Facebook aims for Google with Entity Graph real-world mapping

You’ve probably heard of Facebook’s new feature, Graph Search. Allowing you to search for combinations of people, places, and things through Facebook, Graph Search grabs headlines because it’s Facebook’s real foray into the search engine world. It’s a sexy topic because it focuses on people – you’re part of the search results – which can embarrass you, get you in trouble, or get you engaged, depending on how it’s used and how your profile looks. But it’s not the only thing cooking for Facebook’s search team – the social media giant is also cobbling together another search tool it calls the Entity Graph.

The Entity Graph has an even wider scope than Graph Search. It’s kind of a combination of Google Search and Wikipedia – a largely user-generated, searchable trove of encyclopedic knowledge. While Graph Search hones in on people and their interests on Facebook, Entity Graph sketches out how everything relates to each other. It’s more pragmatic, but it’s just as essential to Facebook’s plans to dominate the search game. 

The MIT Technology Review took a closer look at this fledgling catalog, talking to Facebook product manager Mitu Singh about the project’s goals. As Singh explained to journalist Tom Simonite, “We’re trying to map what the real world looks like onto Facebook so you can run really expressive and powerful queries.” 

So instead of using language alone, Entity Graph takes advantage of context to create a smarter search, more grounded in how people actually relate to things. 

Facebook is encouraging users to contribute the the Entity Graph in subtle ways. It asks them to double-check that they’ve entered a location correctly, or nudges them to tag duplicated content. It asks locals to fill in the blanks about their neighborhood haunts, and enthusiasts to bulk up details about their favorite hobbies, entertainment, or sports. Lots of information comes from fan pages, while other data gets culled from outside sources. 

If the Entity Graph works correctly, Facebook’s search will work better – much better. When you look for a McDonald’s near your work or school, data collected from the Internet and from Facebook users will provide more accurate answers. Instead of leaving Facebook to look up something like museum hours or the tastiest ice cream in your city, if Entity Graph works, you can just use Facebook as your search engine. 

If you’re fed up with Google, this will definitely provide an interesting alternative, though there’s no saying whether it will be better or worse. Google is working on a program called Knowledge Graph with similarities to Entity Graph, so both companies are striving to connect digital search to the real world and real-world language more closely. 

Of course. Facebook has been on a mission to monetize, and there’s no way it would undertake such a massive endeavor without some sort of angle that will keep investors and ad partners happy. Yes, Entity Graph may make the user experience better, but it could also lead to additional opportunities for targeted ads and marketing.

Even though the search is in its infancy, PR agencies are already advising brands to optimize their social media presence to fit better with the graph. And since the Entity Graph only works if people voluntarily input information, it cajoles Facebook users to more frequently pinpoint their whereabouts and preferences. And more personalized information means more opportunities to fine-tune ads. 

The Entity Graph is an interesting endeavor, but Facebook’s decision to follow Wikipedia’s user-generated content model for its information may be complicated if people feel like their information is used to boost ads instead of improve the search. And by “complicated,” we mean everyone will throw a temper tantrum.

Kate Knibbs is a writer, journalist and semi-nomadic pizza enthusiast. You can find her at @kateknibbs on Twitter.

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Notorious Facebook hook up app invades SXSW to the chagrin of … SXSW

If you thought forking up a couple thousand bucks to attend SXSW was just about the music, tech demos, movies, free food and booze, you are mistaken. Plenty of festival goers have an ulterior motive here in Austin: to get busy. Bang With Friends made rounds last month when it encouraged Facebook users to select friends they’re secretly wanting to hook up with and match make – and now the developers have created a spinoff in the form of Bang With SXSW.

Unlike the original Bang With Friends, the SXSW edition allows festival goers attending the event to see other users who’ve registered for the special edition app – even if they are not Facebook friends. The app will also display names and profile photos to help those looking to get laid find their potential partner for the night. Bang With Friends co-founder anonymously going by the name C says approximately 3,560 SXSW’ers have signed up, leaving plenty of opportunities to find someone drunk enough for a one night stand.

