The largest number of Facebook application developers in the Asia-Pacific region comes from a country where Facebook has been banned since 2009: .

Bloomberg reported that China accounts for 20 percent of Facebook app developers in the region, and the social network established an office in Hong Kong last year with an eye toward both those developers and Chinese advertisers.

Facebook’s partners in China include game developers Rekoo.com and Shanda Games, according to Bloomberg, and David Lim, a partner engineer at the social network’s mobile developer relations division, told Bloomberg:

We now have Chinese-language help pages for developers, and we are working on giving them better support. Developers in mainland China are important to us.

Facebook has more than developers on its mind, however, as Lim told Bloomberg the company plans to expand its mobile advertising business in Asia, inserting messages into the news feeds of mobile users in the region, and Facebook itself said in its :

Users are generally restricted from accessing Facebook from China. We do not know if we will be able to find an approach to managing content and information that will be acceptable to us and to the Chinese government.

As part of its campaign to increase its social presence and to change the way people access news online, the BBC has rolled out its new BBC News Control Panel for its to give people more control over the news that they see on their News Stream.

The changes have come as part of a change in how its visitors reach the BBC News website, with less than 50% of its 8 million+ visitors completely skipping the front page of the site and arriving directly at a story, video or section.

So why Facebook? Easy, because the number of clicks to BBC News stories are 14 times higher than they were in 2008, with nearly 250,000 users reading their news via a link posted on Facebook every day.

Now, as soon as you hit ‘Like’ on the BBC News Facebook page, the new control panel will be presented, allowing you to personalise what news you want to read from across the entire BBC News website.

Once selected, the BBC updates will hit your Stream in the form of short headline updates, very similar to how it would look if it was posted to Twitter:

The service is still in beta, whilst the BBC takes on feedback and adapts the service to work optimally for subcribers.

We did notice when we tested the service that the sheer number of Facebook sharing widgets bogs down the browser and starts utilising a huge amount of your CPU. Whether the BBC can adapt this remains to be seen, as it could put some people off using the control panel.

➤ BBC News Control Panel

Facebook may be blocked in China but that hasn’t stopped the country rising to become the largest contributor of apps to the social network in Asia.

As we wrote last week, Facebook is aiming to recruit the cream of China’s graduate talent pool, but its footprint there is larger than may be expected. Speaking to Bloomberg, Facebook engineer David Lim revealed that China is the biggest contributor to Facebook’s partner network in Asia, with Chinese firms accounting for around 20 percent of those in the continent.

Facebook partners provide apps, games and other content that the social network’s 800 million plus users interact with, and it is the lure of this sizable audience that has encouraged Chinese firms to build content for the site.

Lim says that “developers in mainland China are important to us”, and Facebook made an effort to encourage more content when it set up a presence in Hong Kong in February 2011. The office is also used for sales and marketing as the company looks to increase advertising revenue from Chinese firms that want to reach an international audience.

Chinese social media sites, like Sina Weibo, are often referred to as a window into China for overseas marketers, and so, the other way round, Facebook is aiming to be an international channel for Chinese firms.

Facebook has made a sustained effort to grow its presence on the ground in Asia, with offices in Tokyo, Malaysia and Singapore, in addition to Hong Kong. However, unlike Google, it is yet to build a dedicated Asia data center in the region. Rumors of plans in Taiwan were denied by the company, which instead chose Sweden as the location for its first overseas data center.

Facebook has been blocked by China’s ‘Great Firewall’ Internet censorship policy since 2009 but it, Twitter and other outlawed websites can be accessed via a virtual private network (VPN), which uses Internet servers overseas to circumvent the censorship.

China has more than 500 million Internet users but, according to Facebook measurement service SocialBakers, there are little more than 400,000 Facebook users in the country. That figure ranks China as the social network’s 101st largest market, it is larger than Tanzania but smaller than Panama.

Beware, the sky is falling! Or at least that’s what we’re hearing from some experts on Facebook commerce following announcements from a few big name retailers in recent weeks that they are .

Going as far as to suggest that the F in F-commerce now stands for “failure,” these critics are boldly asserting that ‘s days are numbered and that the entire concept is destined to soon be but a footnote in the pages of tech history.

Frankly, such claims are more than a little mind-boggling. Whenever something new like emerges, companies are naturally uncertain on how to approach it and it always takes some time before strong and effective strategies emerge.

Think back to when the Internet first caught on — it was for everyone for a while,  but now, just about every business has in-house employees that handle things like online reputation, search engine optimization, strategic enterprise management and more.

You’ll forgive the rest of us if we don’t necessarily agree that the end is nigh simply because a handful of companies (out of literally thousands that are actively engaged in Facebook commerce) are going in .

We work with hundreds of merchants on every month and rest assured, many of them are finding success in the practice.  So, no, F-commerce is not on its deathbed. Far from it, actually.

With that being said, however, the recent changes in strategy by some of the bigger names in retail do present an opportunity to re-examine what works and what doesn’t in .

If you’re a retailer who isn’t getting what you hoped for out of thus far and you’re wondering why, perhaps the following list holds the answer.

1. Your social media director is a 20-year-old college intern who only comes to work two or three days each week.

Effective requires time and an attention to detail. It’s certainly not a part-time venture, so if you hand over the responsibility to someone who isn’t consistently on top of things, you can’t possibly expect solid results in return.

Hiring someone exclusively to isn’t necessarily a requirement but finding a way to make sure that your social media ducks are in a row every single day absolutely is a must.

Spread those responsibilities around so everyone on your team gets to add their input and please, by all means, avoid letting an intern carry the load.

2. When the F-commerce craze started, you spent upwards of $50,000 on a so called feature-rich social commerce platform to make a big splash rather than shop around to find something more cost-effective that actually fits your particular needs.

You overpaid. Look, is not one size fits all, and what works for a big-name electronics retailer may not work for a niche merchant selling customized jewelry.

Of course, if you’ve paid four or five figures to have your Facebook presence built, any disappointment in the results is going to seem that much worse because of the cost affiliated with it.

There are lots of social commerce providers out there that won’t charge you an arm and a leg for a good, solid platform.

If you still can, it might be a good idea to .

3. The last time you posted anything on your Facebook fan page was in 2011.

Your most recent wall post referenced something about holiday shopping and you’re wondering why no one is paying any attention to you?

Attention spans are short on and the one thing above all else that determines F-commerce success is engagement.

If you’re not regularly posting content, even if it isn’t material that is necessarily tied to your company or products, users are going to forget about you. It’s as simple as that.

for your next big sale or promotion to put something up on Facebook.

Scour the web for thought-provoking content such as jokes, riddles, trivia questions, funny videos and pictures and encourage your fans to chime in those posts.

Chances are, they will enjoy the‘fun content now and as a result, will be likely paying more attention when you do roll out something bigger.

4. Your Facebook fans are wondering, “Where’s the love?”

If there’s one hard truth that we’ve learned in the past few years , it’s that Facebook users overwhelmingly tend to like brands for one reason only: They want to get something out of it. The problem is, very few retailers are obliging them in that regard.

is a two-way street and users have already satisfied their end of the bargain by liking you in the first place.

Now it’s your turn to provide something that is exclusive to your Facebook fans. Maybe it’s a deal like free shipping. Maybe it’s a promo code.  Maybe it’s a discount on larger orders or a “buy one, get one free” offering. But give them something!

Again, with shortened attention spans you’re going to need to keep people around. Giving them an incentive or reward for their loyalty is one of the best ways you can do that.

5. There’s no “social” in your media strategy.

This encompasses some of the things we’ve covered already but overall, it’s amazing just how unsocial some brands are when it comes to social media.

Far too often we see retailers building a Facebook store and then just expecting new sales and customers to appear out of thin air simply because they’ve now got a -based storefront. It doesn’t work that way.

Remember ? Remember the idea of a two-way street? Remember incentives and rewards? All of these things are important components of successful social media strategies.

Simply is never going to be enough. Make a connection with your fans and followers whenever possible because that is the very essence of what social media is about in the first place.

Critics will continue to say that F-commerce’s day has come and gone but don’t believe it for a second.

Facebook’s huge global user base and the potential that it holds for brands is more than enough to ensure well into the future.

Your own F-commerce success, however, is wholly dependent on keeping these suggestions in mind as you move forward and try to separate yourself from the pack.

Guest writer Doron Simovitch is co-founder and chief executive officer of SortPrice.

Facebook Messenger for Windows, which became  at the end of December, officially launched today, and the social network said work continues on a Mac version.

TechCrunch reported the official release of the desktop client, which was first in November, leading to the quiet release at year end.

The application requires Windows 7.

Messenger for Windows automatically syncs with Facebook, and it allows users to chat and message with their Facebook friends, and see ticker updates and notifications.

Facebook said the app currently supports chatting and messaging only with individual friends, and not group chat or video calling.

The social network added that users’ privacy settings are carried over from Facebook to the Messenger app.

The application is available for download .

Readers, how do you think the release of Messenger will impact the amount of time people spend on the social network, if at all?

