I have been using Facebook Comments Box on this blogs for over a week now to test out and increase interaction on the site. For starters, I did like the amount of interaction from Facebook users. However, there are quite a few problems with Facebook Comments when it comes to moderation.

First off, the website where you can moderate Facebook comments (https://developers.facebook.com/tools/comments/) is down most of the time (or whenever I try to access it). It gets frustrating because it is the only way you can see new comments and trash spam or hide comments from users.

On the other hand, Facebook comments moderation in itself does not work most of the time and administrators have problems when marking a comment as spam or banning a user.

Overall, I feel that Facebook comments do provide a lot of ease for their users to quickly comment on a website. However, there is a lot of work to be done when it comes to administrating those comments. I will continue working with Facebook comments for some more time and see if there is any improvement with it before I decide to remove it for good.

What has been your experience while using Facebook comments? Have you had problems with moderating comments and administrating them? I am looking for some alternatives so please feel to suggest them (No Disqus Please).

Last year, Facebook introduced a new feature on the social networking site called "Live Ticker" which displayed a live activity stream of your Facebook friends. Facebook Ticker was hated by a lot of users and also led to a few Facebook scams including the one where users were duped into believing that they could stop posts from showing in Facebook Ticker.

In the past, we wrote about different ways to hide the Facebook Live Ticker. However, Facebook now allows users to hide the Live Ticker easily with the recent changes they have made.

If you are looking to hide the Facebook Ticker in your Facebook feed, you can now simply click the UP arrow key on the Ticker to hide the Facebook Ticker from view. Once that is done, you will no longer see the Ticker on your feed. If you want to see the Live Ticker again, you just have to click on the down arrow key and it will show up again.

Also Read:

• Boost Your Small Business on Facebook
• Express Your Life with Timeline Movie Maker
• Access Facebook on Any Mobile Without GPRS or Internet Connection

However, one must note that hiding the Ticker will only hide it from view. There is no way to stop your posts from showing up on all your friends profile so don’t forget to stay away from Facebook scams which tell you that you can stop your posts from showing up in the Live Ticker.

Facebook has a had a huge week with them going public with their $5 Billion IPO. However, it looks like they are facing problems with their infrastructure with the "Facebook Activity Feed" for websites showing an "invalid action type" error all across the web.

Website owners who have been using the "Activity Feed" social plugin from Facebook might notice that the feed is no longer showing up and instead an error box with the message "Invalid action type" has taken it’s place. This problem is occurring on all websites and seems to be a big problem on Facebook’s side.

The error is also apparent on Facebook’s Social Plugin code generator for all websites as seen in the screenshot above. Facebook has faced several problems in the past where the site has gone down for hours due to database problems and DNS issues among other things. However, this look like the first time that their social plugins have had issues.

If you are a webmaster who uses the Facebook Activity Feed on your website, you might see the above error. However, having the widget in question on your site does not affect loading time. We have contacted Facebook to check why this problem is occurring and will update the post when we get a response.

The Internet censorship scene in India has been heating up for quite some time now. Late 2011, the Indian government and Telecom frontman Mr. Kapil Sibal asked Internet companies to pre screen objectionable content, which can be a blog post, a photo, a video or a tweet. Google, Facebook, YouTube and 19 other social networking sites were precisely told to remove inflammatory material before February 6th 2012.

Pre screening user generated content is easier said than done. Everyone knows the size and volume of social users in India and removing all the user generated content is nearly impossible because of two reasons:

1. It is literally impossible to monitor each and every user on a social networking site. Anything that is posted online has to be viewed through human eyes, cross checked and then passed through the safe filter. How many eyeballs will faint reading 250 million tweets, that are posted every single day?

2. If we assume that the proposed system is successful in pre-screening content, how do you stop people from creating fake profiles and bulk post all the objectionable stuff in random order?

This idea is nothing but madness.Technically speaking, not at all feasible or achievable.

According to Google’s 2011 transparency report, Indian Government officials and cyber experts have made 68 requests to remove objectionable or obscene content. Metropolitan cities like Mumbai, have dedicated special cyber units who constantly monitor social networking sites e.g Facebook, Orkut and they will go all guns blazing, if they find someone crossing the line.