Still, SXSW organizers weren’t impressed. They sent Bang With SXSW a cease and desist letter, citing the app’s promotional posters as too lewd and controversial, and the site’s original domain of sxsw.bangwithfriends.com as an unapproved use of the festival’s name. The SXSW team worked fast to remove the “inappropriate” posters, but so did BWF developers. Not long after they received warning from SXSW, the site reappeared at austin13.bangwithfriends.com. ”We didn’t feel they had a strong case, but wanted to make a gesture of good will so we set it up at the new URL,” C tells us.”We just want to give the people what they want!”

The new domain also adds a small disclaimer, noting that ”Bang With Friends is in no way condoned or affiliated with SXSW – in fact, it turns out they are not big fans of bangin.” Whoops.

If you’re in town and are interested in the service, Bang With SXSW has a friendly reminder to practice safe sex. The team has been handing out branded condoms to encourage a healthy sex life, but you might want to check out the Qpid app that can verify a person’s sexually transmitted disease status, just to be safe.

C said that as of today, Bang With SXSW has successfully created 221 hook ups, with numbers expecting to rise as the music portion of the festival continues and more drunk hipsters flood town. Who says geek spring break can’t get raunchy?

An avid gadgets and Internet culture enthusiast, Natt Garun spends her days bringing you the funniest, coolest, and strangest news in tech to make the information overload a bit more digestible. She joined Digital Trends as staff writer after spending five months in Hong Kong and formerly working as an assistant travel writer. Her published works can also be found on Business Insider and Gizmodo. Natt hails from S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University with a degree in magazine journalism. E-mail her at ngarun@digitaltrends.com or tweet her @nattgarun.

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Facebook expected to release a sexy Snapchat clone

Facebook will reportedly release its own version of Snapchat, the "sexting" app known for its ability to create and send self-destructing mobile photos. Facebook's app is expected to launch before the end of the year.

It might not really matter that Snapchat has been getting a negative rep from the press as of late as a “sexting” app. Sources tell AllThingsD that Facebook has recognized the potential of such a service, plans to release its own adaptation of the popular timed photo and messaging app before the end of the year.

Snapchat, if you’re not familiar with the app, sends messages, photos, and now videos between users that expire after one to 10 seconds. The amount of time that the sent message is on the other person’s phone is entirely up to the sender. It’s become a popular way for teenagers and college students to send “secure” messages. However, if you really wanted to save a specific message, there’s always the option to do a screen grab on your smartphone.

Whatever the case may be, Facebook wants to grab a piece of self-destruct messaging pie. Facebook’s version of Snapchat will live outside of Facebook’s native mobile app as a standalone app much like what the social network has done with Facebook Messenger, Facebook Camera, and others. And the app will reportedly mimic Snapchat’s core features, meaning that users can send timed messages through an interface that’s said to be inherently familiar to existing Snapchat users. Whether video messaging will be supported hasn’t been confirmed. We’ve reached out to Facebook for a comment, and will update this space with any response.

Facebook already has its fair share of mobile messaging products that have been upgraded to reflect the market’s current features in messaging. For example, Facebook has been coming to grips with its potential to compete with SMS text messages, and recognized that to dominate mobile, the social network needs to face off with apps like Whatsapp. To do this, Facebook responded by updating its Android app so users wouldn’t be forced to sign up with a Facebook account. Instead new users can sign up with just a name and a phone number. And then, of course, there’s Instagram, the Facebook-acquired ppp that currently dominates the mobile photo-sharing space.

What do you think of Facebook’s plans to release a Snapchat clone? Is this a good move for the social network, or is one “sexting” already too many?

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Facebook updates ‘Nearby’ feature with heavier social integration

Facebook is rolling out an update to its mobile app that will improve its 'Nearby' feature.

