Inside Facebook

Facebook is going to launch its location-based features “next month,” according to a report today from the New York Times — a confirmation of many months of rumors that we and other publications have been hearing. Sources close to the company shared specific knowledge of the tightly-wrapped project, including a clear message for developers: Get ready for location at f8, Facebook’s developer conference.

That’s where the new service will be unveiled, according to the report. Facebook will launch a way for users to check in at physical locations and share the information back with their friends on the site (possibly by attaching location data to status updates, for example). Crucially, there will also be a set of APIs so developers can access Facebook’s location service in their own applications.

Developer Impact

But certainly, by providing a location-based service itself, Facebook is making it harder for smaller companies to differentiate themselves through location alone. Foursquare, Gowalla and increasing number of other startups have been building services where users win “badges” or other virtual goods if they use their phones to “check in” at a physical place more regularly than other users. Given the details of Facebook’s plan, it seems the company wants to funnel consumer interest in these types of location-based games through its platform.

Facebook’s social graph likely reflects who many people would want to share their locations with, and for this reason some startups, including Foursquare, Gowalla and the FriendSpin iPhone app, among others, already offer ways to share locations with Facebook  friends — although the effort hasn’t converted to lots of users, that we’ve seen.

The promise is that Facebook’s own service would make location more popular, and so any company that relied on Facebook’s service might somehow ride that wave. On a related note, while Facebook may not be trying to build a location-based game, but game developers and other application companies on its platform could use the features to more directly compete with existing startups. For more, check out our panel on monetizing mobile social applications, happening at our Inside Social Apps conference a day before f8.

Location’s Long Time Coming

Facebook has been looking at location for a long time. But it has delayed launching the service, as many have previously heard, because the company has been concerned about privacy issues. It was also waiting for the concept to become somewhat popularized before launching anything, according to today’s report, something that is not yet clearly happening. But big web rivals have been testing their own location services, and startups are getting in to the fray.

As we covered last fall, the company updated its terms of service to reflect its interest in location:

Location Information. When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post (for example, it is subject to your privacy settings). If we offer a service that supports this type of location sharing we will present you with an opt-in choice of whether you want to participate.

More recently, it has been rumored to be looking at acquiring location-based social network Loopt. And VentureBeat today notes, as we’ve heard, that Facebook has been working on a variety of location-related projects internally recently.

Given the lineup of location-based services launching at South by Southwest, a popular media and technology culture conference starting in Austin next week, we expect location — as a concept — to get even more buzz this spring than it has already. In fact, Facebook’s design team will have a location-related presence there, via a partnership with Gowalla. The team made a special set of drink coasters, it’s going to scatter them around the conference, and anyone can redeem the coaster for a free drink from the team; Gowalla is providing digital versions of the coasters, with the same reward.

In any case, f8 is looking like an especially opportune time for a launch.

Bigger competitors are also looming. Google and Twitter, in some sense Facebook’s main competition, both have location-based services already. Google’s Latitude has been out for many months, but it doesn’t seem to have caught on, partly because the interface is always on in the background, trasmitting your location. Changing Latitude to the “check-in” model and making it a more central part of Buzz, its new activity feed aggregator, could be a good way for Google to get in on the location action, as TechCrunch details — but now Buzz is out of the gate, with issues. But expect Google to work hard in this area, especially with its larger push into mobile with Android and the Nexus One. Twitter, meanwhile, has been testing a way for users to show the locations of their tweets for months, and that feature appears to going live for all users soon.

Location and Facebook’s Business

Getting into location will likely help Facebook accelerate into more local advertising. It has already been making location a part of its advertising services, in some sense. Advertisers can target ads on the site based on country, region or cities — as of today, thousands of cities. And Page owners can share news feed items with fans who identify themselves as being in certain geographic locations. Local businesses now have half of the 3 billion Pages on the site, according to Facebook statistics, and make up an increasingly large portion of spending on Facebook’s fast-growing performance advertising service.

A location-based service that allows users to specify where they are down to the building, for example, would provide data to Facebook and advertisers about the places they frequent. This could help Page owners and advertisers target ads to be more relevant.

Facebook has other reasons to want to try its hand at location now. It has quickly grown to 400 million monthly active users (it announced in early February, so the number is likely a bit  higher today). And around the same time it said that 100 million of these people access the service every month via their mobile phones, up from 65 million in September. Meanwhile, more and more mobile devices offer some way to share location. That’s a lot of people who can start quickly sharing their location with Facebook friends.

­Department stores have set up shop on Facebook, launching major brand marketing campaigns in order to encourage their customers to become brand ‘fans’ and deepen their fans’ relationship with the brand.

We recently reported that women in the U.S. constituted over 56% of the overall Facebook population. This demographic split underlines a longtime trend that is especially strong among women between 26 and 44.  Interestingly, this is the exact audience who are most likely to have disposable income to spend and are likely to spend it on themselves. With so many women in this age group engaging actively on Facebook, department store brands are taking notice and responding by driving Page and application initiatives.

