Facebook has an idea to take on Uber, and it actually makes a ton of sense. Facebook is getting ready to take on… Uber?
It might just be so, to an extent. Business Insider spotted a new patent that indicates the company is considering a ridesharing feature right on an event’s page. It could be integrated right onto the events page through a new “Going and driving” selection where you’d normally mark whether you’re attending or not: The site would then prompt ask you about how many passengers you could potentially carry, ask you to invite others to join, set your departure location, as well as set overall visibility for your invite. Drivers can extend their pickup invitations to friends only, friends of friends, all users invited, or other groups of people. Alternatively, you could be the one to hitch a ride, in which case Facebook will let you know what friends might be able to drive you there. It’ll then work a lot like your standard ridesharing app, showing you your driving route and who’ll be picked up along the way.
Facebook now lets you call a business right from its News Feed ad. Facebook is making available some nifty features aimed at local campaigns for small businesses.
A Call Now button on ads lets people immediately contact a business if they see something interesting. This joins the previously available “Like This Page” and “Get Directions” buttons. Also notable: you can now make an ad right from your Page. You just need to select a call to action (Like This Page, Call Now or Get Directions), set the area you want to reach, and pick a budget. You’ll see the new ad creator under a Promote Your Local Business button. Businesses can see some statistics on the ads right from their notifications panels, including how many people they reached, and how many clicked through on a call to action.
Facebook Video Is On Course To Steal YouTube's Crown. Facebook video is big and it’s getting bigger.
For the first time, YouTube really needs to worry about losing its position as the king of online video. Facebook video, which is relatively young in comparison to YouTube which launched in 2005, is now delivering 4 billion daily viewers. That’s up from 3 billion views every day, which was announced in January 2015. Facebook has had the ability to upload video for a number of years, but didn’t get serious about it until 2014 when it adjusted its algorithms to weight video more heavily. By contrast, YouTube reached the 4 billion video views daily mark in 2012, about eight months after it had reached the 3 billion mark and seven years after it launched.
Nintendo Is On A Collision Course With Apple. Brendan Lyall is the CEO of Grow Mobile The news that Nintendo and DeNA have partnered to produce mobile games together has led to a glut of articles, think pieces and speculative lists about what the future holds.
The thought of Mario Kart on an iPad has been enough to lead to a worldwide rush of excitement, evidenced in the corporate landscape by the 27 percent jump in Nintendo’s share price following the news. While the news has been presented as a total volte face from Nintendo, the truth is a little different. Facebook wants to help advertisers target the 92 million expats who use the social network.
Facebook is making moves to help marketers target expats living abroad, with a new ad-targeting feature helping companies direct their campaigns at the 92 million Facebook users living outside their home country.
This is in stark contrast to the local-awareness ads launched by the social network last year, allowing businesses to serve ads to people physically located nearby. Now, Facebook is hoping to increase a company’s potential target audience by including those who may live on the other side of the world. Facebook Starts Showing ‘Relevance’ Scores to Advertisers. Facebook relies heavily on advertising to make money, so keeping its advertisers happy is important.
Today, the company announced a new ‘relevance’ score for its ad reporting tools. The new metric is essentially Facebook’s estimate for how well an ad will perform with its target audience. The higher the predicted number of positive interactions (think video views, clicks, etc) the higher your score will be. The more likely people are to hide or report an ad, the lower the score will be. It’s not an incredibly nuanced value- scores range from 1 to 10 – but it can change once the ad goes live and interactions begin happening. Facebook Adds A New Way To Sell Items In Groups.
Facebook on Tuesday announced the addition of a new feature for Facebook Groups designed to make it easier for members of a “For Sale” group to list their items.
The new “Sell” feature, which is now starting to roll out globally to more groups, will allow members to create a post where you can add a description of the item for sale, set a price and set a pick-up or delivery location. The social network today already hosts tens of millions of groups based around a variety of interests, and “For Sale” groups are one of the most popular categories. In these groups, members use Facebook as an alternative to something like Craigslist for local selling, or as an alternative to eBay for selling collectibles or other items of broad interest, like books or electronics.
Currently, members in these “For Sale” groups generally post photos and text descriptions of their items, but the addition of the “Sell” feature will make filling out the necessary information a bit more structured than before. Facebook Acquires Wit.ai To Help Its Developers With Speech Recognition And Voice Interfaces. Facebook today acquired Wit.ai, a Y Combinator startup founded 18 months ago to create an API for building voice-activated interfaces.
Wit.ai already has 6000 developers on its platform that have built hundreds of apps. Wit.ai’s platform will remain open and free, which makes it seem that Facebook wants to use the technology to draw developers into its Build-Grow-Monetize loop where they get help building apps, but eventually pay Facebook for ads to grow or monetize by splitting revenue with Facebook from hosting its ads. As part of Facebook, Wit.ai could help the company offer voice control development tools alongside its Parse development platform, aid with voice-to-text input for Messenger, improve Facebook’s understanding of the semantic meaning of voice, and create a Facebook app you can navigate through speech. Facebook tells me “Wit.ai has built an incredible yet simple natural language processing API that has helped developers turn speech and text into actionable data. Facebook Messenger Shows Its New Speed With FacePile Read Receipts. Milliseconds make a difference when it comes to chat.