Facebook is preparing to launch an update for its iOS and Android mobile apps that ties it closer to location-based social apps such as Foursquare or Yelp.

The “Nearby” function, which was scheduled to be updated sometime on Monday, makes it even easier for users to discover places that their friends like or have been to. This feature can be accessed by tapping the top left icon or by sliding your screen to the right to access the sidebar menu. A few tabs down in the menu is the “Nearby” option, which currently shows which places your friends have checked in to.

The updated feature, however, adds new capabilities such as search by category, Facebook said in a statement on Monday.

“If you’re looking for a place to eat, choose a category like Restaurants to see what’s nearby,” the company wrote.  “When you find a place that looks interesting, tap to see info like friends who who’ve been there and business hours.”

Similar to Yelp, Facebook patrons can also write reviews and rate establishments based on their experience. These reviews will come up in search results, and Facebook has also bumped up the social features into its “Nearby” option.

“You’re suggestions become more personalized the more you and your friends rate, recommend, and check into places,” the website said in its announcement.

The app’s interface has also significantly changed. Rather than listing locations or businesses that you’ve already checked in at, the app pulls up a compilation of places that it thinks you would be interested in. Just like Facebook decides to rank news items in your main feed based on a variety of factors, it does the so with its “Nearby” recommendations engine.  This means that Facebook will make suggestions based on friends who have “Liked” a particular spot or have given it a star rating.

Facebook was sure to acknowledge that since these features are new, there is likely to be room for improvement. The app’s performance will develop as more people use it over time, Facebook said.

“Results will get better the more people use Nearby, and we’ll continue to improve it based on feedback,” the social media platform said. “We also plan to add places info from third party services in the near future.”

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My most optimistic take on that whole “monetizing Instagram” thing Facebook said

It should come as a surprise to no one that Facebook plans to monetize Instagram, one of its biggest investments to date and a hugely growing platform. But now that some sort of advertising structure has been confirmed, what exactly will the implementation look like?

Facebook has confirmed it will soon begin “monetizing” Instagram – an industry speak for “the ads are coming.” Since the social network’s acquisition of the photo-sharing platform, what the partnership means in advertising terms has been much discussed.

In exact terms, Facebook VP of Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson told Business Insider, “There are many brands that use Instagram right now to try to get a feel for how to engage with their followers. We will definitely be figuring out a monetization strategy.”

While the headline “Ads are hitting Instagram!” is admittedly sexier, this isn’t necessarily what’s going to happen. Reading between the lines, you could imagine that Facebook plans something like its recent mobile ads push for Instagram. Those look like the image at right. 

These advertising instances are fairly unintrusive, given that they blend into the rest of your News Feed, but are obviously not content your friends posted. Of course, Facebook and Instagram are different networks, and seeing something exactly like this pop up in Instagram, amidst photos of Amaro and Walden-filtered sunsets, dinners, dogs, and plane windows would definitely interrupt the user experience. It would be out of place and sacrifice design. It would be bad.

It’s so obviously bad that I have to imagine that when Everson says Facebook is “figuring out a monetization strategy,” she isn’t just trying to find a nice way to say “we’re putting ads all over that thing, suckers!” She means it, and when she says that plenty of brands are already using Instagram for marketing purposes, she’s right. Warby Parker has amassed 38,000 followers and gets plenty of likes and comments on its posts, and it personally reaches out to users who posts photos with the #WarbyParker tag. Nike is similarly making good use of Instagram, with a myriad of specific accounts for users – consumers – to interact with.

Clearly, Instagram is a great avenue for brands to reach buyers, something Facebook has some experience with. Since launching the Open Graph, the way Facebook is going about marketing is through trying to make it a seamless, natural part of its environment. Sure, there are sidebar ads, logout ads, and, now, mobile ads … but most of these have been a part of Facebook’s structure for a really long time. Throwing this type of content into the Instagram mix simply doesn’t make as much sense.

