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July 02, 2012

Social Samosa - Built in ‘Facebook Like’ for integrated mobile apps

Continuing from my last article on Facebook’s big boost towards exploring mobile markets, this article will focus upon Built in ‘ Facebook Like ’ for integrated mobile apps. Last time I talked about one of the most recent developments at Facebook with its product on location based Mobile Ad Product. A product that will allow brands and institutions to reach out to users with real-time data showing their whereabouts. Now everyone who’s using Apple iPhones, iPads or Android devices are weary of the sensitivity Location services being turned on brings with itself.

So going along the same lines, recently Facebook announced a new built-in “Facebook Like” feature for its open graph integrated partners. Now it will allow mobile developers with third party apps to share “Likes” or their version of “Likes” from apps on mobile devices with facebook’s website.

It isn’t as complicated as it looks like. Let me try and explain that to you.

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Social Samosa - Facebook Mobile going BIG – Location based mobile ads

In continuation with my previous articles on Facebook, one thing I’d like to explore is how Facebook is shifting its focus towards mobile. In retrospect, it certainly looks like something they should have done a long time back. Will it make a difference now? Are these moves going to help in the long term or are these just quick temporary measures to boost its current standing overall. With Google IO coming up soon, is Facebook trying all it can to ensure that it keeps up with the latest developments in Silicon Valley and offer its users a lot more all across the world, especially with its user base touching one billion soon!

In this two-part article I will focus on two important mobile products that facebook is developing.

  1. Location based mobile ad product
  2. Built in ‘Like’ for integrated mobile apps

Location based Mobile Ad Product

So what good is being one of the largest social network if they can’t put their money where their mouth is! With rigorous developments right from mobile acquisition to latest developments on the mobile front, facebook is certainly making sure that they go ‘All In’ on the mobile front. Especially when more than half of the 900 million users are using Facebook on a mobile device. More than 425 million active users access Facebook through mobile devices across 200 mobile operators in 60 countries.

One of such developments is Facebook’s location based Mobile Ad Product. A product that will allow brands and institutions to reach out to users with real-time data showing their whereabouts. Now everyone who’s using Apple iPhones, iPads or Android devices are weary of the sensitivity Location services being turned on brings along with itself. Some chose not to turn it on, others decide to, because they don’t mind the data being used and rest of them just simply don’t know what it’s all about and they go with the flow.

As Carolyn Everson, Facebook’s vice president of global marketing solutions told Bloomberg “Phones can be location-specific so you can start to imagine what the product evolution might look like over time, particularly for retailers”. She is right in saying that because from a brand or a company perspective this is something great and will help reach out to the right demographics, in the right way as much as possible.

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Social Samosa - Facebook Allows Editing Comments

Many times your friends have posted a status update on their profile/timeline. Many times you have commented on it. Many times in excitement or say thanks to the T9 dictionaries or the Swype keyboards on your phones, you have ended up with a typo when you’ve commented on the updates… How many times has this happened to you guys?

All of us have done it I’m sure ;) A while ago facebook had already allowed you to correct the comment, if you click on the x mark when you want to delete the comment. For many it would just be having to delete the comment and type it over again.

Now, facebook allows you to directly edit your comment with an option right there when you click to delete the comment. It gives you an option to delete or edit your comment directly. Instead of the ‘x’ it is now a small pencil with the dropdown as edit or delete. Gives you a clear indication that you can go ahead and change the comment and not have to delete it.

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Social Samosa - Facebook launches ‘Find Friends Nearby’ for Mobile

While I was talking a lot about new features being launched by Facebook for mobile, this option certainly takes the cake! Till now we’ve seen this as part of Google’s Latitude option. Imagine something like that being clubbed with one of the biggest Social Networks of the world. This was something that was certainly needed and is going to be something that people will find it useful, unless of course, you are skeptical about location and geotagging your location. Especially when you want to avoid some of your ‘friends’ !

Now we all know about apps like Foursquare and Facebook Places itself telling you locations of Friends nearby, but this feature will take this a notch up. Facebook’s Find Friends Nearby will help you find people in your vicinity, directly on your Facebook mobile app. And of course it’ll be handy when you go to meetups / tweetups etc. That is if your friends have also on turned this feature on.

You can access this new feature called “Friendshake” through this URL http://fb.com/ffn. An abbreviation of “find friends nearby”

As I’ve been observing through my previous articles on facebook, certainly another step in Facebook furthering its reach into mobile providing more services to people to connect! As is Mark Zuckerberg’s vision through Facebook, when he started off!

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