We have been itching to discuss Facebook further recently, for it seems to be re-defining many aspects of the world we as developers are faced. Work is pouring-in and making it more difficult to keep everyone informed as to the things we find interesting. Our procrastination was brought to end this weekend after a culmination of events that has led to the saturation-point for social-media with the likes of Susan Boyle and the Domino’s taking center stage at YouTube.

THE MILLION TWEETS OF ASHTON KUTCHER
And what about Oprah’s first tweet …? Or the whole Ashton Kutcher Vs Larry King in the quest for one million twitter followers, who then goes and get one million Facebook fans whilst he is at it…? Am certain that the fact that one of the new online animated shows from his media company is primarily available from within Facebook certainly helped.

The most impressive aspect of this milestone is that Ashton has grown from around 400,000 fans to over 1 million fans in under 3 days! It’s an impressive feat and it shows the viral nature of Facebook public profiles.

We feel it is Facebook that is responsible for this final stage of saturation, which has in many ways even made it possible for Twitter to grow the way it has, something that is somewhat limited here in Asia but nonetheless a force well worth keeping in sight…

With growth at a staggering rate of over 480,000 users a day and demographic shifts of the over 35 year olds doubling a day , it is no surprise that rumours of Microsoft buying Facebook for US$50 Billion have re-surfaced and some have taken notice.

Yahoo!’s stock price shot up  on the news of his comments, but I think the press and the markets are missing the big picture: Microsoft’s is using the “potential Yahoo! deal” as a red herring with investors . Ballmer is using Yahoo! to convince the market that Microsoft needs to buy Facebook to compete with Google, and to set a price floor of 50 billion for the acquisition.

It’s not all rosy at the top though, the recent re-design they forced upon users almost caused riots in France , and their sudden change in their Terms of Service caused quite a up-roar with those that care, forcing Zuckerberg to quickly re-strategize.

 

The fact that Facebook may eventually sell our personal data is another matter entirely, and the fact that the platform is being used for blackmail and countless other spamming and scamming techniques , it seems only natural that Facebook would fight back with private groups for families .

The Consumerist has noticed a seemingly slight but very important (and disturbing) change in Facebook’s terms of service , regarding user-generated content. In short, all of the content you’ve ever uploaded on Facebook Facebook reviews can be used, modified or even sublicensed by Facebook in every possible way…

With plans for adding the ability to integrate Facebook chat directly into Facebook Applications , and the news that some Facebook developers are earning over US$ 700,000 a month , it’s impossible to miss applications as fun and engaging as the ones that BuddyMedia (a company specifically developing Facebook Applications) are creating. Take the new InTru3D application for Intel :

 

In talking about 3D worlds for Facebook, how could we not mention Sacred Seasons & Small Worlds?

Turn based multi-player games have been a huge hit on Facebook but there are few that have a real-time multiplayer environment. Sacred Seasons can’t see any reason why there shouldn’t be more multiplayer games, especially massively multiplayer games. So the team behind this virtual game environment has ‘created a Facebook application that combines the Sacred Seasons world with the Facebook community.

 

Given SmallWorlds’ focus on social media integration, it’s not surprising to see SmallWorlds with a Facebook app. It’s designed to push engagement and media-sharing opportunities, which is a core concept for the SmallWorlds virtual environment to begin with.

 

The SmallWorlds Facebook app mostly consists of an embedded version of your SmallWorlds creation on your Facebook Profile. From there, you can interact within the SmallWorlds virtual realm without leaving Facebook.

With that said, please come VISIT US ON FACEBOOK and find our if and how we utilised the following: