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.

UK Officials Meet With Facebook to Stem Riots – United Kingdom officials are set to meet with Facebook, Twitter and BlackBerry regarding their corporate responsibility to not fuel riots, such as those recently plaguing London. One possible outcome: to suspend social networks when governments deem it an emergency.

NYPD Forms Social Media Tracking Unit – The New York Police Department has recently formed a unit specifically to track activity on Facebook and Twitter. Specifically information about parties, gang activity and other problems will be the focus. [Image via Facebook]

Facebook is Not Posting Phone Numbers – Facebook is responding to a viral warning that the company is “stealing” or posting users’ phone numbers for everyone to see. It says phone numbers of friends are kept private.

European Social Network Netlog Banned From Facebook – Netlog, a European social network with roughly 80 million user has been banned from the Facebook Platform after it tried to “access internal Facebook APIs and deliberately compromised intended limitations of our platform acebook has banned the European,” Facebook said.

Facebook, Ceglia, Continue to Duel – Last week Facebook announced that it had “smoking gun” evidence against would-be Facebook owner Paul Ceglia to prove that his lawsuit is frivolous. Then, it turns out, Ceglia is in Ireland and saying he’s being harassed by Facebook.

More Facebook Means More Narcissism – Facebook can lead to mental health issues for teens according to one psychology professor’s research. The American Psychological Association conference presentation included information that heavy Facebook users suffering anxiety and depression, and are more likely to be narcissistic.

Facebook Helps College Newspapers – Facebook has created a guide for college media on how to use Facebook in different ways in the newsroom. [Image via Facebook]

Our Eyes Perceive Facebook, Google+ Similarly – A study found that Google+ has a setup that allows users to perceive it almost identically to Facebook. The study from EyeTrackShop tracked the order of visual fixation for 54 users, finding high correlation between the two networks.

Google+ Set to Surpass Twitter – A study from the UK found that Google+ is set to become the second-largest social network after Facebook.

Other Announcements:

Vitrue, Clear Channel Radio Partner – Vitrue and Clear Channel Radio have announced a partnership in which all of the company’s 850 radio stations will implement Vitrue’s SRM platform.

Buckaroo Unveils Social Media Promotions – Buckaroo has announced a new way that businesses can combine social deals with email marketing, Facebook and Twitter. The technology is designed for small businesses.

Career Notify Leverages Facebook in Job Hunt – Career Notify is a recruitment and head hunting service that sends email notifications to Facebook friends and contacts whenever anyone gets a new job, promotion, or resigns.

Facebook has updated its Platform Polices, prohibiting apps from linking to or promote apps on competing social platforms, and from rewarding users with virtual currency, goods, or downloads through a third-party for taking an action. These policy changes, reported by TechCrunch, will prevent developers from directing traffic from their Facebook apps to off-site destinations, or from incentivizing user actions unless done with Facebook Credits or without the aid of third-parties.

The policy changes were not announced on the Facebook Developer Blog or anywhere else. Facebook may only enforce the ban on linking to competitors in more aggressive cases. Still, fear of enforcement may limit how developers can promote versions of their apps on other platforms such as Google+’s recently launched games platform, hampering growth for both developers and platform owners.

Banning Cross-Platform Promotion

Facebook already prohibited advertising for competing social platforms on its website. Now it’s Platform Policies states “I.11 – Apps on Facebook may not integrate, link to, promote, distribute, or redirect to any app on any other competing social platform.”

This policy update could be seen as an extension of that ban, meant to cover developers who are effectively advertising within the real estate of their own games. Alternatively, it could seen as an limiting developers from driving engagement on other platforms from users whose engagement they won on Facebook. Many Facebook developers currently use banners and pop-ups on their canvas apps, as well as Facebook wall posts to promote their presence across the web.

Much will depend on how Facebook interprets “social platform”. If this is taken to mean other web services offering a very similar developer platform within a social network, such as Google+, it would be more sensible, though a sign that Facebook believes these platforms have the potential to serious complete with it. If the term is interpreted to include vastly different mediums such as mobile or console app and game platforms, it could prohibit developers from offering users a more 360 degree experience, where they could play different parts of the same game or access different functionalities of an app while on their mobile device.

