Facebook takes another step on its way to the domination over the social smartphone environment. This time, it’s Glancee, a social network based on the location of people that are near you. A little less than a month after its acquisition of Instagram, Facebook has acquired the competitive location-based social application called Glancee.

Amid its efforts to stay updated the latest trends of the changing technological advancements, Facebook penned down another deal to acquire Glancee – an endeavor to get hold of smartphone arena. This step by Facebook is seen as an attempt to settle its dominance in the smartphone world.

Facebook said in a statement:

“we are delighted to confirm that Facebook has acquired Glancee. The acquisition closed today. We can expect co-founder Andrea, Alberto and Gabriel to join the Facebook team to work on products that help people discover new places and share them with friends.”

Facebook has not disclosed the terms of acquisition of Glancee yet. Recall that less than a month ago Facebook took the mobile platform based on sharing photos, Instagram, for $1 billion, now the largest social network in the world has said that his sights are set on the mobile environment.

For those unfamiliar with the application, the concept allows users to meet new people who also use the application and are near to your location, providing details which you have in common— as friends or colleagues. Apparently, this acquisition by Facebook could come from the hand of a major update to its mobile app that allows the user to also add options of location and image editing if you choose to also share with Instagram filters.

It’s easier to buy companies and polish them to get to work on something new and this may be the secret behind these purchases, but you never know, at the end of the day you still did not understand why Mark Zuckerberg bought FriendFeed for example, or is it possible that it was simply a competitive play.

What are your thoughts on the latest acquisitions by Facebook?

In a recent court ruling, Federal Judge Raymond Jackson ruled that the ‘like’ button on Facebook doesn’t qualify as free speech and therefore isn’t protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Six employees of a Virginia sheriff’s office were fired by Sheriff BJ Roberts in 2009. At the same time, Roberts was in a political struggle with candidate Jim Adams. The fired employees contend that they were terminated because they had ‘liked’ Adams’ Facebook page. Roberts denies the claim and the court supported him.

According to Judge Jackson, “the court will not attempt to infer the actual content of Carter’s post from one click of a button on Adams’ Facebook page.” Carter being one of the fired employees. While the judge agrees that text posts on Facebook are protected speech, the like button is not.

This ruling is important to any business that markets on Facebook. The risk-reward ratio has changed significantly for every person engaging online. What used to be a simple thing to ask a potential customer to do, now has a risk involved since it’s not protected through free speech.

If your business isn’t directly involved in politics or other controversial activities, keep your opinions off your Facebook page. Don’t use your business page to air your thoughts about an election, share your endorsement of a candidate or weigh in on a hot topic. Keep that on your personal profile.

Instead, ask questions and get your fans to engage in dialog. Practice asking fair, open-ended questions with no implied answer. Find out what your fans think about news topics. Look for common ground issues that can unite people. Be real, have fun, but recognize that your fans have trusted you with their ‘like’ and you need to protect their choice since the First Amendment won’t.

James Wood is a writer, presenter and techie. He started his own business in 2009 to pay for adventures while volunteering on a farm in Ireland. The freedom of self-employment has let him consult in Hawaii, speak in England and visit 43 states. He writes for PrintPlace.com, a printing company offering booklets, catalogs and more printed-marketing media.

Everyone has likely seen Spotify popping up in their News Feeds since last year, but Facebook continues to roll out new Open Graph apps – over 60 in just the last few weeks. With that in mind, I wanted to share a quick overview of how Open Graph apps are starting to (and can) be utilized.

Entertainment is the most robust category so far, with over 18 associated apps available. It is also important to note that Timeline, once optional, is now mandatory and is rumored to be available for businesses soon. With that in mind, OG apps should be developed with Timeline in mind to ensure the widest audience.

The general concept to embrace is frictionless sharing. Open Graph apps require users to allow continuous publishing permission and feature actions that can be automatically shared, rather than explicitly asking users to share individual actions (i.e. the Like button plugin).