The less lag, the more it feels like being in the same room. But with texting, we lost the cues like nods and “mmhmm”s that tell you someone heard what you said. Today Facebook Messenger takes a leap forward on both fronts with a big speed improvement across all its versions, and a new animation that shows you whether your message is sending, sent, delivered, or read. And rather than some tiny gray text, Messenger uses your photos of your friends’ faces to show exactly who in the convo has seen what, the company tells me. Facebook Gives Publishers New Tools For Reaching Users.
Facebook today announced a number of new tools for publishers to help them connect to readers on the social network and to understand the impact they’re making.
A new Interest Targeting tool helps target users who have liked a publisher’s page by interest, so when a relevant story goes out, it gets shown to those with some interest in what’s shared. Another new tool, End Date, allows publishers to give posts an expiration so that they disappear from a page after a certain time has passed. This allows publishers to hide stories that have become stale or are only relevant at a point in time. Facebook Brings Graph Search To Mobile And Lets You Find Feed Posts By Keyword. Facebook is finally getting serious about search. Today it’s challenging Google for finding answers and Twitter for checking real-time chatter with the launch of keyword search.
Two years after debuting semantic “My friends who…” search for people, places, and photos on the web, Graph Search is rolling out on iOS in the US along with a new keyword search option for dredging up old News Feed posts by friends. Check out my full hands-on review of the new Facebook Search Product manager Rousseau Kazi tells me Facebook’s personalized search results are focused first on helping people rediscover thoughts, experiences, and memories they saw in feed. Why LiveRail Ditched An IPO To Sell Its Video AdTech To Facebook For ~$500M. “The company was profitable. We probably would have pursued an IPO.
The business was accelerating”, LiveRail CEO Mark Trefgarne tells me in his first interview about how his company was acquired by Facebook in July for what multiple sources say was $500 million. Still, rather than go public, Trefgarne said his team realized that “If we work hard at Facebook, we have a real opportunity to take over the world…actually that’s not the best phrase [laughs]. Maybe not take over the world, but do some really industry changing stuff.” With TV viewing down 4% and online video streaming up 60% in the last year according to Nielsen, FaceRail could soak up the flood of vido ad dollars headed to the Internet. The smiley British entrepreneur was in good spirits when I met him and Facebook’s VP of ads product marketing at the social network’s palatial headquarters in Menlo Park, CA.
The 41X return delivered through the acquisition may have been better than LiveRail could hope for on the public market. Facebook has Scheduled Another Zuckerberg Public Q&A. Facebook reportedly wants to be your office’s social network. Facebook Cracks Down On Non-Ad Promotional Feed Posts, Bait-And Switching Pages That Bought Likes. “BUY THIS!” “INSTALL NOW!’ “CONTEST!” Facebook: 500M are Using Messenger Each Month. Just a few months after the start of the great unbundling, which saw Facebook split Messenger off from the main app, the social networking giant has revealed that half-a-billion people are now using the standalone Messenger mobile app each month. The move hasn’t been the most popular one from Facebook in recent times, with many questioning why they need to carry out a separate installation to use a feature that was already available in the main app, but Facebook has always stressed they had good reasons. Indeed, in a Q&A last week, Zuckerberg addressed this question directly, saying: “The first thing I want to do is acknowledge that asking everyone in our community to install a new app is a big ask.
We really believe that this is a better experience and the messaging is really important. Each app can do one thing well.” Facebook Gives More News Feed Control. Facebook has announced it’s giving users more control over what they see in their News Feed, as well as letting them give feedback about what they’re seeing. Facebook encourages users to donate to fight Ebola. After donating $25 million to fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is inviting all 1.3 billion users of the social network to join the battle, by making it easy to donate to organizations involved in tackling the deadly disease.
Facebook’s first move, rolling out later today, is a new Donate button displayed above the News Feed, that lets users send monetary contributions to three non-profit organizations who are actively managing the crisis in West Africa: International Medical Corps, the Red Cross and Save the Children. Zuckerberg Answers Big Questions About Facebook, Forced Downloads Of Messenger, And Page Reach. Today at his first public Q&A, Mark Zuckerberg boldly responded to some of the top gripes and questions about his company. Mark Zuckerberg is hosting an AMA on Facebook, November 6. Facebook Has 1.35 Billion Users. Facebook now lets you reorder your mobile photo uploads and create stories for context. Facebook today announced it’s bringing some updated functionality to its Android and iOS apps. Stephen Hawking Joins Facebook, Likes 'The Theory of Everything' Stephen Hawking has spent a lifetime getting his head around concepts in astrophysics most of us will never comprehend, but the 72-year-old never got around to the social-media thing — until Friday.