UPDATE: Facebook has clarified that the policy update does not apply to cross-promotion of mobile apps or off-platform apps available through a developer’s homepage. Read more on our sister site, Inside Social Games.

If cross-platform promotion is important to a developer, they may either have to leave Facebook, or silo their Facebook app or game experience while their presence on more open social platforms seamlessly integrate across mediums and platforms.

Fewer Incentive Options

Beginning July 1st when Facebook made Credits the mandatory exclusive payment method for Facebook games, it restricted how developers could reward users. Essentially, developers could only reward users with:

• Anything if through Facebook’s approved offer partners
• A developer’s own virtual goods or currency if a third-party isn’t involved
• Only a developer’s own virtual goods through a third-party if the offer didn’t require a user’s personally identifiable information

Previously, Facebook’s Download Your Information tool let users export an archive of their status updates, photos, as well as a list of friends’ names, but not their contact information. Now, Facebook allows users to opt into having their email address included in exports by their friends, TechCrunch’s Jason Kincaid reports.

The feature will allow Facebook to deflect criticism that it doesn’t permit data portability by saying that users have the option but choose not to let friends export their email addresses for use in other web services, including Google+.

Facebook launched Download Your Information so users could back up the social content they own, in case they lost their local copy of data such as their photos. It was designed for personal use, with David Recordon, Facebook’s senior open programs manager saying at its launch event “We built this product as something that’s useful for people, not for other developers.” It wasn’t meant to be used to seed a profile and social graph on another web service.

Google and Facebook blocked or put up roadblocks on importing and exporting data between their services in November 2010. Google had accused Facebook of not supporting data portability because users couldn’t export email addresses of friends, but could import addresses from services like Gmail. Facebook responded saying the email addresses of friends are not a user’s own data, and therefore they don’t have the right to export them. Meanwhile, it allowed these same email addresses to be exported through Yahoo! Mail and some smaller third-party email services.

Now Facebook users can authorize their email to be exported when friends use Download Your Information. The option is buried within the folded “Email” settings in Account Settings. Few users regularly visit their account settings, and even fewer would expanded an area that presumably only allows you to change your email address. The placement of the feature here will allow Facebook to say it exists without the risk that most users will actually enable address exporting.

Google’s new social network Google+ bases friend discovery on email addresses, so if users could export the email addresses of all their Facebook friends, they could easily find them on Google+. Facebook clearly doesn’t want this to happen, but doesn’t want to appear to be hoarding user data — a key fear of users that might make them more likely to switch social networks.

Users have little to lose by enabling the option, unless they have friends who would share their email address with unscrupulous developers or spammers. It will make them easier to find around the web, and help friends stay in contact by email if they ever choose to leave Facebook.

Last month, Katango launched a mobile messaging iPhone app built on a game-changing technology — the ability to analyze characteristics about your Facebook friends and automatically sort them into clusters such as co-workers, best friends, or college housemates. Today Katango releases a Connect web app that allows users to export these clusters to Facebook as friend lists that they can use to determine who they share content with.

Katango makes friend list creation so quick and easy it could significantly increase usage of the feature. Currently, only 5% of Facebook users manually build lists. It could also help Facebook one-up Google+, which requires users to manually sort their email contacts into Circles — a painful process that puts up a huge barrier to using the competing social network.

Kleiner Perkins saw the potential of Katango’s sophisticated friend sorting algorithm, and made it the first investment of its social-focused sFund. Unfortunately, the mobile messaging app fell short of expectations. Its friend list creation was highly accurate, but users couldn’t export them, and friends without the app would receive messages via email or Facebook wall post rather than more immediate and effective SMS as with other group messaging apps.

Now, Katango has made its true value available for free to the public. Users grant the web app permissions and it automatically groups their friends into roughly a dozen clusters depending on how many friends they have. Users can then name the clusters, and add or remove friends from them to correct the occasional mistaken admission or omission.

Once a user name’s Katango group, it is automatically exported as a friend list to Facebook and kept synced over time. Users can then select to publish a status update only to their Katango-made friend lists such as “fellow technology journalists”, filter their news feed by a list, or configure their privacy settings prevent a list such as “family” from seeing their photo albums.

