Facebook posted several jobs located in its Dublin offices this week on its Careers Page, as well as a variety of analyst positions, agency relations and a variety of other engineering jobs. The company also posted an interesting position on LinkedIn, Finance Operations Project Manager – FB Payments and FB Credits. A hire in São Paulo comes on the heels of the company’s recent hire of a to be based there. There were also several engineering jobs posted on both Facebook and LinkedIn this week.

Posts added this week on Facebook’s Careers :

• Academic Relations Manager
• Software Engineer, Platform Partnerships
• Business Analyst, Compensation
• Diversity Technical Sourcer
• Executive Technical Recruiter
• Fraud Investigator (Palo Alto)
• Account Specialist, Online Sales Account Management
• Manager, Italian or Spanish Online Sales Operations (Dublin)
• Analyst, User Operations – Spanish (Palo Alto) – Contractor
• Fraud Investigator (Palo Alto)
• Data Analyst, Credits
• Data Analyst, Gaming
• Data Analyst, Mobile
• Relationship Manager, Agency Relations (Chicago)
• Relationship Manager, Agency Relations (New York)
• Business Partner (Sao Paulo)
• Associate, Ad Operations – Swedish (Dublin)
• Software Engineer SWE1104B
• Software Engineer, Platform Partnerships
• Software Engineer SWE1104B
• Data Engineer
• Site Operations Engineer
• Application Operations Technical Lead
• Document Control Analyst
• Manager, Global Supplier Management
• Data Center Lab Engineer
• Solutions Engineer

Jobs posted by Facebook on :

Who else is hiring? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

While there are plenty of things that we all enjoy seeing on Facebook, there are also a ton of things that nobody likes to see. If you post any of the things below, you should consider changing your Facebook habits!

Your Phone Number

Do you have any ex-girlfriends or boyfriends that you don’t want getting in touch with you? A great way to help them reconnect is by publishing your new phone number. The best way to let people know about your new phone number is to text them!

Pictures Of Feet

Oh, did you really just get a pedicure? That’s great news but does everybody really need to see your feet? Unless you are a foot model (congrats if you are!), you really should refrain from posting pictures of your feet.

Uninteresting Baby Photos

So we all know that you are having a baby and it’s great news. However, if you document your entire child’s life on Facebook you’ve gone overboard. There’s a reason they call them home videos: Leave them at home for your private collection. We all love entertaining baby videos like , but do we really need to see every update? Everybody loves a cute baby, but documenting every moment like the applesauce they just ate, really is unnecessary.

It’s Complicated

When you’re in high school it’s funny to say that you are in a relationship with someone else, but if you are sharing with the world that you have hit a rough patch, you aren’t doing yourself any favors. Seriously, hold off on posting that things aren’t easy for you right now. While your friends may post their sympathies in follow on comments, they really actually have pity for you. If you need support, call your friends, don’t post about it on Facebook for everybody to see!

Checking In To Common Locations

If you’re snorkeling in the great barrier reef, I’d recommend checking in on Facebook. However if you are picking up a Snickers bar at 7-11, there’s really no benefit to posting about it. The best things to share on Facebook are those things that are exciting and interesting, but driving through the McDonald’s drive thru is really not something your friends want to know about.

Something For Sale

There’s a reason Craigslist exists: to sell things. While you may have a used bike to sell, the odds that one of your friends wants to buy it right now is much less than someone buying it on Craigslist or another site. Seriously, if you have something to sell, go somewhere that the buyers are actually shopping!

Poorly Taken Photos

Your pet may be cute, and honestly, that’s something I enjoy seeing, but if you mess up the shot, it hurts your image. The plane you are taking off in may be exciting, but seeing the flash in the window reflection is painful for the trained eye! Frame the shot, make sure the flash is properly set, and shoot. If the photo doesn’t turn out well, take the photo again and share that to Facebook instead!

Some Facebook admins are seeing a prompt at the top of their Pages asking them to “Confirm Your Page Category”. The alert explains that “Your Page’s category is now featured at the top of your page. Please check it for accuracy.”

As well as helping Pages to properly identify themselves to users, the request could help generate the data necessary to roll out .

As part of the Facebook began showing a Page’s category at the top of all its tabs, and began allowing all Pages to edit their categories through the the Basic Information tab of the Edit Page admin interface. Facebook has changed the available categories over the years, though, so all Pages might no be displaying the most accurate category to their visitors.

