Facebook SNL Campaign for Betty White Pays Off

Facebook is continuing to influence entertainment, as proven by the latest news from the New York Daily News. A campaign launched on Facebook to convince “Saturday Night Live” producers to have Betty White on the show has apparently been successful, as the 88-year-old actress confirmed that she will be appearing as a guest this season.

The Facebook group “Betty White to Host SNL (Please?)” has gained half a million supporters in a short period of time - it appeared after White starred in a popular Snickers commercial during the Super Bowl. The comedy show’s producers apparently paid heed to the attention, although it’s not clear in what capacity White will be on the show. Still, White said at Elton John’s post-Oscar party that she was thrilled to be on the show and with her newfound popularity.

“I don’t know why or how,” she says, “but it’s been wonderful.”

Facebook and Twitter Growth Reach Triple Digits in 2009

Marketing Charts reports that Facebook and Twitter both experienced triple-digit growth in 2009, according to the comScore’s Digital Year in Review.

For the first time in May 2009, Facebook rose to the top spot among social networks and maintained the position throughout the year, ending with 112 million visitors in December of 2009. The impressive figures represent a 105 percent increase from 2008. According to the report, Facebook grew in nearly every performance metric in 2009, including unique visitors, page views and total time spent.

Twitter ended the year with nearly 20 million visitors to its website, accounting for a whopping 900 percent increase from only 2 million visitors in 2008.

The report also found that nearly 80 percent of U.S. Internet users visited a social networking site in 2009. In total, social networking accounted for 11 percent of all time spent online in the U.S., “making it one of the most popular online activities.”

Facebook Chat Integrated with AOL Instant Messaging

InformationWeek reports that AOL has integrated its instant messenger service with Facebook, utilizing the social media giant’s new Chat application program and allowing users of either platform to chat with each other. Starting on Wednesday, Facebook users could send instant messages through their Chat window to the AOL IM accounts of friends while AOL IM users could communicate directly with other people who are signed into Facebook Chat.

“Integrating AIM and Facebook Chat is a great step on the path we’re pursuing to offer universal access through AIM across a variety of communications platforms — and users can look forward to more innovations to come,” Michelle Trainor, VP of AIM, said in a statement.

AOL has embraced Facebook recently, including allowing people to connect to Facebook directly through their AOL home page.

Facebook Mobile Reaches New Heights

Less than six months after announcing that 65 million people actively use its services on their cell phones, the popular social networking site has reached a new milestone: 100 million people now use Facebook on their mobile devices every month, accounting for nearly 1/3 of its total population of 350 million active users worldwide.

According to Facebook, this impressive usage happens on almost every carrier in the world. The company recently released updates for Facebook applications on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia and Samsung.

“With every new feature or product we bring to mobile, our goal is to offer the same value and user experience that people know on Facebook,” wrote Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s vice president of user growth, mobile and international.

Other recent updates include new designs for mobile sites m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com, allowing users to access Facebook from any mobile browser in more than 70 languages. The social networking company also unveiled a URL-shortening service called FB that makes it easier for users to share content through SMS text messaging.

Facebook Home Page Undergoes Redesign

PC Magazine reports that leading social media site Facebook has completed a site redesign intended to make it easier for users to immediately access their most important pieces of information and applications. The rollout is being done incrementally, meaning that not all users will immediately see changes to their Facebook layout, but those who do will see differences both subtle and significant.

Among the significant changes is a red bubble in the top left corner of the home page which opens drop-down menus featuring important notifications such as new messages, photos in which the person has been tagged or new posts on a person’s Wall.

In a post on the Facebook blog, engineer Jing Chen said that the intent of the redesign is that “the simplified design of the home page will make it easy for you to stay connected with the people, applications and activities that matter the most to you.”

Golden Tee Golf Players Can Upload Great Shots to YouTube, Facebook

Social media is definitely ubiquitous, even extending to unlikely places like bar video games. One of the most popular games is Golden Tee Golf, which millions of bar patrons play each year. The game is so popular that it has spawned a professional circuit with lucrative tournaments. Now manufacturer Incredible Technologies is giving people a chance to share their best Golden Tee Golf shots with the world by integrating social media technology into the latest version of the game.

According to a press release from Incredible Technologies, players can post videos of their best shots to the YouTube channel or Facebook page directly from the game, with the videos showing up within five minutes of being sent through the system. Players who hit a “Great Shot” such as a hole-in-one are asked if they want to post the replay to YouTube or their Facebook account. From there, it’s a few simple steps to get the video posted and continue playing the game.

While the Facebook integration is new, the ability to upload YouTube videos has existed for the past year. According to Incredible Technologies, more than 70,000 videos have been uploaded in that time and have been viewed more than 1.2 million times.

Army Ready to Launch Secure Version of Facebook

Federal Computer Week says that the Army has been experimenting with its own version of Facebook with enhanced features designed to allow soldiers the ability to communicate with family and friends without compromising security. Dubbed milBook by Army officials, it has been in the testing stages since October 2009 and might soon be ready for widespread deployment with troops.

Currently, the beta version of milBook has 18,000 members. The project was announced earlier this month in a press release distributed by the Army that also touted plans to integrate security solutions developed for milBook across Army communications platforms.

“We prefer to categorize our sites as professional networking rather than social,” said Justin Filler, deputy director of the MilTech Solutions office. “The topics, information and relationships are based largely on professional similarities and common grounds.”

Facebook Designs New Facility

Facebook yesterday announced its plans to build a custom data center in Prineville, Oregon—a first for the popular social networking company that began its humble operations in a Harvard dorm room. In order to meet the demands of a growing user population that has reached more than 350 million users worldwide the new data center will provide enough computing and storage capacity to handle both current and future operations.

“Along with making sure Facebook operates quickly for you, we wanted to minimize the environmental impact of our new facility and its energy costs,” wrote Jonathan Heiliger, Vice President of Technical Operations at Facebook.

The new data center will use several energy-efficient technologies, including an evaporative cooling system, airside economizer and a proprietary uninterruptible power supply (UPS) technology to provide power to servers. The new UPS technology will reduce electricity usage by as much as 12 percent.

AT&T Identifies Facebook Glitch

Following up on a AP report released Saturday that said an AT&T network glitch was responsible for giving some mobile users the ability to login to other people’s Facebook accounts, the New York Times Monday confirmed that the glitch “appears to be more of an issue with some misconfigured software at AT&T and less of an internet-wide security concern, as previously feared.”

According to the New York Times article, AT&T has regarded the incident seriously and has taken measures to prevent similar problems from happening in the future. Apparently the issue affected AT&T subscribers who were logging into Facebook using their AT&T phone numbers instead of a username/password combination. In addition to implementing security measures, the wireless company is working with Facebook so that its users will no longer be able to use their phone numbers as login credentials to access the social networking site from their mobile devices.

Facebook and McAfee Join Forces

Earlier this week Facebook announced a year-long partnership with security software company McAfee, making it possible for more than 350 million Facebook users to download a six-month subscription to McAfee’s security software at no cost.

In the Facebook blog announcement, the company reassures users that it is doing everything possible to make the Facebook experience safe and enjoyable. With the new McAfee partnership, users who are identified as having infected computers will be asked to run a scan before accessing Facebook. Along with standard security measures of detecting and blocking suspicious behavior, Facebook also works with third parties to get malicious sites added to browser blacklists or removed completely.

In addition to the free six-month subscription to McAfee’s security software, users who wish to continue their subscriptions will receive a special discount.

“We’re not aware of another free Internet service that takes this much responsibility for helping people keep their accounts secure,” writes Jake, project manager for the Site Integrity Team at Facebook.

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