The app defaults to publishing a post from the user saying “I added you to a Facebook list using Katango” on the walls a user’s friends that are included in an exported list. Users can opt out of publishing these wall posts in the tiny “settings” tab in the top right corner. These posts aren’t explicitly authorized and could be considered spam.

While the viral tactic is sure to drive traffic, it also erodes trust, which is essential if Katango wants users to give it access to otherwise private friend lists. The company should consider more clearly notifying users that it will publish posts, or make the posts opt it, or it may run into enforcement trouble for receiving the many spam complaints.

Facebook has made several improvements to its native friend list creation feature over the years, recently adding suggestions of people missing from a list, but not going as far as to automatically create them. The difficulty of building them from scratch, lack of understanding of their use, and their buried place in the Facebook interface has led to low adoption, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying only 5% use them. Facebook launched its Groups feature where only one member creates a Group that can be used by others in an effort to tackle the problem from another angle.

Friend lists are crucial to Facebook’s future. Without them, it’s difficult to share with a specific subset of friends that aren’t explicitly connected to each other through a Group. Microsharing allows users to post a wider variety of content to Facebook, driving up engagement. Friend lists also solve privacy issues, by helping users manage who can see their profile as their “friends” grow to include sensitive parties such as professional contacts and family members.

Google understands this as well, basing its Google+ social network around sharing to small “Circles”. However, the new Google+ user experience includes the chore of categorizing all of ones email contacts. Some don’t have to patience to endure this unnatural process, but Google doesn’t have much data other than who you email to generate suggestions.

Facebook on the other hand has amassed tons of data about friend interconnections available through its APIs, allowing Katango to group friends based on those tagged in the same photos, that Like the same status updates, or with mutual friends. If Facebook is serious about helping users microshare and manage privacy, and wants to box out Google, it should consider implementing a similar feature or forming a partnership with Katango. In the meantime, users can visit Katango to instantly begin optimizing their Facebook experience through friend lists, though they should be sure to opt out of allowing it to send spammy wall posts.

Facebook Set for Another Oregon Datacenter – Facebook announced this week that it would build another data center on its Prineville, Oregon campus. Construction is set to begin in October.

Facebook to Expand in Seattle – Facebook is currently looking for more office space in Seattle, according to GeekWire. The company wants as much as 40,000 square feet more that might accommodate about 200 more people (the office is currently at about 40).

Privacy Glitch Makes Videos Public – TechCrunch reported that this week Facebook’s video privacy settings stopped working, allowing users to see listings, names, thumbnails, descriptions and tagged users in others’ videos. The company reported it had addressed the issue.

Alleged Facebook Owner Ceglia’s Case gets Complicated – Paul Ceglia is the man who claims to own half of Facebook. His lawsuit against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg is playing out in New York, and he recently lost a fourth law firm in his case. Edelson McGuire just withdrew from the case, according to AllThingsD, as did DLA Pipe, Lippes Mathias, Wexler Friedman and Connors & Vilardo earlier this year.

Also, a Scathing Profile of Paul Ceglia – The Buffalo News wrote a scathing and very unflattering profile of would-be Facebook co-owner Paul Ceglia. Acquaintances and classmates basically call him a con artist, shyster, joke, grifter, lowlife and more. [Image Via Facebook]

User Ads Generated by Ad Companies – John Battelle wrote an interesting post this week detailing how he found out a company (AppSumo) that wasn’t Facebook was using his likeness in an ad, and that this apparently violated Facebook’s terms of service, promoting the social network to look into the issue.

Topps Buys Facebook Gift Card Provider – AllThingsD reported this week that Topps, the trading card company, purchased GMG Entertainment, the company which makes Facebook Credits gift cards. The terms of the purchase were not released.

Vodafone Releases Facebook Phone – Vodafone’s 555 Blue is a “Facebook phone” designed to be popular in emerging markets like India. The phone allows users to logon to Facebook when the phone is turned on, and open an account if they don’t already have one. [Image Via Vodafone]

LivingSocial Shutters Visual Bookshelf – AllFacebook reported this week that, after four years, LivingSocial is closing its Visual Bookshelf app and encouraging users to export their accounts to GoodReads.

Other Announcements:

Migrate Facebook to Google+ – Lifehacker reported this week on how to migrate your Facebook profile data to Google+.