The marketing changes announced this week lend themselves to Facebook merging the rules for pages and into one set of terms.

really reflect the move to timeline, which will impel brands to purchase more ads.

One set of rules about pages has already gotten a lot of attention in the coverage of the : you can’t use the cover image as an explicit advertisement.

Facebook notes that when you turn content into an advertisement, the result becomes subject to both the page terms and ad guidelines — although, since they’re a merged entity, the preceding part of this sentence is kind of redundant.

Another change: Facebook won’t allow generic terms for . We didn’t know there were any of them left, or unclaimed.

That said, here are the official and promotions on Facebook, including links to related sets of rules on the site.

Facebook Pages Terms The following terms, as well as our  and , apply to all pages on Facebook. Additionally, all content on pages must comply with our . I.    General A.    Only authorized representatives may administer a page for a brand, entity (place or organization), or public figure. B.    Any user may create a page to express support for or interest in a brand, entity (place or organization), or public figure, provided that it is not likely to be confused with an official page or violate someone’s rights. C.    Content posted to a page is public and viewable by everyone who can see the page. D.    You are required to restrict access to pages (through our gating functionality) as necessary to comply with applicable laws and Facebook policies, including our  and . E.    You may not establish terms for your Page that conflict with our ,  or these terms. II.    Page Management A.    Page Names and Facebook Web Addresses Page names and Facebook web addresses must accurately reflect page content. We may remove administrative rights or require you to change the page name and Facebook web address for any page that fails to meet this requirement. Page names must: i.    not consist solely generic terms (e.g., “beer” or “pizza”); ii.    use proper, grammatically correct capitalization and may not include all capitals, except for acronyms; iii.    not include character symbols, such as excessive punctuation and trademark designations; and iv.    not include superfluous descriptions or unnecessary qualifiers. B.    Name Changes and Migrations We will only process name changes and migrations that do not result in a misleading or unintended connection. For example, we will allow local to global migrations, such as “Facebook France” to “Facebook”, but will not allow global to local migrations, or location to location migrations, such as “Facebook France” to “Facebook Russia.” Additionally, you may not request a name change or migration that would result in re-categorizing a product page to a brand Page, a generic or opinion page to a brand page, or a group to a page. All migrations are at our discretion and are final. C.    Collection of Data If you collect content and information directly from users, you will make it clear that you (and not Facebook) are collecting it, and you will provide notice about and obtain user consent for your use of the content and information that you collect. Regardless of how you obtain content and information from users, you are responsible for securing all necessary permissions to reuse their content and information. You will not collect users’ content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission. Any data you obtain from us must comply with Section II of our . III.    Page Features A.    Advertising on Pages Ads and commercial content (including page post content) are subject to the . Third-party advertisements on pages are prohibited. B.    Cover All covers are public. This means that anyone who visits your page will be able to see your cover. Covers can’t be deceptive, misleading, or infringe on anyone else’s copyright. You may not encourage people to upload your cover to their personal timelines. Covers may not include: i.    price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “download it on socialmusic.com”; ii.    contact information such as a website address, email, mailing address, or information that should go in your page’s “about” section; iii.    references to Facebook features or actions, such as “like” or “share” or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features; or iv.    calls to action, such as “get it now” or “tell your friends.” C.    Applications on Pages Apps on your page must comply with the . D.    Offers Facebook may not be a suitable place for every type of offer, and you are solely responsible for determining if Facebook is the appropriate forum for your offer. If you create an offer using Facebook’s offer creation tool, the following policies apply: i.    You are responsible for ensuring that your offer complies with these terms and all applicable laws, rules and regulations. Offers are subject to many regulations (such as alcohol discounts and offers marketed to minors) and if you are not certain that your offer complies with applicable law, consult with an expert. ii.    If there are any restrictions on your offer (such as expiration date or limitations on redemption), you must disclose those restrictions to users in the terms and conditions section of the offer. iii.    You are solely responsible for improper redemption, fraud or other issues that arise from the distribution and/or redemption of your offer. iv.    If your offer may be redeemed at a merchant not operated by you, it is your sole responsibility to communicate with the participating merchant. v.    You must not use Facebook’s offer creator to offer the equivalent of a gift card, gift certificate or stored value card. E.    Promotions If you use Facebook to communicate about or administer a promotion (such as a contest or sweepstakes), you are responsible for the lawful operation of that promotion, including the official rules, offer terms and eligibility requirements (e.g., age and residency restrictions), and compliance with regulations governing the promotion and all prizes offered in connection with the promotion (e.g., registration and obtaining necessary regulatory approvals). Please note that compliance with these guidelines does not constitute the lawfulness of a promotion. Promotions are subject to many regulations and if you are not certain that your promotion complies with applicable law, please consult with an expert. i.    Promotions on Facebook must be administered within , either on a canvas page or a page app. ii.    Promotions on Facebook must include the following: a.    A complete release of Facebook by each entrant or participant. b.    Acknowledgment that the promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. c.    Disclosure that the participant is providing information to [disclose recipient(s) of information] and not to Facebook. iii.    You must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a page, checking in to a place, or connecting to your app. For example, you must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall. iv.    You must not use Facebook features or functionality as a promotion’s registration or entry mechanism. For example, the act of liking a Page or checking in to a Place cannot automatically register or enter a promotion participant. v.    You must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion. vi.    You must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or pages. vii.    Definitions: a.    By “administration” we mean the operation of any element of the promotion, such as collecting entries, conducting a drawing, judging entries, or notifying winners. b.    By “communication” we mean promoting, advertising or referencing a promotion in any way on Facebook, e.g., in ads, on a page, or in a wall post. We reserve the right to reject or remove pages for any reason. These terms are subject to change at any time.

