Bing To Integrate Facebook Features in Search Engine Soon

You may start seeing some familiar faces in Bing search results soon.

Microsoft deepened its corporate friendship with Facebook Wednesday, announcing tighter integration with the social network into Bing's search results.

Bing will display data from Facebook, such as user profiles and pages your friends have "Liked," to complement Web searches.

For example, if you search Bing for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's 26-year-old chief executive, you might find a link to his personal profile, with buttons for sending him a message or adding him as a friend. That's in addition to the standard links to Wikipedia articles and news stories.

A link on that same results page to the website for "The Social Network" could show pictures of your friends who have inidicated on Facebook that they "Like" that movie.

The new Bing features will also show up in searches made from Facebook's website.

Microsoft's Yusuf Mehdi was unambiguous about his excitement for the Facebook partnership.
"This is going to profoundly change how we search," Mehdi, the company's senior vice president for its online audience business, said at the news conference.

Last week Yahoo added new features to its search results pages, which are powered by Bing. In addition to slideshow enhancements and a new shortcuts feature, Yahoo began pulling in some photo albums from Facebook.

Despite advancements by rival search engines, market leader Google continues to gain.

Google was used for 66 percent of internet searches in September, according to market research firm comScore. During that period Yahoo had 17 percent and Bing had 11 percent, the report said.

But Google has struggled to form partnerships with Facebook. The search giant says it wants to tap into the social network's 500 million users.

Windows Phone 7 Is Real Facebook Phone

When Microsoft and Facebook announced that they were partnering to integrate Facebook and Bing for social network-powered search, it confirmed something I thought Monday: Windows Phone 7 is the real Facebook phone.

I don't know whether Facebook has a secret team working on a phone where they control the OS. But the company don't need one. It's already deeply integrated into Android and iOS. Now with the Microsoft partnership, it's tied to the most socially optimized smartphone ever brought to the market.

"This is, I think, one of the most exciting partnerships we've done on the platform so far," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the Bing announcement Wednesday. "Our view is that over the next five years we expect that almost every industry is going to be disrupted by someone building a great product that's deep in whatever area that industry is, plus is extremely socially integrated."

The first Windows Phone 7 handsets are due in stores November. The OS is Microsoft's complete do-over on mobile, after its predecessor Windows Mobile tanked in popularity and market share in the wake of more consumer-savvy handsets such as Apple's iPhone and Google's Android-powered smartphones.

Every aspect of Windows Phone 7 is geared to social networks: phone, contacts, gaming, photos, even Office. Focusing the phone around Hubs doesn't just mean that local client apps and cloud apps are grouped next to each other. It means that the local client and cloud work together.

Microsoft tried to explicitly build a social networking phone featuring Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and MySpace with the Kin. The Kin failed and was killed by Microsoft, mostly because it wasn't a full-featured smartphone (it was a fork of Windows Phone 7), but required a smartphone's data plan.

Successful Facebook Advertisement Strategy

Today we know facebook is one of the effective platform for marketing and advertising. Every website wants to get connect with facebook and get their potential customers. Now facebook advertisement leaves all other advertisers and publishers behind and has become one of the most successful advertisement arena. Facebook is going after brand advertisers as their primary revenue channel, hoping to take dollars away from television advertisers as their share of the attention economy continues to increase. It appears that the strategy is a smart one as Facebook now accounts for 23 percent of all ad impressions in the United States. Contrast that with Google who accounts for 2.3 percent of impressions.

This was a strategy highlighted by Fred Vogelstein’s 2009 article about the “Great Wall Of Facebook“. The company has been incredibly effective at driving attention to their site, with users spending hours on the site every month. For Facebook that attention has translated into impressions, many of which still haven’t been monetized (there is plenty of unfilled homepage inventory).

While Facebook’s self-serve advertising platform has produced tremendous results, the company is still at the very beginning of their push for brand advertisers. With numbers like the one’s published by comScore today, there’s no doubt that the company should have no problem in attracting those advertisers as they now own one quarter of the impressions in the U.S.