Category labels help users quickly determine what a Page represents, even if they’ve never heard of the particular brand, person, idea, or activity the Page represents. This information can be important to making users feel comfortable enough to Like the Page. As well as through this prompt, Pages can edit their category via the Basic Information tab of the Edit Page admin interface.

Still, there may be additional motives behind this forward method of communicating with Page admins. Earlier this month, Facebook ran a limited test of a new interest targeting interface for its self-serve ad tool. Rather than allowing advertisers to select specific Pages whose audiences they wanted to target, such as the Page of the Green Bay Packers football team, they could instead target broad categories and sub-categories, such as sports, or football.

This could allow novice advertisers to easily create somewhat targeted ads, but disempowered experienced advertisers who were willing to handle the complexity of a more granular targeting system. Some advertisers who were forced to use the test interface complained, but if category targeting was added as an additional option rather than a replacement for specific interest targeting, it could prove useful to advertisers and earn Facebook money. For instance, shopping sites might pay more to target users who Like any Page in the shopping/retail category, because those users might be more likely to convert.

Asking Pages to provide more information about themselves to improve ad targeting would align with Facebook’s efforts to coax more biographical data out of users through the December 2010 profile redesign, and the “Which City Do You Live In?” sidebar module. While this data helps Pages represent themselves accurately, Facebook may have been more subtle about encouraging category accuracy if there wasn’t a more direct positive outcome for the site.

[Thanks to Amit Lavi for the tip]

Watch out for the Photoshop scam currently spreading through Facebook.

We haven’t been able to find any active scam links spreading because chat messages don’t show up in the search results on Facebook. However, we continue to hear that there are instant messages being sent around from users which say “hey, i just made a Photoshop of you.”

Once you click the link it brings you to a Facebook application which has figured out a security loophole. While you are viewing the application, it automatically goes and spams your friends’ via chat. Ultimately the scam appears harmless, something simply spreading for no real reason.

However, there’s a chance that this application is distributing malware, so you should check your application settings for applications you didn’t install yourself and remove them. In all likelihood, Facebook has removed the app causing the Photoshop chat messages, and fixed any corresponding security hole.

But if you see it pop up anywhere in your window, let Facebook security know.  Readers, when was the last time you reported something suspicious to Facebook?

PikPok has just released its first branded version of their popular Flick Kick Football game for iOS devices, keeping the football goal-scoring greatness of the original and wrapping it in shiny new Chelsea branding. There’s more than just team colors on display here however as brings with it a nice set of graphics upgrades, in-game Chelsea updates and better Achievement recognition.

If you’re a football fan and you haven’t tried out Flick Kick Football then you may have been living under a rock as it’s been the #1 paid app on the UK App Store and the #1 sports app in just about every other football loving country. Set in the ‘Golden Age of Football’, it’s a striking game that has you bending the ball around static or moving defenders with your finger. Finding the back of the net is a matter of finger control after you swipe the ball, making scoring through the gap a satisfying affair. The physics are top-notch and the retro graphics are superb, giving off a cool 70′s vibe.

The Chelsea version of Flick Kick Football retains everything that was good about the gameplay of the original and adds on slickly designed Chelsea branding, allowing you to bend and score in the confines of an accurate reproduction of Stamford Bridge stadium. In addition to branded menus and a Chelsea themed ball, you get up-to-date Chelsea FC results, a trivia game, a brief history of the club and direct links to the team’s official sites and social media outlets. In a nice touch the funny footballer quotes that you see in between games are now from famous Chelsea alums. PikPok says that you’ll also see in-game messages and updates from the club while you’re playing.

Chelsea retains all eight of the standard gameplay styles of the original including Arcade, Bullseye and Time attack modes as well as the Online or Pass & Play multiplayer. The graphics seem sharper, with higher frame rates than the original in some instances and the defender models have been upgraded to modern style players with increased detail. PikPok also added in weather effects like rain, which make the atmosphere more engaging but don’t seem to affect gameplay at all. During my testing I also noticed that when you gained Achievements they seemed to register quicker than the standard edition and they popped up during play itself rather than only on a return to the main menu as before. This means that you know when you’ve reached a milestone right away. In a nice touch, PikPok has made Flick Kick Chelsea a universal app that works with your iPhone or iPad for one purchase.

