing for Mobile Browser, m.bing.com, just enabled some new social features, including allowing users to easily share some types of search results to Facebook, such as images and local business details. [Screenshot via Bing]

Facebook Expands Women in Computing Program – Facebook quadrupled, to 20, the number of Facebook Grace Hopper Scholarship recipients this year for female university students who excel in computer science. The scholarship includes full-paid trips to Facebook HQ and this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference in Portland, Oregon where COO Sheryl Sandberg will be the keynote speaker.

Postagram Launches Android App – Postagram, which allowed users to transform Instagram photos into postcards, has created an Android app that doesn’t allow users to actually take Instagram photos, but rather, make postcards from photos on their phone or Facebook accounts. The iOS version of the app can also now import Facebook photos. [Image via TechCrunch]

Facebook Activity Led to Arrest in Iran – One man in Iran was purportedly arrested for activities on Facebook, which is banned in that country. Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty reported that Houshang Fanaian was arrested for posting about his religion, which is banned in Iran.

White House Polls Facebook Fans -The White House announced this week the results of an informal Facebook and Twitter poll that found, among other things, 62% of users visit the Page on a weekly basis and about 56% share posts on a monthly basis.

France Bans Mentioning “Facebook” on TV, Radio – Due to a law banning the promotion of commercial enterprise on news programs, French broadcasters are no longer allowed to say “Facebook” or “Twitter” on the airwaves unless the social networks are part of the story. Thus, saying “Like us on Facebook” is now forbidden.

Facebook, Google Lose Mobile Patent Ruling – Wireless Ink Corp will be able to sue both Google and Facebook over alleged patent infringements related to the companies’ mobile-social services, according to a ruling in New York this week.

Facebook, Others Oppose Calif. Law – Facebook and other tech companies have been building momentum in their opposition to California’s SB 242 law that would affect consumer privacy online. In addition to Facebook signing the letter, Google, Twitter, Oodle, Identified, Zecco, and BranchOut have joined the fight against the bill.

Facebook Responds to NY Owner Claim – Facebook filed its formal legal response to New York’s Paul Ceglia, who claims he’s legally entitled to half of Facebook. In the response the company called Ceglia an “inveterate scam artist” who used “a doctored contract and fabricated evidence.”

Facebook “Not Focused” on Mobile Ads - Facebook’s EMEA Head of Mobile Partnerships Fergal Walker noted this week in London that“we are not focused on  advertising on mobile at all…Our minds are very focused on the social web.”

Industry Group Gets Into Privacy Game - Companies like Zynga, Facebook AT&T, Google, Intel and TrustE are investing money into a group, the Future of Privacy Forum, to provide developers with resources to create privacy policies in an educated way.

Zuckerberg Downplays Facebook’s Role in Middle East - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg this week downplayed this social network’s role in the Middle East uprisings, saying the company’s platform was neither necessary nor sufficient for change there.

Zuckerberg Asks Europe to Relax About Privacy – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asked European leaders this week to tone down their regulation of the web, noting it could dampen innovation and governments should be investing in new technologies instead.

Zecco’s Wall Street App Allows Trading on Facebook – Zecco’s new app, Wall Street, allows users to see quotes, charts, discussions and more in real time, as well as make stock trades on the platform.

The Need for a Facebook Alternative – An interesting post on Altly notes that Facebook is not just a sterile medium, but rather, influences the way we communicate with people. This changes the way we communicate outside of Facebook too, and so, the need for a social web alternative to Facebook.

No Kids on Facebook - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg assured European leaders this week that the website is not working towards opening up the platform for users under the age of 13.

Gtrot Uses Facebook for Travel - Gtrot is a new social network using Facebook data to help users navigate traveling by using their itinerary and Facebook profile to help them get advice from fellow travelers.

Facebook Helps Tornado Victims – Facebook Pages to help people in Joplin, Missouri locate missing loved ones have sprung up, attracting thousands of Likes.

Mixpanels Raises $1.25M - Mixpanel, which provides analytics solutions for companies, raised $1.25 million this week from Sequoia Capital and angel investors. The company is going to beef up its engineering team with the funding.

Milyoni Raises $3M – Milyoni, a Facebook commerce company, raised $3 million in Series A funding this week from ATA ventures and Thomvest Ventures, according to a release. The company is set to use the money to enhance social commerce products.