for state and local governments in the United States.

The ability to drive users to third-party was not completely eliminated.

You can purchase an ad that leads to a tab application rather than the .

Otherwise, the timeline and its cover image are the default landing page. Like our most esteemed sibling blog explained:

Advertisers can select a destination tab from a drop down menu in the self-serve ad dashboard as they did before.

However, “wall” has been renamed “timeline” and “info” is now called “about.” Currently, the system allows advertisers to select “Messages” or “All Activity” as destination tabs, even though these are only visible to page admins and should not be used as landing pages for ad campaigns.

As has always been the case, the destination tab feature is only available for traditional Facebook ads, not sponsored stories or ads from page posts. Advertisers can create ads that direct people to custom tabs by selecting “Facebook ads” and “new ad message.”

These tab applications will continue to support fan-gating — hiding content from non-fans in order to encourage users to like the page. However, there is currently  preventing pages from refreshing and revealing content after users click like.

This type of ad can be used to drive traffic to promotions or commerce features within tab applications.

What a surprising turn of events for the most  Facebook has contended with so far: Prestigious law firm Milberg LLP has joined the attorneys representing Paul Ceglia’s ongoing battle for half-ownership of the social network.

This juicy morsel was tucked into a press release announcing that Ceglia’s attorneys will appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio April 4 with a proposed schedule for producing evidence — this has been rescheduled more than once.

Ceglia’s legal representation has resembled a revolving door, as attorneys have dropped his case — doing so just before a deadline for the submission of requested filings or evidence.

Today’s press release says Milberg joins Dean Boland and Paul Argentieri in representing Ceglia; his fifth counsel, Jeffrey A. Lake, A.P.C., has quietly left the team representing the plaintiff, and a public relations firm called Strategy XXI Partners has begun to spin his story.

Certainly, the addition of the prestigious Milberg has the potential to make his case look better, potentially restoring some of the cred lost when the most reputable of Ceglia’s ex-attorneys dropped the case –  became the third law firm to dump the case in June.

DLA Piper was preceded by former New York attorney Dennis Vaco, and, before that, Terrence Connors. Edelson McGuire was the fourth law firm to withdraw from the case.

Facebook’s impending initial public offering has probably made Ceglia’s case seem more palatable to Milberg, as the attorney from the firm who took on the case is a partner whose first specialization listed on the company’s website is securities fraud.

Milberg Partner Sanford P. Dumain said in the press release about the case:

We took a good hard look at all of the information available, including evidence in Mr. Ceglia’s favor, and we believe he deserves to have his day in court. We look forward to examining  records from computers that Mr. (Facebook Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark) Zuckerberg used when he was a freshman at Harvard. and other records that will help answer questions about the ownership of Facebook.  We hope that the court will rule that the time has come for that process to begin.

Defense counsel previously told the court and media that Facebook would move to dismiss this case, so we are pleased that the judge has scheduled a conference to address the deadlines for the commencement and completion of discovery. It should be up to a jury to weigh the contradictory claims, including evidence that supports Mr. Ceglia’s case, such as his email correspondence with Mr. Zuckerberg and experts’ testimony about the authenticity of the contract.

Readers, what do you think of the way Ceglia’s case is moving now?

Microsoft is the first advertiser to use the with a unit that includes search capabilities, TechCrunch confirms.

Last week the social network surprised advertisers with a new ad type several times larger than any it had previously offered. The ad, which is shown after a user logs out of Facebook, seems to be a smart compromise, giving brands the prominence they’re looking for without sacrificing user experience. Not only does the unit appear when a user’s session is complete, Facebook’s most active users rarely log out and therefore won’t see many ads like this.