We looked at a total of seven department stores that seemed to be focusing most, if not all, their efforts on women: Bloomingdale’s had about 21,000 fans and Macy’s had 256,000 or so (they’re owned by the same company), Dillard’s with under 19,000 fans, JC Penney with almost 784,000 fans, Kohl’s had over 952,000 fans, Nordstrom with almost 55,000 and Sears with more than 158,000 fans.

Most of the Pages: actively updated their status with store deals, allowed fans to post to the Wall (except Sears) and were very responsive to posts/comments. In terms of media, they featured a lot of photo albums, mostly of merchandise, a few dozen videos, links to their web sites. They highlighted specials in some way — either with a tab, a box or an application. Only a few used discussion boards, events or notes frequently but all of them linked to Facebook from their web sites (and vise versa on Facebook) and were pretty active about talking back to the customers who posted/commented on their Walls. Dillard’s included a full-service store on their Facebook Page.

Three of the stores featured specials or apps on their Facebook landing pages; JC Penney included a slide show of swim suits, Macy’s The Daily Fashion Challenge app/game which linked to their site for a chance to win a $500 gift card and Sears promoted “amazing offers” only for Facebook fans.

Apps the stores featured on their Pages were interesting because they had a wide range. Kohl’s had an LC Lauren Conrad tab that included an app to see the making of her collection, in addition to boxes for Twitter and YouTube and videos. Macy’s create a game/app called The Daily Fashion Challenge asking users to create an outfit from merchandise to enter to win a $500 gift card, although the game was played on Macy’s web site, not Facebook, one place the company could make a change to more fully engage their fans. Dillard’s had the most exciting app, an online store, complete with inventory, a shopping basket, and the ability to purchase right on Facebook.

Dillard’s also included an interesting on their Facebook Page, Phoebe “The Fit Girl,” a mascot-like cartoon that helps women find the proper sizes for undergarments; Phoebe even has her own Facebook Page and blog, both featured on Dillard’s Page. The Page also featured a Polls tab with a lot of polls, a signup tab for their email/mail lists, a Twitter tab filled with tweets and an I Do tab for weddings that linked to their web site, strange considering how the company created a store online but didn’t do the same for their wedding registry.

Most Pages built in many, many tabs.

Kohl’s had a Celeb Style tab, Receipt Contest tab, Scholarship Tab, Green Scene tab, Style & Savings tab and a lot of activity on their discussion tab; each of these tabs was well-built with information about the contest, scholarship, green programs or ways to save money at the store. JC Penney had a Weekly Obsession tab for highlighted items, a Spring Poll tab, Style File and Sweepstakes tabs. Macy’s had a tab for prom, a Trend Report tab featuring “hot” merchandise, a Give Back tab for charities on Facebook and a Polls tab that had seen more than 44,500 people vote since August. Sears included tabs for their rewards program, a Theme Song Quiz, a YouTube tab and was the only store to feature a Careers tab.

Compared to some of the other categories of Facebook Pages we’ve investigated, the department stores seem to be on the ball. Dillard’s, of course, took this one step further by featuring a full store on their Page, but they could also have done the same with their wedding registry. Overall, most of these stores incorporated their merchandise and specials into everything they did on Facebook, creating original content to keep fans on the social network and paying attention to what their fans said about and to them.

It’s clear that there are many opportunities for retailers and other brands looking to deepen customer relationships online, and Facebook is presenting an increasingly sophisticated array of possibilities week after week. For retailers looking to take further advantage of Facebook Pages and other features for reaching customers, full understanding of Facebook’s complex marketing tools is imperative. We detail exactly how to market with Pages, apps, and advertisements in the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive toolkit for marketers seeking to launch or improve campaigns on Facebook.

Facebook has expanded its list of “preferred” developers who help brands, celebrities and a wide variety of organizations build applications, Facebook Connect integrations, or custom features for Facebook Pages. This means more visibility for the 36 newly added developer-consultants, so maybe some new clients for them. There are now 50 companies listed, more than half are operating internationally, and in a total of 15 countries.

Facebook created the Preferred Developer Consultant Program last December, and is continuing to accept applications from prospective companies, more here. Our Facebook Marketing Bible also contains a list of service providers that we recommend.

Here are the new companies in alphabetical order, followed by a list of the existing ones. Note the addition of Techlightenment and 77Agency, two companies that provide automation services for bulk purchases of Facebook’s performance ads.