A few high-level notes on who and what has rolled something out:

Brands:

• Ford Mustang
• Ford Grab-a-Badge (http://social.ford.com/grab-a-badge)
• AutoTrader

Apps:

• News – Washington Post, Yahoo! News, USA Today
• Travel – Where I’ve Been, TripAdvisor
• Giving – Causes
• Food – Foodily, Foodspotting
• Shopping & Fashion – Pinterest, LivingSocial (no Groupon!), GiftRocket
• Fitness – MapMyFitness, RunKeeper
• Entertainment – Hulu, TicketMaster, StubHub, DailyMotion,

Noticeably absent:

• YouTube
• Groupon

There is also a distinction to be make between how app activity appears in the News Feed/Ticker and users’ actual Timelines. In short, there are more aesthetic and functional options available now than ever before.

In terms of visibility, there are two algorithms at play in the News Feed: EdgeRank and Graph Rank. EdgeRank priority is mostly governed by an item’s affinity, weight and time, relevant to a user’s personal network. At this point, not much is known about the parameters for Graph Rank. In brief:

1. EdgeRank dictates what “normal” status items appear in any given user’s feed.
2. Graph Rank determines how Open Graph application activity is distributed.

Feel free to browse all 60 apps and watch some of FB’s ultra PR-friendly video overviews. Enjoy.

About 70% of small companies market themselves on Facebook, online business network MerchantCircle reports. Use the site the right way, and you’ll turn fans into customers.

Take it Offline

Give followers a compelling reason to get to the point of purchase. You might offer, say, a discount or promo T-shirt if your fans come to your store and say a certain word, says Patrick Schwerdtfeger, author of Webify Your Business. Similarily, you could promote events via Facebook the way Anna B’s Gluten Free Bakery in Richmond does – the business posts on its wall when its fresh bread will be delivered to Whole Foods.

Build Hype

Rather than simply plugging products, get people excited about them. Schwerdtfeger suggests using the status update to post questions that will spark conversation – a camera retailer might say, “Most people use our underwater camera to take pictures of friends at pools. Where have you used yours?” Yeti Coolers in Austin uses a monthly themed photo contest to get people psyched about its wares; the winner gets a free cooler.

Form Relationships

Don’t just post and let the conversation die. Respond to comments, even complaints. “You want people to not only be aware of your brand, but engage with it,” syas Lon Safko, author of The Social Media Bible. Direct contact builds loyalty, which builds business!

What methods can you suggest to help grow your business through Facebook? Leave your tips in the comments!

The long-awaited tech IPO of the year — perhaps of the decade — is on. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook will file its paperwork for an Initial Public Offering this coming Wednesday. As you might expect, the Wall Street Journal’s source remains unnamed, however, The Journal has a track record for breaking such stories that is hard to dispute.

The social network is expected to be the largest tech IPO in history – topping out at an estimated $10 billion. To put that into perspective, Google’s 2005 IPO didn’t even reach the $2 billion mark.

There seem to be a number of signals pointing to an IPO in the near future – with one of the strongest signals being Facebook’s halted trading in secondary markets for three days earlier this week.

What are your expectations for Facebook finally going IPO? Will it bring about negative or positive change for the company? Leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Advertising on Facebook is an excellent way to reach a large number of consumers.  Facebook ads offer a cost effective marketing option that every business should consider.  As more people join Facebook every day, the opportunity to reach millions of consumers continues to grow for every business.  In order to increase the success you have when advertising on Facebook, you will need to optimize your campaigns so that you get the best results.  Here are a few tips to help you optimize your Facebook ad campaigns.

Test Several Headlines

Your headline is an important aspect of your Facebook ad.  The headline is the first thing a user will see and will determine whether or not the rest of the ad is read.  If you do not have a compelling headline, you could be missing out numerous sales as your Facebook ads go unnoticed.  When optimizing your headlines, come up with several different options and your ads using a different headline one at a time.  Track the number of clicks you receive with each headline to determine which one is the most effective.

