Blogger gives Google Friend Connect a 9-million site lead on Facebook

Blogger gives Google Friend Connect a 9-million site lead on Facebook

Google released some interesting statistics today about Friend Connect, which is part of the search giant’s push to build a social layer across the web where visitors can get tailored experiences depending on their interests and friend network. So how has Friend Connect done since… Continue Reading

Mark Zuckerberg on how to build hacker culture inside a company

Mark Zuckerberg on how to build hacker culture inside a company

(I’m live-blogging from Startup School, a daylong program from startup incubator YCombinator held at Berkeley today. Mark Zuckerberg is on-stage for a question-and-answer session and I’ve embedded a short clip from the talk below. This is paraphrased.)

Jessica Livingston: First I want to go way, way back. I… Continue Reading

Facebook pulls highlights back into the main news feed

Facebook pulls highlights back into the main news feed

Taking aim at information overload, Facebook is now allowing users to see its news feed in two ways. They can either see a live stream with updates ordered by time, or the most interesting content as judged by comments and likes.

“While seeing real-time activities is… Continue Reading

Web 2.0: Sean Parker on why Facebook will win, and Google will lose

Web 2.0: Sean Parker on why Facebook will win, and Google will lose

Sean Parker, a managing partner at Founders Fund and an early president of Facebook, argued that a new breed of “network” companies will overshadow tech giants like Google over the next decade.

At just 10 years of age, Google will decline in importance relative to companies… Continue Reading

Facebook shows off new homepage for touchscreen phones

Facebook shows off new homepage for touchscreen phones

Facebook is testing a new mobile homepage designed for touchscreen phones. You can try it here at http://touch.facebook.com. After launching apps for both the iPhone and Google’s Android platform, Facebook still has to work with a number of other systems, including the Palm OS. Clearly,… Continue Reading

More details: Facebook, Lala turn music tracks into virtual gifts

More details: Facebook, Lala turn music tracks into virtual gifts

Perhaps there’s hope for record labels yet. While album sales tumble,  virtual goods are on track to become a $1 billion industry.

Then what better way to solve the ailing music industry’s problems than by turning songs into virtual goods?

Well, there’s one initial problem, virtual goods… Continue Reading

Facebook dives deeper into virtual goods with music, sports

Facebook dives deeper into virtual goods with music, sports

Facebook’s making a deeper foray into the world of virtual goods by adding songs and sports merchandise to its gift store. The company’s partnering with Lala.com to offer tracks for about 10 cents each. They’re free of digital rights management (DRM) and you can download… Continue Reading

Web 2.0: Facebook’s challenges in scaling to 300 million users

Web 2.0: Facebook’s challenges in scaling to 300 million users

When Facebook’s main site takes an extra fraction of a second to load, it can be hard to appreciate the job the company’s done in building a unique home page for each of its 300 million monthly active users.

Furthermore, it’s not a homepage that’s siloed… Continue Reading

Friendfeed lives! Co-founder says it’s in “chrysalis stage”

Friendfeed lives! Co-founder says it’s in “chrysalis stage”

When Facebook bought pioneering social sharing site FriendFeed in August, the fate of the service seemed uncertain. FriendFeed never captured the same kind of traction its competitors did, but it win deep loyalty from its limited user base.

Today, Paul Buchheit, who is also the creator… Continue Reading

Facebook Groups become more like business-friendly Pages

Facebook Groups become more like business-friendly Pages

Like many early Facebook users, I joined way too many groups like “Gotta have more cow bell” and “Burma Aid,” but my attention to them fell by the wayside as I’d have to constantly check for updates. So Facebook is overhauling Groups and making them… Continue Reading

Facebook Lite starts to go international with translations

Facebook Lite starts to go international with translations

Facebook Lite, a faster-loading and simpler version of the site meant to speed adoption in developing countries, is finally starting to go international after a test in the U.S.

As the social network pushes past 300 million users worldwide, the company is looking abroad to fuel… Continue Reading

Facebook tells us how happy we are

Facebook tells us how happy we are

Status updates, limited as they are in character space, can make up an intriguing barometer for the public’s mood if they’re taken as a whole.

That’s just what Facebook is doing, engaging in some basic sentiment analysis by looking at the share of positive and negative… Continue Reading

Facebook’s Latin support lets you get your lorem ipsum on

Facebook’s Latin support lets you get your lorem ipsum on

Latin is one of the five new tongues added today to Facebook’s 70-plus supported languages for the site’s interface, along with Azeri, Faroese, Georgian and Nepali.

The new languages aren’t rolled out for me, but I’ll post some screenshots when they are.

How is a Latin Facebook… Continue Reading

Russia’s DST raising stake in Facebook at $6.5 billion valuation

Russia’s DST raising stake in Facebook at $6.5 billion valuation

Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies is boosting its stake in Facebook by buying from existing shareholders, Reuters is reporting.

Offering the same $14.77 a share it put forward earlier in July, the Russian investment firm is turning to shareholders who aren’t Facebook employees to raise its holdings… Continue Reading

Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

Mark Zuckerberg: The evolution of a remarkable CEO

About six months ago, critics pummeled Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

He’d made questionable management decisions, or so it appeared from the outside. He’d fumbled the site’s redesign and botched the company’s terms of service agreement — moves that whipped up negative publicity and user… Continue Reading

Facebook eases Connect sign-up to expand reach across the web

Facebook eases Connect sign-up to expand reach across the web

Facebook is simplifying how outside companies can integrate its Connect service today, in an effort to boost the company’s impact far beyond the borders of its social networking site.

It’s launching a Facebook Connect Wizard that compresses the process into three steps. Facebook Connect is a… Continue Reading

Facebook now lets its Connect partners crowdsource translations

Facebook now lets its Connect partners crowdsource translations

When Facebook began expanding internationally, instead of paying professionals to translate its site into other languages, it turned to its users. They quickly made it available in 65 languages.

Now Facebook’s turning around and offering that technology to other sites. Called Translations for Facebook Connect, it’s… Continue Reading

Miley Cyrus alone in heavy Facebook streaming

Miley Cyrus alone in heavy Facebook streaming

It’s been a couple of months since Facebook launched its streaming video pages powered by Ustream. Is it catching on? TechCrunch used the feature to simulcast the TechCrunch50 event week before last. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg used it to stream a speaking appearance in Brazil…. Continue Reading

Facebook aims to boost advertising clout with Nielsen partnership

Facebook aims to boost advertising clout with Nielsen partnership

To boost its presence in big brand advertising, Facebook will unveil a partnership with media research firm Nielsen tomorrow to give better analytics on how ads fare on the social network.

Called Nielsen Brand Lift, the program will let advertisers who are also Nielsen customers figure… Continue Reading

Facebook’s self-serve ads “crushing it,” help turn startup cash-flow positive

Facebook’s self-serve ads “crushing it,” help turn startup cash-flow positive

When social networking company Facebook announced Tuesday that it was cash flow positive for the first time, the company was cryptic about the reasons. But here’s Facebook’s secret weapon: “Self-serve ads,” or those ads that advertisers can create on the site in a matter of… Continue Reading