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Facebook News is Making Me Weary

Every time Facebook does the tiniest thing it affects a gazillion people. That’s reality. So every time Facebook does the tiniest thing, it is a news event. The latest news is they released an iPad app.

I’ve had a Facebook app on my iPhone for some time, so I didn’t realize there wasn’t one available for iPad. (I know, how can I not have an iPad. . .) Why is it even needed on an iPad, where you can use a browser to view Facebook just like you would on a full-sized computer?

But that’s not the point. The point is, I’m tired of hearing about Facebook every day or two. I’m weary of constantly figuring out what to do about Facebook changes. I’m sick of talking about Facebook all the time. Facebook is like election year politics – too much with us.

Useful links: Open Graph++, Content Prototype, Justin Bieber, Testing, CSS transitions

Why Facebook’s New Open Graph Makes us all part of the Web Underclass by Adrian Short is a powerful opinion piece and well worth reading.

The Semantic Social Web talks about how Facebook’s Open Graph is going to change things in a big way – the semantic web is involved.

Content Prototyping in Responsive Web Design. Very interesting article at Smashing Magazine.

Speaking of content, here’s how Justin Bieber became a star using content strategy.

Testing Web Content for Screen Readers without a Screen Reader. Must reading!

Broken or Jumpy CSS Transitions? will help you make your transitions smooth.

Facebook will give away ad money to small businesses

Facebook announced that small business will receive $10 million worth of free advertising on Facebook. The Facebook Small Business Boost program will give $50 worth of free advertising on Facebook to 200,000 small businesses. The program begins in January 2012.

The program is a joint project of Facebook, the National Federation of Independent Business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to the Facebook announcement, it’s more than just the money – a good thing, because frankly, I don’t see how a mere $50 would be very tempting. The program also involves access to free resources and information on how to use Facebook to grow a business, live webinars, and a traveling roadshow to connect with small businesses.

According to ReadWriteWeb,

This signals a push by Facebook to steer small businesses towards using social as their main advertising category. It also indicates that Facebook is ready to use changes to how Facebook operates to bulk up advertising inventory and its revenue streams.

Sarah Perez at TechCrunch put it in similar terms. She said,

Of course, Facebook is clearly helping itself here, too, hoping to incentivize business owners to move more of their advertising dollars away from search engines like Google and into Facebook’s own network. That said, with Facebook’s now 800 million active users, it’s not exactly a bad move for small business owners to become more educated on how to use the network’s tools to connect with their customers.

At Work at Home Blog, omris writes,

While the benefits of small businesses are pretty obvious, you might ask yourself what is it for Facebook?

First, by providing free ad credits Facebook intend to allure small business owners to allocate more marketing funds to its own advertising platform. Second, by releasing online resources so small businesses will optimize their Facebook pages and such, it serves both parties. Third, cross-country roadshows is a great marketing and advertising concept for Facebook itself.

Facebook urges business owners to get started by creating a free Facebook Page for their business. However the new ad giveaway program will provide display ads rather than interaction with customers via a business’ page.

If you already have a Page for your business, you may have noted that recent changes to Pages mean that people no longer have to Like your page to leave a comment on it. Not having to Like a page, means that the steam from your page isn’t appearing on the wall of people who may want to interact with your brand. Facebook’s solution is for you to use display ads to reach out.

As of yet, there’s no information on where and how to apply to qualify for the free advertising dollars. Keep an eye on Facebook Marketing Solutions for announcements.

I’m wondering how many small business owners will find it worth their time to go through the application process for a potential $50 worth of ads. Access to the resources and information provided in the roadshow might be more worth the effort. Are you a small business owner? Are you interested?

Facebook changes everything, one more time

Two big change announcements from Facebook recently. There are so many blog posts explaining it all, I thought a resource list post was in order.

Subscriptions, timelines, music, movies, email, friend lists, photo albums, public and private posts, chat. Facebook’s genius is in being all things at once and adapting to meet or beat the competition with great speed. The site is edging toward a billion users. Sometimes I think that if everyone made Facebook their home page, they would never need another web site. It’s an uncomfortable feeling.

Gamify Trash? Trash Tycoon Does That.

In what has been called the decade of games, in an era when Jane McGonigal is a thought leader, developers are rushing to find ways to gamify education and social problems. Wikipedia defines gamification as “as the integration of game mechanics or game dynamics into a website, service, community, campaign, or application in order to drive participation and engagement.”