Include Images

Including images with your Facebook ads is a great way to improve their effectiveness.  When creating Facebook ads that contain images, you will want to split test the effectiveness of each image as well.  By tracking the results of each image, you will be able to see which one is the most effective image to use in your ad.

Try Changing your Ad Copy

Your ad copy is the most important aspect of your Facebook ads.  Without quality, attention grabbing ad copy, you will not obtain the results you are capable of.  Try getting into the mindset of your target audience when writing your ad copy to help improve your Facebook ad results.  If you are selling a product, list the benefits associated with your product.  Whenever you make a change to your ad copy, you will want to track the results to see if the new copy is outperforming your previous ads.  By keeping records of every ad copy that you use, you will easily be able to see which Facebook ads you are currently running are the most effective.

Find Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is vital when looking to run a successful Facebook ad campaign.  Doing a bit of market research before you start an ad campaign will help you see who your target audience is.  Once you have this information, you will want to filter your Facebook ads to only appear for your target audience, ensuring that you do not waste money showing your ads to people who are not interested in your product or service.

Track Conversions

To fully optimize your Facebook ads, you will want to track all of your conversions.  Understanding where your conversions are coming from will help you determine which Facebook ads are the most effective.  If a specific ad is generating a lot of clicks but not many conversions, this ad is just costing you money and can be removed for your active campaign.  It is important that you only run ads that generate conversions, so that you can receive the highest ROI possible with your Facebook ad campaign.

Nic is a social media expert, specializing in Facebook advertising as part of his clients web marketing campaigns. With social media becoming a great avenue for marketing your business, it’s also important to optimize and test in the same way that you would with a traditional CPM or CPC campaign to get the best from your spend.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably spent a lot of time on Facebook Chat. Invariably, everyone gets tired of walls of text. Or, your sentiment might be heavier with a picture. So, looking for a way to spruce up your Facebook chats? I’ve compiled a list of all of the Facebook emoticons that can be used within the chat feature. Simply use the keyboard to put in the letters/numbers/symbols and when you send the message, the emoticon will appear! You may want to keep this list secret, everyone will want to know how to have a penguin show up in the chat window.

You may be curious about the utnam: face. Well I have the answer! Chris Putnam was an engineer for Facebook, and his face adorned one of the first login pages of Facebook.

I can only assume he thought it would be funny to program himself into the site. The utnam: code still works, and by this time I’m sure everyone at Facebook HQ is aware of it and have elected to keep it as a funny joke. And I’m sure Putnam himself is enjoying the fame!

Use his face and all the others to impress and befuddle your friends! There are a lot of Facebook emoticons, which ones are your favorites?

We naturally think of social media as the province of the young and hip. Our stereotypical image of a new-media-savvy person is young, spectacled, and nerdy, clad in sneakers and T-shirt, with a tattoo or three and an occasional piercing, slurping Red Bulls and munching junk snacks while hiding his lingering acne. Older people, we assume, lack the technological awareness and sophistication necessary to use social media and, their neural circuits having fossilized in the electronic Stone Age, and their ability to learn new tricks suffering from the drawbacks proverbially applying to old dogs. According to an article in MediaBadger, we would in many cases and ways be wrong, and those wanting to market to seniors should not ignore social media.

Here are some of the findings from the study:

• The first users of the Internet back in the 1990s were in their 40s and older. That’s primarily because the cost of computers in those days was much higher than it is today, and there were no portable options, so older people with higher and more stable incomes were the ones likely to be using it. Those same early Internet users have graduated to social media as they have emerged into being.
• The reasons why seniors (or “silver surfers” as the study quaintly terms them) engage in social media may be slightly different than for younger users. The biggest single reason is to stay in touch with friends and family, followed by pursuit of hobbies, with services, vacationing, and shopping filling the next three categories. Seniors still tend to be less trusting than younger people of online shopping and banking.
• A study of which social media outlets are used by age group shows that seniors are more likely to use Facebook, on-line forums, and photo sharing services than they are other outlets. Seniors are less likely than younger people to post videos on YouTube and similar outlets, but quite likely to view on-line videos.
• Seniors are late adopters of changing social media and less likely than younger people to learn new media that are difficult or complex. They quickly develop habits of use (or already have them by now) and are resistant to change. They love to comment online about current events, politics, or most other subjects and tend to have strong opinions. Then tend to prefer simple and easy to learn tools that interface easily with services and methods they are already used to using.