New firms on Facebook’s list:

• 77Agency Ltd.
• Always Be Social by Blueye Creative
• Brand Networks
• Candytech.biz
• Carrot Creative
• Fan Appz, Inc.
• Fission Strategy
• Fluid
• Friend2Friend
• Gamaroff Digital
• GroupCard Apps
• Hearsay Labs
• i2we, inc
• Inigral, Inc.
• Kitoks.com
• Komfo
• KRDS
• Large Animal Games
• Nudge Social Media
• Plexipixel Inc.
• Promoqube
• Ralph
• Resource Interactive
• Sociabliz
• SocialAmp
• Syncapse
• T3 (The Think Tank)
• Techlightenment
• theKBuzz
• Thuzi
• Transpond, Inc.
• VaynerMedia
• Votigo, Inc.
• Wishpot
• Xihit Solutions GmbH
• Zibaba

They’re joining these firms, already on the list:

A couple athletes, a handful of musicians, two shoe companies and a few television shows, plus list regulars made up this week’s Top 20 Facebook Pages. Zynga’s Mafia Wars continues its domination of the number 1 spot with almost 10 million fans, but its partner in crime for the past few weeks, Texas Hold’em Poker, disappeared from the list this week.

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Mafia Wars	9,891,127	+364,698	+3.83
2.	Ricardo Kakà	1,165,322	+343,654	+41.82
3.	Converse	2,286,122	+127,174	+5.89
4.	Justin Bieber	2,052,557	+125,802	+6.53
5.	VANS	558,044	+124,530	+28.73
6.	Selena Gomez	3,797,516	+115,649	+3.14
7.	Megan Fox	6,150,914	+109,452	+1.81
8.	Starbucks	6,125,550	+106,906	+1.78
9.	Lady Gaga	5,566,682	+105,651	+1.93
10.	Facebook	7,577,121	+105,370	+1.41
11.	Skittles	3,994,668	+96,120	+2.47
12.	Michael Jackson	11,220,110	+92,391	+0.83
13.	Lil Wayne	3,306,267	+88,310	+2.74
14.	The X Factor	1,012,492	+86,609	+9.35
15.	Cristiano Ronaldo	3,611,756	+84,537	+2.40
16.	Taylor Swift	3,431,201	+76,443	+2.28
17.	Victoria’s Secret	2,935,646	+74,875	+2.62
18.	The Twilight Saga	5,183,477	+68,185	+1.33
19.	YouTube	4,388,681	+67,086	+1.55
20.	Dr. House	4,975,383	+65,841	+1.34

Two soccer (football) players for Real Madrid C.F. were on the list this week. Brazilian player Ricardo Kaká at number 2 with over 1 million fans and heartthrob Cristiano Ronaldo at number 15 with 3.6 million fans. Although both are fairly popular on Facebook, their rankings this week were helped by consolidations of 63,000 last week for Ronaldo (his page only grew by 84,500 so most of it was attributable to those spikes) and 229,000 on Wednesday for Kaká.

Next were the shoes. Vans, the shoe brand popular with skateboarders, seems to have landed at number 5 almost entirely due to what appears to be a page consolidation on Sunday of almost 123,000 (their total growth this week was 124,530), a large part of their fan base, given the Page has just 559,000 fans. Converse was also on the list again this week at number 3; the iconic shoe company grew by almost 111,000 fans Wednesday, but also recently launched a line of shoes featuring designs from the 1980s band Blondie.

Musicians took up another chunk of the list, with teen crooner Justin Bieber fourth with 2 million-plus fans; he’s been promoting a new single and  upcoming album. Another teenage musician, Selena Gomez, landed at number 6, partly due to growth of 90,000 fans over two days likely due to page consolidations, given her page grew by 115,649 last week. But, Gomez also told her 3.8 million fans this week that her latest album went gold, meaning it sold 500,000 copies.

Rapper Lil Wayne took the number 13 spot this week with more than 3 million fans.  Perhaps Lil Wayne’s popularity grew in response to his sentencing hearing scheduled for last week on a weapons charge, but it was delayed due to a fire and he was able to enjoy a few extra days of freedom. Finally, singer Taylor Swift was sixteenth on the list this week; she currently has more than 3 million fans, is on a U.S. tour and the official Taylor Swift iPhone application launched last week.

List regulars this week included seventh place Megan Fox with more than 6 million fans now, Starbucks in eighth place also with over 6 million fans and Lady Gaga at number 9, trailing slightly with about 5.5 million fans, the songstress is currently on tour and has been promoting her new single/video “Telephone” on Facebook with exclusive stills and updates. Facebook’s fan Page landed tenth and Michael Jackson continues to hang out on the list, currently with more than 11 million fans, at number 12 this week.

Number 11 Skittles now has a Page with 4 million fans and grew by about 96,000 fans last week, about 71,000 of which came from two spikes on Wednesday and Sunday, albeit the company is also giving out coupons for a free packet of candy.

The popular television show “The X Factor” landed at number 14 this week almost certainly due to a Page consolidation; this page grew by 86,000 last week, 82,000 of which were added on Wednesday. Another popular television show, “House,” went back on the air this week after a hiatus, consequently the Page grew by 65,800 fans to land at number 20.

Rounding out the list was the number 17 Victoria’s Secret Page, which probably benefitted by 54,000 adds over two days to bring its total fan base on Facebook to about 3 million. At 18 was the “Twilight” Page, now with over 5 million fans and nineteenth was the YouTube Facebook Page.

