0 Facebook to Acquire Mobile App Developer Snaptu

Facebook spread its wings in yet another Mobile Platform . One of the popular social network has finally confirmed the acquisition of mobile platform app developer - Snaptu. Israel based Snaptu which develops apps for feature phones as well as smartphones disclosed the deal on its official blog. As part of the deal, Facebook will pay Snaptu about $60-$70 million and Snaptu would be working as part of Facebook team.

Snaptu develops applications for the feature phones - the phones which aren't smart but possess mobile Internet connectivity and allow installation of Java ME or BREW based apps. Facebook, along with Snaptu, had launched the new Facebook App for popular features phones that consisted of about 2,500 different models. 

Facebook service already has been visible with tighter integration inside the Android OS for INQ handsets and also HTC ChaCha as well as Salsa handsets. That's evidence enough to see how series Facebook is about intoxicating every user with the service.

With acquisition of Snaptu, we'll get to see the social network's deeper integration in feature phones as well. It won't be surprising to see Facebook centric features phones being launched by year end. In fact, the feature phones segment has large volume of users who don't wish to or can't spend a lot on a smartphone. It's not the first time Facebook has addressed the feature phone segment as earlier the company introduce the 0.facebook.com which was basically image-less version of the service. Let's hope this deal brings us better mobile web experience of the service. 

0 Facebook Keyboard sells for $30

As we all know that Facebook is one of the most popular social networks today. Android based INQ Cloudand HTC Chacha, Salsa phones come with a dedicated Facebook key. Several widgets and apps for Facebook have been developed already. Now, Social Keyboards has announced a brand new Social Network Access Keyboard that comes with 19 dedicated touch keys which are basically shortcuts for different Facebook functions.

Customized from the Dynex Mutlimedia Keyboard, the new SNAK allows all Facebook addicts to create an album, share photos, create invites and perform those functions quickly. The keyboard has 104 keys, connects via USB and supports Windows 7 operating system.

Here's a list of 19 hot keys that are located on the keyboard:
- Home - Takes you directly to www.Facebook.com
- Messages - Takes you directly to your Inbox
- Notifications - See what's new on your network
- Edit Profile - Quickly access and edit your profile
- Events - Find and create events swiftly
- Groups - Join new groups or edit existing groups
- Friends - View, Edit or Contact a full list of your current friends
- Phonebook - Find all of your friends' phone numbers instantly
- Help Center - Facbook's help center
- Account Settings - Quickly access all of your personal account settings
- Privacy Settings - Adjust who can view your profile
- Sleep - Instantly hide Facebook, putting your computer to sleep
- Photos - Access a full list of all current photos
- Upload Photos - Upload a photo directly with a click of a button
- Upload Videos - Upload a video directly with a click of a button
- Games - Mafia Wars, Farmville, Cafeville, etc.
- Links - Find all links posted by you and your friends
- Ads + Pages - Edit your Ads and Pages for your business or secondary page
- Facebook For Developers - Press this button if you are a developer or webmaster

The SNAK keyboard would retail through Socialkeyboards.

0 Facebook Page Redesign With Exciting New Look

Yesterday night Facebook launches a major redesign and expansion of functionality of its Pages for businesses, brands, media, and public figures. The Page layout will now match with the user profile redesign, with a left-hand navigation panel replacing the tabs above the wall. Page admins will also be able to login as their Page, giving them access to Facebook and email notifications about activity on their Page, and other options.

Page admins will begin seeing a preview and tour of the new features today, and will have the choice to voluntarily upgrade until March 1st when all Pages will be automatically migrated to the redesign.

New Layout

Users now navigate between a Page’s wall, info, and third-party tab applications using a panel of links on the left side of the Page beneath the profile picture. The panel permits longer tab names, though it still only shows six tabs above the fold. As tabs are no longer front-and-center, the redesign could reduce the frequency with which users visits tabs other than the default landing tab.
Similar to the redesigned user profile, Pages have a Photostrip above the wall that displays the latest photos the Page has tagged itself in. The profile picture is slightly reduced in size from 200 x 600 pixels to 180 x 540. The About blurb has moved from the wall tab to the info tab.

Users will see a mutual friends and interests panel on the top right displaying the friends who also Like the Page, and the Likes the user and the Page have in common. Pages will have the option to Like other Pages, not just favorite them, and feature “Page Owners”. Links and profile pics of these Likes and admins can be made visible below the navigation panel and reordered through the new “Featured” section of the Edit Page admin interface.
When Pages update, their default landing tab will be reset. Admins should be sure to reselect the tab they want visitors who haven’t Liked their Page to see first.