[January 13th]: Objectionable Content Can’t Be Filtered – Google, Facebook.

On January 13th 2012, both Google and Facebook appealed to Delhi High court arguing that it is impossible to pre-screen content posted by thousands of internet users. Instead, the users should be held responsible, not the social site or the search engine.

“The search engine only takes you to a website. What happens after that is beyond a search engine’s control,” Neeraj Kishan Kaul, a lawyer for Google India, told a packed High Court hearing on Monday. “If you use blocks, which is very easy for people to say, you will inadvertently block other things as well. For example: the word ‘sex’. Even a government document like a voter ID list or a passport has the word ‘sex’,” he added.

Likewise, it is not possible on the part of a social network to take down users who have aggressive thoughts or hatred towards political leaders, religions or a celebrity. A user who is innocent today may have some reactions tomorrow, where from you start drawing the line?

“The issue relates to a constitutional issue of freedom of speech and expression, suppressing it was not possible as the right to freedom of speech in democratic India separates us from a totalitarian regime like China,” advocate N K Kaul, appearing for Google India, told Justice Suresh Kait. For example, if you block the word “Virgin”, how will people find information about “Virgin Airlines”? Times of India has the detailed conversation here.

[February 7th]: Objectionable Content Has Been Removed – Google.

Google India has now admitted that the company has removed or filtered controversial content that were flagged to be offensive towards religious and political leaders. Which websites or pages were removed? Google hasn’t revealed any names but the company is now adhering to the laws of the land and the legal requisitions of the government. Please note that the objectionable content has been removed only from Google’s localized India domain, the same content is accessible to users of a different country.

Just one week ago Google forced a new web address for all blogger blogs in India, shifting from a .com TLD to a more localized .in address. This is definitely in conjunction with selective censorship, as the search giant can control (and remove) objectionable content for Indian users only, while they will continue to be available in other countries.

Amongst other companies, the Delhi high court has issued directions to Facebook and Yahoo to take down offensive content at their earliest. Facebook India came up with a compliance report on Monday arguing that the complaints raised are not specific in nature. Facebook told the court that it does not control or operate the servers that host the website available at www.facebook.com , which are located in the US, according to a report from Indian Express. The operating party is Facebook India Online Services Pvt Ltd and not Facebook Inc.

On the other hand, Yahoo and Microsoft filed applications for deletion of their names from the civil complaint stating that there was no allegation against them for webcasting any objectionable content. “The Defendant no.5 (Yahoo) is primarily a content portal offering e-mail and messenger communication services but not offering features generally associated with social networking websites. So to that extent the website of Defendant no.5 cannot be regarded as a social networking website” – this is Yahoo India’s official remark, after they appealed deletion from the list of alleged parties.

All the alleged websites have to produce official statements and explanations within 15 days counting from today.

Country wide protests and reactions from online junta/media sources are already pouring in. Pre screening user generated content will eventually lead to the death of free speech, and lets not forget that India is the World’s largest democracy. [Image credit]

After weeks of frenzied speculation, Facebook has finally filed its first S-1 filing, officially announcing its intentions to go public.

Here are some of the most interesting facts and figures from Facebook’s IPO filing:

Usage:

1. Facebook has 845 million monthly active users (users who have logged in atleast once a month as of December 31, 2011). Surprisingly, its daily active user count is 483 million, which means that more than half of its total user base logs in at least once every day. It’s official now — Facebook is incredibly addictive.

2. Facebook had more than 425 million users who logged in from mobile phones in December 2011. Now you know why Facebook wants to launch its own smartphone.

3. Facebook users generated 2.7 billion likes and comments every day in December 2011. Around 250 million photos are uploaded every day on Facebook, making it the largest photo sharing site in the world. Additionally, there are more than 100 billion friendships on Facebook, an average of more than 100 per user.

Financials:

1. Facebook generated around $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011, up 88% from almost $2 billion in 2010.

2. It has an impressively high operating margin of around 47%. It made a net profit of exactly $1 billion in 2011. Surprisingly, it paid almost 41% in taxes, a much higher rate than most other technology companies which have lowered their effective tax rates by routing their money through offshore tax havens. Expect a bump in net profit in the coming years, as Facebook learns these tricks too.