The Microsoft ad includes a unique interactive capability: users can type a query into a Bing search bar and results open in a new window or tab. Facebook did not make it clear when it announced the new ad type how much customization would be allowed. The logout ad is only available for “premium” advertisers working directly with Facebook, so we could see more custom elements like the Bing search. Otherwise, the unit’s size makes it ideal for promoting videos.

It’s fitting that Microsoft would be Facebook’s first logout page advertiser. Microsoft, an early investor in the social network, sold banner ads on the site . Since then, Facebook has managed all of its own display advertising. The company, however, still uses Bing for , and features. Microsoft integrates Facebook social data into , and other mail and chat clients.

Microsoft was also one of the first advertisers to advertise within News Feed before Facebook took away that option. Companies can get ads in users’ streams, but now users must be connected to the company’s page or have a friend who took an action on the page. This was not the case when Microsoft ran ads for Windows Live Messenger directly in the feed.

Bing ad image credit: TechCrunch

With nine U.S. states holding Republican presidential primaries tomorrow, do Facebook posts give any clues as to who will win? 

An infographic from  sheds some light on the matter, although the data only covers January 30 through February 28. Highlights include:

• Despite being tied in the polls with Romney in Tuesday’s largest delegate haul, , Santorum lacks people talking about him on Facebook, even after his major spike in new fans on February 7, when he won Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado;
• The results of major contests don’t appear to affect the number of people talking about the candidates on Facebook. Ron Paul had the most people talking about him on February 7 despite losing all three states that day.
• Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul are the least prolific on Facebook, posting only 52 and 50 posts respectively in the time period, yet their fan interactions remained strong. And what type of posts generated the most interactions for each candidate? Photos.

Advertisers can still run Facebook campaigns that drive to third-party tab applications, even though pages lost the ability to designate a default landing tab .

We confirmed with Facebook that ads do not have to lead to the main Timeline view. Advertisers can select a destination tab from a drop down menu in the self-serve ad dashboard as they did before. However, “Wall” has been renamed “Timeline” and “Info” is now called “About.” Currently, the system allows advertisers to select “Messages” or “All Activity” as destination tabs, even though these are only visible to page admins and should not be used as landing pages for ad campaigns.

As has always been the case, the destination tab feature is only available for traditional Facebook ads, not Sponsored Stories or ads from page posts. Advertisers can create ads that direct people to custom tabs by selecting “Facebook Ads” and “New ad message,” as seen below. These tab applications will continue to support fan-gating — hiding content from non-fans in order to encourage users to Like the page — however, there is currently preventing pages from refreshing and revealing content after users click Like.

This type of ad can be used to drive traffic to promotions or commerce features within tab applications. Facebook, however, is making a push for advertisers to focus on “stories” — paying to promote page posts and fan activity rather than creating traditional ads with a headline, image and body copy. A  found that Sponsored Stories had 46 percent higher click through rate than traditional Facebook ads. Marketers who want to develop and promote Facebook applications might want to consider testing “App Used” Sponsored Stories, as seen below.

Add file transfer outfit Caffeinated Mind to the list of companies “” by Facebook, as the social network acquired the company’s intellectual property and hired the management team.

Caffeinated Mind will shut down its Sendoid in-browser file-transfer service Wednesday, with the desktop version to follow one week later (March 14), and its Expresso big-data-transfer pilot program facing “decaffeination” at some point in the next two weeks.

The three-person Caffeinated Mind team will join Facebook to focus on the development of tools for the social network to share information internally, VentureBeat reported, adding that Facebook did not acquire Caffeinated Mind’s technology in the transaction, and the company is not exploring entry into the file-sharing sector.

Caffeinated Mind Co-Founder John Egan told VentureBeat the three team members feel like they can still have an impact while working with Facebook, and hope to continue their projects at the social network.

And the Caffeinated Mind homepage now reads:

We’re extremely excited to announce that Caffeinated Mind is joining Facebook!

When CMI first started, we wanted to change the way files moved online. That vision has evolved over the past year through our experience at YCombinator, where, since launching Sendoid, we’ve moved countless files for our users, and then later went on to tackle big-data transfer problems for enterprises with Expresso. The journey has been incredible, and we’ve learned more than we had ever hoped while making our little dent in the world.

We can’t think of a better place to continue this journey than Facebook, where we’ll be developing internal tools to improve the inner workings of the company and product, applying our technical and product expertise to their rapidly growing service.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll be winding down Sendoid and closing the corporate pilot for Expresso. We’re hyper-concerned about data here, and our users can rest assured that we have fully purged all transfer-history logs on our servers and that we retain no personal data from our users.

From the entire Caffeinated Mind team, we thank our users for helping us to get where we are today!

More Facebook are populating the news feed, and will continue to grow.

The social network announced its graph application-programming interface for scores, which will allow developers to send out to news feeds stories about achievements in games and rally support for weekly tournaments.

Stories about friends reaching new high scores, winning games and achieving other goals along these lines will appear in the news feeds of players and nonplayers alike — an example of each appears at the bottom of this post. Most importantly, these posts will include links to begin playing the game in question.

Facebook said it has experienced a 60 percent increase in users installing games by clicking on stories in the news feed since adding game stories to that section in January.

The social network added that rather than simply posting all new high-score stories, these posts will be stored and published based on players’ current scores.

Games that reset their top score rankings on a weekly basis will be able to take advantage of the .

More information was provided in a post on the Facebook :

One of the best ways to drive more engagement with scores stories is to have a recurring tournament that ranks a person and his friends on a leader board and declares a winner for that time period. This heightens competition among friends who are playing the game and makes the game more social. When a person sees that a friend has passed him in the weekly tournament, he is likely to go back and try to beat that friend.

To drive more comments and clicks on your achievements stories, create achievements that people will be proud to share and that gamers and non-gamers alike can understand. People will be proud to share achievements that require significant skill and effort to accomplish, whereas trivial achievements cause people to lose interest in stories generated by your game. Also consider providing sufficient context so that new users who are not familiar with your game will also find them interesting.

Readers: What;s your take on the number of game stories appearing in your news feed — too many, just the right amount, or too few?

Alas, not all of the algorithms Facebook has created are equally effective: is still a moving target.

Facebook pages have spam detection woven into conversations on the wall; the page hides posts from public view and displays them only to the admins in grey boxes.

After you upgrade a page to timeline, it might look like the spam filter has changed, when in fact it has simply relocated — or rather, posts flagged as spam are aggregated in the same place rather than strewn all over the wall.

Facebook puts  in one place under your admin panel.

Click on the button labeled “manage” and then select “use activity log” from the dropdown menu. Then in the top right-hand corner of the next screen, click the button labeled “all” and then select “spam” from the dropdown menu.

Everything in this list is hidden from the page. You’ll want to scan through it periodically.

Whenever you find something that you’d rather see moved back to your wall, you can hover over the circle and click “unmark as spam.”  This will make the post visible again.

Readers, have you checked out the spam filter in timeline pages yet?

Guest writer Nathan Latka is chief executive officer of Lujure.

Video sharing site Dailymotion’s Open Graph application topped our list of apps growing by monthly active users this week. Aside from popular games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja Frenzy, apps on the list included BranchOut, Pinterest, Spotify, and other photo, video and Open Graph apps.

Titles on our list gained the most MAU of any apps on the platform, growing from between 400,000 and 3.7 million MAU, based on AppData, our data tracking service covering traffic growth for apps on Facebook.

Top Gainers This Week

Name MAU Gain Gain,% 1.   Dailymotion 7,800,000 +3,700,000 + 90% 2.   Angry Birds 5,800,000 +3,300,000 + 132% 3.   BranchOut 6,100,000 +1,400,000 + 30% 4.   Fruit Ninja Frenzy 6,200,000 +1,400,000 + 29% 5.   Yahoo! 19,000,000 +1,300,000 + 7% 6.   MyVideo 1,500,000 +1,050,000 + 233% 7.   İzlesene 2,800,000 +1,000,000 + 56% 8.   Daily Horoscope 1,400,000 +920,000 + 192% 9.   Diamond Dash 18,100,000 +900,000 + 5% 10.   Bubble Witch Saga 15,900,000 +800,000 + 5% 11.   Pinterest 11,500,000 +700,000 + 6% 12.   60photos 3,500,000 +600,000 + 21% 13.   Bubble Island 13,300,000 +600,000 + 5% 14.   schoolFeed 8,700,000 +600,000 + 7% 15.   Tetris Battle 15,700,000 +600,000 + 4% 16.   Spotify 16,100,000 +500,000 + 3% 17.   Stick Run 4,700,000 +500,000 + 12% 18.   Sultan Bubble 3,423,773 +423,773 + 14% 19.   Bejeweled Blitz 10,700,000 +400,000 + 4% 20.   Car Town 6,800,000 +400,000 + 6%

Dailymotion is an Open Graph app for a video sharing site that grew mostly in France this week, topping our list with 3.7 million MAU. Turkish app MyVideo also made the list. Yahoo’s Open Graph news app continues to grow, as do BranchOut, Pinterest and Spotify, which all take advantage of the new Timeline features for apps.

