The precursor of today’s ticker on Facebook might disappear, possibly replaced by aggregated news feed posts grouped by friends or application. Read the rest of this entry »

With news feed updates poised to surge as users enable new open graph actions, Facebook has begun grouping together activities within the same application.

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In today’s economy, businesses big and small are squeezing a dollar, but there is a way to market large while spending small.

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Brace yourself for the wave of complaints that will surely come: As previously announced, Facebook began to add sponsored stories to users’ news feeds Tuesday.

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Facebook announced last month that it would test game stories on its mobile platform, but the screen shot below hints that the social network may have extended its testing.

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Photo-sharing service Instagram is now enabling Facebook users to view the big picture, announcing that its photos shared via the social network will appear in users’ news feeds at full sizes.

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Facebook’s new timeline profile took about six months to build, from the initial infrastructure-review meeting to successfully turning on the 100 percent back-end load test.

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Sponsored stories in both the news feeds and tickers of some Facebook users are starting to move beyond the like and adding new calls to action.

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Facebook is getting serious about its games, announcing category updates, more bookmarks, a combined dashboard for applications and games, and testing game stories on its mobile platform.

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Facebook’s sponsored stories advertisements will start appearing in the news feed beginning next month.

These promotions that refrain users’ engagement with a brand until recently appeared only in modules specifically designated for advertisements.

This fall, Facebook started moving sponsored stories through the ticker, and so far, labeling appears to have prevented people from confusing the promotions with activities generated by friends.

Ben and Jerry’s has signed up to become the first advertiser to run sponsored stories in people’s news feeds starting next month.

The introduction of sponsored stories in the news feed next month will mark the first time Facebook has incorporated advertisements in this space since 2007 — that was Beacon, which had backfired for reasons of privacy.

Some might argue that many of the same privacy problems besetting Beacon are creeping back to the site, just in time to cause problems for sponsored stories joining the main news feed.

However, our peer blog Inside Facebook says it expects that sponsored stories in the main news feed ought to enjoy strong clickthrough rates by virtue of more targeted placement among viewers receptive to the content.

Already sponsored stories have demonstrated clickthrough rates 46 percent higher than all other types of ads on Facebook, amounting to the most cost effective form of promotion on the social network.

Facebook currently offers seven different variations on sponsored stories, although the ones that refrain likes have been the most popular sp far.

Readers, how do you think sponsored stories will fare in the main news feeds on Facebook?