Angry Birds Facebook landing with new power-ups and exclusive levels on Valentine’s Day

Not content with dominating the mobile gaming market, Angry Birds is winging its way to Facebook on Valentine’s Day. Developer Rovio has today revealed some of the features that this Facebook app will be boasting, including brand-new power-ups and exclusive levels.

Angry Birds has been downloaded over 700 million times since its launch in December 2009. The phenomenal success of the game has seen it released across a wide variety of platforms, including iOS, Android, … Continue Reading

Facebook’s growth by the numbers (infographic)

Buried in Facebook's 21,890 word registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are a ton of new facts and figures about the social media company. Since there's a larger-than-usual amount of buzz surrounding Facebook upcoming initial public offering, one of the best ways to cut through the noise is to look at the numbers.

Facebook worth $94B, private market says

Now that Facebook is fast on its way to becoming a public company, and its financials have been laid bare, there’s just one question that remains unanswered: What is Facebook actually worth?

A private market transaction completed Thursday may provide us with best the answer yet.

One hundred thousand Class B common stock shares were sold for $40 a pop on SharesPost, according to information obtained by Bloomberg News and confirmed by the private capital … Continue Reading

GFACE unveils its new cloud based social gaming network

Crytek, the developer behind Crysis and Far Cry, is backing a new social gaming network called GFACE. Created by a “small team with big ideas”, GFACE promises to deliver high quality free to play multiplayer games directly to your browser, while also offering Facebook-like social network features.

Crytek chief executive officer Cevat Yerli is a director of GFACE, and says, “GFACE enables its users to discover and experience entertainment together in real time. We want … Continue Reading

What Facebook isn’t telling you about its risky ad business

In its IPO filing Wednesday, Facebook identified mobile’s limited revenue potential, competition from other social networks, and the potential loss of advertisers as factors that could seriously harm its business. But was the social networking company, which relied on advertising for 85 percent of its revenue in 2011, forthcoming enough about the real risks associated with its primary money-maker?

“The issue of click-through rate was not mentioned as a risk in the S-1,” said Peter … Continue Reading

Two Facebook graphs Wall Street analysts and investors should ignore

Wall Street likes data. Annual reports and quarterly reports move markets. If Wall Street could access daily data on the ins-and-outs of a company, it would. Hedge funds have been known to use analysis of satellite imagery of Wal-Mart parking lots to try to get a jump on the markets.

That micro level of analysis isn’t going to be very helpful in predicting Facebook’s future. For example, here are two of the types of charts … Continue Reading

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made $30.9M in 2011

Facebook’s second in command COO Sheryl Sandberg was compensated millions more than any other Facebooker in 2011 — founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg included.

The social network’s leading lady took home $295,833 in base salary, $86,133 in bonus money, and $30.49 million in stock awards (an estimated value) for a grand total of almost $30.9 million in 2011.

The juicy tidbit was unearthed in the executive compensation section of Facebook’s S-1 document, filed Wednesday.

Read … Continue Reading

Facebook says “mobile” is big risk — starting with Android and iOS

Facebook said its users are increasingly using mobile devices, and that this is risky because the social network still hasn’t figured out how it can make money from mobile ads.

A majority of Facebook users still access the site on their personal computers, where Facebook makes a lot of money from ads served on its web pages. However, increasingly, more users are going mobile (indeed, 425 million of them and counting), partly because of Facebook’s … Continue Reading

BREAKING: Facebook files its S-1; let the IPO hoopla begin

Facebook has filed its S-1 form with the SEC, announcing its intention to go public.

The SEC filing is included at the end of this post for your convenience, since this news has understandably had a negative impact on the SEC’s site.

The stock ticker symbol will be FB. No starting price has yet been named, but Facebook did say in the filing it expects to raise $5 billion in the IPO. The transaction may … Continue Reading

Facebook user data: 845M monthly users, 2.7B daily likes & comments

Facebook filed for an initial public offering today, and included an updated report on the giant social network’s user and usage data.