Games on the list were led by Angry Birds, followed by Fruit Ninja Frenzy, Diamond Dash, and Bubble Witch Saga, among others. It’s interesting to note that AppData shows these games continue to grow in the U.S., but increasingly in other countries, such as the Philippines and Italy.

All data in this post comes from our traffic tracking service, AppData. Stay tuned for our look at the top weekly gainers by daily active users on Wednesday, and the top emerging apps on Friday.

Facebook pages now have a feature that prevents user posts from appearing publicly until they are reviewed by an admin.

This is another function page owners wished for and Facebook implemented as part of the latest overhaul of the pages product. It gives organizations more control over what appears on their pages and could help keep spam and inappropriate content off the wall.

From the “Edit Page” dashboard under “Manage Permissions,” page owners can select a new option titled, “Only show posts by [your page] and friend activity on your page until reviewed by an admin.” This hides posts made by other users until a page owner indicates “Allow on Timeline” from the new activity log.

This does not seem to affect posts in the “Friend Activity” section of a page, as users always have the ability to view posts that their friends have shared with them. It also does not seem to affect comments on page posts. The option only hides posts users make to the wall.

Pages that address more sensitive topics or that have had issues with spam will want to enable this feature. For pages with less frequent activity, this function might not even be necessary. On the other hand, pages that are very active with fan-to-fan discussions might not want to hide wall posts either so they don’t limit the amount or pace of interaction.

Negative comments on the Facebook page were a major factor behind the flower distributor’s decision to pull its advertising off “The Rush Limbaugh Show” following controversial comments by the conservative talk-radio host.

Limbaugh attacked Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke on his radio show last week, calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute” as a reaction to her testimony to congressional Democrats backing national health care policies that would compel employers and other organizations to offer group health insurance that covers birth control for women, Associated Press reported.

ProFlowers had been an advertiser on Limbaugh’s show, but it announced its withdrawal on its Sunday, following pressure from users of the social network commenting on the page.

ProFlowers posted last Thursday night on its Facebook page:

We would like to assure you that we do not endorse the views expressed by Rush Limbaugh. We understand your concerns and value your feedback.

The retailer followed that up with this post Sunday:

At ProFlowers, our mission is to delight our customers with fresh and long-lasting flowers, and that is our singular focus each and every day. We do not base our advertising decisions to align with any particular political view or opinion, as our employees and customers are as diverse as the USA.

Mr. Limbaugh’s recent comments went beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company. As such, ProFlowers has suspended advertising on The Rush Limbaugh Show radio program.

According to AP, ProFlowers became the seventh company to pull its advertisement from the show, following Quicken Loans, Sleep Train and Sleep Number,  Citrix Systems, Carbonite, and LegalZoom.

Readers: How strongly does where a company chooses to advertise affect your purchasing decisions?

Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Citigroup will likely join the group of banks underwriting Facebook’s upcoming , according to published reports.

Reuters reported that the company will add to the group of banks working on its IPO, which already includes lead underwriter Morgan Stanley, as well as Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Barclays Capital, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Allen & Co.

According to Financial Times, adding banks at this stage of the IPO process is common, and the newcomers will likely assume responsibility for small segments of clients, as well as providing further analyst coverage.

The report on the addition of banks follows last Friday’s news that Facebook will prior to the IPO.

Reuters said Facebook, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, and Citigroup all declined comment.

Russian oligarch Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov is one of the richest people in the world, and according to Bloomberg now officially the richest man in his home country. A big part of what propelled the man to this status is his majority stake in Digital Sky Technologies (DST), the investment firm founded by fellow Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner, which holds sizeable equity stakes in companies like Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Zynga, Spotify, Airbnb, ZocDoc and 360buy.com.

According to Bloomberg sources, Usmanov owns roughly 80 percent of DST, which has helped tremendously to increase his net worth to now more than $20 billion.

Thus, the Russian business magnate’s fortune trumps that of steel billionaire Vladimir Lisin, who is only worth about $18.9 billion – the poor guy.

DST has a remarkable track record of buying significant amounts of shares of fast-growing Internet giants before they go public. Portfolio companies like Groupon and Zynga have since hit the public markets and are currently worth roughly $12.3 billion and $10.3 billion, respectively, while Facebook is also gearing up for a blockbuster IPO that could see its valuation increase to $100 billion.

