All About Facebook

Look for ads on Facebook. In an effort to monetize Facebook, you can soon advertise on a PPC - Pay Per Click - basis

"Bumper Stickers" Are Not Just For Bumpers Anymore on Facebook

Bumper stickers have always held a special place in the hearts of motorists. Those witty, controversial, heart-felt decorations made driving to work bearable and family trips a riot. These days, many people "stick" to various versions of the ever-popular "My Child Is An Honor Student At%u2026"
A change in technological communication has brought on a new wave of expression as the Facebook generation latches on to a new phenomenon: the Bumper Sticker application.

Although a seemingly endless amount of applications exist on the networking site, bumper stickers decorate almost every profile, framing the left side with square-inch tiles containing images of Justin Timberlake, quotes about friendship or dating, and images with quotes attached referencing alcohol or silly addictions such as XBox, Facebook, and even the Bumper Sticker application itself.

If the available collection doesn't have what you're looking for, members of Facebook can even create their own stickers, which is how the majority of them are made. Personal quotes, creative images, and even offensive jibes become available for the public to view, send to friends, and add to personal profiles.

Bumper Stickers allow people to communicate through witty quips, colorful ideas, sentimental insights, and crass expressions of college humor. A bumper sticker says, "Hello!" "I miss you," "Let's get drunk."

With the world morphing from verbal to electronic conversation, we face a void in interaction and emotional connection. With applications like Bumper Stickers, that void is temporarily filled. Get to Facebook and try it out! You'll be addicted before you know it.

Facebook's Security Proves It Has Bragging Rights

Many parents know about the dangers of online networking sites, taking care to monitor their children's interactions the web and limit the time spent online. Even after these precautions are taken, though, chat rooms, misguided search engines, and general "creepers" may still prove to be volatile to Internet users.

But never fear, parents and networkers, Facebook's security measures have provided a safeguard against evils lurking on the site.

With numerous security settings to choose from, members can decide exactly which friends can view their profiles, pictures, comment wall, albums, applications, friends, and personal information.

Facebook offers such a plethora of options from no security to limited search options, it's hard not to feel your information is securely hidden from strangers and non-friends. It is even possible to restrict or allow a single network of friends to view your information.

Unlike similar networking sites such as MySpace, it is possible to remove your name from search options. If you choose this option, only people who are friends of your friends can add you, as you are only searchable through friend searches. Hence, generally, only people that are at least semi-trustworthy or people you friend yourself can access your information.

Another feature Facebook offers is a "Limited Profile" option, which consists of as little or as much information as the member chooses. A member can place any friend on the Limited Profile list and can edit the list at any time, including the people on the list as well as the content in the profile.

These are a few of the amenities Facebook, Inc. offers its members to ensure a fun, safe environment. Completely member controlled with a variety of options, Facebook provides its members with a balanced package of creativity and security.

Facebook Encourages Writing On the Wall

Facebook, Inc., an Internet social networking site incorporating all that is good in individuality and the connection of a global society, stands out from other similar sites in its many innovative applications. One of which is "The Wall."

Facebook users are allowed to comment on each other's "walls," a space in your profile for friends to post greetings, thoughts, ideas, and general comments. Much like text messaging on cell phones, The Wall offers a place for people to connect without spending lots of time conversing.

With the climbing popularity of video-posting sites like YouTube, the Facebook team lent their efforts towards keeping up with the rapidly changing electronic era and opened posting avenues by allowing members to record videos to post, attach links including the embedded video itself, send photos and fortunes (another application), etc. Keep in mind, you can only attach applications that you or the friend whose wall you are writing on has.

One of the first updates Facebook made to The Wall was building a typing space into The Wall itself so members no longer needed to travel from one page to another to post a comment, something other sites still do. This change saves time and frustration for members with slower connections.

Don't want The Wall? Simple! Users can choose to delete their wall or edit to whom it is visible to by going to the Profile section of the Privacy page.

When a member posts on a friend's wall, that post may be made visible to people in his or his friends' networks through the Mini-Feed on the homepage. You can also see others' wall posts through the Wall-to-Wall application, which lets you to view wall posts between two people whose privacy settings normally allow you to see their walls.

All information regarding The Wall can be found on the Facebook help page, which makes it all even easier and convenient. So forget what your mother said when you were a child because writing on walls has a whole new meaning.