The company’s total number of active monthly users, which it defines as registered Facebook users who have logged in and visited the site via web browser/mobile device (including interactions from third-party sites), was 845 million as of December 31, 2011. That’s up by about 45 million since the company’s last update at September’s … Continue Reading

Facebook added $15.3B and 230k jobs to European economy in 2011

Facebook added $15.3 billion in value to the European economy in the past year, COO Sheryl Sandberg said at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich Tuesday.

Sandberg, in her closing keynote on how social media is reshaping opportunities for economic growth, added that the social network added 230,000 jobs in Europe in 2011.

Sandberg cited the findings from a joint study between Facebook and Deloitte, being released today, and also announced that the company … Continue Reading

Google+ introduces new Q&A feature for crowdsourcing answers from friends

Google has taken social interaction with your friends to another level. The search engine giant has introduced a new Google+ feature that allows you to ask friends about your search results.

Google is testing the new “Ask on Google+” feature, which pops up at the bottom of your search results. Click the link to ask your friends any question related to restaurants, movies, how to make friends on Google+, or other topics. Your question will … Continue Reading

Top retailers saw big holiday traffic gains thanks to Facebook marketing (research)

“Facebook makes our life so much better,” Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow said at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich today.

The “our” he speaks of may actually apply more directly to brands embracing the social network for social marketing.

New data from comScore, revealed during the Monday morning presentation, highlights traffic gains big name brands recently experienced thanks to a combination of paid and earned media efforts on Facebook.

Mega-retailer Walmart, which launched … Continue Reading

Author Andrew Keen cries out against Facebook and lost privacy

“I’m here as a crier, raising my voice in defense of lost privacy,” entrepreneur and author Andrew Keen said, directly attacking Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s expressed views on identity and privacy.

Keen, the author of the soon-to-be-released book “Digital Vertigo,” delved into the actual and ideological dangers associated with the social web at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich.

Keen ultimately called for web denizens to push back against the powers that be and … Continue Reading

Angry bakers have fingers burned as Baking Life Facebook game gets the chop

PopCap Games has angered virtual bakers on Facebook by deciding to shut the doors to its Baking Life app on Jan 31. Despite many users having spent real money buying virtual ‘Zip Cash’ to use in the game, PopCap says any remaining currency is non-transferable and non-refundable.

Baking Life currently attracts 730,000 monthly average users, and PopCap, which is owned by Electronic Arts, says that just isn’t enough. “The Baking Life player numbers have dropped … Continue Reading

College students raise awareness about wetlands restoration with Facebook game

Undergraduate students at the University of Washington Bothell’s Center for Serious Play created and released today a Wetlands restoration video game for Facebook entitled UWB Wetlands Restoration.

UWB Wetlands Restoration’s Jordan Weisman, interim director at the CSP and a veteran game developer, helped design and create the game with the focus of helping players to understand how important it is maintain and help restore the Wetlands ecosystem. Not only does the project educate students about … Continue Reading

Mark Zuckerberg asks his 11M Facebook subscribers to stop SOPA

When Mark Zuckerberg speaks, people listen. Wednesday, the celebrity Facebook founder is wielding this power and influence to fight the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act using the best tool at his disposal: the social network he created.

“The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development,” Zuckerberg wrote … Continue Reading

Data suggests people using pseudonyms leave better comments

Fact or fiction? Online commenters who use their real names will leave higher quality comments.

Before you respond with a “well duh, that’s a fact” retort, you might want to take a look at new data from online conversation startup Disqus.

The company analyzed nearly 500,000 comments made via its platform and found that the digital denizens using fictitious names, or pseudonyms, are actually responsible for the highest quantity and quality of comments on the … Continue Reading

Playdom looks to boost Spry Fox’s Triple Town numbers on Facebook

Playdom, Disney’s social games product group, has announced plans to team with developer Spry Fox to publish its latest social game, Triple Town, on Facebook.

Triple Town is a town-building puzzle game, functioning very similarly to a typical match-three in terms of gameplay, with a few clever twists. The small grid is slowly filled with grass, bushes, houses and churches that players set down, while trying to fend off or capture dangerous bears and … Continue Reading