If you already have the original Flick Kick Football then I don’t know if the new Chelsea edition is worth the purchase based on just graphics upgrades, but if you’re a Chelsea fan it’s an easy decision. Now who wants a Liverpool or Manchester United edition?

Give Flick Kick Chelsea a try now for $1.99 on .

Two cavemen are standing next to a freshly carved out wheel. One of the cavemen, the inventor, looks worried as the other one says “It looks really cool, but I’m just not investing in high tech at the moment”

I didn’t make that up. I’m describing a cartoon I once saw, somewhere around 2002, that was so painfully acute that I didn’t think about keeping it at the time. If you can find the original I’d love to hear from you!

The reason I am talking about it today is because these past months I’m getting increasingly more questions about a possible bubble. Other entrepreneurs, journalists and even my dentists wants to know the answer to the question of the day: are we about to experience another bubble?

My answer: no.

But… Facebook is valued at 50 billion? And Twitter at more than 7? How can there NOT be a bubble? Well, there isn’t so much a bubble as there is Renewed Optimism. And for good reason. Back in 1999/2001 we all had dreams and expectations. But hardly an idea on how to actually make money. We assumed a lot more people would join us online (they did), a reasonable CPM would be $30 (it wasn’t) and people would be spending a lot on ecommerce (they did).

Of course, we got slightly ahead of ourselves and invested a bit too much in projects that assumed the best of everything. That ended up dragging a lot of good stuff down with it, and eventually the stock market followed. Boom.

These days however are different. Starting a new company doesn’t take a year and a million. It takes a long weekend, some caffeine and coding skills and about $30 for your first hosting contract. Done. The new challenge isn’t so much launching, raising money to launch or making money, once you launch, but to stay relevant. Orkut came and went, so did MySpace, and Friendster. The challenge for companies like Facebook isn’t so much to make money but to stay relevant.

Making money is almost easy. Facebook makes (estimated) a few billion. So how come so many people are thinking they are about to experience another bubble? It is because for years the Internet industry was a tainted business. As soon as we see a glimmer of hope, some light at the end of the tunnel and a few nice valuations everybody, almost traumatized, yells out ‘It’s another bubble!’

Facebook and Twitter are at the top of the food chain. They are worth amazing amounts of money. But below that is a whole industry of startups that are doing just fine: we are hacking our way to success, are increasing our audience every day, have reasonable valuations and are growing organically. And yes, we make money.

Knowledge sharing Q&A and discussion sites like Quora and Stack Exchange are hot stuff right now and Swiss startup Loqize.me is one of a number of companies looking to move the format into the location space.

The service allows users to ask questions about locations – whether it’s a specific place or a wider area. So, if you want to know “Where’s the best place to get a coffee in Dublin?”, “What are the essential sights to see in Tokyo?” or “Who are the best organic farmers in Spain?”, this is the place to do it.

Answers can be tied to specific locations on an embedded map. As numerous answers are added, this becomes an easy way to view and compare differing suggestions quickly. Similar to the way Quora works, it’s possible to follow users, questions and specific locations.

While a number of services like Crowdbeacon and Loqly (which we previously reviewed here) are attempting to capitalise on users’ willingness to share local knowledge, Loqize.me is most similar to Hipster, one of the startups that was vying for buzz at SXSW. In fact, at first glance it’s almost identical to Hipster.

Should it be described as a ‘Hipster clone’ though? Philip Estrada Reichen, CEO and Co-Founder of Loquize.me argues not. ”We started Loqize.me in early summer 2010, way before anyone had ever heard of Hipster. I guess that’s one of the disadvantages coming out of Europe, but we follow our own vision and have our own take on the space.”

Indeed, Estrada Reichen notes that his solution isn’t restricted to pre-defined areas like Hipster. “You will not find a loqize.me/newyorkcity and a loqize.me/boston, therefore enabling questions like ‘I’m doing a road-trip along the East Coast. What should I see and where should I stop?’ or ‘What are the top 3 beaches in the world to surf?’. You can’t ask these type of questions on Hipster.”

Loqize.me is currently in private beta, but we have invites for 50 The Next Web readers. Just visit this page and enter the code TNW, but be quick – they’re sure to go fast.