Let Me "Lay It Out" For You in Facebook
One Major Design Difference Between MySpace and Facebook

So, your Facebook profile is almost complete: scanning through your editing options, you find your contact, school, and work information to be fully explanatory; your picture is updated (you chose the PhotoShopped "artsy" one); and people can see that your interests now include "chilling with friends, laughing, and being ironic."

You're set.

But what's this? You want to enhance your Facebook look by adding some sweet layout? Well don't expect to drastically change your profile's image because layouts are a big no-no on Facebook.

Although Facebook offers an extremely secure, fun, and easily navigated environment for friends, the design is simple and the same on every page. Don't jump the social networking ship yet, though. You have options.

For those users looking for something extra, that special ingredient to spice up their site, MySpace, a similar networking site, offers a plethora of backgrounds, embellishments, and even a music application to set the mood for your profile.

One of the major differences between MySpace and Facebook lies in creative freedom and exposure of MySpace. A user can choose to add a slideshow to her profile page, or create a picture that sparkles and has moving objects by utilizing the "Blingee" application.

There are many sites dedicated solely to providing users with creative layout designs ranging from Harry Potter to Maxim models. You can even create your own layout using personal pictures.

The possibilities seem endless, which is why a number of people choose to use MySpace as their networking site. You can change your layout as often as you want! The free-flow of ideas and images make visiting every page a new experience.

These layouts make Facebook seem like the younger, more cautious version of MySpace%u2026but you'll just have to decide that for yourself.

The site was founded as thefacebook in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University with financial help from Eduardo Saverin. Within a few weeks, over half the Harvard undergraduate population had registered. By the end of February, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes had joined Zuckerberg to spread the website. Within two months, Facebook expanded to the rest of the Ivy League and a few other schools. By December 2004, the number of registered users exceeded one million.

As the website's popularity rose and advertising revenue grew, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz left Harvard to run Facebook fulltime, while Hughes remained at Harvard to work as the site's spokesperson. Zuckerberg and Moskovitz moved to Palo Alto in June 2004, established an office and hired a staff of eight, including Sean Parker, Matt Cohler, and James Pereira.

Stories about Facebook became commonplace in online and print media. Simultaneously, several competitor sites appeared attempting to capture some of the limelight. While at Harvard, Zuckerberg's project competed with a student portal by Aaron Greenspan known as houseSYSTEM, whose Universal Face Book was launched in October, 2003, before Facebook existed. [6]. Greenspan would later fold houseSYSTEM into a new product, CommonRoom. In late 2004, the owners of the website ConnectU (Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss), another social networking website targeted towards college students, filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging that Zuckerberg had stolen source code intended for their website while in their employ [7][8].
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Facebook's funding

In September 2004, Facebook received around $500,000 from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel in an angel round. In May 2005, Facebook raised $12.7 million in venture capital from Accel Partners [9] .

In late August 2005, it was announced on the main website that the domain name facebook.com was acquired from Aboutface Corporation, and the website moved domains and dropped the "the" from the site name effective August 23, 2005. The purchase price for the domain name was $200,000 according to people familiar with this deal[citation needed]. Also included in the move was a site overhaul, making profile pages more "user-friendly", according to Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has since added more universities to Facebook (with an emphasis on forgotten schools in Canada as well as in the United States), but unlike in the past, the new sc

So too can social networking sites offer these same types of benefits. You connect with your friends already, why not stay in front of them in a business capacity? Use the powerful tools within networking sites to explain what you do to friends and family, to keep them abreast of the latest trends and technologies in your own industry.

Facebook in particular offers great group features. Facebook allows you to create a group about whatever topic or topics you want. Most recently I've created the Web Design and Programming group and invited many classmates, friends, even teachers into the group where I hope to discuss problems and topics in web design or programming, offer help, build an online community for everyone.

In creating such a group I have created value for the individuals that are apart of the group, I have connected with a number of like-minded, skilled, potential sales people, and finally it is a network of valuable talent, resources and skills that I can tap into later, perhaps as employees or referral sources.

Harnessing the power of Web 2.0 doesn't necessarily mean you have to spend copious amounts of money on web ads. Instead, I've found tremendous value in molding the connection features offered by these social networking sites into my own business.

Do you have a unique (guerilla) marketing technique that harnesses the power of Web 2.0 or uses a commonplace feature of a favorite website to drive sales and traffic?

Zachary Katkin is the founder of Naples Web Design Firm, Unique ID Web Design. Zach can be contacted via the company's web site.

You can read Zach Katkin's personal blog, theNapkin for more information on running and marketing a small business online