By Vanessa Humes


This week Facebook unleashed it’s new Facebook Places, a geo-location based feature that allows users to share where they are, check in on people around them, and find out about events and services offered in their area.

Partnering with other location-based networks such as Gowalla, Four Square, Yelp, and Booyah, Facebook has brought on a whole new dimension to Social Media that hasn’t had as much hype before.  But will it stick?

Even though with partnerships and opening up its API data for developers to create other applications with this Places features, Facebook must overcome privacy concerns that people will like and adapt to this new feature.  Users will automatically be “checked-in” to places and this news will post in your friends news feeds.  The common concern users face is the question of, if this person was truly my friend, wouldn’t they already know where I like to hang out? Facebook stalking has just been taken to a new level.

My first perception of Facebook Places is this is nothing new… Four Square has been doing this for a long time and there are even geo-location social media sites that date back to 2006.  But for the majority of internet and social media users, Facebook still hold the share of users time so intergrating with Facebook is a logical solution to push this new media.

What’s this mean for businesses and marketing?  There is an opportunity to advertise your brick and mortar business to Facebook Places and the partnership subscribers when they are looking for things to do in their location.  In addition, businesses will be promoted by the ability for user to share where they are and what they are doing.  The integration with Yelp will eventually help ratings pull in for these places and businesses.

How do you plan on taking advantage of the opportunity that presents itself with Facebook Places?

So you have a blog or forum, and you are gaining lots of great content on there. Many times your readers may see something that they want to share with others on via Facebook, but copying link URLs and typing notes manually can be a burden. The Facebook Share button solves that issue!


Now, by adding a link like the one above to your blog code, you can give them the ability to share your blog entry details and a link  to the individual entry with one click. Facebook will open a small popup window where you can add additional notes if you wish, and select an image to go along with the post in some cases.

Thanks to the work of many diligent programmers, these types of Facebook Share buttons can now be added to all types of blogs, whether they be Wordpress, BlogCFC, Blogger / Blogspot, or a custom blog you had specially built for your own site. Because every blog varies to some extent you may need a little technical know-how (or a friend who is a programmer) but the process is fairly quick and painless.

If you have a blog or forum and  you want to include the Facebook Share button in its features, feel free to read up on the Facebook Developers wiki here:  http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/Facebook_Share

If that gets a little too deep or out of the scope of your abilities to set up, just drop a note to our Support team at support@icoastalnet.com and we will schedule a time to install it on your website for you.

Cheers, and Happy Blogging!

Facebook has recently added some new features and made some changes that, from this reviewers point of view, helps the user experience quite a lot.

One of the most annoying things I found about Facebook is that my posts (which are ALL very important, and should be read and responded to) can quickly be lost in the "push-down" process of real time postings coming in. Translation: other peoples posts that come in after mine, push mine down and then OFF the wall. No good.

Now you can click on the "most interesting stories" deemed so by the Facebook team/machine. I'm guessing the stories are those posts that get the most interaction, but I could be wrong. "Interesting" is a relative term and I'm curious how a machine could figure that out.

You can also check out all LIVE FEED (which appears as a link at the top of your WALL) to view all the posts in real-time chronological order.

But before you get all misty eyed about Facebook's recent user experience facelift, consider that changes have been made to the "advertising" experience (and the way(s) marketers can advertise) as well.

See all changes at Facebook's official press release: Facebook News.

I have to admit. I'm not very enthused about Facebook's decision to allow users to create Vanity URLs for their profiles (and pages...though I haven't seen any for those yet. Not sure who is eligible, and when the rest of us will be?)

Of course, it just makes sense that a person can give out easy-to-remember static looking URL's to their family, friends, and clients/customers instead of a long string of variable gobbledeegook. But, I knew - as an SEO professional - that the mad rush to SQUAT on the best keyword phrases would ruin the usefulness of Facebook's move.

Can I blame anyone for the rush? Nope. The opportunity is there, so why not take it? I blame Facebook for allowing the opportunity to be there in the first place. How fair is it that some unrelated person, business, or organization can steal (take) your name, your identity, or more likely, YOUR MAIN KEYWORD PHRASE?

First come, first serve. And that's all that qualifies you to choose your URL "username".

And the change is permanent? So no swapping. Once you're TheKiKi, or MyrtleBeachSEO, you're that until death do you part. Does that mean the squatters can't unload the goods? Not sure, but money talks so there's always a way around such obstacles, like swapping account logins. And is Facebook monitoring for copyright infringement of identity theft...or can anyone swoop in a take Nike, McDonalds, Coke...or even Barrack Obama or Kobe Bryant?

In the coming weeks (probably much less than that) you'll see Facebook pages inundate the SERP's. And the 'why' is obvious. Facebook hit critical mass some time ago, and continues to balloon. Think of how many times you see Wikipedia pages in the SERPs.

I hope that Facebook makes good on its promise to combat blatant squatting. And, I hope that Google and the rest of the Search Engines do their due diligence with their own algorithms. After all, the premise of the page URL's text [ALWAYS] properly defining the focus of the page went south when the first black hat SEO salesman crawled out of the mud.

Maybe I'm peeved that someone got to my name on Facebook before I did? I can only imagine how annoyed I'd be if someone snaked the name of my business.

So let's have some fun, and you tell me whose side Facebook is on. The common man (and thus small business) or the Superstar and million dollar brands.

Go to

www.facebook.com/kobebryant

www.facebook.com/lebronjames

www.facebook.com/ashtonkutcher

www.facebook.com/barackobama

www.facebook.com/coke

www.facebook.com/pepsi

And watch what happens. Do you think Facebook would let you - oh common man - set something up like that for yourself or your business?

Now start searching for things that you KNOW what have been snatched up right at midnight Saturday morning, like Disney or Myrtle Beach (yeah, Myrtle Beach...I know there are plenty of companies licking their chops over that one).

Find any other glaring inconsistencies in Facebook's new vanity URL's. Let us know. Disgree with me...well you can let me know that too.