Half Facebook Profiles Contain Incriminating Evidence - Kaplan conducted a survey of third-year law students, finding that 49% of them reported seeing legally compromising material on others’ Facebook profiles.

About Half Profiles Contain Profanity – Reputation management company Reppler did a study, finding that about 47% of profiles contain some type of profanity.

Facebook IPO “Inevitable” – Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg said this week that a Facebook IPO is “inevitable.” [Image via Facebook]

Facebook, Others Oppose California Privacy Bill – A proposed bill in the California legislature, SB 242 the Social Networking Privacy Act, would change the information that companies like Facebook could provide about users under 18. Facebook and other tech companies submitted a formal letter of opposition in response.

Study: Like Button Gathers User Data – The Wall Street Journal published a story on a report the publication completed on social widgets such as Facebook’s Like button. The report notes that such widgets appear on 20-25% of the 1,000 most-visited sites and that Facebook claims it anonymizes this data, deleting it within 90 days.

Facebook’s Acquisitions Mostly for Talent – A New York Times story scrutinizes Facebook’s acquisitions (a long-running trend that we’ve covered in detail before), specifically looking at whether the company paid too much in some cases. The story notes that the $47 million FriendFeed acquisition cost about $4 million per employee and Drop.io brought in only one employee to the company for several million dollars. The point is talent. Engineers today “are worth half a million to a million” dollars, explained Vaughan Smith in the interview.

Facebook Wants Help Section to Go Viral – Facebook is asking users who visit the site’s Help section to share information about how to avoid malicious script scams. [Image via AllFacebook]

New Technology to Fight Child Porn – Facebook is using the Microsoft-created PhotoDNA program to fight child pornography amongst the 200 million images uploaded to the social network daily.

Eventbrite Raises $50M – Eventbrite, a startup that leverages social networks to sell tickets, raised $50 million in Series E funding this week led by Tiger Global. This brings the total funding for Eventbrite for $79.5 million, and the company said the money is set for domestic and international expansion.

Facebook on GigaOm’s Structure 50 List – GigaOm’s Structure 50 list of companies influencing the cloud includes Facebook, in light of its advances in server and database hardware and software. You can find out more about the Structure conference here.

Jive Facebook Connector Syncs Discussion Forums – Jive Software has launched Jive Facebook Connector to allow Facebook Pages to create a version of the Jive community forum found on their website as a tab application. Comments on either instance of the forum are synced with the other, reducing the need to push users from one online presence to the other, and pulling Facebook content offsite to assist with SEO.

Fan Appz Launches Fan Tabz – Fan Appz launched a new custom tab application, Fan Tabz, this week for $19.95 a month.

Baseball Fans Share Team Love on Facebook - Facebook’s Data Team wrote an interesting blog this week detailing the different ways in which fans share their love for baseball teams on Facebook.

Winklevoss Bros Lose Another Court Move – The Winklevoss brothers, who have been suing Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook for several years, lost a bid to have their case heard again in the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

Facebook COO Sandberg Profiled – Facebook’s Chief Operating Office Sheryl Sandberg is profiled this week in Bloomberg Business week. The article describes how her steady leadership has helped Facebook monetize. It also mentions that she may be more conservative towards entering China than CEO Mark Zuckerberg. [Image via Facebook]

Facebook, Syria Butt Heads – Facebook shut down the Syrian military’s Page recently because it called for spamming of politically opposing Pages. Then it appeared the Syrian government tried to launch cyber, man-in-the-middle, attacks on Syrian Facebook users.

7.5M Facebook Users Under 13 – Facebook’s minimum 13 year age limit is being flaunted by 7.5 million users, according to a survey from Consumer Reports.

Facebook Reiterates How Developers Can Keep Users Safe - Following claims of new security risk, a post to the Facebook Developers Blog explained how developers can assist its efforts to protect users by acquiring an SSL certificate (which will be mandatory starting October 1st), reviewing the updated authentication and OAuth 2.0 guide, and complying with its Platform policies. It also mentioned that the company is working with other web giants including Google, web browser vendors and the National Institute of Standards and Technology on several web security initiatives.

Facebook Patents Info Sharing – A Facebook patent was published recently, the “Controlling Access of User Information Using Social-Networking Information” patent covers the degrees of separation between people controlling whether different social networks can access information from other networks.