There’s a new game at Facebook called Trash Tycoon that gamifies trash and recycling. It combines most of my key hot buttons – technology, education, and environmental responsibility – into a game. It’s made by social gaming startup Guerillapps and sponsored by upcycling company TerraCycle.

In describing the game at Tree Hugger, the Trash Tycoon team wrote,

Trash Tycoon is based around upcycling a variety of collectible trash resources into new productions and decorations, all in the name of restoring your city. The player starts out in a desolate, waste-dump of a town. Over time they can clean and upgrade buildings, collect trash, and recycle it into various products in order to complete goals and increase the greenness level of their city.

You can also cooperate with others to achieve these goals more efficiently! Players can help clean up other players cities, speed up the production of upcycled goods, and even chat and interact in real time. We also have programs with groups like CarbonFund.orgso that every-time you purchase anything in the game, 10% gets donated to the carbon offset project of your choice!

According to Earth 911, the game offers players a chance to make a real environmental impact. There are the already mentioned carbon offsets, but also,

Trash Tycoon will award special bonuses and gifts to players who upcycle in real life by participating in a TerraCycle Brigade.

At scribbal, they suggest you give the game a try and link to the Facebook app.

The fact that actions you carry out in real life, particularly actions that will help create a sustainable future for the planet, will have an in-game impact makes this a game worth checking out. Incentivizing players to participate in TerraCycle’s recycling programs by offering in-game rewards could help boost recycling levels and increase awareness of sustainability environmental issues.

You can check out “Trash Tycoon” for yourself by installing the game on Facebook.

I’m interested in any game that holds the potential to educate and create social good while giving players incentives and rewards for playing along, learning, and doing good. I hope this game will be a success. Do you plan to play?

Cross posted at BlogHer.

Google+ makes a lot of ripples

Google+ has been more popular as a topic of discussion this week than cute cat tricks. And that’s saying a lot. Most people are writing enthusiastic blog posts about how much they like Google+. See Bloggers React to Google Plus. A few folks are trying to point out the good and the bad.

And, of course, there has been a lot of talk about what this means to Facebook: Facebook Announces Video Calling, Why Mark Zuckerberg’s First Public Response to Google+ is the Right One, and many more.

I’m drawn to the parts of the story that are getting less attention right now. EXCLUSIVE: Google To Retire Blogger & Picasa Brands in Google+ Push being one. Blogger will be rebranded Google Blogs and Picasa will be rebranded Google Photos, according to Mashable. This brings Google’s blogging and the photo sharing services under Google+ social media control.

Mashable also reports that Google To Retire Private Google+ Profiles On July 31. Or as The Register puts it, Google: Go public on Profiles or we’ll delete you.

This prompted Shelley Powers to tweet:

This is so unsurprising of Google http://t.co/prG1Ogc – make your profiles public or they’ll get deleted. And why expose a person’s gender?Thu Jul 07 15:29:56 via webShelley Powers
shelleypowers

The initial reaction of many bloggers was that they like Google+ Circles because it allowed more privacy choices than Facebook. But having your Google profile made public whether you want it that way or not isn’t in keeping with that early reaction. Granted, most people have a public profile already, but some do not.

Shelley’s comment about gender was interesting too. We had a bit of back and forth about that on Twitter. @epersonae joined in to say that “other” was an option on gender in a Google Profile.

@shelleypowers @vdebolt @Oakwright went & checked; yes, “other” is an option. (wish it were free-form box like on @mefi!)Thu Jul 07 15:42:26 via webElaine Nelson
epersonae

The gender issue may not interest you, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while: Have you thought about the gender choices on web forms? The mere fact that all-powerful Google includes ‘other’ as a gender option could have far-reaching implications in the world outside Google.

Developers are busy responding to Google+ with browser add-ons. Google has changed the Google bar. Google+ apps may proliferate the way Twitter apps have.

The point I’m trying to make is that something as significant as Google+ carries with it many ripple effects. Right now, people just want to get an invitation so they can try it out. But what will it mean in 6 months or a year? That’s what I’m wondering.

Useful links: Facebook app, Mac malware, iOS 5 rumors, Wells Fargo settlement

Turn your Facebook profile into a virtual museum. Might be a good way to take a look at what you’re sharing and whether it’s really what you want to be sharing.

Mac OS update against Mac Defender.

Twitter Getting Photos in Order Ahead of iOS 5 Integration. Just a few days until Apple announces what’s up with iOS 5, and these rumors are among the most interesting I’ve seen.

Wells Fargo will pay $16 Million to users who experienced accessibility issues with their phone and website services.