3. It has nearly $4 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities. This figure will be bumped up by around $5 billion following the IPO, which will give Facebook even more cash to expand operations and go on an acquisition spree.

Other Interesting Facts:

1. Mark Zuckerberg will retain 57% of the total voting power through various classes of Facebook stock post-IPO. That’s quite high even by recent Silicon Valley standards.

2. We know that Zynga depends on Facebook for most of its revenues, but the relationship is not completely one-sided. Facebook generated around 12% of its total revenue from Zynga in 2011.

Assuming a $100 billion valuation, this is how much the major founders and investors’ stake will be worth after the IPO.

Mark Zuckerberg: $28.4 billion
Dustin Moskovitz: $7.6 billion
Peter Thiel: $2.5 billion
Jim Breyer: $11.4 billion

Stay tuned for more updates. I’ll be scouring the Facebook S-1 filing for interesting tidbits in the coming days.

Check it out here: Facebook S-1 IPO Filing

Another day, another update on the Facebook IPO, but no official S-1 filing yet.

A lot of excitement has been building up around the impending Facebook IPO. Facebook is expected to file its first S-1 filing anytime this week. Apparently, it has chosen Morgan Stanley to lead its initial public offering.

According to reports, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were the top two investment banks fighting for the coveted “left lead” position on the IPO prospectus, and the former seems to have won the battle.

Morgan Stanley also led the much hyped Groupon and Zynga public offerings in 2011, which might have tipped the scales in its favor.

On the other hand, Goldman Sachs had managed a private deal in Facebook stock almost a year ago, which didn’t go as planned.

The average underwriting fee is approximately 5% to 7% in big tech IPOs, but the fee may be much lower in Facebook’s case.

Interestingly, it seems that Facebook is planning to raise only about $5 billion, instead of $10 billion which was reported earlier.

Assuming a $100 billion valuation, this means a free float of only around 5%, which has been the case in all recent tech IPOs, presumably to keep the stock price inflated.

Facebook has rolled out a new contest called Small Business Boost. The contest is geared toward small businesses and seeks to give away up to $10 million in free advertising.

Facebook announced the contest on their “Marketing Solutions” page. To compete in the competition you have to have a Facebook business page, be based in the U.S., and have at least 50 “Likes” for your page. The contest lasts until April 1st. Here are the prizes that you can earn for your small business page:

• Get $50 in free ads if you have at least 50 likes on your Page
• Get $100 more in free ads if you add 100 more likes to your Page before April 1, 2012
• Win $10,000 more in free ads if you are one of the top 10 pages that gains the most new likes before April 1, 2012

Facebook also posted the following video with a little more information.

This seems like a really nice opportunity for a small business however, it is a little confusing why the contest wasn’t more widely announced.

While you are on the marketing page, you might also want to check out the other apps on the left side of the page. The “Start to Success Program”, highlighted above, has resources to help small businesses with Facebook advertising. The first 5000 will get $50 in free advertising.

Facebook is quickly becoming the medium of choice for advertisers. I think it is great that Facebook is offering a contest like this however, I believe they could do more to inform small businesses of ways they can get the most out of Facebook advertising. Now that rumors are swirling about Facebook’s possible IPO coming up, it will be interesting to see what they will offer and if there will be opportunities for small businesses to share the wealth. Hopefully Facebook will make this marketing information more accessible in the near future. In the meantime, take advantage of this contest while there is still time. Good luck!

One of the biggest problems that the Internet has faced for years, and is facing still, is spam. It is estimated that more than 90% of the total Internet traffic is email spam. The figure has come down considerably, after Microsoft hunted for and took down a number of botnets. Nonetheless, the volume of spam is still high enough, that it is a matter of concern.

Spam is so popular and widespread, there are businesses based on spam, which thrive on the naiveness of the casual Internet surfer. Most of these spammers gather personal data or credentials, using phishing attacks.

This time, all tech giants, namely Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, PayPal, Facebook and LinkedIn are going after spammers. They have decided to verify if the email sender is indeed the actual sender. Ars Technica writes on this, claiming that SMTP is too old to, and the concept of emails has become complicated since its birth.

Although methods like SPF and DKIM  have been used in email phishing protection already, they have their limitations. Instead, these tech giants are working on a new protection scheme called DMARC.

