Valentine’s Day, the joint venture between Hallmark and Satan, is fast approaching, bringing with it a flurry of Facebook applications.

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In celebration of Valentine’s Day, Facebook has released some interesting findings about how positive or negative people are, based on their profile relationship status. Since Sep 8, 2007, Facebook’s Data Scientists have been studying a user metric called the USA Gross National Happiness Index which was used in this latest analysis.
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Crowdsourcing online is nothing new. Every social voting site and its cousins crowdsource content moderation. You can also use the Internet to crowdsource advice, non-profit donations, movie funding, movie content, “flash mobs” (though that’s usually through text messaging) and more. Now, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, makers of Skittles candies, wants to crowdsource the digital equivalent of random acts of kindness. They’re trying to leverage Facebook’s huge user base to “cause some fun,” via their Mob the Rainbow Facebook application and campaign.
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We found out yesterday that Farmville players have sent out more than 220 million Valentine’s Day Virtual Gifts on Farmville in less than 18 hours. However, FarmVille Virtual gifts are not the only hot selling commodity on this Valentine Day. BrickHouse Security is reporting that the sales of their Stealth iBot Computer Monitor has increased by a whopping 242%.

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Whenever I discuss virtual goods and the Facebook revenue model with people outside the industry, the first thing they ask me is: do people actually care for virtual goods?  My answer is always the same: while the goods have no actual physical presence, their context on a social network means their value is social and emotional.  And if that doesn’t sell the point, I just point to Zynga.  Well, chock up another data node for my point of view: FarmVille players have already sent more valentines in 18 hours than all the 152 million Valentines Day cards exchanged all year according to Hallmark.
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How much do you love me? Enough to send a few Valentine’s gifts and greetings on Facebook? That’s good enough for me. Even though Facebook is heavily promoting its own gifting options for sending Valentine’s Day greetings to friends, there are a lot of other applications on Facebook’s platform that will let you in on some holiday fun. In case you’re among the last minute lovers, here are the top apps (based on daily growth) for Valentine’s Day.
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