CityVille, Global Warfare Now on Google+ - 09/28/11

Two days ago, Zynga and Kabam each added games to Google+ Games platform in the form of CityVille+ and Global Warfare. It appears the core gameplay is identical to what players find on Facebook as of press time.

CityVille by Zynga is still the largest game in the developer’s portfolio at 72 million monthly active users and 13.2 million daily active users, according to AppData. The game was launched late in 2010 in a global release strategy that yielded Zynga’s largest game launch on Facebook to date.

Global Warfare by Kabam was launched on Facebook at the beginning of the summer, just when Digital Chocolate was readying Army Attack to take on Empires & Allies. A hardcore-oriented strategy title, the game never saw nearly as much traffic as the two casual strategy titles. Global Warfare currently enjoys 1.1 million MAU and just over 94,000 DAU.

It’s not clear, however, how much viral growth games can expect to see on the Google+ platform, given that games are confined to a single point of contact on the navigation bar. CityVille at least has name recognition going for it, even if not as strongly as Rovio’s Angry Birds. As developers experiment with the newly-launched Google+ APIs, let's find out if app-makers come up with any new ways to attract attention to the Games tab. 


*Credits to Inside Social Games

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See What Your Friends are Listening to with Facebook Music Dashboard - 09/24/11

Facebook has just launched its Music Dashboard as a permanent bookmark in your profile’s left side bar, after yesterday’s announcement of its expanded Open Graph capabilities.

As for now the Music Dashboard shows you what songs your friends are listening to under the Trending Albums and is currently advertising Spotify and Earbits in its Featured Music Services.

While it seems like you must have at least one music playing partner app to listen to music through Dashboard, one of its coolest and most seamless features is that if you click on a song from a music player you don’t currently have Facebook gives you the, albeit mitigated, option to listen to it in your preferred player, Spotify.

Because it's Facebook, you can like or comment on user music listening activity, and also judge your friends on their song selections. However, before you judge too harshly, please keep in mind the very serious issue with all this music integration.

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Facebook Timeline vs Google+ - 09/23/11

You will absolutely be blown away by the new Facebook Timeline. It's an amazing rethinking of profiles that will knock out Google+. It's pretty good even with your minimal profile, memories and stories that were otherwise buried.

A few hours back, Facebook announced Timeline. It’s like a story book of your life - everything that has ever happened in your Facebook lifespan.

Facebook said that Timeline would be on the way for everyone in weeks to come but it is enabling Timeline early for open graph developers.

A few things to note:

- You probably don’t want to do this unless you’re actually a developer. Expect bugs.

- Only you will see your timeline at first (unless you decide otherwise), but it will automatically go public after a few days.

- It seems that if you login into Facebook on another machine, Timeline gets disabled automatically on all of your machines. With that said, it seems you can get back to your timeline (but ONLY after following the steps below) by navigating to http://www.facebook.com/YOURUSERNAMEHERE?sk=timeline

- You’ll need to have a “verified” account for one of the steps, which means you need a credit card or phone number attached to the account. 

Follow the steps below:

1. Log into Facebook.

2. Enable developer mode, if you haven’t already. To do this, type “developer” into the Facebook search box, click the first result (it should be an app made by Facebook with a few hundred thousand users), and add the app.

 
3. Jump into the developer app (if Facebook doesn’t put you there automatically, it should be in your left-hand tool bar).

4. Create a new app (don’t worry — you wont actually be submitting this for anyone else to see/use). Give your shiny new app any display name and namespace you see fit. Read through and agree to the Platform Privacy agreement. This is the step you need to be verified for.

5. Ensure you’re in your new app’s main settings screen. You should see your app’s name near the top of the page.

6. Look for the “Open Graph” header, and click the “Get Started using open graph” link.

Create a test action for your app, like “read” a “book”, or “eat” a “sandwich”.

7. This should drop you into an action type configuration page. Change a few of the default settings (I changed the past tense of “read” to “redd” — again, only you can see this unless you try and submit your application to the public directory), and click through all three pages of settings.

8. Wait 2-3 minutes.

9. Go back to your Facebook homescreen. An invite to try Timeline should be waiting at the top of the page.

And you’re done!

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Source:  TechCrunch

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Revert to Old Facebook - 09/21/11

Earlier this afternoon, Facebook enhanced its "News Feed" section by adopting a "newspaper" approach to make it more interesting for members. However, if you don't like the changes you can revert to the Old Facebook prior to the update. Simply go to Account settings--> Language--> English(UK).

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Facebook Update vs Google+ Beta - 09/21/11

Here are some of the changes in features I have noticed when I opened my facebook account just this afternoon (See images below).

With its upcoming rival Google+ stepping up to beta and dropping the requirement for invitations, social networking giant Facebook enhanced its "News Feed" section by adopting a "newspaper" approach to make it more interesting for members.

Facebook engineering manager Mark Tonkelowitz said this is the latest upgrade following improvements to Friend Lists and a new Subscribe button "to help users see more of what (they) care about, and less of what (they) don’t."

"Now, News Feed will act more like your own personal newspaper. You won’t have to worry about missing important stuff. All your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top. If you haven’t visited Facebook for a while, the first things you’ll see are top photos and statuses posted while you’ve been away. They’re marked with an easy-to-spot blue corner," he said in a blog post.

Tonkelowitz said those who check Facebook more frequently will see the most recent stories first. Photos will also be bigger and easier to enjoy while you’re scrolling through.

Another upgrade is "Ticker," which allows users to see and chat with friends about photos, articles, and other things they’re posting in real-time.

"Ticker shows you the same stuff you were already seeing on Facebook, but it brings your conversations to life by displaying updates instantaneously. Now when a friend comments, asks a question or shares something like a check in, you’ll be able to join the conversation right away. Click on anything in ticker to see the full story and chime in – without losing your place," he said.

Facebook users with wider screens can slide the gray bar between ticker and chat up or down to adjust how many updates they see at a time.

To control who can see your updates anywhere on Facebook, including in ticker and News Feed, one can adjust his or her sharing control or apps settings.

"We hope these improvements make your conversations on Facebook more lively, no matter how often you visit," Tonkelowitz said.


Source:  GMA News

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