North Social Releases Facebook Faux Pas – North Social released a series of 11 “fan Page fail” videos this week featuring the hapless Jonny Like who demonstrates what not to do to grow your Page’s community.

Trulia, Real Estate Social Search – Trulia.com is a social recommendation service using Facebook to leverage word-of-mouth when it comes to buying and selling real estate.

Shoutlet Releases 4.0 Analytics – Shoutlet released the 4.0 version of its platform this week with better analytics and the ability to take these and transform them into graphics.

Facebook Spent 320K on Lobbying in 2Q – TechCrunch reported this week that Facebook spent $320,000 on lobbying in the second quarter; the company has already surpassed its 2010 total lobbying spend in the first two quarters of this year.

Judge Dismisses Second Winklevoss Lawsuit –  Reuters today reported that Facebook was awarded a dismissal of a second lawsuit filed by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The suit, filed in Boston, had sought to bring the twins more money on top of the $65 million settlement they had already received as the outcome of a suit claiming they came up with the idea for Facebook.

Facebook Testing a Phonebook App – VentureBeat reported that Facebook may be testing a phonebook app for mobile users, allowing them to see their contacts on Facebook as a phonebook and then dial them directly from the Facebook app on their phones. However, this could have been developed by Google to deepen the integration of Facebook with its mobile OS.

“Who Owns Facebook?” Website - Venture capital directory publisher Massinvestor has launched a website called “Who Owns Facebook?” that features profiles of all of Facebook’s biggest stock holders.

Fraction of Facebook for iPhone Users Complaint About Bugs – The Financial Times reported this week that there is a “revolt” amongst Facebook for iPhone users regarding bugs in the latest version of the app. In fact, the 20,000 users complaining make up just a tiny fraction of the app’s 84 million monthly users, and therefore does not represent widespread discontent.

Which Facebook Employees are on Google+? – AllFacebook reported this week that a slew of Facebook employees are on Google+, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and several members of the executive team. Here’s a list of some of them.

Harvard President Slams Winklevoss Bros – Larry Summers, who was president of Harvard University when the Winklevoss twins had their spat with Mark Zuckerberg over the founding of Facebook, seems to have been no fan of the brothers. He basically called them a vulgar name, hinting that they are jerks.

Talenthouse to Develop Fan Skill Competition Apps - Talenthouse is a platform for running promotions on Facebook where fans can compete to donate their skills, such as blogging or video editing, to help complete projects for their favorite celebrities. AllThingsD reports that the company has signed a deal to provide apps for Universal Music Group artists.

Facebook Report: Engaging Readers on Pages – Facebook released an analysis of user engagement with posts by the Pages of news organizations Pages, noting the influence of thumbnail images, post length, photos, questions and more. This study fell in line with one we reported earlier of journalist Pages.

Other Announcements:

Buddy Media Expands to Europe – Buddy Media announced this week that it would open a European headquarters in London.

myYearbook, Quepasa Merge – myYearbook and the Quepasa Corporation agreed to merge this week, bringing the social game developer and Latino social network together. The $100 million deal reaches across Latin America, includes 70 million registered users, 2.2 million mobile app installs and 11.5 million mobile game installs.

French MXP4 Opens US Office, Signs Deal – French developer of music-based social games MXP4 will move business operations of its Bopler Games unit to a new office in Los Angeles, closer to US record labels. The week prior, MXP4 signed a deal with EMI to bring the music of the record label’s artists into Bopler Games.

Wispor Launches Using Faceboom Comments Plugin – Wispor is a newly launched discussion-based social network where users can start conversations about any topic. The site is built on top of the Facebook Comments Box social plugin in what appears to be the deepest integration of the commenting widget to date.

Third-Party Facebook Photos App Pixable Adds Video – Pixable, a Facebook app we’ve previously covered that helps users sort through all the photos their friends upload, now allows users to browse videos uploaded or shared by their Facebook friends.

RootMusic BandPage Launches Social Touring Feature – BandPage, a Facebook app that allows bands to set up a profile and stream their music, has launched an integration with concert date tracking services Songkick, Bandsintown, and SonicLiving. The Social Touring feature allows musicians to automatically have their tour dates imported to their BandPage from these services.

China Will Not Invest in Facebook – China’s Investment Corp is not set to invest in Facebook stock, according to a report, since the CIC sees the company as overvalued.