According to Facebook’s recently filed S-1, Digital Sky Technologies owned 8.2 percent of the social networking phenomenon back in February 2010, but the investment firm has since transferred 2 percent of Facebook to Mail.ru Group, the Russian Internet giant of which Usmanov owns 25 percent.

According to the Bloomberg article, DST also has a 5 percent stake in Twitter, another potential IPO candidate.

Fun fact: Usmanov is also the owner of roughly 30 percent of English football team Arsenal FC (and multiple metals, steel, natural gas and media companies).

As the types of categories of games on Facebook become more diverse, we'll be highlighting some of the most successful games in a series of posts on the Developer Blog.

A classic game category that has been played by diverse audiences over the years, arcade games such as , , and have been picking up momentum on Facebook Platform lately. Whether on mobile or desktop, these short-session games use a variety of tactics to keep people coming back week after week and to encourage friendly competition.

Arcade games growing on Facebook

In our research, people who play arcade games do so because the games are quick and easy to play and are a fun way to compete and socialize with friends. In fact, arcade games are among the most highly rated games on Facebook.

As a result, these games have seen steady growth in active users month after month. For example, two of the most played arcade games on Facebook, and , have seen nearly 10% growth or more in daily active users in the last five months, with Bubble Witch recently crossing the 5 million daily active users milestone and Diamond Dash not far behind.

Let’s take a look at some of the techniques that arcade games use to achieve steady growth and high engagement on Facebook.

Bringing friends into the game

Healthy competition among friends is a great way to motivate action. and show a person's friends in the game either with an in-game leader board or a story map that shows other friends’ progress. People are motivated to play more to catch up to their friends' scores or level advancement. Including an "invite" button on or close to the leader board, as Zuma Blitz does, reminds people to invite more of their friends to compete.

Zuma Blitz (left) uses the classic leader board; whereas Bubble Island's (right) is part of a story map.

     

The fuels this competitive spirit by capturing and distributing high score stories in news feed. Both players and non-players will see these stories, driving current players to play again and encouraging new players to jump in on the action. For example, has implemented scores and publishes stories like the one below when a person reaches a new high sore.

High score story from Candy Dash. Bragging

Leader boards are even more impactful when they offer people a way to brag about their accomplishments. For example, if a person passes one of her friends, uses the to prompt the player to brag. This post then appears on the friend's timeline.

Bubble Witch Saga prompts the person to share when she passes a friend (left) and the message appears on that friend's timeline (right).

      Weekly Tournaments

Many arcade games, such as and , use weekly tournaments to keep people coming back each week. This lightweight competition is compelling and draws players back to the game to beat their friends.

Diamond Dash keeps people coming back with a tournament.

We recently that instead of publishing high score and passing stories based on a person's all-time high score, our Graph API for scores will publish these stories based on a player's current score. Now games with recurring tournaments can reset players' scores with each new tournament to generate new high score and passing stories, gaining more distribution for their game on Facebook.

Passing stories generated when people pass their friends on Angry Birds.

Tournaments are another way to help people discover new games through and a person's timeline by publishing stories about the weekly winners. For example, Diamond Dash publishes a story for each medal that a player wins in their weekly tournaments.

Diamond Dash publishes "medals won" for weekly winners.

Beating friends in a weekly tournament isn’t always about being the most skilled player. Oftentimes, arcade games monetize by selling power-ups, such as a score multiplier or boosts. For example, in , players can purchase new boosts to enhance their performance instead of waiting to unlock them in future rounds of game play.

Fruit Ninja Frenzy monetizes by selling power-ups, which also make the game more fun. Collaborative competition and gifting

Arcade games typically use a scarce resource--such as energy or life--to gate game play. Players can either buy resources or ask their friends via . This creates a highly social environment where friends compete against each other, but also rely on each other’s gifts of more “lives” to keep playing. Gifting is highly social in nature; gifting a life inspires a gift in return, which fuels the cycle of giving and prompts interaction and engagement among friends.

Make gifting lives even easier to do by using , which eliminates the request dialog pop-up after a user has checked the "do not ask again" box.

Collapse Blast uses frictionless requests to gift lives among players.

Another way to make the gifting cycle simple is to provide visual reminders and easy ways to begin giving. For example, games like show a “life” icon next to players’ pictures on the leader board, an easy-access reminder to gift.

The heart icon reminds people to send a life in Collapse Blast.

Overall, arcade games are a strong example of how to make a simple casual game social and drive growth and engagement from the Facebook audience. By integrating with Facebook's social channels to drive more interaction with their leader boards, weekly tournaments, and gifting, these games keep players highly engaged and coming back week after week to beat their friends.