New Facebook Pages getting developer attention
Facebook is continually trying to redesign its site to be a better way for people to share information. It’s concerned about increasing competition from other social networks and from sites like Twitter. Its latest effort to do so — a redesign announced and partially rolled out last week — seems to be on the right track, judging by the rising interest among third parties.
A number of large brands have already launched new versions of the… Continue Reading
Why all the bashing of branded apps? Lack of insight.
[Editor's note: In December, VentureBeat ran a column from Keith Rabois, vice president of strategy and business development at SuperPoke maker Slide, about the drawbacks of branded applications on social networks -- that is to say, apps created explicitly to market companies and products. Here, representing the other side of this debate, Mike Lazerow, chief executive at social app company Buddy Media, breaks down why branded apps are effective, and how they can be even... Continue Reading
Buddy Media launches another “social media” ad network, raises $6.5M
Buddy Media is a small player in the game of trying to build businesses on Facebook’s developer platform, and on other social network platforms, but it has big plans.
Today, it is rolling out an ad network of its own — meaning it is competing against fairly established companies like RockYou, Social Media, Lookery and others. It has also raised a $6.5 million round of funding led by Softbank Capital, with participation from European Founders Fund,… Continue Reading
Facebook to sell stake to Microsoft? Oh, and Acebucks
Facebook is reportedly being courted by Microsoft to sell a small portion of itself to the software giant, valuing the network at a whopping $10 billion and upping the stakes for Google and others that will want to stop Facebook from falling into the wrong hands.
Separately, Facebook is also moving toward becoming a full-blown virtual world. Or at least it looks that way when a virtual currency for Facebook, Acebucks (here), gets introduced.
Buddy Media, the… Continue Reading