Facebook

Wrapp using Facebook to target back-to-school shoppers

Wrapp, the Facebook app that lets people give freebie gift cards to their friends, is hoping to gain traction with back-to-school shoppers.

The company, which is shaking up e-commerce on Facebook, continues to grow, bringing some more big name-brands to attract new gifters, the company announced today. These brands include Dockers, Levis, Office Depot, Rovio's Angry Birds online shop, Zappos, and Roots.

Wrapp's business model combines targeted marketing with social metrics. As CNET wrote earlier this year:

"Wrapp will look at the person you're thinking of, figure out where they are and how valuable they are … Read more

Facebook looks to amp up ads in users' news feeds

Facebook is getting users accustomed to ads slowly and incrementally. One small change, then another -- that way, users get used to seeing them.

The social network began testing one more way to bring in ads today: dropping them into people's news feeds even though the user or their friends aren't necessarily fans of the brand or product.

According to TechCrunch, these tests are part of a hard-hitting Web and mobile news feed ad unit geared toward impressing investors. The way it would work is advertisers could pay to display their Pages in users' news feeds without having … Read more

Over 235 million people play games on Facebook.com

Facebook has quickly become a top destination for game play, according to new data from the social network.

More than 235 million people globally are playing games on its site, the company said today. That figure is up from 205 million gamers using the service a year ago at this time. Facebook also noted that its total gamer userbase has grown 8.4 percent since the beginning of 2012 and that last month alone, it drove its users to Apple's App Store and Google's Play marketplace over 170 million times.

Facebook is packed with games, including the popular … Read more

Facebook's Instagram acquisition gets U.K. OK

Facebook's $1 billion proposed Instagram acquisition is one step closer to approval.

The U.K.'s Office of Fair Trading today approved the deal, saying that it has decided "not to refer this merger to the Competition Commission." The agency had until August 23 to refer the acquisition inquiry to the commission.

Back in June, U.K. news outlet Guardian reported that the Office of Fair Trading was considering investigating the deal. The publication said, citing sources, that the agency was concerned that the deal would hurt competition in the marketplace by combining two of the most … Read more

Building apps for Facebook: A dance with the devil

Dalton Caldwell caused a stir recently when he posted an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, accusing top Facebook execs of threatening his latest startup with the Luca Brasi treatment: Sell out to us or we'll crush you.

"I had explicit approval from Facebook to build what I was building," says Caldwell, a software developer who unexpectedly found himself in the crosshairs because an app he was building to run atop Facebook was similar to Facebook's recently unveiled App Center. "They said, 'Sorry, we just need the revenue.'"

Caldwell's public dust-up with Facebook -- … Read more

FTC settles Facebook privacy complaint sans Google-like fine

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has inked a final settlement with Facebook over the company's privacy practices.

Under terms of the settlement, Facebook has agreed to provide users with "clear and prominent notice" anytime their information is shared. But before that can happen, Facebook must obtain its users' "express consent" before sharing any information that exists outside the auspices of its privacy settings. In addition, the agency will force Facebook to maintain a "comprehensive privacy program," and subject its service to biennial privacy audits.

The FTC first announced the settlement with Facebook back in November. … Read more

Facebook drops off the greatest places to work list

Marquee tech companies have always had a good rap of being great places to work: beautiful campuses, casual clothing, free food, and lunchtime workouts. But maybe that's not really the case?

A new list by company review site Glassdoor compiled the 25 best places to work for those trying to achieve an even work-life balance for 2012. And the results are surprising.

Of all well-known tech companies out there, LinkedIn, Orbitz, and CareerBuilder were the only ones to make the list. And for the first time, Facebook entirely dropped off the list. However, of the 25 companies, 12 were … Read more

Facebook battles phishing by reaching out to users

Most everyone has seen them, those annoying clickable phishing ads in the news feed or posted on friend's Facebook walls: "Get free tickets to Jamaica," "Win a free iPad," or "Friend, I need money urgently."

Phishing has been the bane of Facebook's existence for years, and today it announced that it is making a new attempt to curb the practice. It's launching a select e-mail address, phish@fb.com, where users can send notices of phishing they've seen on the social network.

"By providing Facebook with reports, we can … Read more

Facebook's design manager leaves for the Designer Fund

Facebook heavyweight Ben Blumenfeld is stepping down from the social network, according to a blog post he wrote today. Blumenfeld was the company's design manager and had been at Facebook since 2007. He is leaving to co-direct the Designer Fund.

This news comes as three high-level managers and directors left the company last week, including the director of platform partnerships Ethan Beard, platform marketing director Katie Mitic, and mobile platform marketing manager Jonathan Matus.

Blumenfeld was tasked with making Facebook's platform more accessible. "We were building great products, but not doing a great job of guiding people … Read more