Facebook and Google have been battling out big time for quite some time now.
Google surprised everyone by suddenly blocking Facebook from importing contracts from new users’ Gmail accounts. It got worse as the two internet giants poached one other’s employees.
Now, Facebook has decided to shut Google of its advertising scene. In its developers blog, the social network said it has modified its rules and app developers are being told to choose from a list roughly 40 Facebook-approved providers. And guess who is not approved? AdSense and DoubleClick, both owned by Google.
Why not Google? Possibly, the two companies are negotiating terms and conditions, Facebook plans not to let Google advertise on its site, or Google didn’t want to sign terms with the modified rules.
Facebook has given app developers until February 28th to make necessary changes.
“If your ad provider is not on the list, we encourage you to contact them to determine if they are planning on signing our terms,” writers Allison Hendrix of the Facebook app verification team.
Facebook plans to make Facebook Credit as the sole virtual currency on Facebook.
According to Deborah Liu, Platform Marketing Manager at Facebook, all social game developers have to move over to Facebook credits for processing all virtual goods transactions w.e.f July 1.
In her blog post Monday, she said that more than 350 applications from 150 game developers already use Credits, and that accounts for more than 70 percent of all virtual goods transactions on the site.
As we all know, Facebook charge a flat 30% of all transactions that take place through Facebook Credits. So, needless to say, many game developers are unhappy about it, but Facebook (sensing it I guess) revealed two new incentives the company will be offering:
Frictionless payments – For small payments developers can charge through the API and you don’t need a confirmation page.
‘Buy with friends’ – Developers can set up this feature through which users can share a purchase they made with their friends. More than 50 percent of users actually elected to share those purchases. “We’re innovating on social purchasing.”
Facebook Login
Facebook has disabled the capability that let users share their cell phone numbers and physical addresses with developers of applications they use on the site as well as with publishers of sites they’ve linked their accounts to.
This new capability was introduced last Friday only and prompted complaints and concerns that user’s privacy can easily compromised.
Facebook official Douglas Purdy wrote on Facebook Developers blog, “Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready.”
According to senior technology consultant Graham Cluley at IT security and control firm Sophos, rogue developers would try to exploit this new capability to mine phone numbers and addresses giving rise to identity thefts and spam.
It’s a good thing that Facebook decided to disable the feature, but users must be aware of what they are sharing with third-party applications and websites. Learn more about new features, especially that gives you the capability to share your information outside Facebook, before clicking away.
Facebook launched a new registration tool to help website owners offer quick and easy Facebook registration from their websites.
This powerful plugin allows developers to create a pre-populated registration form by inserting a single line of code, and also add custom information to their registration form. The same registration form can be used for users with or without Facebook accounts.
If you have a Facebook account and don’t mind linking it other website, the registration tool works like an auto-fill tool. It automatically fills in the registration form with the required information like your name, email address and location from your Facebook account. For those who don’t have a Facebook account or doesn’t want to link their Facebook account, they can manually fill in the form.
Since the new registration tool works through an iframe, users’ data are not shared with the website until the user clicks “Register.”
Facebook is happy about the result provided by the new registration tool in beta tests. Facebook engineer Paul Tarjan wrote in Facebook developers blog:
“By minimizing the friction associated with signing up for a new account and making it easy for people to bring their friends with them, we’ve seen that people are more likely to complete the sign up process, stay on sites longer, share more content, and come back more often. For example, in beta tests with FriendFeed, Facebook sign ups increased 300%.”
Facebook plans to introduce encryption of user IDs as a move to beef up security and to respond to the concerns raised by the recent privacy breach through Facebook apps.
WSJ recently reported that Facebook apps were transmitting user IDs to outside companies. Such information can be used to identify the users and link actions at other websites.
Mike Vernal, Facebook engineer, said “while initial press reports greatly exaggerated the implications” of sharing UIDs, he assured that Facebook is taking the issue very seriously.
Vernal says the issue of data sharing via HTTP headers is a Web-wide problem, and is not limited to Facebook.
“When a browser loads images or other resources on a Web page, it will sometimes send an HTTP header that identifies the URL of the Web page containing the resource. For one type of application written on Facebook Platform (iframe-based canvas applications), after a user has authorized the application, the URL of the iframe may contain the UID of the user. This UID is included in order to enable the application to build a personalized experience for the user.”
He also added that some Facebook developers are already implementing page redirection or “double framing” to remove UIDs from URLs.
The proposed encryption will prevent the accidental disclosure of information via HTTP headers.
Facebook plans to enable parameter encryption as an option to developers over the next few weeks, before it is bundled with various Facebook SDKs.
Facebook account is a mess at times. Newsfeed and notifications sort of spam your homepage and in the mist of all these, important notifications goes unnoticed at times and leaves you fuming or embarrassed.
Thankfully, Facebook is going to become a little more tidier and less annoying. Now your “notifications” on Facebook will be for things like comments left on your posts or Profile wall.
Facebook announced today that beginning next Monday, March1, 2010, they are not going to deliver application notifications anymore.
Developers and their apps will be required to use less intrusive methods of sending news to users.
Many developers will not be very happy about the decision as it will push them out of the user’s line of sight. Many developers tries to notify all users of anything, at any and all opportunities because those notifications drive traffic.
Facebook have recently given permission to ask app users for their email addresses, which can be use to email app notifications directly. Facebook also advises developers to make use of the recently added Applications and Games dashboards to share lightweight messages.
Nothing have been mention about any affect on the newsfeed.
Personally, i would like it better if Facebook does something about the newsfeed generated by apps. But at least, clearing off the clutters in the notification section is one headache less during my time spend on Facebook.
So, watch out for the changes to go into effect on Monday, and let us know about your views on this too.
Facebook and Google have been battling out big time for quite some time now.