Augmented Reality made a big impact during 2010 in the way brands market their products and offer services, especially via mobile devices. Augmented Reality helps us visualize new ways to connect the online with the off line world, reshaping the way we perceive reality and promising richer experiences in 2011 as the  technology evolves.

At the same time as Twitter is enabling its users to discover new people to follow according to their interests, we’ve partnered with PeerIndex, a service that offers topic-based authority rankings, to highlight the most influential people on Twitter on the topic of Augmented Reality. PeerIndex calculates its score by monitoring three key metrics:

Authority: measuring how much can you rely on that person’s recommendations and opinion on a given topic
Activity: measuring how much of a person’s activity that is related to the topic area
Audience: measuring a person’s reach being generated from the number of people who listen and are receptive to what that person is saying.

Our list is focused on people, not companies, and includes bloggers; industry insiders; CEOs; marketing and advertising people; as well as people working with AR startups.

You can or get more info on the PeerIndex group we’ve created.

1. Marshall Kirkpatrick

PeerIndex score: 70

Co-editor and Vice President of Content Development at ReadWriteWeb Marshall Kirkpatrick tops our list having written a number of posts on Augmented Reality business and the latest products.

Follow

2. Takahito Iguchi

PeerIndex score: 66

Tonchidot CEO based in Tokyo. Takahito Iguchi founded Tonchidot Corp. in 2008 to develop the Sekai Camera AR service. His second account used to tweet in Japanese, is almost equally influential, with Peerindex score: 64.

Follow

3. Chris Grayson

PeerIndex score: 64

At number 3 we meet someone from the world of advertising – digital creative strategist Chris Grayson, who is also the Director of Digital at humble.tv. Grayson is a contributor to H+ Magazine covering Art at the intersection of Technology.

Follow

4. Gary Hayes

PeerIndex score: 60

Gary Hayes is based in Australia and is the director of MUVEDesign.com and founder of Storylabs.us. Gary is an award winning multi-platform producer, author, educator and Director.

Follow

5.

PeerIndex score: 59

Tweets only in Korean, he is the CEO of GLARO. GLARO is Company of Industrial based Computer graphics art, making CBT (computer based trainning) contents for other companies.

Follow

6. Jack Benoff

PeerIndex score: 57

VP, Product & Marketing at Zugara,  Jack Benoff describes himself as a recovering interactive agency guy that turned into an Augmented Reality startup guy, attempting to revolutionize how people shop online.

Follow

7. Beverly Millson

PeerIndex score: 56

Founder of NPIRL, Beverly Millson focuses on virtual art, Augmented Reality, robotics and 3D immersive virtual worlds. She does PR for .

Follow

8. Adrian David Cheok

PeerIndex score: 55

Professor in Keio University Graduate School of Media Design and Associate Professor in National University of Singapore.

Follow:

9. Gene Becker

PeerIndex score: 53

Becker works as an AR Strategist for Layar. He tweets about mobility, media, ubicomp, augmented reality, social stuff, invisible stories, infinite games, aurora digitalis and guitars.

Follow

10. Jeff Powers

PeerIndex score: 53

Powers is the co-founder of , that enables users to capture and share everything in sight with 360 Panorama for iPhone.

Follow

11. Matthew Szymczyk

PeerIndex score: 50

Matt Szymczyk is the CEO & founder of Zugara, a Los Angeles-based Augmented Reality software developer working to make online shopping more social & engaging.

Follow

12. Danika Berlin

PeerIndex score: 50

Danika Berlin works at Augmented Reality company metaio

Follow

13. Rich White

PeerIndex score: 50

A LAMP stack web developer and a 3D immersive environments user interface designer, developer and researcher. His primary professional interests are how 3D multi-user environments, Augmented Reality, and ubiquitous hardware merge for high fidelity learning experiences for kids.

Follow

14. Fred Steube

PeerIndex score: 48

Digital Innovation Manager at Cox Target Media – Valpak, Fred Steube introduced industry-leading Augmented Reality as a digital product innovation resulting in a national promotion, B2B ad campaign and extensive publicity.

Follow

15. Woontack Woo

PeerIndex score: 48

Director of CTI at GIST and associate professor at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. He tweets mostly about Context-aware Mobile Augmented Reality (CAMAR), ARtalet for Digilog Book and miniAR.

Follow

16. Andrea Carignano

PeerIndex score: 48

Co-founder and CEO of seac02, augmented and virtual reality pioneer and evangelist.

