The Facebook Journal

Showyoulike.it is a social and engaging application that helps Facebook users share everything they like the best with other members. The deal is pretty simple: by sharing everything he likes, any Facebook user can see what everyone else likes. It is totally free, secure and works in total respect of the privacy.

It is a great way to keep up with the most popular music, movies, people, places and much more according to the number of likes a particular item has received. From there, anyone can easily monitor the trends, spot a rising star, the next buzz or predict the result of an election.

Additionally, signing up for a free account gives a personalized and attractive page made of Facebook favorites.

There are several ways to use the site. First of all, it is an easy way to complete your ´Facebook likes´ section in your profile, if you have not yet. If you want to let your friends know what your favorite band is, what kind of fashion you are into, and what kind of sports you like to play, you can quickly complete your profile with Showyoulike.it. If you already have your profile set up the way you want it, Showyoulike.it becomes your own personalized page with all of your favorite things online.

Although everybody can use it, Showyoulike.it was also devised for bloggers, journalist, musicians, stylist or anyone looking for extended public exposure. They can post the link to their site, their blog, their About.me profile or anywhere else they want, using it to let anyone on the Web know all there is to know about their tastes. One of the great features about this is that all members of the community will have the opportunity to like these wannabe figures and to follow the things they like.

When he first signs up, the user can choose to make his profile public or private. Opting for a public profile will give him the opportunity to become an influencer; users will have the opportunity to like him and to follow what he likes. However, with a private profile, nobody can like you and only your friends can follow what you like.

Showyoulike.it also shows which Facebook friends have similar tastes. Their profile pictures will appear on any given item when open it and they will also be listed on your own personal profile.

But the best part is probably the drill down effects of item affinity when someone hits the details page on a specific like box. Anyone can look into the liker´s profiles. Note that this feature will only come to life if a member´s profile is public. It can then be viewed, regardless of whether they are Facebook friends or not.

One can also see how the information differs depending on various filters. It is possible to filter the data by gender, age, and language, and as more people begin to use the site, it becomes a pretty interesting reflection of what Facebook users are into. Another way to use the application is simply to look for which kind of place is liked the best in London for those who are in their 20s, in NYC for those who are in their 30s or in Paris.

Of course, Showyoulike.it´s data is limited only to the likes of users who have connected their accounts. The more people join, the more data based on Facebook likes will be publicly available through the site. So far, within a few days, Show you like it already counts 300.000 profiles, 7 million likes and 1.7 million objects with an average time spent on the site of 4 minutes.

There were a lot of rumours yesterday about this morning’s Facebook announcement but none of them were really spot on.

Facebook announced 3 major things this morning:

1. Download Your Information

2. Dashboard for Connected Apps

3. New Groups

Some sources still say that this is just phase one of their “Lockdown” and there’s more to come soon. We’ll just have to wait and see.

From The Telegraph to TechChrunch to your Facebook news stream. The rumours are spreading. Fast.
According to some reports, Facebook has been in a “Lockdown”, working 24/7 on something secret. These rumours started a couple of months ago when Digg founder Kevin Rose tweeted about rumours that Google is working on a social network to challenge Facebook called Google Me. The tweet has been taken down, video below.

The speculations that Facebook is planning something big caught the attention of the masses when Facebook started sending out the invitations for the event which said that the event is starting 10am on Wednesday and that lunch will be served, meaning that the announcement will take quite some time..

Rumours started escalating, bloggers started predicting, Facebook said nothing.

The main 2 rumours are:
1. Facebook is revamping the chat, adding support for video calls via Skype deal.

2. Facebook has a new design.

The more uncommon ones are:
1. Facebook is going public
2. The launch of Facebook Questions
3. Facebook phone
4. Facebook Photos

Below is a video of Kevin Rose talking about Google Me

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TechCrunch is reporting today that Facebook has been on “Lockdown” for the past couple of months working on a major redesign.

The event scheduled for tomorrow and multiple reports of the said “Lockdown” appearing in the press from different sources means that they’ll be unavailing something big tomorrow. Some sources even say that it can be a video-calling feature added to their chat service (powered by Skype). In fact, some users are already seeing a revamped chat window moved over to the left

When Facebook began, it was viewed as a place for college students to keep in touch with their friends and share the highlights of their lives. It was not a company that was created to go viral but the concept was such a great idea it went viral and created a company. The concept of a social network was literally being defined at the same time it was growing. Although MySpace was the first social network on the scene, it lacked the ability to retain users, keep professionals interested, and create viable revenue streams to bring the company into the black. MySpace also received a lot of negative press that hurt the brand, although they have been able to keep some users based on their music and band profiles. How did Facebook rise so quickly and change the game?

Facebook executives strategized about ways to sustain their brand, market to all ages, and create lasting revenue streams. The Facebook founders realized the tremendous growth in users could warrant great revenue if they could figure out a way to capitalize on it. Facebook’s first strategy was to offer advertising opportunities to reach their nearly 500 million users. Facebook’s second strategy redefined the industry and created several companies in the process. What was their second strategy? They realized that the amount of time an individual was on the social network created more opportunities to market to them. Facebook launched games on the platform.

Games were not a new concept on the internet, but Facebook tied games into the interaction of their users. This marked the birth of the social network game. Many companies started to capitalize on this concept. In the process, these companies created another level of monetization by offering certain gifts and prizes in the games for a small fee (virtual goods) and offering special features in the game for a price (virtual currency). The ability for an individual to send a virtual gift and tell everyone about it became enticing.