Now what does make sense are tools like brand pages, promoted hashtags, and deals. Facebook could offer premium accounts to brands, wherein they could then pay for promoted hashtags and accounts (yes, like Twitter), making them more visible to users. They could also allow these businesses to run deals for users who post photos where they’ve checked into the location. There are a lot of unique opportunities here that aren’t just straight-up ads in our Instagram photo stream.  

But maybe I’m just being optimistic. If there’s anything we’ve learned recently, the user experience is absolutely, always on the chopping block. 

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Facebook sells the farm and renegotiates its partnership with Zynga

In 2011, Facebook relied on FarmVille studio Zynga for 12 percent of its total revenue. At the end of 2012, Zynga is a fast shrinking business with a equally shrinking audience. The social network and the game company have renegotiated their partnership.

FarmVille studio Zynga’s precipitous decline over 2012 has affected both individuals and massive corporations. On the micro scale, numerous employees at Zynga’s Austin, Chicago, and Boston offices were laid off at the end of October. On the macro, Facebook reported that revenues from its gaming business dropped 9 percent between the beginning of April and the end of September. Since Zynga accounted for 43 percent of the $176 million Facebook earned from its payments and fees segment, the studio’s fall has more than a little to do with the social network’s earnings trouble.

That’s no doubt why Facebook is no untangling its business from Zynga. Develop reported on Friday that Facebook has ended its exclusive agreements with Zynga that saw the game maker receive preferential treatment over other companies hosting games on the network. From this point on, according to an SEC filing detailing the new deal between the two companies, Zynga games will “be governed solely by Facebook’s standard terms and conditions for game developers.”

In 2010, Zynga signed an exclusive five-year agreement with Facebook that gave them undisclosed advantages compared to other social game makers, but it was suspected that Facebook shared more revenue than it did with others. Facebook agreed to those terms because at the time Zynga was responsible for a huge portion of the social network’s revenue. In 2011 alone, Zynga’s games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars accounted for 12 percent of Facebook’s total revenue.

The new deal isn’t just beneficial to Facebook. While the social network is freed from having to share a larger portion of revenue with Zynga than other publishers, Zynga no longer has to exclusively use virtual currency like Facebook Credits in its games. With user numbers down for Zynga games, its questionable how much the studio will want to rock the boat by introducing a new virtual currency.

In the short term, Zynga certainly came out on bottom in the new deal as it further shook investor confidence in the company. Shares in Zynga dropped 12 percent following the news.

Zynga’s short-lived empire was never sustainable. Its games grew popular in tandem with Facebook, and while it borrowed most of the ideas for its games, it benefitted from being so recognizable. Now its competition has overtaken it in every way and its audience has stopped growing. Zynga’s CEO Mark Pincus should invest in innovation rather than mass imitation next time.

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Sex offender wins case compelling Facebook to remove page identifying pedophiles

Facebook has been ordered to remove a page that tracks pedophiles' movements by a High Court Judge, but the group that created it has already moved on to a second page.

Facebook has three days to remove a page on its network created specifically to monitor the location of known pedophiles, following a ruling from a high court in Northern Ireland that the page was illegal and breached the human rights of those publicly “named and shamed” on the page as convicted sex offenders.

The ruling came at the end of a case brought by one of the people named on the page, a convicted sex offender whose identity cannot be revealed publicly but is known as XY. XY had challenged Facebook to remove the page after he had discovered his photograph on it, noting that he had received threatening comments as a result and arguing that the page breached his human rights, an argument that High Court Judge Mr. Justice McClosky agreed with. “Society has dealt with the plaintiff in accordance with the rule of law,” McClosky wrote in his ruling, “He has been punished by incarceration and he is subject to substantial daily restrictions on his lifestyle.”