The renowned theorist, cosmologist and author joined Facebook, kicking things off with a message in support of The Theory of Everything, the Focus Features biopic that became an instant Oscar contender when it debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. SEE ALSO: 'The Theory of Everything': Eddie Redmayne's Big Oscar Bang in Toronto We already had a pretty good idea that Hawking viewed the film, starring Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones as Hawking and his wife Jane, in a favorable light: At a Q&A session following the Toronto premiere, the filmmakers told the audience that Hawking had a tear in his eye following a private screening, and was quick with a two-word review: "Broadly true. " Have something to add to this story?
Share it in the comments. Facebook built a forum platform for your smartphone inside the new Rooms app. In the 1990s and early 2000s I was the member of a couple car forums. First Honda forums and then a Subaru forum. Four Alternatives to Like-Gating on Facebook. Science Inc.’s Refame Connects Influencers With Advertisers On Vine And Instagram. Startup studio Science Inc. is announcing its latest project — Refame, a marketing platform for social apps Vine and Instagram. Science’s approach to startups is pretty diverse — it launches new companies, invests in others, and also acquires teams and products.
In this case, it’s launching Refame as part of Science Growth Labs, the organization’s division for customer acquisition and marketing, with a particular focus on reaching millennials. Facebook Relaunches Atlas Ad Platform With Cross-Device Targeting And Offline Sales Tracking. As Advertising Week kicks off in New York City, Facebook is announcing a new version of its Atlas ad platform, which it says represents the next step in tracking ad effectiveness across devices. The company first acquired Atlas from Microsoft last year, but in recent weeks both The Information and The Wall Street Journal reported that an ambitious relaunch was in the works, with the aim of helping Facebook challenge Google.
In a company blog post, Facebook says that Atlas not only offers a new user interface, but has actually been completely rewritten. Don't Freak Out About the Facebook Messenger App. 3 Smart Decisions to Make Before Advertising on Facebook. Facebook Organic Growth: How to Defy the Odds and Grow a Huge Facebook Community. Mashable. Why Facebook and Twitter Are Embracing Ecommerce. Facebook Starts Testing Buy Button on Ads and Page Posts. How to Use the Facebook Pages to Watch to Track Competitors. Why Facebook isn't getting into the lucrative chat app gaming space. Facebook Mobile App Ads to Include Social Context. 10 Things Vin Diesel is Bigger Than. The Evolution of Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook Profile. Facebook Explains Why Organic Page Reach has Dwindled. Mashable. Facebook Rolls Out One-Column Timeline Design to All Pages.
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How to Get Your Facebook Posts Noticed in the News Feed. Mashable. Facebook Is Reportedly Launching A Mobile Ad Network. Mashable. Mashable. 8 Ways You Can Create a Winning Instagram Profile. Mashable. Mashable. 5 Facebook Page Tools to Improve Your Page Management. Why Is Facebook Page Reach Decreasing? More Competition And Limited Attention. Mashable. No Surprise: Mark Zuckerberg to Keynote F8 Conference. What's the Deal With Facebook's Privacy Dinosaur? 3 Strategies for Improving Your Facebook Ads. 4 Ways to Improve Your Facebook Ads.
Facebook Opens an Office in Indonesia. How to Use Facebook Website Custom Audiences. Facebook Announces Beta Program for Its Messenger Android App. How to Encourage Fans to Create and Share Visual Content. When Facebook Sends Visitors to News Sites, They Tend Not to Stay. Zuckerberg: The U.S. Government Is a Threat to Internet Security. Facebook Says Video Ads to Hit News Feed 'Over the Next Few Months' Watch the 'Game of Thrones' Red Carpet Premiere Live on Facebook. Facebook Revamps Pages with New One-Column Timeline Design. Facebook Brings Back F8 Conference for Developers on April 30. Facebook Redesigns its News Feed Redesign Once More. Facebook Enacts New Regulations on Gun Sales. Guide to Facebook Reach: What Marketers Need to Know. As India User Base Nears 100M, Facebook Hopes To Earn Big Revenue From SMBs. Facebook to launch new Campaign Structure on March 4. Facebook News Feed Update Gives Brands More Reach. Facebook Tweaks News Feed to Show Page Posts that Tag Other Pages.
Facebook's Policy Ensures Deceased Users Privacy Remains Unchanged. Facebook to Buy WhatsApp for $16 Billion. Facebook Data Map Reveals Global Olympics Buzz. Facebook at 10: From Social Network to Social Phenomenon. Facebook Knows When You're About to Update Your Relationship Status. More Than Half of Facebook's Referral Traffic is Mobile. Facebook 'Look Back' Videos Shared Almost 100 Million Times.
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