There are, in short, many differences between older social media users and younger ones. Just the same, this is not a demographic that Facebook marketers should ignore, nor are social media something that should be ignored by companies that routinely serve an older clientele.

While seniors are becoming more internet savvy, they are still at risk for online scams.  If you are a senior citizen or have a family member who is, a background check for all new friend requests may be a good idea.

From all of us Only Facebook, we wish you and your loved ones a fantastic holiday season filled with joy and happiness!

Facebook is the biggest single social site out there. It seems that almost everyone who can access a computer has a Facebook page, as this social network has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Everyone and their grandparents are using Facebook, and almost all of these folks are either bemoaning changes that Facebook has made or they are looking for ways that they can make their Facebook user experience even better. There are a lot of ways that you can tweak Facebook to make it better for you.

Here are just 7 Facebook tweaks you can try:

1.) Hide the right sidebar

The right sidebar seems to be the most hated of the newer Facebook features. It shrinks down the viewable screen size, and the mini-newsfeed next to the big newsfeed just seems like a bit too much. You can easily hide this feature with a tiny tweak. At the bottom of the sidebar to the right there is a small button with an arrow; clicking that allows you to hide the sidebar away.

2.) Don’t clog up the newsfeed with game updates

Facebook gaming is one of the great things about Facebook, and it attracts a lot of new users to the site. As you play, your friends’ newsfeed and their walls may start to get stopped up with news of your achievements and announcements that you have begun to play Farkle. To stop this, in the Account settings you can set custom settings for all of your apps including settings so that no one but you gets these announcements.

3.) Stop Facebook emails

If you use your smartphone to access Facebook, you probably get notifications when you get a friend request, a new comment on a status update or more. It starts to get annoying when you get hit with an SMS message and an email about the same thing. It is easy to turn this off. You can go to your notification settings and turn off any text and email announcements you want.

4.) Get new stories in your newsfeed

Facebook’s new default is to show the top stories first. If a topic turns out to be hot, every time you visit the page it will end up at the top of the queue, which can get pretty boring. To get new content to the top of your newsfeed, click on the little arrow that is skewed a little to the left above where your newsfeed starts. Here you can select to see recent stories first. Remember, you may have to do this on more than one occasion; this Facebook tweak isn’t permanent.

5.) Find out how your profile looks to other people

When you look at your profile, there is a button labeled “view as” to the top left. After you click on that button, enter the name of a Facebook friend, and you will see your page as it appears to them. This is a great tweak to use to see if you might accidentally be oversharing. This can also help you to see if a spammer or errant app are sharing things to your wall.

6.) Get the word out

You have important things to say, and it seems like Facebook is just the place to say them. However, you want to let more people than just your friends have a listen. Tweak your Facebook to allow subscriptions. With subscriptions other folks are able to see your updates and leave comments, but they aren’t allowed to see all of your private personal information that your actual Friends have access to. To set up subscriptions, go to your profile, click on “subscriptions” from the left sidebar and go from there.

7.) Keep your location secret

Many people don’t like location-based services like check-in because they don’t want to tell the world that you aren’t at home. Some just don’t want the whole world knowing where they are at any given second. You can change your settings so that well intentioned friends who check in are unable to check you in as well. To tweak this and other tagging features, just go to your privacy settings and select “how tags work.”

This article is provided by Kevin Moor who writes for different sites, one of which provides information on the perfect uninstaller.