Follow

17. Raimo van der Klein

PeerIndex score: 47

The CEO of Augmented Reality browser Layar.

Follow

18. Etsuji Kameyama

PeerIndex score: 45

Etsuji Kameyama blogs and tweets both in English and Japanese on using Augmented Reality applications, services and technologies

Follow

19. M. Lens-FitzGerald

PeerIndex score: 45

Co-founder & GM of Augmented Reality browser Layar

Follow

20. Benjamin Thomas

PeerIndex score: 45

Project Manager at Echangeur. Tweets about mobile, social media, design, Augmented Reality and man-machine interfaces.

Follow

21. Claire Boonstra

PeerIndex score: 44

Co-founder of Layar Augmented Reality browser and platform, VP Platform & Community.

Follow

22. Rouli

PeerIndex score: 43

AR blogger at Augmented Times for the last two years.

Follow

23. Johannes la Poutre

PeerIndex score: 41

Augmented Reality Director & CTO of TAB Worldmedia.

Follow

24. Peter Meijer

PeerIndex score: 40

Available for new R&D job at research institute, founder, owner and director at Metamodal BV, CEO and CTO at The vOICe

Follow

25. Mathijs Gajentaan

PeerIndex score: 38

A marketer,creative and New Media Producer with focus on Augmented Reality. CEO of Winvolve.

Follow

Bonus Follow: Christine Perey (with PeerIndex score 29) is a researcher and consultant with rich experience in Augmented Reality and organizer of AR focused events

Market research firm Gartner forecasts that the Android operating system will power 49% of the world’s smartphones in 2012 as devices using Google’s open-source platform continue to lower in price, making it more appealing to emerging markets as a replacement to Nokia’s Symbian platform.

Gartner’s new report suggests smartphones sales will near 500 million units in 2011, a 57.7% increase from 2010, with sales of open OS devices accounting for a quarter of all mobile handset sales during that period. Open OS devices include BlackBerry OS, iOS, Symbian, Android, Windows Phone (any platform with a development SDK and APIs), and Gartner predicts that sales of such handsets could surpass 1 billion units by 2015, accounting for 47% of the total mobile device market.

Smartphone growth is expected to rise, helped by price reductions from competing manufacturers. By 2015, two thirds of all open OS devices will have an average selling price of $300 or less, ensuring Android shipment volumes remain high for mid to low-cost smartphones, driven by orders by consumers in emerging markets.

Apple’s iOS platform is expected to remain the second biggest platform worldwide over the next two years, despite the fact its share is expected to fall during this time. Gartner assumes that Apple will continue to chase margins rather than market share, keeping prices high and limiting adoption in emerging markets.

RIM’s market share is expected to decline also, but its operating system will better compete in the consumer and business markets as it prepares to migrate from BlackBerry OS to its QNX platform, the operating system that powers the BlackBerry PlayBook. As Nokia begins to push its Windows Phone range of phones, Microsoft’s OS could rise as much as 6% by 2012, possibly holding 20% of the market by 2015 and beating Apple into second place.

Nokia’s position as the world’s biggest mobile manufacturer is expected to drive the increase in Windows Phone adoption, an increase that will see Symbian hold close to a 0.1% market share by 2015, but leaving Nokia with a share that is considerably less than the success Symbian enjoyed in years gone by.

Sources close to component manufacturers in China have suggested recent touchscreen orders by Apple for its new iPad 2 tablet have left panels in such short supply that its rival RIM had to postpone the launch of its BlackBerry Playbook by a month.

Chinese trade publication Digitimes reports that shipments of the PlayBook were pushed back by a month from the original schedule because the Canadian smartphone manufacturer experienced delays in software testing, but also because of a shortage of touch panels for its device – with Apple booking up most of the available capacity at Chinese component makers.

It’s not surprising – in February we reported that Apple was preparing for the launch of its next-generation iPad, setting an internal goal of shipping 40 million iPad products in 2011. In order to secure its position in the market, the company held control over the capacity of major touch panel manufacturers, taking its rivals and other second-tier manufacturers out of the game by occupying up to 60% of the global touch panel capacity.

RIM has already experienced delays with component manufacturers – the company reportedly had to switch chipsets from Marvell to Texas Instruments, adding months of additional development time.

The PlayBook is set to launch in the U.S and Canada on April 14.