Top Gainers This Week

	Name	Fans	Gain	Gain, %
1.	Mafia Wars	9,891,127	+364,698	+3.83
2.	Ricardo Kakà	1,165,322	+343,654	+41.82
3.	Converse	2,286,122	+127,174	+5.89
4.	Justin Bieber	2,052,557	+125,802	+6.53
5.	VANS	558,044	+124,530	+28.73
6.	Selena Gomez	3,797,516	+115,649	+3.14
7.	Megan Fox	6,150,914	+109,452	+1.81
8.	Starbucks	6,125,550	+106,906	+1.78
9.	Lady Gaga	5,566,682	+105,651	+1.93
10.	Facebook	7,577,121	+105,370	+1.41
11.	Skittles	3,994,668	+96,120	+2.47
12.	Michael Jackson	11,220,110	+92,391	+0.83
13.	Lil Wayne	3,306,267	+88,310	+2.74
14.	The X Factor	1,012,492	+86,609	+9.35
15.	Cristiano Ronaldo	3,611,756	+84,537	+2.40
16.	Taylor Swift	3,431,201	+76,443	+2.28
17.	Victoria’s Secret	2,935,646	+74,875	+2.62
18.	The Twilight Saga	5,183,477	+68,185	+1.33
19.	YouTube	4,388,681	+67,086	+1.55
20.	Dr. House	4,975,383	+65,841	+1.34

In the years following U.S. troop deployments to Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, thousands of former soldiers, both men and women, have returned home to to continue their civilian lives. Some of these veterans return physically injured or paralyzed, others with psychological issues. As these veterans adjust to the civilian life, Facebook has become a tool for them to apply for federal benefits, return to college, search for work and find support from other veterans.

Searching for “vets” or “veterans” on Facebook yields dozens and dozens of Pages and groups, some official, but many simply begun by veterans or others wanting to use Facebook to express pride and support for the armed forces. These Pages and groups are used to share stories, some have formed tight-knit communities where people seem to interact on a regular basis, whereas others have become go-to resource forums.

Organizations and vets use an array of Facebook tools in these interactions, including Wall posts and comments, Groups, and Pages. Both offer discussion boards and ways of posting photos and videos — Groups are more focused on community topics, while Pages are intended to be public, and oriented around brands, organizations, and well-known people. As a result, Pages tend to help veterans make new and unexpected connections.

“I use Facebook while I’m deployed everyday, all day, through chat, messages, pictures and etc. I was on MySpace, but I rarely check it because I’m addicted to Facebook!” Army Sgt. Jose L. Aranda wrote us from his deployment in Iraq, noting that his family, wife and children, are still in Texas. Like many other active duty soldiers, Aranda uses Facebook as a lifeline to his loved ones while away from home.

Aranda, 27, is a native of McCamey, Texas, a town of about 1,600 in Upton County (population 3,149) about 285 miles east of El Paso. He stumbled upon and became a fan of the Upton County Vets Facebook Page, with 101 fans, photos of local vets and some information about the local courthouse; the Page formed late last year.

“I’m proud to say that I have family and friends in uniform besides me that came from where I grew up. Is it comforting? Yes, indeed!” he wrote us, noting that he’s found old friends there he didn’t even know had joined the armed services.

Veterans organizations have also taken advantage of Facebook to reach out to their membership. One such group with a strong Facebook presence was the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Page, which displays its latest public service announcements. The Wall is closed to its 67,824 fans, but posts generate dozens of comments where people ask each other questions, offer resources and have actual discussions, essentially functioning as a discussion board. The Page hosts many such conversations about everything from benefits to politics to job tips on the Wall, although a discussion thread about payments generated 108 comments. IAVA also uses Causes to raise money for their efforts to improve the lives of veterans from these wars and their families.

“Veterans need each other for support and now they’ve found a place where they can come find that — I’ve heard directly from people who’ve found other veterans that they served with 30 years ago and now they became Facebook friends,” said Joe Chenelly, spokesman for Disabled American Veterans, an organization 1.2 million strong with about 9,900 fans on Facebook.

Chenelly said DAV is incorporating Facebook into everything it does, but has also used MySpace (no longer active), LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and Buzz. He notes that Facebook has been the most accessible media to their mostly-Vietnam era membership — people who didn’t grow up with the internet, who find the site easiest to use. DAV’s Facebook presence began as a group last spring, changed to a Page last summer, incorporated some unofficial pages and now Chenelly tells us that the “highest levels” of the organization’s leadership is interested in DAV’s Facebook presence.

“Members, fans, are really using it to talk to each other, about their problems and success and it’s been a great thing for camaraderie, doing a good job of bridging the generational gap,” he tells us, referencing the ages of Vietnam versus Iraq/Afghanistan veterans.

The Wall, in particular, has allowed veterans to help each other, ask for help, find fellow soldiers and ultimately create new connections on Facebook, Chenelly tells us. It has also helped the DAV stay connected to its members needs and get the word out about legislation and other issues.

