I’ve had two people contact me and say that their brand Pages have been eliminated by Facebook. My friend AJ Vaynerchuk had his Halo 3 page removed. He was then sent two alerts as posted below. Peter Corbett, an occasional contributor to this blog, has his Nintendo Wii group deleted. I had previously questioned what Facebook’s policy was for ensuring that Page owners were brand managers. Whatever their policy is, they have figured out which ones are fake.

If you have created a fake Page for the purpose of gaming the system you may want to delete it to avoid having your account suspended. I had spoken with a number of individuals who had created fake brand pages to try an see how large of a fan base they could build. Gaming the system can be used for spamming users. There are still other ways to spam users on Facebook but this post will not be a tutorial on how to spam Facebook users.

Have you created any fake brand pages? What do you plan on doing with them if you have? Also, if you have your own brand’s Facebook pages, have they been successful?

Page Violation Warning

Account Disabled Warning

Having an app “go viral” is the dream of every budding Facebook developer. Frustrated by the lack of interest in his existing suite of applications, one such developer is giving his putative user base one last chance. His latest app is a game whereby his users trick their friends into revealing which app ideas would launch him into the big league.

Amir Michail, creator of such well-meaning but long-winded gems as “what have my friends told everyone I’m good at” and “my friend said I’m like which fictional character”, hopes that Mindrosia will finally provide him with a selection of truly viral ideas - along with empirical evidence that users will be drawn in by them.

To play the game, a user must create or reuse a “deceptive notification message” that purports to come from a more useful application, then send it to a gullible friend in the hope that they will fall for the fictional application’s promises. The original user will receive a point if the message convinced the friend to sign up despite the deliberately obscure description provided on Mindrosia’s sign-up page; and a bonus point is awarded if the idea was theirs in the first place.

Responding to criticism that users are being fooled into adding his app, Amir counters that “people may accept some deception if it would lead to better apps” in the future. Of course, he’s right when he says users are tricking their friends rather than the app sending notifications without authority.

But Amir hints that he would be happy to drop this controversial method of idea-generation if only we could help make his other apps widely used.

In one discussion board post, he lists some of his existing apps then pleads for help: “can you see why they are not popular?”

Facebook has just announced that they will be increasing “the maximum number of emails that can be sent to each user … per day from 1 to 5.” This is a significant change for many applications. Previously, it has been somewhat challenging to keep users engaged in an application. That is less of an issue now that Facebook has raised the number of emails each application can send on a daily basis? Will this increase spam though?

In the short run I can see this increasing spam in our inboxes but Facebook has been historically aggressive on fighting spam. Applications are no exception. Now you can look forward to more emails notifying you that someone on Hot or Not thinks that you are cute or that someone has turned you into a Zombie. As someone that gets a lot of application notifications, I surely don’t need emails adding to the spamminess of Facebook.

For developers this update by Facebook is a godsend. Everytime someone gets poked, has something written on their wall, gets hit with a snowball, has someone view their profile, receives a gift or has anything else happen to them, they can now look forward to an email potentially. Do you think this change is a good thing or a bad thing?

A few weeks ago Facebook announced their new Pages service. Brands, bands, movies and other entities can build a page to promote their product or service. It’s a great system but there are only three ways to hear about it: through another friend, through a social ad or through search. While this is great for Facebook’s advertising network it really isn’t great for the users. With groups I can go browse through what’s popular in my network and popular with my friends.

So why doesn’t Facebook launch a Pages directory just as they have for applications? I understand that they want to generate revenue but while a pages directory will help pages attract more users, there will still be brands and individuals that invest heavily in advertising. If Facebook helps brands attract more customers for free, they will increase overall awareness of brand pages. Facebook may not need help promoting Pages though.

According to an interview with Chamath Palihapitiya Palihapitiya yesterday, businesses have already created over 250,000 pages. While businesses don’t appear to have trouble finding the new Pages service, general Facebook users are not necessarily signing up at a rapid pace. If you take a look at a number of pages, there are less than 500 fans on the average page. Compare that with Facebook applications and you will see a much higher rate of adoption.

