Facebook announced Thursday that it is making the process of creating ads simpler and based more on objectives. The company feels that this will improve the experience not only for advertisers, but for users, as well. Users will see a more standard set of ads, and the controls given to advertisers will make it so that users see more relevant ads. Facebook detailed the company’s plans for advertising to groups of reporters in Menlo Park, Calif., and New York.
Vine has added sound and motion to the popular microblogging website, Twitter. Learn how to bring your information to life in our Vine webcast on Wednesday, June 19 from 4-5 pm ET. In this one-hour webcast, Gemma Craven (left), EVP, New York group director at Social@Ogilvy will discuss best practices for using the visual social platform and share some of her team's successful vine videos. Register here. 
Facebook signed a 10-year lease for 100,000 square feet at 770 Broadway in New York, nearly double its current space of 55,000 sq. ft. at 335 Madison Ave., The Wall Street Journal reported.
If you tend to like exercise- and activity-based Facebook pages, are you in shape? Conversely, do all of those likes of TV shows paint the picture of someone more obese? That’s what some researchers from Harvard University, Boston Children’s Hospital, and San Diego State University wanted to figure out. They took geographic data of Facebook likes, comparing them to obesity levels, finding that areas where more people liked TV shows on Facebook also tended to be areas with higher obesity rates.
The ax has begun to fall at troubled game developer Zynga again, as the company confirmed that it will lay off 18 percent of its workforce, lowering its pretax annualized cash expenses by $70 million to $80 million, and AllThingsD reported that Zynga is shuttering its offices in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas.
Facebook held three Facebook Mobile DevCon 2013 events in New York (April 18), London (May 2), and Seoul (May 7), and the social network is making slides from the various sessions and videos available for mobile developers who couldn’t make the events.
Sources said Facebook is looking at leasing the seventh and eighth floors of a building on Broadway in New York, but it’s unclear whether or not the company is expanding its New York office or moving to this locale. Crain’s New York Business noted that Facebook has been negotiating to lease 160,000 square feet in the building, which clothing retailer J. Crew also calls home.
Say you’re planning a big trip to New York. You want to get in touch with friends to go to a movie or a concert while you’re in the Big Apple, but can’t remember exactly which of your Facebook friends lives there. Ribbon, a recently launched iOS application, makes it easy to find friends in faraway cities.
Facebook dipped into the daytime TV ranks, as Liz Wasden, show publicist for “Katie,” Katie Couric’s syndicated talk show, announced via email that she will join the social network’s communications team in New York.
Facebook, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla, and the Family Online Safety Institute will team up on Project:Connect, an all-day hackathon in New York Thursday, May 9, aimed at developing social tools, applications, badges, and curriculum to aid younger Internet users in making more responsible choices.
Facebook used its Facebook Mobile DevCon 2013 event in New York Thursday to announce that 81 of the 100 top-grossing iOS applications, 70 of the 100 top-grossing Android apps, 82 of the 100 top-grossing iOS games, and 75 of the 100 top-grossing Android games are integrated with the social network, and to introduce three new mobile products: easier integration of Open Graph on mobile, an improved login with Facebook, and a new software-development kit for iOS.