Facebook Vs. Orkut Battle

As we know facebook is now become one of the most popular social networking websites amongst people and now every social network wants to connect like facebook and accept the existence of facebook in Social Network arena. So now Facebook wants to get more success in Brazil and India where Orkut is still popular amongst users.

Facebook is now allowing Orkut users only to link their account to Facebook. Some reports suggest that this is available only for Orkut users in Brazil and India but that’s not evident from the “Link Your Facebook Profile With Orkut” page. This means they can use Facebook to update Orkut, allowing them to keep in touch with their friends on Orkut but giving Facebook the bulk of their time and attention. As Ryan Kim at GigaOm puts it, “it’s basically an invitation to jump ship”.

Google launched Orkut, named for one of its engineers, in 2004. It was the dominant social networking site in India for a long time, until it was overtaken by Facebook earlier this year, and it remains number-one in Brazil. However, Facebook is growing faster than Orkut in both countries.

Reportedly, Facebook started offering the integration tool without any cooperation from Orkut or Google. I think the assessment that it benefits Facebook more than Orkut is probably correct, though it also potentially means the users left behind on Orkut have less reason to move. I’ve never used Orkut but I understand it offers a slightly different set of features to Facebook.

Facebook Vs. Gmail E-mail Conflict

We know facebook is now introducing its new service call E-mail Inbox. Which is quite getting news from most of the Tech Experts that its a new battle between Google and Facebook.

Facebook is supposedly launching an email service this coming Monday and the hype is pretty high at this point. With many young users leveraging the Facebook inbox as their primary messaging service rather than email, why would Facebook find it necessary to launch their own email service on Monday? One answer is that Facebook needs access to the inbox to determine individuals’ true authority and influence.

If the rumors are correct, this might explain why Facebook and Google have been going at it recently with concerns to user data. Google has been preventing Facebook from importing Gmail data, and perhaps this is because such a feature would help people migrate from Gmail to Facebook email with ease.

Is Google right to be worried? We won't know for sure until Monday, but, in the meantime, here are five ways Facebook email could keep Gmail on its toes:

• Smarter Conversation View 
• Groups Integration
• Integrated Bios
• Photo Slideshows
• The "Like" in Links

Update:
Facebook has now updated its name server to publicly reflect that the company owns the domain name. Facebook would have to make it public within 24 hours of any product launch, which means that many people are now expecting Facebook to use the fb.com domain as part of any email product released on Monday.

Microsoft Docs Support Facebook Groups Now

As we mentioned before that Microsoft soon going to integrate Facebook Group in its upcoming Microsoft Docs. Until now, sharing a Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF document with other FB users implied doing it individually or choosing every recipient one by one. Not anymore. With the new Facebook Groups integration you can now share a document with a pre-arranged group of peoples.

Unlike Office Web Apps, Docs.com enhances their service with several social networking features. When you share doc, this will post on the Group’s wall via Facebook’s newsfeed, and it will show up on each member’s indivdual wall too. People can also comment on the document on the post or beside the document itself. The coolest thing about this is that you don’t have to have Microsoft Office installed in your computer to use this application. Simply use Microsoft Office Web Apps via Docs and you’re set.

Get New Facebook E-Mail Account: Social Inbox Service

Facebook has finally announced their E-mail service features for their facebook users. Now you can get all your Facebook Messages, Chats, and Texts all in same place with this new E-mail service same as you use your G-mail, MSN and Yahoo E-mail account for sending and reciecing E-mails. You will get another domain of @facebook.com by creating your Facebook E-mail Account.

So if you want to get your Facebook E-mail account you just have to visit this URL: http://www.facebook.com/about/messages and click on the “Go To Messages” button Or "Request Invitation" button as pictured in the image below. That’s all you need to do!

Yahoo, Zynga Joint Venture for Mafia Wars and Fish Ville Social Apps

The most famous Social Networking Apps Development company Zynga joins up with Yahoo! for the development of its most popular games on social networking websites and facebook called Mafia Wars and Fish Ville.