Unofficial Pages, like the Operation Iraqi Freedom Vets with 611 fans, are also used by veterans and their supporters to gather for comfort and to share information. Veterans tell each other the names of their units, where and when they served, while others thank veterans for their service. The official Paralyzed Veterans of America Page with 3,473 fans, is also a place for veterans and their supporters to gather for comfort, but as the organization strives to improve the lives of paralyzed veterans, sharing resources becomes much more important. Here it’s interesting to note that the Share function, wherein fans can post items to their news feed, has been heavily used in cases of petitions for pertinent legislation, something that’s previously been done via email.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has a Facebook Page with more than 19,400 fans and the Wall is primarily used to diffuse information about veterans’ benefits, news stories, studies, resources, suicide prevention and other health-related information for veterans. Other federal agencies concerned with veterans also have official Pages, including the Veterans Benefits Administration (3,753 fans), Veterans Health Administration (10,700 fans) and the National Cemetery Administration (706 fans). Although fans cannot post to the Veterans Affairs Wall, comments on status updates and other items are active with discussion amongst fans about resources, politics and experiences.

It’s interesting to note that veterans have begun to use the medium of Facebook as a discussion board, largely moving their conversations onto the Wall via comments, as opposed to limiting themselves to structured discussion threads. Governmental Pages seem to be more imposing than organization or fan Pages, as communication appears to be one-way and more tightly-controlled. But on Pages where vets are given the freedom to engage, they are taking full advantage of Facebook’s features and it appears that very meaningful conversations result.

Facebook Photos Increase in Size – Facebook’s Nathaniel Roman posted a blog this week announcing that the maximum photo size is set to increase by 20% from 604 to 720 pixels in order, “to give you higher quality photos and make viewing them more enjoyable.” The changes are taking place gradually and may affect some users later than others, he wrote. Check our January coverage for more.

Yahoo! Integrates Facebook Connect – This week Yahoo! provided a list of instructions for users to integrate Facebook Connect across a variety of services, allowing people to add Facebook friends’ email addresses to Yahoo! contacts lists. Instructions are available here.

Google News, Facebook Send Traffic to Different Media – Facebook and Google both direct traffic to media sites, but the types of sites they assist are somewhat different, according to a recent blog from Hitwise. Facebook tends to send traffic to broadcast media while Google News sends more traffic to print media web sites. Specifically: “The Wall Street Journal last week received 10.37% of its U.S. visits from Google News compared to only 1.41% from Facebook. The New York Times similarly received more traffic from Google News than from Facebook (5.21% compared to 2.96% of upstream visits). Fox News and CNN by contrast received more traffic from Facebook than Google News. Fox News received 5.50% from Facebook and 1.18% from Google News while CNN received 5.92% from Facebook and 1.77% from Google News.” However, Facebook is a general-purpose site where people share all sorts of links and other information. Google News is a news-focused aggregator — it’s not even clear how much broadcast content Google News even bothers to include. So the comparison is not direct.

Palm Updates Facebook App – Palm updated its Facebook app for all webOS devices this week, including new functionalities for the Wall, inbox, photos, messages, news feed and search. MobileCrunch reported that the new app is fully intertwined with webOS’ Synergy system in addition to being a great improvement over the previous version.

Facebook Mobile Browsing Growing – comScore released a study on social networking access via mobile browsers this week, finding that 30.8% of smartphone users access social networks with their cell phones in January, up 8.3% points from last year that time. Facebook mobile use grew 112% over the past year while Twitter grew 347% in the same time period. About 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook with their handsets in January, compared to 11.4 million for MySpace.

Facebook Looks to Hire Public Policy Managers – Facebook board member and Washington Post chairman Donald E. Graham wrote a blog this week in which he noted that, in the face of growing concerns over online privacy, Facebook posted two job listings this week related to public policy. One is for a manager of public policy to work with regulators/lawmakers at the state/federal levels, also working with pro-consumer organizations; the other is for a public policy associate, who would attend congressional hearings, meet with non-profits and tech lobbying groups.

This is part of a trend for Facebook that Graham notes has been growing its Washington, D.C. presence, “Those jobs would bring Facebook’s staff in Washington to five. It recently hired journalist Andrew Noyes for public policy communications and Tim Sparapani from the ACLU, who is now director of public policy. Adam Conner began the office and deals with lobbying and policy issues including privacy.”

Facebook Blogs About ‘Working With Zuck’ – Facebook software engineer Andrew Bosworth blogged this week about what it’s like to work with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, or “Zuck.”

One, Zuck expects debate, with exceptions. Two, he’s not sentimental, as in he has no problem dropping a product if it doesn’t meet expectations or necessity. Three, Zuck experiences things contextually, in other words, “He rarely makes decisions by talking about products in the abstract and strongly prefers to play with them, often withholding judgment until he does.”

Bosworth writes that Zuck pushes people, expecting people to do more in less time for the good of the company, “Zuck isn’t always right about what that is, he isn’t often wrong,” Bosworth writes.
Not surprisingly, the note is very positive towards Zuckerberg and Facebook generally.