The numbers are all speculation though. I have reached out to Facebook to get more details and am still awaiting a response. I think it would be extremely useful to be able to browse through each of the pages that have been created on Facebook. Do you think this would be useful? Would Facebook do this while risking a potential decrease in Social Ad sales?

According to Kara Swisher, Asian billionaire Li Ka-shing (not to be confused with Ka-Ching) has invested $60 million in Facebook.  According to the article, Providence Equity Partners and other investment groups have dropped out of negotiations due to crappy terms.  Apparently no investor gets a seat on the board, including Microsoft who recently invested $240 million for 1.6 percent of the company. 

Some had speculated that Facebook would no longer be able to close any investment rounds due to the extremely high valuation that Microsoft set. Apparently Facebook is an investment that only the richest of the rich are willing to make (or can afford to make). Li Ka-shing is the richest person in Asia and the 9th richest person in the world. So given that he’s a billionaire, $60 million is pocket change to him.

I love to site back and reflect on the days when $60 million was pocket change for me. It is doubtful that Facebook will be able to raise any more money in the near future given the caliber of investors that are currently investing. With over $500 million in cash, Facebook has enough leverage to make some major plays in the market. It will be interesting to see what comes next out of Facebook. Will their SocialAds grow in popularity? Will Beacon become a widely accepted shopping utility? Only time will tell!

One of the largest downfalls of Facebook applications was the inability to have them show up in the search engines. Why would I go produce content for a Facebook application when it won’t show up in the search engine? Obviously to get access to viral growth but search engine optimization (SEO) can produce ongoing traffic that is potentially greater. According to Om Malik, Facebook applications will soon be SEOable. Not only has newsfeed optimization become less relevant but this update could change the game completely.

Combined with Facebook’s great page rank, applications will have the ability to combine indexable content and viral growth by leveraging the social graph. Imagine the complex strategies that will be developed for this. As Eric Eldon of VentureBeat told me, “It’s a beautiful combination of app developers who game Facebook and SEO types who game Google.” I think Eric has hit the nail on the head and this change by Facebook will help keep developers building on the platform rather then turning away after their application fails at growing in the social graph.

With new opportunity comes new challenges as well. Facebook will need to be careful with balancing users’ privacy. Facebook has never been afraid of controversy though. Imagine an application where there is content from other users who don’t realize that their comments are being indexed. Suddenly something shows up in the search engines with their content and they weren’t expecting it to be displayed. Currently this is all speculation and Facebook may choose to add features that protect users.

Whatever Facebook decides to do, this will be a major change that will change the Facebook platform landscape. It’s a change that I welcome. What do you think the impact of these changes will be?

Yesterday, I covered an article in 02318 magazine that exposed more information about the ConnectU vs. Facebook legal battle. Vauhini Vara has written that “Facebook’s lawyers notified 02138, an independent magazine geared at Harvard alumni, of two separate emergency motions that would require the magazine to take down from its Web site several documents related to a legal battle against Facebook over the company’s origins.”

Excerpts of Mark Zuckerberg’s journal was published and some of the statements revealed are not too friendly. “I almost want to put some of these faces next to pictures of farm animals and have people vote on which is more attractive,” Zuckerberg stated in discussing some of the student’s picitures in the online directory. His harsh comments may have been a result of one too many drinks based on statements Zuckerberg made himself.

According to Vauhini Vara, a freelance reporter for 02318 was able to obtain a lot of the information through court documents provided to him by a clerk at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. Facebook wants the documents to be taken down to avoid the mud slinging that has taken place. Honestly, I think the damage has already been done and Facebook is now simply drawing more attention to the issue.

I can understand why Facebook would want these documents to be taken down though. The image portrayed by the 02318 article was not a good one. The magazine’s founder has stated that they have no intention of taking down the documents. The documents have now been cached by Google and are in public domain. I think Facebook is wasting their time on this one. Do you think Facebook should continue to fight to have the documents taken down?

