Archives: June 2008

Facebook opened up their site to everyone back in 2006. For users that were 17 and under, the site required some sort of verification though for security purposes. Unfortunately there was no verification method for home schoolers. A group formed on the site that petitioned Facebook to let in home schoolers. The two groups amounted to less than 8,000 users but it was still sufficient enough to drive change.

According to Christina Holsberry of Facebook, “We’ve been working on ways to solve this—we want minors to use Facebook safely above all. Today, we’re happy to announce that we’ve recently come up with a way for homeschoolers to join. We’ve created a new verification system—one that doesn’t depend on being in a high school, but still provides the level of security we believe is required. So welcome, everyone, to Facebook.”

Thankfully Facebook is now opened to pretty much anybody. I’m not sure how this will contribute to the overall growth of the site but it’s great to see that Facebook is at least paying attention to all of its users. Perhaps Facebook will serve as a way to connect a group of previously disconnected homeschool students.

Want to launch a new line of cleaning products that are targeted at janitorial professionals? Perhaps you’d like to offer consulting services to company executives. Facebook has quietly begun targeting ads based on the job title that users enter into their profile. Whether you are a sales associate or the founder of a startup, Facebook’s SocialAds can now pick out exactly what you do. If you’ve noticed Facebook’s ads improving, this could be one of the reasons.

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed highly targeted ads that have used my age, gender and frequently profession to determine what to display. One ad, pictured above, was for a bug reporting software. While I don’t do as much web development as I used to, the ad was able to check out that I was once a web developer and as such decided to display the ad to me. Historically, Facebook’s ads have been horribly targeted but over the past few weeks it appears as though things may be getting a little better.

Rob Webb sent me an email last night notifying me of the recent change. I took a look and sure enough I could now begin targeting my advertisements based on user job titles (as pictured below). This is a great step forward for Facebook am hopefully the advertisements on the site will continue to improve.

Facebook just announced that they will be rolling out new metrics for applications. The new metrics that are being tracked include the number of canvas page views, number of API calls, number of active users for the past week and month and the average render times of pages. Facebook also confirmed in their post that the new profile designs will be pushed live in July.

The new metrics will not be publicly accessible currently. Instead they will be limited for developers to access via the Facebook developer application. In their post Facebook suggests that these statistics may be available via new locations in the coming future. They didn’t specify where the statistics will be accessible though. This post appears to be a confirmation that the new Facebook profile is on track to be rolled out shortly.

You can read more about the new updates on the post by Pete Bratach.

Facebook definitely went down this morning which is a rare occasion for the fast growing social network. Each minute the site is down, the company loses close to 200 new users. The site went down for at least a few minutes. Here are the 10 reasons we came up with that the site went down:

1. What no whale? – Twitter always comes up with an image that shows whales and birds. Plurk uses an image of the A-Team with Mr. T. Displaying a catchy image has become a standard for the industry but not even Facebook has one. I guess they expect total uptime.
2. Trying a new minimalist design – Their friends at Twitter suggested a new minimalist design. Apparently “down is the new black.”
3. It’s not really down … Zuckerberg just saw what YOU wrote about him and he’s blocking you…
4. Facebook tried to add @ replies to status updates the same way Twitter does. FAIL!
5. The poke war of 2008 came to a climax and exploded Facebook’s servers.
6. U.S. Airways baggage employees stole the front page while flying through Philadelphia.
7. The servers went down because we had nothing else to write about!
8. Facebook wanted to give people something to write about because they hadn’t been getting enough press recently.
9. Twitter acquired Facebook and transferred them to their servers.
10. You typed the wrong URL

Sports fans are some of the most avid users of social networks. They use sites to connect with fellow fans, share favorite sports moments with friends and participate in games that challenge the minds of the most fanatical sports hobbyists. After playing the one of the Facebook basketball games earlier today, I realized that there wasn’t a thorough guide to the best sports applications and most active sports pages on Facebook. As such, I’ve worked to create the following guide.