Facebook’s Paul Adams Blogs About Google, Book – Paul Adams, Facebook’s current Global Brand Experience Manager Paul Adams and Google’s former Senior User Experience Researcher wrote a blog post where he addressed why he left Google, why his book “Social Circles” was blocked by Google, his upcoming book “Grouped” and his current work on advertising at Facebook.

Facebook Denies Stealing Video Call URL – A company that had its own video calling service, Samuday Web Technologies, is claiming that Facebook shut down it’s video chat app and it’s URL facebook.com/videocalling so it could launch their own product at that address. Facebook’s comment on the issue via ZDNet was:

“The app was disabled by an automated system for a policy violation that was not related to the URL of the app,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “The developer’s appeal was manually reviewed; the violation was confirmed, and the appeal was denied. Two months after the initial disabling of the app, Facebook acquired the URL.”

Badgeville Raises $12M in Series B – Badgeville, website gamification platform which we wrote about previously, raised $12 million in Series B funding led by Norwest Venture Partners, bringing their total funding to $15 million. The company also added Tim Chang of Norwest and Tom Peterson of El Dorado Ventures to their board. For more on the company’s ongoing changes, check out this infographic.

Facebook Says Sponsored Stories Perform 2x Better Than Standard Ads - David Fischer, Facebook’s Vice President of Advertising and Global Operations told Fast Company that its Sponsored Stories ad unit that converts user behaviors into sidebar ads perform, on average, two times better than it’s standard ad unit, and that there hasn’t been significant user backlash.

Don Dodge Helps Users Export Facebook Friends to Google+ - Google’s Don Dodge wrote a blog post this week that walks Facebook users through how to export the email addresses of their friends using Yahoo! mail and then import them to Google+. The guide to the migration process could fuel tension between the two web giants, and Facebook may look to shut down exporting through Yahoo! to protect itself from Google’s new social network.

TripAdvisor Acquires Where I’ve Been - TripAdvisor, developer of several Facebook apps including the once massively popular Cities I’ve Visited, has acquired fellow travel experience sharing app Where I’ve Been. The acquired app once had over 116,000 daily active users but since November it has plummeted to just 3,000 DAU.

AT&T Begins Selling HTC Status Phone with Facebook Button – The HTC Status is the first mobile phone with a dedicated, physical Facebook button for sharing currently viewed content or one’s locations. The device’s carrier, AT&T, is now accepting pre-orders for the Status.

Announcements:

SortPrice Adds Flash Sales Features to Facebook Platform Ecommerce Suite - SortPrice, an ecommerce tool set for websites with Facebook integrations, has added a new flash sales feature to its product. It allows clients to list specific products at a discount for limited time, and displays users a countdown to the end of the sale.

ShortStack Provides Free Services to Pages Under 2K – ShortStack’s “Surprisingly Free” plan offers the company’s tab design apps and non-database driven widgets free to businesses with anywhere from 100 to 2,000 fans. This includes the ability to run contests and sweepstakes, create landing Pages, play videos, display a photo gallery, show reviews, and integrate online shopping and blogs inside a tab.

AlertSite Reports Facebook is Fastest Social Network – AlertSite reported its results from the Q2 Web Performance Index, noting that Facebook’s fastest response time was .7 seconds, replacing YouTube as the most reliable social networking site.

 OneRPM Launches MP3 Facebook Ecommerce Solution for Musicians – This week, OneRPM debuted its Facebook ecommerce tool for musicians. It allows them to sell music from their Facebook Page, accept payment within Facebook or through PayPal, and gain fans through Like-gates.

Facebook made some exciting hires this week, in addition to the usual suspects from the company’s Careers Page and LinkedIn feed, the company hired a former aide to President Barack Obama, Sarah Feinberg, and Google’s former director of product management for search, client and infrastructure products, Tom Stocky.

Feinberg was formerly a special assistant tot he president, worked as the communication director for the House Democratic Caucus, a press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and was also a press secretary for former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Now Feinberg will still work in communications, focusing on safety, security and litigation. Stocky has worked for Google since 2005 and is joining Facebook as a director of product.

The company also hired more interns, some engineers, people in Asia and Africa, marketing and more.