Facebook has just announced that they will be updating their Beacon system. Stories will no longer be published “without a user proactively consenting.” According to Facebook here is how the Beacon changes work:

Stories about actions users take on external websites will continue to be presented to users at the top of their News Feed the next time they return to Facebook. These stories will now always be expanded on their home page so they can see and read them clearly.

Users must click on “OK” in a new initial notification on their Facebook home page before the first Beacon story is published to their friends from each participating site. We recognize that users need to clearly understand Beacon before they first have a story published, and we will continue to refine this approach to give users choice.

If a user does nothing with the initial notification on Facebook, it will hide after some duration without a story being published. When a user takes a future action on a Beacon site, it will reappear and display all the potential stories along with the opportunity to click “OK” to publish or click “remove” to not publish.

Users will have clear options in ongoing notifications to either delete or publish. No stories will be published if users navigate away from their home page. If they delay in making this decision, the notification will hide and they can make a decision at a later time.

Clicking the “Help” link next to the story will take users to a full tutorial that explains exactly how Beacon works, with screenshots showing each step in the process.

Facebook has also stated that they are making the notifications more visible. The fact that stories are no longer published by default is a great first step. For me this is almost the same as a global opt-out since your friends won’t automatically be notified. That means Facebook won’t be ruining Christmas (or Chanukah or any other holidays) for anybody. The main issue is that still remains is that they store your shopping data even if they don’t notify your friends.

This information is extremely valuable for helping them advertise to you. What really strikes me as odd is that other e-commerce providers would agree to this system since this information is extremely valuable to them. Ultimately, there is a lot of overall value gained for advertisers by this new system but it definitely has tested the limits of user privacy. Do you think these new changes are sufficient?

Update
To view more about Facebook Beacon, check out the Facebook Beacon FAQ over on the Facebook site.

Nick has written a lot about Beacon and seems keen on a global opt-out. That would help the user experience, but to the privacy campaigners the ability to turn it off is not crucial - having it turned on in the first place, without being properly notified, is what really riles them. And quite right too.

Some commentators have unhelpfully suggested that if you don’t want to use Beacon, just don’t use Facebook. That works… but in the arrogant aftermath of “there’s no opting out of advertising”, users weren’t given any warning to make a run for it.

If Facebook insists that the cost of using the service is full participation in Beacon, then that’s fine. But give us more than 40 seconds of screen-corner popup to make up our minds. Anyway - whoever heard of a form that disappears? You were always supposed to visit the bathroom while Overstock streams your credit card across the internet, but you can’t risk that anymore.

Are they afraid that users might not be interested in using it? Maybe so, and they should feel free to insist that their users participate. Just don’t blink after 40 seconds. Designing the system to trip users into it is unfriendly.

Now we know what Facebook want to charge users for their site, how should they go about collecting their dues? Ever pragmatic, might I suggest a possible user interface component, that Facebook could display when you visit the site following a Beaconed purchase:

I’d be clicking “Yes”, by the way. But thank you for asking.

Last week I pointed out that Facebook would soon be removing “Is” from their status updates. Well it appears as though that change has been a more significant undertaking then expected. Ari Steinberg, lead developer on the Facebook platform, posted a comment in Facebook’s bug system, “yeah, sorry about the confusion, this plan got kind of messed up and so currently the functionality isn’t enabled. we’ll post to the dev feed when it’s back up.”

The changes still haven’t been made and I have had a number of developers emailing me about issues they have had with their application’s access to the Facebook status. One of the developers has since updated the Facebook developer wiki. Is this really that big of an undertaking? I guess the real challenge for Facebook is making the “is” option rather than removing it completely.

I asked if “is” would soon become a throwback but the response was varied. Is “is” really news? Probably not but I definitely enjoy talking about it. Mike Arrington seems to agree that this isn’t news. Are you eager for Facebook to ditch the “is”?