Facebook Offers aren't free for merchants anymore. As the company seeks new ways to increase revenue, it has started charging businesses to run deals on its site.

The social networking giant launched Facebook Offers earlier this year as a free service that allows business to send promotions directly to user news feeds. A company's Facebook fans are able to redeem vouchers for discounts.

The offers remain free for users to redeem, but Facebook now requires merchants to spend at least $5 on related ads to accompany their vouchers, the company said today. The amount charged will depend on … Read more

Google is to be king in the display ad market. According to a new report by research firm eMarketer, the Web giant is expected to surpass previous winners, Facebook and Yahoo, and will soon reign over all digital advertising markets -- including search, mobile, and display.

Though Google has dominated search and mobile in the past, it has never ruled over all three markets.

According to The New York Times, eMarketer has predicted that Google is expected to earn $2.31 billion in U.S. display ad revenue, which is up 38.5 percent over last year -- while Facebook … Read more

Facebook has started testing a new mobile ad network that can place advertisements outside of Facebook based on user data.

That means some users may start seeing ads -- ones that may link to the Facebook app store or a mobile Web site -- on mobile apps outside of Facebook. The roll-out includes a small group of ad exchanges that will place ads on iOS and Android.

"We are working on a small test in which we'll be showing mobile ads in apps off of Facebook," a Facebook spokesperson said today. "We've been showing web … Read more

With the "mobile first" strategy it unveiled today, Twitter achieved two key goals: creating a look and feel that more than ever resembles Facebook's, and asserting new dominance over users' Twitter experience.

On the surface, the announcements of new Twitter profiles, common across all devices and operating systems and top-heavy with a single cover photo, as well as a new photo stream, and an all-new iPad app, are essentially incremental moves, albeit ones that streamline users' mobile experiences.

But for years, the company has been trying to bring its users back into the fold, slowly limiting their … Read more

Facebook, as part of its ongoing attempt to make money off mobile, is letting businesses with Facebook pages promote posts using an app on their smartphones.

The newest version of Facebook's Pages Manager app allows users to pick their promoted posts -- i.e., posts the social network will shoot out to users far and wide, for a modest fee -- directly from the app. The app is only available on iPhone and iPad.

The ability to buy the ads directly from mobile phones was a widely requested feature from small businesses, according to Facebook.

It's just the … Read more

With Facebook's stock price crashing and employee morale sinking, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stepped up and delivered a home run he would never have been able to hit even just a year ago.

As you may know, Zuckerberg has been under fire the last few months for Facebook's plummeting stock price. A darling of Wall Street before its IPO, Facebook fell to half its IPO price in just a few months. As a result, a growing chorus of critics have called for new leadership at Facebook. Some have even called for Zuckerberg himself to resign.

While I've … Read more

Fab, a social media-driven online retail site, is growing fast -- like 1-million-users-a-month fast -- and it's going all out to propel that growth by buying up the splashiest display ad Facebook offers.

Never mind that some marketers complain about the effectiveness of advertising on Facebook. Fab founder and CEO Jason Goldberg says Facebook ads pay off, and then some. Which is why for a 24-hour period -- which started at 9 p.m. PT Thursday night -- Goldberg ponied up an undisclosed amount to buy Facebook's so-called "log-out" ads that appear when members sign out … Read more

Facebook has been beaten up hard for the state of its mobile apps, but today the company wants the public to know that it thinks things are picking up.

In a press event at its headquarters today, the social network touted its improved ratings in the Apple app store following an upgrade of its iOS app.

"This is just the start for us," said Mick Johnson, Facebook's product manager for mobile. "We can now see a clear path forward to do all the things that we want to do."

The rampant shift by users to … Read more

Two rival gangs have battled in the streets of Brooklyn over the past three years -- leaving several dead and scores of others wounded. They may have kept on like this if cops didn't get savvy to their activities and whereabouts on Facebook.

Now, 49 alleged gangsters are locked up facing murder charges.

"Detectives used social media as well as good old fashioned police work to track these killers," New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in a press conference today, according to the Village Voice.

The war started when a member of the "Rockstarz&… Read more