There are several companies that have created game products to provide entertainment to the Facebook community while capitalizing on Facebook’s strategy. Zynga is known for Mafia Wars and Farmville and you have Playdom, Mindjolt , RockYou! and Pogo, etc. which provide games on the platform, but the “new kid” on the block is the one that has sparked my interest. Strategic Design Network, based in Austin, has created a game portal on Facebook that will likely provide the best example of how to use the platform to the fullest. They have produced an application called Game Toyz Arcade on Facebook that has really taken the concept of games on Facebook to the next level by integrating tournaments for cash and prizes. They have also managed to integrate their own proprietary tournament management API called Pay Out Hub.

Game Toyz is a flash game portal that offers two types of tournaments. They have coin tournaments that players can join right from within the application and cash tournaments. What is unique is the entry fee for the coin tournaments comes right from the player’s winnings in the game. They can also challenge their friends and wager a certain number of coins to increase their total coin count. All of the tournaments are based on skill and provide the best way for individuals to interact with their friends on Facebook while also enjoying game play. In addition, players can post high scores, challenges and winnings to their Facebook feed. Coins can be redeemed for actual prizes like gift cards to iTunes and Amazon. Game Toyz Arcade also offers their daily lottery game and the daily treasure map. You get a certain number of tries to win additional coins or prizes immediately. If you have run out of coins, you can purchase more simply using your paypal account.

The Pay Out Hub integration is what will solidify Game Toyz Arcade as one of the “new kids” that will have staying power. Pay Out Hub provides an API that integrates with casual and social games to host tournaments. Individuals can register on the site and join cash tournaments from the PayOutHub.com website that will take them directly to the Game Toyz Arcade interface. This is a seamless process and it provides a secure way for individuals to participate and receive their cash rewards if they win the tournament.

Several companies are creating and have created great business models based on Facebook’s strategy and I believe that Strategic Design Network is one of the companies to watch. Zynga, Mindjolt, etc. have already created have already created a presence on the platform, but in some ways have taken for granted their popularity by releasing average new products. Game Toyz Arcade has unlimited potential just like Mafia Wars and Farmville did when no one really knew who they were. The difference is this company has paid attention to detail and released something that is unique instead of more of the same. This is an application and a company to watch! As the trend to provide games on Facebook continues, everyone will be playing games!

Graph It! is a neat little application that will help you see your statuses in a totally different light.

In one click, get to see your most used words in a nice 2D cloud, so nice that some happy users have actually used it as their profile picture! It actually reveals a lot about yourself, may be even in a psychanalitic way, LOL!

You can also see your words in 3D too, thanks to the WordPress plugin. And finally you can get some insights on your statuses statistics, such as what time of the day do you post the most?!

And… actually the best part, is that you can do all that with your friends statuses too!

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The biggest Heart Game on Facebook!!! More than 2000 amazing hearts!

Give your friends some love, share hearts with them and get points !

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As described in an official blog post from Facebook, you can now put an “Add Profile Tab” button in your application or site to prompt users to add your application tab to their profiles for easy re-engagement. All implementations using the JavaScript API can call FB.Connect.showProfileTabDialog or use the fb:add-profile-tab XFBML tag to render the button, while FBML applications can call Facebook.showProfileTabDialog or use the fb:add-profile-tab FBML tag to render it.

Using the JavaScript API for Connect

FB.Connect.showProfileTabDialog(callback);

This method renders an Add Profile Tab button on your canvas or Web page, enabling the user to add your application tab to his or her profile.

If the user already added your application tab, the button doesn’t appear.

You can determine if a user added your application tab by querying the tab_added field in the permissions FQL table.

The optional Callback function can be used to execute after this call completes. It takes one argument, which is a JavaScript object. The object has one key, tab_added, the value for which is 1 or 0.

Using an XFBML tag

<fb:add-profile-tab />

or, if you’re using Connect

<fb:add-profile-tab></fb:add-profile-tab>

Renders a button that lets a user add your application or site’s application tab to his or her profile. Make sure you specify a Tab Name and a Tab URL in your application settings (on the Profiles tab).

If the user already added your application tab, the button doesn’t appear.

You can determine if a user added your application tab by querying the tab_added field in the permissions FQL table.

In a recent blog post Facebook encouraged users to be trustworthy and to create great user experiences.

The deadline for enforcement of the new Facebook Developer Principles and Policies has passed and now all the application developers that violate those rules will be punished. The actions taken against the apps will range from simple warnings, suspension of certain functionality to the outright disablement of the app according to the “severity” of the violation, the developer’s history of compliance and the impact of the violation on the users of the application.

These new changes to the Developer Principles and Policies will slow down the growth of new applications significantly. The auto pop-up permission requests, bookmark reminders will be considered as violations. The stream stories can no longer be used as methods for users to invite friends to the applications and soon Facebook will disable all the viral channels of communication (notifications, requests) and leave developers with only the dashboard counters and the Inbox.

Added to this, as outlined in the Facebook Developer Roadmap, Developers will be able to obtain the users’ primary email addresses and the formatting of the canvas will change to better outline the brand of the application. To me this looks like Facebook is slowly “pushing away” the applications from Facebook.com to better highlight that they are the creations of third party developers, not Facebook itself.