Slide Lays Off Employees – Slide, the online entertainment company, has decided to stop development on social games SuperPocus and Top Fish, which means it will lay off “less than 10%” of employees. Of about 137 employees, about 40 employees are working on the two games; some will be reassigned to work on other projects.

Facebook’s Beacon Lawsuit Nearer to Closure – Last Friday a federal judge stopped short of approving a $9.5 million class-action settlement against Facebook for its Beacon program. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg in San Jose, CA could require Facebook to permanently shut Beacon down and contribute $6 million to a new privacy foundation if he approves the suit; the 19 users named in the complaint would receive between $1,000-$15,000, but no others would receive money, and their attorneys would receive $3 million. Approximately 3.6 million Facebook users were affected by Beacon, which launched in November of 2007, telling users’ friends about their purchases made at retailers like Zappos and Blockbuster while not on Facebook.

Facebook and Hockey Collide – Facebook status updates shot through the roof during key moments of the U.S.-Canada Olympic hockey game recently, especially at 2:29 p.m. PST when the game was tied in the third period and secondly at 2:54 p.m. PST when Canada scored the winning goal. More than 3.5 million status updates were sent during those two moments, twice the pace of updates for that day.

Sunday’s 82nd annual Oscars movie awards has taken a cue from the Grammys and tried to incorporate social media into its marketing package, a move to make itself more relevant to online audiences.

There’s an official Oscars presence on Facebook, on the Celebs and The Academy Pages, in conjunction with ABC which will broadcast the red carpet arrivals before the show Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. Pacific Time and livestream it via Facebook Connect. Facebook fans can also submit questions and comments in real time. The 10 movies nominated for best picture also have Facebook Pages and the Celebs Page includes a livestream tab for the Oscars, as does The Academy Page but neither Page goes out of its way to promote it. There’ s also the Official 2010 Oscars iPhone application, allowing users to predict winners, view trailers, get extra information on each film and make predictions then share them on Facebook or Twitter.

Most actors nominated for best actor or actress don’t appear to have sanctioned Facebook Pages, with the exception of Gabourey Sidibe, perhaps an indicator of the disconnect between social media and the Oscars. As far as the movie Pages themselves, it seems that different studios are taking different approaches to how to handle the hype surrounding their best picture nominees.

Sony Pictures produced two best picture nominees, “District 9” and “An Education,” and has heavily promoted both on their respective Facebook pages. Status updates have been very frequent on both Pages and gushingly enthusiastic, several on “An Education” had words written in all caps. What’s more, “District 9’s” Page lands on an Oscar Noms! tab that lists the nominations the film received and the info box on the main page announces the nominations as well.

Some of the other nominees showed their excitement primarily with many, many ebullient status updates and news/reviews of all kinds, as was the case with Summit Entertainment’s “The Hurt Locker,” Lionsgate’s “Precious,” and The Weinstein Company’s “Inglorious Basterds.”

Other Pages were more sedate about the nominations, such as Warner Brothers’ “The Blind Side” announcing the film’s nomination and Sandra Bullock’s on a status update, Paramount Pictures’ “Up in the Air” providing some information about the nominations and Focus Features’ “A Serious Man” also highlighting the nominations via status updates.

Then there was 20^th Century Fox’s smash hit “Avatar,” one of our Top 20 Facebook Pages for several weeks in a row — it didn’t mention the Oscar noms at all.

AdAge reported that this is the first year that the Oscars are getting a social media push, mostly in an effort to save ratings (13% decrease last year) and reach younger audiences, as last year’s viewer averaged 49.5 years old. Part of this push for younger viewers was reflected by expanding the list of best picture nominees to 10 and including films like “Avatar,” “Up,” “The Blind Side,” and “District 9,” and the other part is the willingness to use social media, such as the live stream of the nominations announcements, watched by more than 170,000 people on The Academy Facebook Page.

Given that this is the Oscars’ first Facebook experience, it’s understandable that there’s an element of caution in its implementation. There’s so much more content available on Oscars’ web site that could be transferred to Facebook in meaningful ways that simply hasn’t been done. There are photo galleries of past red carpet outfits, winners, party photos, there’s a video of how the statuettes are made, nominee Q&As, extra content from the nominee luncheon and much more.

Why is none of this content available on Facebook?

It’s an interesting question to ponder, although given the newness of this medium to this traditional event, it’s not surprising. Applications, games and polls are another area that have yet to be exploited by the Oscars this year (not counting the iPhone app); something as simple as being able to superimpose your face over that of an actress wearing your favorite gown could be both relevant and interactive.

Hopefully The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will learn some good social media lessons this year so that the 2011 Oscars will continue to improve the Facebook experience for fans.

Cities, counties, states and other municipal entities don’t want to be left out of the Facebook rush. They’ve begun to create Facebook Pages for everything from their parks to their police departments to their city councils. Inside Facebook has covered governmental efforts on Facebook before, so this week we thought it’d be interesting to see how cities are using the social network to promote everybody’s favorite public service: public parks.