Top Sports Applications on Facebook
Premier Football – The Premier Football application is as close as it comes to a real “Fantasy Football” application. This isn’t NFL Football though, this is soccer. Given that the European Cup is going on right now, this application has been amazingly active over the past few days with over 120,000 daily active daily visitors making it the 43rd most popular application on Facebook. The main twist to this game? You play with your own friends as players, not real soccer players. The application then uses a top of the line simulation engine to challenge your team versus your friends’. I highly recommend checking out the Premier Football application.

Pool – I’ve played some pretty horrible pool games online and this one has to rank among them. The Facebook pool application has to have some of the worst design I have ever seen but for some reason it is highly addictive. Perhaps the reason this application has become so popular is that there are no alternatives. As of yet I have not been able to figure out how to put english on the pool cue but apparently that doesn’t matter. Over 15,000 people are playing this game daily and there are now numerous leagues set up within this application. If you are a fan of Pool go grab the Pool application or program a better application yourself!

Wrestler – Who doesn’t enjoy giving their friend a nice clothesline to the throat? I definitely do! This game is turn based and takes a significant amount of time. Why are there close to 35,000 people playing this game every day? Well, it’s probably because this application doesn’t give you anybody to challenge when you start off the game. Instead you need to invite your friends in turn forcing them to install the application if you want to play them. This is an old style of driving traffic and not encouraged but for those wrestling fans, all the trouble may be worth it. Personally, I get a little bit of pleasure knowing that I’ve body slammed one of my friends. If you want that same pleasure check out the Wrestler application.

Rockstar Cars – Yo, you should throw some Ds on that. If you didn’t know what throwing Ds on a car means, it’s about the rims. That’s why the developers of Rockstar Cars made an application where you can flaunt what you got. Unfortunately you start off with a beat up Mazda Bongo Friendee Van but if you play enough, you can eventually gain a Ferrari or a number of other luxury vehicles. So drop that van and race your friends on the Rockstar Cars application.

2008 Brackets – It goes without saying that one of the most popular activities on Facebook each year is the March Madness brackets. Year after year we try to pick which team is going to win and year after year, I get it wrong. The most frequently used March Madness application on Facebook is the CBS Sports application but for the first time ever, there were alternatives to the official Facebook March Madness application. The team over at Watercooler developed a pretty slick application this year and I recommend checking it out.

TWENTY20 Cricket – Cricket fans are among the most fanatical fans in the world. Thats why the TWENTY20 Cricket application has been an instant success since it’s launch. While I’d guess that there was also an ad campaign driving the new users to this application, this is the most active Cricket application on Facebook with no others coming close. Just like the Premier Football application that I included above, you use your friends as players rather than the actual Cricket stars. Unfortunately I have no idea how to play the game but if you do, I’m sure you’ll enjoy the TWENTY20 Cricket application.

Most Active Sports Fan Pages
Europeans apparently dominate Facebook sports fan pages. 6 out of the top 10 are all European teams. Also of particular interest is that compared to the largest Facebook pages which have anywhere from 150,000 users to 1 million users, sports fan pages tend to have substantially less. That may because Facebook users are not as big on sports or perhaps most people are not aware of the available fan pages. Whatever the case, here are the most popular sports fan pages on Facebook.

Liverpool – The Liverpool football team has the most popular sports fan page on Facebook with just under 52,000 fans. The fan page also has a number of videos from the football star Fernando Torres. While the team is based in the U.K., the majority of the fans appear to be based outside of England in other countries including Spain and Turkey. If you are a Liverpool fan, go check out the Liverpool fan page.

Canadiens de Montreal – The Montreal Canadiens’ hockey team have the second largest fan page with almost 45,000 fans. In this case the page has many more fans based from within the country and the fan page has a lot more content with a listing of all their Stanley Cup championship years, news stories, photos, events, videos and a fair amount of discussion. If you are a fan of the Montreal Canadiens, go join their Facebook page.