Relevant Posts Wall Filter

Page admins can select between an “Everyone” and a Page posts only default tab for the wall. Instead of showing a reverse chronological stream of posts, the Everyone tab showa users posts Facebook thinks will be the most relevant. Recent posts by friends, posts by other users in same language or country, and posts that have received a lot of Likes and comments will bubble to the top.

There is currently no way for redesigned Pages to use the old, unfiltered reverse-chronological stream of wall posts. Some admins are requesting it because it simplifies monitoring and moderation.

Admins Can “Use Facebook as Page”

Page admins can choose to “Use Facebook as Page” from the Account drop-down menu in the top right corner of Facebook. Admins will then see a special version of the site chrome where they can post and comment around the site under their Page’s alias. Since Pages can now Like other Pages, admins see a news feed of updates from Liked Pages.
The notifications drop-down in the top navigation bar shows the latest user posts and comments to the Page the admin is using. The friend request drop-down shows how many Likes their Page has received since the admin last used the site as their Page.
In response to frequent requests, Facebook admins can now turn on email notifications to alert them to activity on their Page through the “Your Settings” tab of the Edit Page admin interface. These emails could be overwhelming for popular Pages that receive thousands of posts and comments a day, but will certainly help smaller Pages stay attentive to their fan community.

Developers: No API Changes, but Tab Apps Can Now Use Iframes

The Page redesign does not affect the Page APIs, so developers don’t need to worry about their applications breaking. The expanded tab name space in the new navigation panel means developers can try using longer, more descriptive titles for when their application is installed as tab.

Some Pages and Places are experiencing a bug that causes the width of their tab applications to be smaller than it should be, cutting off the right edge of the app. Facebook is currently working to fix this.

An Upgrade, Not Just a Redesign

As users have grown familiar with the new profile over the last two months, it should be easy for them to acclimate to this redesign, which was accidentally pushed live for a few minutes in December. As well as creating a more consistent browsing experience, Facebook has granted many requests from the Page admin community. The only potential downside is that the less prominent placement of links to tabs could reduce their use.
Of all the beneficial changes, the Everyone wall filter in particular will make sure users see high quality content each time they visit a Page. This will bolster confidence in brands and businesses that users directed to their Page will have an enjoyable, engaging experience. This will in turn lead them to spend more on Facebook ads that drive traffic to their Pages, generating more revenue for Facebook.
Page admins looking for updated best practices for the redesign should see the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s comprehensive guide to brand marketing on Facebook.

0 'Dating' Site Nicks 250K Facebook Profiles Without Permission

The Social Network will remember how Mark Zuckerberg steal photographs from random academic websites and proceeds to use all that for his own website, which indeed based on a real life system dubbed FaceMash that Zuckerberg had pulled for real. Well, in a cruel twist of irony, a dating website named Lovely Faces has pulled the same trick on Facebook. The folks behind the website are pretty unabashed about it too.

The plot is simple; Lovely Faces rips profiles replete with names, locations and photos right off the publicly accessible Facebook pages. Using face recognition, the website classifies the unsuspecting victims into searchable personality types. For example, one can search for possible (and unwitting) mates in their vicinity based on parameters like "easy going", "smug" or "sly."

The website has been created by media artist Paolo Cirio and media critic Alessandro Ludovic who is also the editor-in-chief of Neural magazine. "Facebook, an endlessly cool place for so many people, becomes at the same time a goldmine for identity theft and dating - unfortunately, without the user's control. But that's the very nature of Facebook and social media in general. If we start to play with the concepts of identity theft and dating, we should be able to unveil how fragile a virtual identity given to a proprietary platform can be," goes their explanation of the invasive prank they pulled on Facebook.

Facebook, however, isn't taking this lightly. Barry Schnitt, Facebook's director of policy communications warned, "Scraping people's information violates our terms. We have taken, and will continue to take, aggressive legal action against organizations that violate these terms. We're investigating this site and will take appropriate action." There seems to be legal merit to Facebook's threat, because scraping info from the website does require legal consent, which we presume Cirio and Ludovic haven't acquired prior to this stunt. 

However this may end; what you should do now is head over to Facebook and tighten up your privacy settings. And of course, never share personal information on social network websites.