These aren’t the first Zynga games to make it to Yahoo! in the partnership between the two companies, but Mafia Wars is easily the biggest. In August, Zynga counted 45.5 million Facebook subscribers for Mafia Wars, with 6.6 million in September for FishVille.

Zynga continues to surge
Zynga has been growing out of control lately, boosted by the crazy number of subscribers to its Facebook games and the amount of money it pulls down using its “freemium” model that allows players to purchase in-game items and currency, if they choose. Video game site VG247 reports Zynga has bought up six different games studios in as many months, employs 1,300 people at 13 different studios in six countries, and is estimated be worth more than $5.51 billion.

Yahoo! represents an untapped market for Zynga, while also helping to reduce the company’s reliance on Facebook. That’s not to say that Zynga and Facebook aren’t tight -- the two just put together a five-year deal that allows Zynga to integrate the use of Facebook credits into its games -- but the relationship has been strained. And Yahoo! users aren’t necessarily the same ones playing Zynga games on Facebook already, so the company benefits by expanding its player base, as well as opening up additional options for its games.

What's good for Zynga is good for Yahoo!
There are a lot of pros on the Yahoo! side of things as well, specifically for users of Yahoo!’s app platform. Yahoo! carries some great social games, but there are quite a few that could use some help bolstering their community involvement and general number of players. Integrating hugely popular games such as Mafia Wars could have a very beneficial spill-over effect, bringing more players to other Yahoo! apps that could use an increase in their numbers. That means more fun for all us players, and looks to be a smart move by Yahoo!

This isn’t the first time Zynga has started spreading its games around, but it does seem like one of the company’s more significant steps toward putting down roots in other platforms. Several of Zynga’s games are available as Apple (AAPL) iPhone or iPad apps, including Mafia Wars and the ludicrously popular, 65 million-subscriber FarmVille. Zynga’s farming social game also has appeared on MSN (MSFT), though it didn’t last, and TechCrunch has reported that Google (GOOG) is courting Zynga’s games for its network as well.

It’s probably safe to consider Mafia Wars and FishVille as being the advance scouts of a larger Zynga force making its way to Yahoo! It wouldn’t be surprising to see FarmVille show up pretty much any time, provided Mafia Wars and FishVille are successful on the platform. Such success doesn’t seem like much of a stretch -- Zynga Poker, the company’s Texas Hold’em app for Yahoo!, is pretty jumping at just about all hours of the day, and lots of other Yahoo! apps command a respectable following.

Expect more from Zynga and Yahoo! in the near future, especially as both companies start to experience the benefits of the relationship: Zynga for finding a freer platform than Facebook, and Yahoo! for boosting its already popular platform with a big influx of users.

Facebook Like Button Updated With Share Functionality

Facebook has recently make a change in its Like Button functionality feature, now facebook like button will be treated as Share Button with promising feature into a wall of particular users.

Facebook has released an update that fundamentally changes the button’s functionality to that of a Share button. Now after hitting the Like button, a full story with a headline, blurb and thumbnail will be posted to your profile wall. You’ll also be given an option to comment on the story link. Previously, only a link to the story would appear in the recent activity, often going unnoticed by users.

I think the change was necessary. Because it was never made clear to users that the Like button would function differently than the Share button, many never understood what it meant to click Like on a piece of content. Making the result the same as the Share button could build stronger user expectations, ultimately fashioning a better user experience.

Get Your Facebook Like Button From Here

Shop Online On Facebook With Amazon's Quidisi

Wants to shop online on facebook? Now you can do online shopping on facebook with the world top online retailer Amazon. Amazon has launched its shops on facebook for users to do online shopping with the variety of products online. Amazon’s subsidiary Quidisi has opened up a few stores selling household items on the social network.

Quidsi, which was acquired by Amazon for $540 million in the fall, has created electronic commerce pages on Facebook for Soap.com, BeautyBar.com and Diapers.com. These are companies owned by Quidsi, and their social network presence together amounts to about 60,000 fans.

When you go to Soap.com’s Facebook page, you see a tab called “My List” where you can search for and purchase products all within the social network. The shopping cart on the site looks like a more sophisticated, cleaner version of the one on Amazon.com, and lets you confirm what you want to purchase. The tool also tracks your order, and encourages you to “like” the product.