Cristiano Ronaldo – Cristiano Ronaldo is a superstar for Manchester United, one of the most popular football teams in Europe. The fan page for Ronaldo and AC Milan both have approximately 26,500 fans each. This page has a number of videos of amazing shots by Cristiano Ronaldo. If you are a fan, check out his page.

AC Milan – Another European football team with a lot of fans. 26,087 to be exact. Just like the other fan pages, there are photos, videos and a discussion board. Given that Milan is in Italy, there is a lot of Italian conversation on the fan page that I can’t understand. If you can understand Italian and are an AC Milan fan, check out the AC Milan fan page.

Los Angeles Lakers – The first American team to make the charts is the Los Angeles Lakers. It seems like such a standard team to be a fan of but hey, if you are into the standard way of doing things, you should be a Lakers fan The page includes videos, photos and discussion boards but not much discussion appears to be taking place on the page. While I’m betting on the Celtics, Kobe Bryant isn’t a star for no reason. If you are a Lakers fan, check out the LA Lakers page.

Greece Football – I went to Greece the year they won the European cup. I can tell you that these guys are football fanatics. It’s no wonder that they have one of the most active sports fan pages on Facebook. Greece is also a great country to travel to no matter how good their soccer team is. If you are a fan of the Greek football team, check out the Hellas National Football Team fan page.

Manchester United – Manchester United is probably one of the most popular football teams in the world. Their manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, has the most trophies of any manager in the team’s history. They have a history of successes and that’s probably why they have so many fans, just like the Lakers. While the page mistakenly says that the team is from Saudi Arabia, it is still the official team page. If you are a Manchester United fan, check out their fan page.

FC Barcelona – FC Barcelona is home to the infamous Ronaldihno, one of the top media darlings in professional football currently. He is a top player and is known for some of his more flashy moves. This team has fans from around the world and with a player like Ronaldihno it’s no wonder. If you are one of the many FC Barcelona fans check out the FC Barcelona fan page.

Chelsea – If you didn’t have enough European football teams, here’s another popular one. While the fan page has over 18,000 users, there doesn’t appear to be much activity on this page. That appears to be a consistent trend with most Facebook pages but for this one at least there is some content. The page has over 209 photos and that’s about all the media on this page. If you are a fan of Chelsea football, check out the Chelsea fan page.

Al Ahly – I had never heard of Al Ahly but they have a highly active fan base. Al Ahly is the Egyptian football team and their fan page has over 18,000 users. Most of the text on the fan page is in Arabic so unfortunately I have no idea what’s going on but their are plenty of videos, images, discussion boards and even a poll to keep you entertained. If you are big on Egyptian football, I recommend checking out the Al Ahly fan page.

Conclusion
While there is not as much sports activity on Facebook as there is on a site like ESPN, there are plenty of sports fans connecting. They are expressing themselves through various types of media and connecting with people that have similar interests in sports. It’s as simple as that. If you want to view the other sports fan pages, browse though them on Facebook. Be sure to also check out all of the Facebook sports applications in the application directory. Are there any other issues regarding sports on Facebook that you think should be included? Are there any applications that have been overlooked here?

This afternoon I got sucked into banging on my computer mouse trying to get a simple digital basketball into the hoop. It’s a simple concept but for some reason nobody else has built a good Facebook basketball game so far on the site. I’m not quite sure why nobody has made a Facebook basketball game but this one sucked me in for at least 45 minutes as I tried to continuously beat my own high score.

The Hot Shots game has been successful at attracting close to 56,000 players. The game accepts both single player and multi-player. Playing is easy. All you do is drag your mouse around and click on your mouse button. I’m not sure if there are any other Facebook basketball games but this is so far the best one that I’ve played. I’ve played a fair number of games on Facebook and I’d say this one is one of the simpler ones.

