A little over a month ago, we reported this story “Facebook In Early Stage Search Engine Tests?” and detailed some of the changes we were noticing. Well, today, based on another tip from bloggers at All Facebook, we can confirm that Facebook is indeed displaying ‘liked’ news content in it’s search result drop down. In fact, further to what All Facebook reported, they are also displaying content shared by your network of friends that matches the keywords you are sharing.
Marin Software today announced advanced applications for Facebook Advertising at SES San Francisco. Marin Search Marketer now offers advertisers and agencies the ability to manage Facebook Ads alongside paid search programs on Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.
Advanced solutions for Facebook include algorithmic bidding, audience segmentation, and ad rotation features.
Although managing and optimizing large-scale advertising programs on Facebook can be a time consuming task, Marin Software now addresses these inefficiencies through integration with the Facebook Ads API. This enables marketers to use Marin’s search marketing optimization and analytics tools to efficiently advertise to Facebook’s 500 Million users. With Marin, marketers can now consolidate the management, reporting, and optimization of their search and social marketing campaigns saving time and reducing the need for offline analysis in spreadsheets.
It’s hard to find an original headline when the company name actually is “Wowd.” The search startup has launched what it calls a “Social Discovery Client For Facebook,” quite a stern name for a practical and pretty ‘cool’ social app that lets you cut through the noise to find, manage and organize your social connections on Facebook.
Facebook is set to launch its own version of Foursquare-like check-ins in the coming weeks, CNET reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.
Localeze Tie-Up?
According to CNET, Facebook has partnered with Localeze for local business listings. This would totally be possible, as Dave Dague, Localeze’s vice president of marketing told us in an interview recently that the company is set for more social-LBS deals “soon.” Localeze is already teaming up with Twitter to provide data for its Twitter Places feature, along with Foursquare, Gowalla and Tom Tom.
Facebook, which seems yet undecided as for an IPO, has registered a hike in its July traffic in the U.S., after a slow month of June, Inside Facebook said.
In its report, Inside Facebook noted that “although women on Facebook still outnumber men on the site in the U.S., men led growth across every age range.”
An overview of some of today’s search, advertising and tech news.
Google Adwords was granted victory by U.S. District court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Va, in the case on the alleged trademarks infringement brought against it by Rosetta Stone. Lee declared the plaintiff’s arguments invalid and said that Google even increased brand awareness for Rosetta Stone through the use of “trademarked terms as keyword triggers and as words within sponsored link titles and advertisement text.”
An overview of some of today’s ad/tech news not to be missed.
Starbucks Biggest Brand On Facebook
It’s official, coffee chain Starbucks is now the biggest brand on Facebook, as it now counts over 10 million fans. The first public figure to have reached that level is music artist Lady Gaga. InsideFacebook, which keeps statistics on Starbucks on the social platform, said the chain’s page is consistently one of the top 20 fast growing ones. The company “consistently has an update or promotion for every occasion,” it noted, which is probably why fans are flocking in.
Reports have it that Google has invested between $100 million and $200 million in social gaming platform Zynga. Beyond the actual size of the spend, the real question is whether this move will finally give the Mountain View-based giant the leverage it desperately needs to launch its own full-blown social platform, i.e. the rumored ‘Google Me.’
Google Game Is The Name
TechCrunch first reported on the Google-Zynga “secretly” brokered deal, citing unnamed sources close to the situation. VentureBeat followed suit, confirming the “details of the deal” from its own anonymous source “familiar with the matter.” What TechCrunch and VentureBeat both agreed upon is that Google made the investment directly (i.e. not through its Google Ventures arm) and the company is readying to launch a Google Game platform.
Facebook is currently testing a new feature for pictures that allows automatic recognition of faces and subsequent faster tagging of photos, thanks to newly-acquired technology company Divvyshot. The company says it’s only the first of other new features for Facebook photo, including browsing and uploading. Let’s see the potential implications.
The rumor launched by Kevin Rose about Google working on a social platform to be called Google Me is taking on a new twist as former Facebook CTO, Adam D’Angelo, steps into the dance by saying that it’s “a real project.”
“This Is A Real Project”
D’Angelo made the statement on his own platform, Quora. The four main elements worth taking note of are 1) Google Me apparently is a “real project,” 2) Google is “modelling it off Facebook” as the search behemoth is fully aware of Buzz’s weakness, 3) Google people are “really scared” when seeing Facebook’s astronomical growth and figures, and last, but not least, 4) Google Me is a “high priority project.”