What I found most helpful was the “My Lists” tab, which let me shop across all of Quidisi’s destinations (Diapers, Soap, and Beauty Bar), reorder, and customize my shopping list. This seems like a more robust version of FatWallet.

Quidisi somewhat resembles Storenvy in allowing you to shop from “stores” within a single tab. However, while Storenvy requires you to create a specific account for the application,”My Lists” just asks you for the login you’ve previously used on BeautyBar.com, Soap.com, or Diapers.com.

Angry Birds Coming to Facebook Soon

The most popular mobile platform game Angry Birds is coming to Facebook soon. Angry Birds has over 75 million downloads and counting and has popular fan following is taking a flight and soon lands on popular social networking website Facebook pretty soon, it's not exactly surprising to find that the game will be migrating to the largest social network in about a month.

Finnish company Rovio has had huge success with Angry Birds over the last year and couple of months since its debut in the Apple App Store. Since its inception in December of 2009, the game has expanded from just the iPhone to the iPad, Android devices, the PlayStation Portable, and soon Windows Phone 7 devices. It even garnered a deal with Twentieth Century Fox with their latest animated film, Rio. Soon, Rovio plans to take Angry Birds into different genres, like driving. And it appears that user fatigue is not ready to set any time soon.

According to Develop-online.net, Rovio studio boss Mikael Hed said that the Facebook version of the game will have "completely new aspects to it that just haven't been experienced in any other platform," and that "the pigs will have a more prominent role."

Yahoo Mail Integrated Facebook and Social Media Service

Social Networking is now become one of the effective way to connect with any website in easy way. So Now Yahoo! made this for their users to get connect with their favorite Social Network website within their Yahoo Mail service. Yahoo! has launched a new version of its free email service with better social media connectivity.

Users who elect to try Yahoo Mail Beta can view and share updates from Facebook and Twitter without leaving their Yahoo! in-box, according to WebProNews. There’s also an automatic slideshow feature that allows people to see photos and videos from sites like Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube from within their email messages. Other improvements include unlimited storage and better search functionality.

It’s interesting to watch Yahoo!’s strategy in social media as the company has always been much more a media than a technology company, unlike Google. Yahoo! had many social features of its own but has made the call to partner with others. While Yahoo! owns Flickr, YouTube belongs to rival Google, Facebook has ties with Microsoft and Bing, and Twitter is its own entity. Yahoo! is being smart by realizing that it needs to work with the leading applications, regardless of whether the company is a competitor in other ways.

It will be interesting to see whether Yahoo! users find the new email functionality helpful or whether it ends up being clutter. I use Gmail and I turned Buzz off after only a few days because I found it stressful having so many unread messages. I’ve also tried using Flock – like Firefox but with social media integration – as my web browser but I abandoned it because it was distracting.

Download Facebook App for Java Enabled Feature Phones

There are many Facebook Apps available online for iPhone, Mac and Android smartphones, But now Facebook have launched its Mobile App for Java enabled feature phones. Now Java users can also use Facebook Apps in their Feature Mobile Phones.

Today, the largest social network introduced Facebook App for Feature Phones through a partnership with Snaptu, extending to simpler devices functionality previously available only to smartphones. The app will give feature phone users access to Facebook messages, events, pictures, news feeds, profiles and more.

The app gives users a better, almost smartphones like Facebook experience that includes simple homescreen navigation, contact syncing and fast scrolling of updates and photos. The new application works on 2,500 different models of devices from the likes of Nokia, Sony, Ericsson, LG and other manufacturers.

You can download this Facebook Application from Snaptu Right here.

Users will be able to use the Facebook app without incurring data charges.

The app is available on the following carriers in the following countries and will launch on more networks and in more areas soon:

• Dialog (Sri Lanka)
• Life (Ukraine)
• Play (Poland)
• StarhHub (Singapore)
• STC (Saudi Arabia)
• Three (Hong Kong)
• Tunisiana (Tunisia)
• Viva (Dominican Republic)
• Vodafone (Romania)

Launching soon:

• Mobilicity (Canada)
• Reliance (India)
• Telcel (Mexico)
• TIM (Brazil)
• Vivacom (Bulgaria)

Facebook Application for Android Now Includes Chat

Android users can chat now with their Facebook Application. Facebook App for Android has been updated with its almost completely functional feature of Facebook Chat.

The official facebook app now has a Chat interface that presents open chats up at the top so you can see who’s around at a quick glance. This means you no longer have to use third party apps, like Trillian for Android, that used to be the only way you could chat on the go.

Previously, the Facebook application for iOS was the only one to include this feature, according to Erictric.com. Another update to the old version is that the new app now has push notifications alerting you every time you receive a new chat. This is especially cool because it means you can get a message even when the application isn’t being used.

You can have your phone flash, ring, or vibrate any time you get a friend request, message, and event invite.

The push notifications can also be set to alert you anytime you get messages, comments, and wall posts so you don’t have to open the app to see what people are saying to you.

Developers say there have also been some bug fixes in this updated app, so if you have a Droid, make sure you download the update now.

Access Facebook Chat Within Hotmail Now

Microsoft Hotmail has just introduced its new Social Media feature in Hotmail. Now hotmail users can chat with their facebook friends instantly within hotmail.

Just a few days after announcing social media functionality in the newest version of the Bing toolbar, Microsoft announced that the ability to access Facebook chat within Hotmail is now available in every part of the world that the social network reaches.

According to Microsoft Windows Blog news:


When we first announced the ability to chat with Facebook friends from Hotmail, we were only able to offer this to customers in six regions. Since then, we’ve been working with Facebook to increase availability, and a few weeks ago, we announced that the feature was available globally through Messenger. Today this is available around the world through Hotmail too. And while Gmail beat us to bringing their own chat into the inbox, we have now gone a step further and brought both our own chat and Facebook chat into your inbox. Starting now, we will be displaying notifications of this update in Hotmail.


Since announcing the availability of Facebook chat in Messenger worldwide two weeks ago, nearly 2.5 more million people connected their Facebook accounts to Windows Live, bringing the total to over 20 million customers. And with three out of four Hotmail customers using Facebook, we expect that many more people will want to take advantage of this feature, now that it’s available from your Hotmail inbox.

What do you think about this new chat feature? Do you use Hotmail Chat while checking out your E-mails??

Facebook Function Includes In GSM Cell Phone SIM Card

Facebook has now become most popular social network not only on Internet but also Cellular Companies are also taking interest on Facebook Features, and now self integrating Facebook in GSM Cell Phones. Soon you will be able to use Facebook with your phone SIM without having internet connection.

Gemalto has created the first SIM Card integrating facebook functions related to the social network.

The SIM card will enable even the most bare-boned handset to have Facebook functionality, albeit text based for the leaner devices known as feature phones. This will help the social network approach its goal of becoming the standard social service for all mobile phones.

A spokesperson for the social network confirmed the development in via email:

We worked closely with Gemalto on their Facebook for SIM product and believe it will be another easy and affordable way for people to stay connected through Facebook on the mobile phone of their choice. Facebook for SIM creatively combines technologies from some of our existing mobile solutions that especially are attractive for people with feature phones and have limited or no data plans with a mobile operator. Through the Facebook application on the SIM card people can: Update their status and view comments on it; write on their friends wall; receive notifications; find friends on their SIM phonebook.

Secret of Facebook Marketing - Interesting Facts about Facebook Marketing

Everybody wants to know about the secret of facebook marketing facts. To enhance your online business presence on most popular social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc you must know the facts and figures about latest trends. So today i am going to share the secret of Facebook Marketing, which will helps you to build and make your social networking strategy more effectively.

Dan Zarella, author of the new Facebook Marketing Book, recently published an interesting statistics report about Facebook Marketing Facts.

Have a look on the following Facebook Marketing Statistic chart.

Click to Enlarge Image!

