We’ve been delayed in posting our weekly round up of Facebook news as I’ve been out of commission for the entire weekend. We have our weekly video though and given that there were at least a few interesting stories last week, I thought I would briefly highlight them. While there weren’t any major announcements, there were a few important updates.

Facebook now running on over 30,000 servers

Earlier in the week a Data Knowledge Center article covered statements by Facebook during which the company stated that they are now running over 30,000 servers. While not as many servers as some large hosting companies, it’s a massive number. With over 300 million users, that equates to approximately 10,000 users per server and growing daily.

Facebook testing out new groups layout

For a few hours last week a new groups layout showed up for a number of users including myself. However Facebook has since reverted back to the original layout. While the company regularly tests new designs, we think this shift is inevitable. While many readers posted comments stating that that groups are an important product, we’ve suggested that groups and pages should gradually merge together.

Facebook launches create application API

One official release from Facebook was the release of the new “Create Application API” which enables developers to automate the process of application creation for users. The service also makes it easier for users to block the parent application. For example, pretend there is a quiz application which enables users to create their own quizzes. Rather than blocking each quiz which shows up in your feed, you’ll be able to block the “Quiz Creator” application.

Facebook Payments And Gifts Show Up In Developer Library

Last week, one of our readers noticed that Facebook gifts and payments were now part of the PHP Facebook developer library. I took a look and noticed the new methods for the first time. While Facebook told us that the alpha methods have been in the library for a couple months, this was the first time we’ve heard of them. It will be interesting to see if Facebook makes a more significant push toward releasing this for all developers over the coming weeks and months.

Facebook Returns For 150,000 Users

Finally, there were approximately 150,000 users who had been unable to access Facebook for a week. Thankfully Facebook finally restored the site for those users with little data loss as a result. While a number of users are still commenting on our post to say that the site is still down for them, there are far less users that aren’t able to access the site. It was the first time we’ve seen such a widespread issue for Facebook users and hopefully it won’t happen again!