The techies in the country have a reason to rejoice. Owing to the surge in demand for IT seen globally, firms across the country are being generous with the salary increments this year.

The Times of India reports that the average increments this year would be in the 12 to 15 percent rage, with people in the specialized areas expected to get up to 20 percent or more. This is in stark contrast to the salary cuts or low hikes seen over the last few years.

According to recruiters, the top technology firms in the country — TCS, Wipro, Infosys, HCL and Cognizant are considering a 10 to 15 percent hike on average this year. The industry has already seen a rise in the fresher salaries/stipends by 10 to 15 percent compared to last year, with hires from premier educations institutions seeing close to 20 percent increases.

C Mahalingam, Sr. VP and HR head at Symphony Services reasons that there has been a significant improvement for the IT companies over the last few months. “Markets are warming up. Customer rates are improving. There is also tension in the talent demand-supply scenario. All these will have a positive impact on increments this year,” he added.

Wipro, one of the country’s biggest tech firms has just started its appraisal process, which is set to the completed by May. Increments, which will be effective June 1st, are expected to be in the 12-15 percent range and are to be announced in June or July.

Google has been making investments in US clean tech projects for some time, and it’s just announced the first such move in Europe.

The company will make a €3.5 million (around $5m US) investment in a solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Germany. The plant consists of 47 hectares (116 acres) of solar panels situated in Brandenburg an der Havel, near Berlin. It has a peak capacity of 18.65MWp, putting it among the largest in the country. Google says that the plant should provide power for 5000 homes in the local area.

Last year, Google invested $40m in a North Dakota wind farm and also put money into a project designed to bring more such facilities to the mid-Atlantic coast. Its page also lists over $100 million in clean tech investments by its Google.org non-profit arm.

Like its self-driving car project, clean tech isn’t directly related to Google’s core business, but if we can do more online while our cars drive for us, and we have sustainable power sources to ensure that we stay online wherever we are, the company clearly benefits in the long run.

Budding game designers take note: independent game Minecraft hasn’t even left beta yet, and according to creator Markus Persson, it has already brought home around US$33 million in gross revenue.

In a , Persson — who goes by the username xNotch — invited redditors to ask him questions about Minecraft and the indie game business. The thread reveals quite a bit of interesting information about the game’s income, and Persson shares some advice for independent game developers who are just starting out.

“Start with just making games to get used to it. Focus on the details. What makes a jump animation feel good? What is a good main menu? Try to finish a few projects.

The language you choose only matters once it comes to distribution. If you want to end up on consoles, you pretty much have to write the game in C or some variant thereof.”

When asked about marketing online games, Persson wrote:

I posted about the game on a few forums I used to frequent, and people from there started playing it.

And on the subject of whether he’d recommend releasing unfinished games as they’re being developed for others, he says:

I think it’s a great way for a small studio to do game development. It might not make sense for all types of games, though. I’d definitely want to release future games in the same way. Developing in the dark is scary and probably wrong.

Small projects like Minecraft almost exclusively earn their success through word-of-mouth, and opening up the development process for your customers to watch seems to be an effective way to get the ball rolling.

While such a relaxed approach to marketing isn’t likely to work for others in the explosive way it has for Minecraft, it’s always worth listening to the story of someone who succeeded when you’re trying to figure out what will work for your own projects. Check out the for further reading.

Leaders of a Chicago Catholic parish are warning their minions that .

You know we don’t agree with that, right? Facebook doesn’t instill anything in people that isn’t already there.

But according to the Chicago Tribune, the St. John Cantius parish leaders wrote in the church bulletin that Facebook:

is exactly the opposite of the Christian culture where people go into the secrecy and sacredness of the confessional to blot out their sins forever… God entrusted parents with the care of their children for one particular purpose, and that is to teach them the way ‘to know, love, and serve God in this life and save their souls hereafter.’ Everything leads us to think that Facebook fits poorly into this plan and was devised for a very different goal.

Apparently, the church wants families to raise children free of vanity and dishonesty, traits that St. John Cantius leaders believe are fostered by the social network. The site allegedly helps youth defy their parents and cultivate feelings of lust.

One parishioner who followed the advice of the church told the Tribune he because it tempted him with ads for dating sites that apparently looked sexual to him. Apparently, he never bothered to click the grey x’s next to the advertisements to make them go away.