Get Facebook Updates Without Login Into Website

Do you wants to get facebook updates without being on the social network website? The answer is "Yes", Now you can get your friends’ status updates even when you can’t have the social network site open in your browser, like when you are at the office or outside at home? A new application called Facebook Desktop can do it for you easily.

When friends post updates, comment on a photo, create a new tag or do anything else that would trigger a story to go out to others’ newsfeeds, Facebook Desktop users will receive notifications on their desktops; similar to how instant messages appear.

Facebook Desktop also sends notifications about new messages, group invites, event invites and friend requests. The application works on both Windows and Apple platforms.

You can download Facebook Desktop Application here for free.

Chris Bihis, an engineer at Adobe, in a post on WebProNews says;

I moved away from my home in Vancouver for work and so Facebook has been a great tool to help keep me in touch with everyone. I found, though, that the browser metaphor for the Facebook ‘stream’ just wasn’t working for me. I didn’t like refreshing my home page constantly to see what people were up to. I also didn’t like keeping a browser open whenever I wanted to read some of my friend’s posts. So, I made a simple AIR app that hits the Facebook APIs, grabs the latest posts, and delivers them to me in an unobtrusive way. I ended up finding it so useful, I started adding more and more features, like the ability to pause or resume, replay missed notifications, update my status, etc. Eventually, I was encouraged by a friend to polish it up and release it for others to use, and so here we are!

Switch To New Facebook Profile Layout Design

Most of the facebook users have already switched to the new Facebook Profile Layout, But not everyone getting the chance to switch to the new facebook profile version. So now facebook is prompting the facebook users to switch to the new Facebook Profile Layout and facebook intimating everyone to do so.

People who haven’t yet chosen to upgrade to the new profile layout will lose that right to choose in a couple of days. Today on top of the home page of Facebook, these individuals were greeted with a note, starting with a bold headline saying, “Coming Soon: Your New Profile.”

Among the key changes in the ''new'' layout are: the addition of a quick summary at the top of each profile which lists at-a-glance details like where you work, where you live, relationship status and birthday; a row of recently tagged photos; a move away from tabs, with previously tabbed items shifted to the left; and more room for family and significant others to be highlighted.

Click to Enlarge!

The note continues, “In the next few days you’ll be upgraded to the new profile, which offers more ways to show and tell your story.” Facebook’s official blog also contains a post about the forced migration to the layouts:

Last month, we introduced the new profile, which now makes it even easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends. For the month of December, we gave people the option to upgrade to the new profile early, and hundreds of millions of you made the switch. Starting today, we’ll be rolling out the new profile to everyone.

Click to Enlarge!

How To: Download Facebook Photo Albums with FacePAD

Facebook is now become one of the fastest platform of communicating and interacting with your friends and family all over the world. People use facebook for many purpose like sharing, connecting and explore new people, but one of the best feature facebook providing is photo sharing feature and people exchange their photo albums with their friends and family in many occasions and ceremony’s. Actually people loves to share their events photo albums online with their friends and family.

Many people are not aware how to download their and others Photo Albums simultaneously from facebook, so today i am going to share one of the useful Firefox Add-Ons which provides you facility to download facebook photo albums by just single click. You can download the pictures of an album by the simple right click option, but when the pictures are way too many it sometimes get hard to load them. So, by using this simple and effective Firefox Add-on photos can be downloaded and viewed easily. The name of this useful Firefox Add-On is "FacePAD".

You can use "FacePAd" to download whole facebook photo albums by just a single click option and you're done! It’s simple and easy.

Steps of Easy Installation:

• In order to use this Firefox Add-On extension, first you have to download Firefox (if you don't have it).
• Then, Go here and download facePad.
• Restart Firefox. and you're done!

How to use "FacePAd" to download Facebook Photo Albums:

• Login to your Facebook profile.
• Goto the photos from which you want to download the album.
• Right Click on the album name to download it.

FacePAd downloads the album pictures in the default download directory of Firefox. You can change the directory by going to TOOLS > OPTIONS > SAVE FILE TO

It’s a very effective and useful ADD-On and it would sure make things easier for you to download photo albums of any occasions. :)