New hires per LinkedIn and Other Sources:

• Elke Karskens, Head of Platform Marketing & Communication EMEA – formerly the Platform marketing Manager at Skype.
• Alex Şuhan, Software Engineer – formerly a Teaching Assistant at Politechnica University of Bucharest.
• Connor Hayes, Analyst, Online Sales Operations – formerly a features editor at The Rice Thresher.
• Justin Allen, Account Executive – previously did similar work at Apple.
• Caitlin Hipskind, University Recruiting – formerly a Recruiter Coordinator at Facebook.
• Tatyana Bezuglova, MBA Intern, User Operations for EMEA – previously worked as a Senior Associate at The Boston Consulting Group.
• Jonasz Pamuła, Software Engineering Intern – formerly a Linux Software Engineer at NComputing.
• Ivan Georgiev,  Software Engineer Intern – previously did similar work at Musala Soft.
• Shomir Dutt, User Operations Analyst – formerly a student.
• Binoy Xavier, Network Deployment Engineer – previously worked as a Network QA Test Engineer at Brocade.
• Jesse Chen, Marketing & Product Analytics Intern – previously did similar work at LinkedIn.
• Heather Marquez, Asset Manager – formerly a manager of Asset Lifecycle & Logistics at eBay.

Prior listings now removed from the Facebook Careers Page:

• Business Analyst, Hyperion
• Product Manager, Tax Technology
• Product Manager, Technical Operations
• Strategic Product Manager
• Growth Manager Africa – Contract (Nigeria or Kenya)
• Strategic Partner Development, Local Monetization (Palo Alto)
• Lead, Data Warehouse Operations
• User Interface Engineer, Communication Design
• Financial Analyst – Information Technology
• Account Executive (Hong Kong)
• Account Executive (Sydney)
• Client Partner (Paris)
• Sales Associate (Sao Paulo)
• DSO Account Manager (Hong Kong)
• Strategic Partner Development, Local Monetization (Palo Alto)
• Manager, Online Sales Operations (Palo Alto)
• Associate, Ad Operations (Chicago)
• Manager of Online Sales & Operations (Austin)
• Manager of Online Sales & Operations (Palo Alto)
• Manager of Online Sales & Operations (Austin)
• Manager, Online Sales Operations (Palo Alto)
• Lead, Risk Management (Austin)
• Analyst, Platform Operations (Hyderabad)
• Monetization Product Marketing – Sales and Marketing Solutions
• Marketing Communications Copywriter
• Web Optimization Engineer 1106002

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

Facebook is showing some users a module in the right sidebar that highlights one of the Groups they’re a member of and asks them to share something to it. The module, titled “Groups” displays the name of one of a user’s Groups, when it was last updated, and options to either post or leave the Group.

Facebook’s attempt to spur reengagement with its micro-sharing product could be a response to competition from Google+, which is centered around sharing to specific groups of people called Circles rather than sharing with all of one’s contacts.

At the product announcement for ad hoc group chat and video calling last week, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that over half of Facebook population use Groups. He noted that part of the reason for decoupling group chat from Groups was that many wanted to chat with multiple friends at once, but not all users were sharing to their Groups.

The new Groups right sidebar module may be aimed at changing that. It appears to users as they’re browsing the site, similar to other modules Facebook employs to engage uses with products, such as “Discover New Games” and “Friends’ Photo Albums“.

Groups are usually accessed via small bookmarks in the dense left sidebar. By occasionally showing users larger, more prominent links to their Groups in the right sidebar, Facebook may be able to encourage users to post more often.

Since posts to Groups generate notifications for all members, reengaging one member can kickstart participation by others. The screenshot we received of the Groups module showed it highlighting a Group that hadn’t been posted to in two weeks. The sidebar module could be an effective way to awaken Groups that have fallen dormant.

The sidebar module could also remind users experimenting with Google+ that they have microsharing options within Facebook. Google+ requires that users choose a subset of friends to share each piece of content with. Facebook shares content with all of a user’s friends by default. It requires a long series of clicks to limited a status update to a specific friend list, but just one extra click to share with a Group.

If Facebook can get users more engaged with Groups, through this new sidebar module or otherwise, they may have less reason to join and become active users of Google+

[Thanks to Brittany Darwell for the tip]