When initially contacted by XY, Facebook had apparently removed his photograph from the page, as well as deleting all comments on the page about him, but his legal team pushed for a more aggressive solution. Although Facebook has been ordered to remove the page within 72 hours, it is still up at time of writing with 5,342 likes and 290 people “talking” about it on the network. Following the verdict, a spokesperson for Facebook said that the company was “considering our next steps in light of the court judgment and we have nothing further to add at this stage.”

Those behind the page are more pro-active, however, with the most recent comments on the page promising that, if the page is removed, it will only be a temporary setback, as a replacement page has already been created (That page, however, only has 301 likes). It should be noted that the new page bears the new instructions “Please refrain from rude/violent comments. Posting such comments could lead to your removal.” (That request hasn’t been followed by those posting comments on the page, which include “bring back hanging for pedos, they shouldn’t have any human rights because their not human” and “wow i can’t believe this guy! he has the right to be castrated and tortured for the rest of his life like his victims will be… hope someone takes a hammer to his head” Other comments include a request for names of London-based sexual offenders because people have “special treats for them” and someone suggesting that “all pedoes should have pedo braded into thier foreheads.”)

It’s unknown at this time whether Facebook will appeal the ruling, or whether it will be forced to remove the second page in addition to the first.

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Facebook wins in antitrust case over network that tried to replace its ads with its own

The U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Facebook over an antitrust complaint filed by Sambreel, an ad network replacing Facebook's ads for its own ads using PageRage.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo concluded a legal spat between Facebook and Sambreel over the third-party ad company’s controversial advertising practices, Gigaom reports. Bencivengo ruled in favor of Facebook and threw out Sambreel’s antitrust case, claiming “There’s no fundamental right to use Facebook.”

Sambreel’s troubles began when its third-party Facebook product, PageRage, enabled users to change their Facebook backgrounds and layout. To accomplish this, Sambreel required these very Facebook users to download its software, but at the same time the product was serving ads that would replace Facebook’s own. Facebook was being threatened by Sambreel’s advertising network, which grew to become the third largest after Facebook and Yahoo for serving “89 billion display advertising impressions.” While the relationship between Sambreel and Facebook allegedly began as friendly, PageRage’s growth become a thorn in its side. 

According to the judgment documented by the U.S. District Court in California and published yesterday, Sambreel was raking in more than $1 million per month in revenue during 2010, and that was with just one million users. By mid 2011, PageRage had amassed four million users per day, which threatened Facebook’s own advertising products on its own platform.

Facebook eventually took matters into its own hands when the social network began blocking users who had PageRage installed from signing into their Facebook account. Within two weeks of this, Sambreel claims that it lost more than one million users, and Facebook gave the advertising company its terms: Sambreel would have to eliminate its advertising efforts on PageRage to keep the product active. Sambreel complied on December 22, 2011 but suffered a loss of half its workforce and other financial losses.

Sambreel argues that Facebook’s advertising scheme is anti-competitive, even monopolistic.

However the court found that Facebook was within its right to protects its own products and terms of use. Specifically the judgement states: “The Court is persuaded that Facebook has a right to control its own product and to establish the terms with which its users, application developers, and advertisers must comply in order to utilize this product.” But the real home run for Facebook in this antitrust complaint was the judge’s conclusion that Facebook never prevented Sambreel from “developing products on other websites, or social networks.”

The case could serve as a precedent for January 5's court case involving Twitter and PeopleBrowsr. It also brings to mind MegaUpload’s Kim DotCom’s Mega, a free-to-use music service, which was reportedly going to be replacing ads on third-party sites with Mega’s own ads in a manner that’s similar to what PageRage was doing. Although with Mega’s advertising product, no one specific platform will be targeted. Still, Facebook’s victory doesn’t bode well for the already-beleaguered music service. 

