Social media news for the week of 8th June 2009

Posted by Karl on June 15, 2009 01:37 and tagged

More uptime issues with the Facebook platform

For the second time within a week there were issues with the Facebook's application platform resulting in a lot of inaccessible apps. The issue seems to have been fixed fairly quickly but did frustrate a number of developers.

Facebook enforces policies for ad networks

Inside Facebook reported that some ad networks were "going into hiatus" until they addressed issues raised by Facebook.

"Usernames" for Facebook

Users are able to choose handy Twitter-like usernames for their profiles rather than trying to remember a 64-bit integer. The same functionality is also open to Pages, but only those with over 1000 fans. The launch was a great success with 200,000 usernames registered within a couple of minutes and half a million in the first quarter of an hour. Some users took the opportunity to name themselves after some common search or other terms.

How Facebook planned for high traffic in the username rush

An insight into the plans Facebook had to cope with an expected increase in traffic due to the username registration rush.

We still have 120 friends (on average)

Facebook published some data on friend networks with the interesting stat that we "passively engage" with 2 to 2.5 times more people than we actively communicate with.

Facebook applications have a very long tail

In a strange parallel with the Twitter usage stats the other day, it seems that the majority of Facebook applications have very little inactivity but at the top the traffic numbers are huge.

Facebook allowing developers to register interest for credit payment beta tests

Signing up doesn't guarantee being in the programme, but it can't do any harm for anybody who's interested in trialling the new payment solution.

Use of images in advertising

It's not just social media that's in the news: "A couple from the United States got a shock when they learned their family photo was being used, unauthorised, on an advertising poster in Prague."

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