LinkedIn to Raise $274M – LinkedIn is set to offer 7.84 million shares to the public to raise an estimated $274.4 million. The shares are priced between $32 and $35 dollars and LinkedIn will take $146.6 million of the money raised.

Facebook Makes Minor Changes to Promotion Guidelines - As of May 11th, promotions, contests, and sweepstakes on Facebook may no longer use the Like button, comments, or other Facebook features as voting mechanisms, impacting some developers such as Offerpop. Also, promotions may only include Facebook’s names, trademarks, etc in disclosures, not in contest instructions.

Winklevoss Twins Get Sued – In a twist of fate, the Winklevoss twins who have been suing Mark Zuckerberg for several years, are being sued by a software developer in Boston. Wayne Change wants a piece of the twins’ $65 million Facebook settlement for work he did for the twins’ original Facebook rival, ConnectU.

Facebook’s User Info Suit Continues – A lawsuit in which Facebook was accused of sharing user information with third-party advertisers was partially dismissed. The plaintiffs still have a chance to sue Facebook.

Airbnb Takes to Facebook – Airbnb, a global home rental service, implemented Facebook Connect, now allowing users to connect with people in their personal network when renting places to stay.

Claritics Raises $1.5M – Claritics, a startup providing self-serve social analytics tools for brands and game developers, raised $1.5 million in series A funding this week, to be used to develop its analytics suite, as well as sales and operational staff, according to TechCrunch.

BitTorrent Releases Personal Social File Sharing Channels – BitTorrent, developers of the popular file transfer protocol for the same name, has released the beta of its Project Chrysalis. It allows users to create a personal file sharing channel to which friends from Facebook can be invited to download files that exceed Facebook’s file size limit, such as home movies that are over 1024 MB.

How Facebook Handles Govt Requests – Facebook recently told Forbes.com that the company has a dedicated team of professionals supervised by two former federal cybercrime prosecutors to deal with governmental requests for user data — subpoenas, for example. The company says they do not have a streamlined process to do this, but respond when necessary to legal requests.

MOL Malaysia Owns $100M Facebook Stock – TechCrunch wrote an interesting post this week pointing to the fact that MOL Global in Malaysia owns $100 million in Facebook stock (valued at $31 a share) that came in a deal when the company sold Friendster’s patents to Facebook last year. MOL received 700,000 shares as part of the deal, which have turned into 3.5 million shares since.

2.5M Sites Have Like Buttons – SearchEngineLand reported that 2.5 million websites have Like buttons.

25,000 Websites Have Integrated the Facebook Send Button – The Facebook + Media Page posted that since the April 25th launch, 25,000 sites have added the Send button social plugin. Meanwhile, Facebook’s Engineering Team posted a note about how the company built the Send button, which allows users to share a URL to their Facebook Groups, to specific friends via Facebook Messages, or in an email.

Facebook, Google, Try to Partner with Skype – Both Facebook and Google are trying to partner with Skype, reported Reuters.

Syria Attacks Facebook – The Electronic Frontier Foundation reported this week that several ISPs in Syria have reported security warnings that are really a man-in-the-middle attack against the HTTPS version of Facebook.

Federal Investigator to Preserve Govt Facebook Posts – The head of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa, is concerned that official federal social media updates on platforms like Facebook will not be preserved for posterity. Legally, all documents created by an administration must be archived.

PowerReviews Raises $10M – Ecommerce solutions provider PowerReviews, which we wrote about last month, raised $10 million in new funding led by Four Rivers Group, bringing total funding to $37 million this week, according to TechCrunch.

Facebook Friending in Conflict Regions – The Friends Without Borders Page yesterday released an infographic visualizing data from http://peace.facebook.com/ It shows that the growth rate of friendships across conflicted borders such as Israel – Palestine has increased significantly this year.

Zuckerberg Buys Palo Alto Home – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased a home in Palo Alto, California for $7 million.

Warner Bros. Acquires Flixster - Warner Bros. Home Entertainment recently acquired Flixster, a social movie discovery website, TechCrunch reported. Rotten Tomatoes, the movie rating site, was also included in the acquisition. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Booshaka Classifies Facebook Likes – Booshaka, a Facebook search company, now ranks and classifies your Facebook activity via comments, Likes and posts.

Tigerlily Raises $1.3M – Tigerlily, a French Page management company, raised $1.3 million USD this week and is set to use this additional funding to expand in Europe.