One surprise was that many of the parks Pages we perused had recently started, something one official we spoke to said was the result of an industry trend towards social media. Most Pages we saw tended to concentrate most strongly on the Wall and photos, a few used notes and none heavily utilized the discussion functions.

The vast majority of governmental entities we found on Facebook were cities, however, there were also some counties and states. Briefly, it’s interesting to note that larger entities — such as New York City, Los Angeles County and the State of Oregon — tended to be less successful at creating a unique Facebook community than others, small towns in particular. This is probably because small communities are already tight-knit and so it’s easier to transfer that closeness to Facebook; case in point, some smaller parks used a photo of staff or a local attraction as a profile picture whereas larger entities almost always used an official logo.

Monterey Park Recreation Superintendent Dan Costley said the idea behind his city’s Recreation and Parks Facebook Page is to create a sense of community apart from the L.A. metropolitan area and to do more with less — as is the norm in California these days. Since January 14 the Page has gathered 222 fans and the city’s population is 61,000. Costley tells us that the parks department went ahead with the Facebook Page after seeing multiple queries about it on industry list serves — going to Facebook is a hot topic in his professional circle, he tells us. And in the face of his state and city’s budget crises, Costley says using Facebook for marketing is a free alternative to fliers or press conferences.

“Literally we were told, ‘If you can borrow something from another department, cut back.’ You can look at something like Facebook and say, ‘Nobody is charging us for this,’” Costley tells us. “So if it helps us save money and send the message to the right people, that’s always going to help us.”

Plans for the Facebook Page revolve around creating a community around the Monterey Park community, such as reporting local swim team results, posting pictures of community events or previewing fireworks for the Fourth of July, posting status updates with city facts (Did you know that Monterey Park is 7.73 square miles in size?) or announcing the 2010 Chinese New Year Festival, he said. Costley wants Facebook to become part of the park department’s marketing strategy and, so far, at least many local politicians have taken note and joined as fans.

Perhaps because creating a sense of community becomes increasingly difficult with more people, larger parks entities have struggled to do so on Facebook.

Los Angeles County’s Department of Parks and Recreation on Facebook went up in March of 2009, but only has 55 fans in a county of almost 10 million people, not surprising given that the Page directs traffic to other web sites. There’s information about the county’s YouTube channel, but no phone number, no information about the parks and most links go to other county sites.

New York City Department of Parks & Recreation didn’t fare much better, with 2,058 fans in a city of more than 8 million, most links leading to external sites and no information about parks on the Page. There were local status updates about weather, lots of events and a MyFlickr tab, however. The State of Oregon has under 4 million people but 755 fans and is also still figuring out how to best use Facebook. Case in point, the Parks and Recreation Department recently debuted an online newsletter “Your Parks Go Guide” on a WordPress blog, directing fans to the blog but didn’t link it the Page’s notes.

These Pages have great information to share – Oregon, for example, offers all sorts of discounted rates to their parks quite often — but have yet to figure out the most effective way to do so; the Inside Facebook Marketing Bible details an array of tools to help organizations do this.

New Orleans’ City Park is the exception to the rule. With nearly 5,000 fans in a city of about 312,000, the Page sees a lot of activity from fans, includes maps of some park areas and frequent status updates of park happenings. This may be due, in part, to a tangential Friends of City Park organization and their efforts on Facebook (with 1,400 fans) to extend their offline mission of preserving the city’s parks.

Nashville (Arkansas) City Park’s Facebook Page is exemplary of how very small communities can take advantage to create an online community around parks. Here what matters is quality, not quantity. This Page has 459 fans in a town of about 4,800 (almost 10% of the population), features a group photo of staff, includes intimate status updates such as “What a BEAUTIFUL DAY to be out in your city park! Come on out and join us!” and has contact information right on the homepage, as well as the Info tab. As a result, the Page has frequent interaction between staff and fans, albeit they probably know each other personally in real life, too.

Other ways to engage fans is to include local content like photos, as evidenced by Dobbs Ferry Recreation Department’s Page (where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg grew up, by the way). This Facebook Page serves a New York community of 11,000 people, 246 of whom are fans, and features a collection of photo albums from the Valentine’s Day festivities at the senior center to the recent 5K to children’s summer camp. The University City Dog Park in Missouri is a membership-based non-profit quasi-public park with 500 member dogs and 109 fans on the Facebook Page. Because this is a very specific community, interaction on the Page is very personal and conversational, lots of discussions take place on the Wall and events/announcements receive a good number of comments.

One final way Indiana’s Valparaiso Department of Parks and Recreation attempts to engage its 411 fans is by utilizing a park-specific poll and an application. The poll asks about park visits and the application on the Create A Parks Profile links to an external web site to keep users informed of parks activities they might like. Unfortunately these extras won’t work unless users are engaged: no one had voted in the poll, although it was unclear how many profiles had been created via the app.