As with SPF and DKIM, DMARC depends on storing extra information about the sender in DNS. This information tells receiving mail servers how to handle messages that fail the SPF or DKIM tests, and how critical the two tests are. The sender can tell recipient servers to reject messages that fail SPF and DKIM outright, to quarantine them somehow (for example, putting them into a spam folder), or to accept the mail normally and send a report of the failure back to the sender.

As DMARC stores extra information about the sender, it has to record all the senders, to function effectively. This makes a global rollout compulsory for DMARC to be effective in fighting spam. In the next few months, we will see how the Internet community receives DMARC and whether it is effective against spam.

Let me tell you about a nifty website that you will want to add to your online repertoire. It is called Timeline Movie Maker. Timeline Movie Maker allows you to take elements from your Facebook timeline and incorporate them in a short movie that you can share with your friends. It could use some refinements. However, it is simple to use.

When you first arrive at their website you are greeted with the following:

There are no fancy tutorials or instructions, just a big green button that says “Make Your Movie”. When you click it you get the typical app permission window you see when you install anything related to Facebook. See the picture below.

When you click the “Log In with Facebook” button the app gets to work. In the image below, you can see how the app automatically starts going through your Facebook timeline and gives you an indication of where it is in the process.

Before you know it, you hear music playing and a video montage of your Facebook timeline streams right before your eyes. When the video finishes you see the window picture below.

If you like the movie as is, then simply click share and it will post to your Facebook timeline for all to enjoy. However, if your experience is like mine you probably won’t want to do that right away. Notice in the picture above, there is a picture highlighted with a red circle. The app randomly pics images from your timeline so something as mundane as a map of where you checked in at the dentist shows up in the movie. Fortunately, at this stage they give you the opportunity to select a different picture. If you see a picture you don’t like simply click it and the picture will change. I have to admit I would rather have had a dialog box where I could go to the picture I wanted to put in there. Unfortunately, you have to click the picture until it finally finds a picture you like. You can also change the soundtrack using this dialog. Once your finished selecting the pictures you want, click “Remake Your Movie”.

Your movie will regenerate and will give you another preview. If you are happy with the movie simply click the “Share” button. Now you will see the window pictured below.

Please make note of the options in the top right corner. Above you will see where it says “Friends of Friends”. That is pretty lenient and you may not want that to be who sees your new movie. Make sure these permissions are set the way you want them to be. When you’re happy with it, click “Share Link”. There will now be a link to your movie that your Facebook friends can enjoy.

Timeline Movie Maker is pretty fun and definitely simple to use. I could think of a lot of ways to make it better though. Hopefully there is more to come. In the meantime, give a try and tell us what you think. I believe you might find this little web app entertaining, despite its shortcomings.

Here’s yet another update on the Facebook IPO. Rumors of the much awaited IPO have been floating since months now, with no official announcement from Facebook. We previously posted that Facebook may finally go public in May. More recently, Facebook trading on Second Market and SharesPost was suspended for some days, presumably because it is going to file an S-1 statement for the IPO soon.

According to a new report by WSJ, Facebook could file papers for a public offering by February 1. It is aiming to raise $10 billion at a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion. The deal will be led by either Morgan Stanley or Goldman Sachs, both of which are the front runners. Both the investment banks are said to have reduced their fees to as low as 1% (about $100 million in total) to win the deal, instead of their usual 3% to 5% in an IPO of this scale.

Apparently, both NASDAQ and the NYSE are clamouring for Facebook’s attention, and trying to get it listed on their exchanges.

Facebook will likely go through a standard bookbuilding process for price discovery, instead of the Dutch auction process which was used by Google in its IPO.

Given the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding Facebook’s IPO, it may easily be able to achieve a $100 billion valuation, and even higher after it goes public.

Recent IPOs like Zynga’s and Groupon’s haven’t done very well though. Both companies are currently trading below their IPO price. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is trading much above its IPO price.

Facebook now has more than 800 million users, and is estimated to have made nearly $4 billion in revenue in 2011.

Another really incredible thing about the Facebook IPO is that it will spawn more than a 1000 new millionaires. This tremendous amount of wealth creation could create a group of techies which could go on to become even more powerful than the famed Paypal Mafia.