Readers, what do you think of this latest example of a house of worship warning its followers not to use Facebook?

Last week, Facebook allowing users who had created a personal profile for a business venture to convert that profile into a Page and change their friends into fans. However, some users didn’t fully understand the consequences of conversion while others had their profile deleted but no new Page created due to a technical issue. To help repair the damages from these issues, Facebook has created a that users can fill out to apply to have the conversion reversed and their profile restored.

This quick answer to complaints and horror stories should help Facebook mitigate the backlash stemming from its troubled attempt to provide the conversion tool users had requested for years.

Text on the appeal page explains:

“Profile to business Page migrations are meant for profiles that do not represent a person. If you have accidentally migrated your profile to a Page, you can submit your request for a reversal. Please keep in mind that we will remove your business Page if your profile is restored. We may reject any appeals that we deem to be inappropriate. Further, we may not reply to all submitted appeals.”

Though this says the appeals process is for accidental conversions, users whose conversions were interrupted and never finished, possibly due a at the time, may also be eligible for a conversion reversal. Facebook temporarily disabled the feature over the weekend while the API issue was being fixed

While Facebook clearly explained how the process worked in a warning on the tool and a series of Help Center article, we received reports of people assuming they could reverse the conversion themselves, or that their new business account would have the same capabilities as a standard profile. Some other unforseen issues, such as the inability to re-register with any email addresses or mobile phone numbers connected to a user’s old profile, may have led some users to wish they could reverse the conversion.

Facebook has been working to erase any perception that it doesn’t care about users — a sentiment that developed during several crises around and before that , which syndicated user behavior offsite to the news feed. It has since become more receptive to concerns, adding a requested , returning the to Page walls, and of applications to request user phone numbers and home addresses.

The Profile to Business Page Migration Appeal process is another example of Facebook’s efforts to keep users, and especially Page admins who buy ads purchases, happy with the social network. Rather than stifle innovation, Facebook has chosen a riskier but ultimately more progressive stance of iterating quickly and occasionally making mistakes, but hurrying to fix them when necessary.

Facebook stepped up its marketing efforts recently for its new group-buying feature Deals. Users have seen home page ads asking them to invite their friends to subscribe to news feed and email notifications about Deals. Meanwhile, Page admins have received location-customized emails from Facebook explaining that Deals could help them acquire more customers in their city. Facebook needs to build large subscriber and provider-bases to prime the service for an explosive formal launch.

On March 15th, , showing news feed stories asking users to sign up to hear about local pre-paid group experiences they could have with friends. The service, which lets users purchase packages such as a luxury winery tour for $50, uses the same name previously reserved for Facebook’s location-based Places checkin rewards system, now call .

By serving updates directly to the news feed, over Groupon, LivingSocial, and other daily deals providers who in order to collect email sign ups and alert users to new offers. But Facebook is late to join the race and needs to build a subscriber-base from zero. In contrast, Groupon said it expected to have over 25 million subscribers by the end of 2010, and some sources say it has as many as 40 million worldwide.

Luckily, Facebook has a captive audience of over 500 million users to draw from, as well as control over the communication channels that reach them. Facebook can serve ads encouraging sign-ups, like the one shown above, in unused premium ad inventory on its home page. It can also manipulate its news feed algorithm EdgeRank to give stories about friends signing up for Deals high visibility in the feed in order to drive more subscriptions — something it appears to already be doing.

Meanwhile, Facebook needs to register as many local business as possible in the five launch cities so it can pick and choose which Deals to serve. If it can launch the service with highly compelling, valuable social Deals that users are eager to buy and share with friends, user signups and merchants will come flooding in and the service will be a success. However, if first the Deals are insignificant discounts on boring experiences, users and business alike could write off the service.

The marketing emails Facebook sent out include localized information. For instance, since I’m an admin of Pages registered in San Francisco, the email I received stated “Try Deals and get more customers faster than ever. In San Francisco alone, you could reach 3,500,000 people on Facebook.” It also touted the service’s lack of upfront costs, its ability to build loyalty, and that Facebook will assist with marketing efforts.

Facebook is preemptively addressing the chicken-and-egg problem of whether subscribers or providers come first by aggressively recruiting both. There’s no official launch date for Deals, so Facebook can hold off until it has the critical mass necessary to seriously challenged the established players in the group buying market.