It’s up to each community to figure out the best way to use Pages to promote their parks. Clearly, from what we see, focusing on personal touches for small populations is what’s working best so far.

Facebook Pages actually can boost sales, a recent study Rice University in Houston, Texas, recently concluded. Fans of these Pages are, overall, more loyal to a business, spend more and are likelier to spread the word. The study on the Houston café chain Dessert Gallery was done by their consultant Emily Durham, founder of Houston-based consultancy Restaurant Connections, and Utpal Dholakia, an associate professor at Rice who studies online marketing.

“In a nut shell: Facebook fans visit more, they spend more during their visit, they have a higher attachment to that brand,” Dholakia tells us.

Dessert Gallery is a Houston-based café chain with two locations, that’s been around since 1995; the company’s Facebook Page went up in June of last year and currently counts 654 fans. Dholakia points out that, while there has been a lot of anecdotal evidence as to Facebook’s effects on revenue streams, this study had an element of control, as it looked at Dessert Gallery’s customer feedback before — and then after — the Facebook Page was used as part of the café’s marketing.

Dholakia and Durham surveyed Dessert Gallery’s customers via its email list of about 13,000 in June 2009 before the Facebook Page was up and running, and then surveyed the same list in October, after it had grown to about 14,000. The survey in October was also advertised on Facebook. The initial evaluation queried basic store evaluations and shopping behaviors and received 689 responses; three months later, the second evaluation asked similar questions, but also about the Facebook Page, and received 1,067 responses.

Facebook fans, it turned out, are excellent customers.

According to Dholakia’s research, after three months Dessert Gallery’s Facebook fans: made 36% more visits each month, spent 45% more dining out dollars there, spent 33% more at the café’s locations, had a 14% higher emotional attachment to the brand and had a 41% greater psychological loyalty towards the café. Facebook fans also generated more word-of-mouth marketing than non-Facebook fans.

But, Dholakia points out, there are several reasons why this is the case.

First, customers that became fans of Dessert Gallery’s Page were already more interested in the café to begin with and so the Page became sort of a self-selected pool of hard-core customers. However, once the Page began promoting the café’s specials, this group of customers became even more likely to participate or make purchases. Facebook is an excellent and low-cost niche marketing tool, and should be used in conjunction with other media — not as a substitute for a substantive marketing plan, Dholakia tells us. Note: You can read all about using Pages and other Facebook marketing methods in our Facebook Marketing Bible.

“You’re not going to get every customer to participate on Facebook. A select group of people are going to be influenced by the Facebook marketing you do,” he tells us. “But you can’t rely just on Facebook itself.”

Dholakia said a more advanced statistical analysis of the customer responses is in the works to control for the fact that data was self-reported and should be available within a month.

[Dholakia photo via Rice University Public Affairs]

Small businesses have begun seeing how Pages, performance advertising and other components of Facebook can build their businesses. The results appear promising so far, prompting Fan Appz to launch a new service this week for these companies.

About 1.5 million of Facebook’s 3 million fan Pages belong to local (typically small) businesses, according to Facebook’s statistics. Industry sources have also told us that small and local business advertising makes up a good portion of those using Facebook’s performance advertising system.

Fan Appz is one of a number of companies that provide services for Page owners. The company’s do-it-yourself application allows users to create activities for their fans that revolve around a specific brand. Since the company’s launch last fall, it has provided both a free version and an agency/enterprise version for larger companies, such as the NBA and NASCAR, and this week it added a third service to this list for smaller businesses, Fan Appz Professional.

The free version of Fan Appz is an application allowing Facebook users to create Page-specific top 5s, polls and quizzes, although Siegal points out that these feature ads. Fan Appz has also provided an agency/enterprise version to larger clients, such as the NBA, that includes additional features like a virtual gift store, fan merchandise store or the ability to run a sweepstakes with the app.

Siegal tells us that Fan Appz’s newest service, Fan Appz Professional, is intended to meet the needs of small and medium businesses incorporating elements of the free and agency/enterprise versions to help these businesses utilize Facebook to better engage their fans. Professional costs $50 a month and includes ad-free elements of the free version — top 5s, polls and quizzes — while augmenting the service with the ability to create customized coupons, coupon codes and other promotions.

Fan Appz Professional may be an alternative to official Facebook promotions, as Siegal tells us. ”There are a lot of things you can do that don’t come with the baggage,” he says. “Our sweetpstakes format and our rules, we’ve taken to Facebook and had them approved.”

The free version of Fan Appz currently has more than 160,000 users, according to AppData, our independent service for tracking Facebook application traffic. Siegal says the service is used all over the world in a variety of languages.

He adds that Fan Appz Professional is designed to help small and medium businesses take advantage of Facebook’s marketing potential without having to launch an official sweepstakes or promotion, which requires spending at least $10,000 in advertising with the company.

We cover guideline restrictions, and what they mean for marketers at all levels, at greater length in the Facebook Marketing Bible.