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Facebook Messenger app updated with texting support*

You read that correctly - starting today, Facebook Messenger 2.0 will support sending text messages. However, that asterisk in the title denotes that there's a catch. Initially, only the HTC EVO 3D, HTC One X, LG Optimus Black, LG Optimus Hub, Samsung Galaxy Ace, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Samsung Galaxy S3, and Samsung Galaxy Y will support texting from the app. Facebook promises that more devices will be supported over the next few weeks.

Besides redesigning your messages inbox look like a SMS app, Facebook Messenger lets you swipe your finger to the left anywhere in the app to see who's available, and from there you can send a message. You can also put the friends you message most to the top through Favorites so they’re easily accessible.

Along with the updates coming to Facebook Messenger, the main Facebook app is getting an update today as well. It will receive the same SMS-style look for your messages and there will be an icon in the upper-right of your News Feed that shows who's available to chat. In addition, Facebook says that the new app has been made more secure and they've ironed out some bugs with push notifications and multi-photo uploads.

Source: Facebook

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Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones version 3.2.0.9 now available in BlackBerry Beta Zone

Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones has again been updated in BlackBerry Beta Zone, bringing it up to version 3.2.0.9. While this is only a small bump up from the last version, it does contain several bug fixes. If you are a Facebook user and Beta Zone member you will want to be sure to download this new version if you haven't done so already. Full details and the download can be found at the link below.

The following issues have been fixed and implemented in Facebook for BlackBerry smartphones version 3.2.0.9:

    Updated help URLs for Facebook 3.2    Auto-linking to Facebook friends in address book did not occur    Menu items missing for 5.0 devices    Scrolling Issues on the BlackBerry Curve 9360    Sharing a friend’s photo creates a comment on wall instead of posting the photo    Long user name is cutoff in profile header on profile screen    Some friends are not displayed in friends list with large user account    When the user opens the photo comment notification and commends after friend, only "comment" is displayed in the outgoing notifications list    Can't Scroll in the Menu "Notifications" with Touch Screen    Unable to comment on my own photo (won't send) (Error 2121)    Title on Group Wall publisher changes: initially using full name, then switching to first name    Null shows in location field of an event in calendar    A blank event screen displays after event is canceled while you trying to refresh screen    Initial scroll up will not take user to the top of the Event Wall - Event Photo, Title and Type are not visible    Facebook message always stays in sending status

Check out more in the BlackBerry Beta Zone

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App Giveaway: 50 copies of QuickChat for Facebook

Way back in December of 2010 we were promised that Facebook Chat would come to the webOS Messaging app via Synergy in webOS 2.0. If you pick up your webOS 2.x device and fire up Messaging, you'll probably notice the distinct lack of Facebook in there. That's assuming you haven't gone all rogue and rouge added Facebook Chat support with a patch. But there is also a dedicated app to make it happen, from webOS developer pcworldSoftware (not related to the magazine and website) comes QuickChat for Facebook, an Enyo-based app for phones and tablets running webOS 2.1 or higher, that's dedicated to your Facebook instant messaging needs. Normally QuickChat would cost you $2.99 from the App Catalog, but it just so happens that we have 50 copies to give away to you, loyal reader.

Contest: We have 50 copies of QuickChat for Facebook to give away. Just leave a comment on this post to enter. Contest ends next Sunday at midnight US Eastern Time, after which time we will select 50 random entrants to win. Please only leave one comment, multiple entries won’t count. Promo codes are only valid in countries serviced by the App Catalog, and users must be running webOS 2.1.0 or higher with the latest version of the App Catalog.

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Movie player choices, Facebook is a terrible app [From the Forums]

Just in case you missed out on some of the Android news today, now is the time to go ahead and get yourself fully caught up. Here on the blogs and in the Android Central Forums there is plenty to talk about. Have some questions? Need some help or just looking to chat Android? You know where to go, check out some of the threads below to get started.

We've got nearly 1 million members helping members and nearly 2 million posts in our Android Forums. Are you one of them? Join today!

"Born and raised in Nova Scotia, Canada. Chris is fluent in all mobile languages and loves anything with a power button."

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