The multiplayer version of Hot Shots is turn based like most other games on Facebook. Unfortunately though when I tried playing the multiplayer version, it ended up reverting back to single player. While perhaps a little misleading, the game did appear to get the job done. I was playing it for almost an hour but chance are good that I won’t go back again. If you are looking to waste a little bit of time I highly recommend checking out Hot Shots Basketball.

Over the weekend Facebook made some changes to the new profile feeds that are currently working in the beta sandbox. The primary change revolves around the parsing of JavaScript in feed stories. Previously the token delimiters were { and }. That has changed so that JavaScript can function properly. The new token delimiters are {* and *}. This is a simple change but it provides developers with the ability to register more dynamic feed stories.

Facebook has also turned on a developer test console at http://www.new.facebook.com/devsite/tools.php. The test console lets developers try out various feed stories and see what they will look like. This is a pretty useful tool and one that I’m sure many developers will welcome. The new profile is expected to go live next month. The impact of the new profile on various applications is still being debated but it’s clear that Facebook would like the transition to be as seamless as possible.

Mike Arrington has published Comscore’s most recent numbers for Facebook’s traffic and last month Facebook attracted 115 million visitors. MySpace attracted the same amount. At least that’s what Comscore and Techcrunch are now reporting. How many users does Facebook say they have? Over 80 million. That means 35 million visitors to Facebook last month do not have accounts.

If you take a look at Alexa’s chart of Facebook versus MySpace traffic (as pictured below), Facebook had already surpassed MySpace in traffic. So what’s the real story behind these conflicting numbers? Well, one rationale is that Facebook is purposely understating their user statistics which would make a lot of sense.

Currently Facebook claims that they have around 80 million “active users” which means that they “returned to the site in the last 30 days.” The wording of that phrase could be misleading though. Theoretically there could be 80 million that returned and 35 million that registered last month alone. That seems a little ridiculous though. Given that Facebook is attracting at least 250,000 new users a day we know that at least 7.5 million people registered for the site last month alone.

That would leave another 27.5 million visiting the site via links around the web. This is definitely possible but if it’s true, that means that Facebook has a 21 percent conversion rate of new visitors into new users which is an impressive number. It also means that Facebook is now beginning to rely increasingly on search traffic to generate new users registrations. Whatever the case, Facebook continues to grow extremely fast and may now be the largest social network in the world.

Facebook recently began sharing a lot of the details about their engineering practices on the Facebook engineering blog. Today they made a really big announcement from the development perspective: their Thirft software framework has been accepted into the Apache incubator. The Thrift framework solves one core problem: enable efficient and reliable communication across programming languages. There are also some really slick features built into Thrift.

One of those features is the interface. Rather than selecting to use TCP/IP or a standard I/O protocol or any other protocol, they determined that “Thrift code only needs to know how to read and write data. The origin and destination of the data are irrelevant; it may be a socket, a segment of shared memory, or a file on the local disk.” There is apparently an abstracted layer that takes care of the transport interface.

The Thrift framework enables applications and components to speak with each other no matter what language they are in. Currently Thrift supports C++, Java, Python, Ruby and PHP but may potentially expand to other languages as well. At Facebook, Thrift has been implemented for search and logging purposes and implementations so far have proven the framework to be extremely scalable.

If you’d like more information check out the Thrift whitepaper and also regularly check out the Facebook engineering blog.

Last year Facebook held their first ever f8 event and it was a big one. That was the day that Facebook announced their platform. It was also the catalyst behind the social platform race that we are now witnessing. Today, Facebook announced the next f8 event. What will be announced at this event? Nobody knows for sure but there is a good chance that something will be announced about their e-commerce platform as well as Facebook Connect.

The event will take place Wednesday July 23rd in San Francisco. Currently no information has been posted as to the location and how to register but you can join the f8 fan page to check out any upcoming announcements. I’d imagine that Facebook clearly wanted to hold their event exactly one year after the previous event but there have been numerous rumors surrounding the delay of a number of their products including the e-commerce platform.

I am extremely enthusiastic about the upcoming event and will most definitely fly out to San Francisco to attend. Hope to see you there as well!