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Here’s how people look at your facebook profile, literally

TechDept — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:57:07 +0000

When potential dates, employers and friends glance at your online social profiles, what do they see? EyeTrackShop, a startup that runs eye-tracking studies for advertisers, helped Mashable find out by applying its technology to the profile pages of popular social networks.

The study used the webcams of 30 participants to record their eye movements as they were shown profile pages fromFacebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, Klout, Reddit, Digg, Tumblr, Twitter, StumbleUpon and Pinterest at 10-second intervals. What participants looked at on each page and in what order is recorded in the images below.

By Sarah Kessler for Mashable, 30 Nov 2011.

Guess what the biggest topic on facebook was this year

TechDept — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:05 +0000

The death of Osama bin Laden.

10 percent of all status updates (in English) mentioned Osama bin Laden in the days following his death, according to a Facebook blog outlining the top ten global trends in 2011.

Coming in second was Green Bay Packers beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl.

Charlie Sheen was winning in March, if you recall.

Each month engagement centered around the hottest current events. For instance, conversations about the Royal Wedding were really popular during April. Mentions of the marriage shot up 600-fold, according to the Facebook post.

By Boonsri Dickinson for Business Insider, 07 Dec 2011.

Here are the 20 most shared articles on facebook in 2011

TechDept — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:18:45 +0000

Facebook just posted a list of the most shared articles on Facebook in 2011.

They range from the serious (articles about the tsunami in Japan) to the silly (“No, Your Zodiac Sign Hasn’t Changed”).

There’s even an article about a giant crocodile that made the list.

By Ellis Hamburger for Business Insider, 29 Nov 2011.

Here’s the information facebook gathers on you as you browse the web

TechDept — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:00:26 +0000

Facebook stirred up privacy concerns when it came out that its “Like” and “Share” buttons appearing all over the web actually report your visits back to Facebook servers.

Now Facebook engineering director Arturo Bejar has shared what personal information the company retains with its tracking cookies, as reported by USA Today.

When you’re logged in, Facebook will keep a timestamped list of the URLs you visit and pair it with your name, list of friends, Facebook preferences, email address, IP address, screen resolution, operating system, and browser.

By Dylan Love for Business Insider, 18 Nov 2011.

Facebook to build a huge server farm in the arctic…because it’s cold

TechDept — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:00:15 +0000

Facebook will build its first non-U.S. server farm in Sweden on the edge of the Arctic Circle, reports the Telegraph.

Lulea, a town in Northern Sweden will be home to an enormous server farm which will use as much electricity as a town of 50,000 people. Some of that power will come from sustainable energy generated by the Lulea river, which reportedly creates more energy than the Hoover Dam.

The Local reports that the new facility, comprised of three large server halls will cost $72 million a year to upkeep. Rumors about Facebook locating in Sweden have been circulating since May.

By Nick Jardine for Business Insider, 26 Oct 2011.

Facebook ‘may be changing brains’

TechDept — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 09:00:54 +0000

Facebook may be changing people’s brains as well as their social world, research has shown.

Scientists have found a direct link between the number of “Facebook friends” a person has and the size of specific parts of the brain.

The regions involved have roles in social interaction as well as memory and at least one is implicated in autism.

It could be that the differences seen are due to the effects of online activity on the brain.

By Google News, 27 Oct 2011.

Facebook power users have gone to twitter or google+

TechDept — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 09:00:55 +0000

Spotify investor and former Facebook President Sean Parker had some harsh words for his favorite social network: Its problem isn’t privacy, it’s that some of its most active users are leaving for other services.

“The threat to Facebook is that power users have gone to Twitter or Google+,” Parker told the Web 2.0 Summit. They are leaving, he says, because Facebook isn’t giving them enough ways to manage a glut of information.

Parker also defended Spotify’s decision to integrate the music service with Facebook, requiring users to sign up with a Facebook account. “It gives Spotify access to Facebook’s roughly 800 million users,” he said in an interview with Federated Media’s John Battelle.

By Ben Parr for Mashable, 17 Oct 2011.

Facebook marketing solutions

TechDept — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 09:00:54 +0000

Check out Facebook Marketing Solutions Bootcamp, from 1 – 16 Nov 2011.

The bootcamp includes:

6 Webinars
Live Q&A
Weekly Tips

Find out more

What you shouldn’t post on your facebook page if you want a job

TechDept — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:00:45 +0000

Kashmir Hill, Forbes’ indispensable privacy blogger, posted this chart today, drawn from a survey of employers. Three things to note. 1) 95 percent of employers say they use social media sites to ferret out more information about job candidates. 2) If these employers informed these job candidates why they were dropped, Facebook as we know it might not exist.

That’s not because social media is bad for job candidates, per se, but rather that the sense people have that they are just talking with their homies would evaporate. It would become clear that Facebook is, in fact, a quasi-public forum in which what you say attaches very strongly to your identity. It’s the persistence that makes it different from “real life” and it’s the persistence that Timelines is going to highlight.

By Alexis Madrigal for the Atlantic, 03 Oct 2011.

Facebook timeline: 10 stunning designs

TechDept — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 09:00:38 +0000

Facebook’s new Timeline gives users a large “cover photo” space at the top of the page. As we’ve already shown, this is a great opportunity to get creative with your profile presentation.

We had so much fun with the last gallery, we’ve collected 10 more awesome profiles, this time focusing on creations that may be simple, but make for stunning designs.

By Amy-May Elliott for Mashable, 09 Oct 2011.