RIP Facebook Gifts

Facebook is winding down its “Gift Shop” feature, the company announced today. Facebook Gifts will stop operating on August 1, although gifts you’ve received previously will remain on your wall.

It’s a surprising move from Facebook, who stands to become a significant player in online transactions thanks to Facebook Credits. Given that gifting is a great advertisement for the benefit of making transactions on Facebook, we can only imagine that giving Gifts is wildly unpopular. Facebook Credits perhaps doesn’t need a helping hand, either: The rapid rise of Facebook games has assured the success of the Credits scheme.

If you’re into gifting on Facebook, you still have a few options: Birthday Cards and Pieces of Flair to name a couple.

(via Mashable)

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Facebook Will Add a “Panic Button” for UK Teens [via Mashable]

Facebook will help UK teens fight cyber abuse and bullying by deploying a panic button on its sites. Teens will be encouraged to click it when suspicious that they’re being targeted for abuse.

The button will actually connect the teens with resources hosted by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), an organization run in part by the UK government. Teens will be given advice and resources on dealing with potential threats on the Internet, and they may also report users who they believe are acting inappropriately toward them.

The tool will be advertised on the home pages of teenage Facebook users.

Why the Change?
A UK official joined the mother of murdered teenager Ashleigh Hall in a call for the deployment of the button on Facebook. The tool is already present on other sites, including Bebo. Facebook resisted joining them at first, claiming that it already offers reporting tools, but the BBC says that Facebook finally agreed to do it after 44 police chiefs signed a petition.

Advocates argue that integration with the well-established CEOP organization will help authorities take legal or police action more swiftly and accurately.

The button will be part of a larger application run by CEOP. We don’t have all the details yet, but we do know that there will also be a landing page with basic safety information for teenagers. Facebook already launched something similar on its own with the revamped Safety Center two months ago.

Potential Problems
Facebook rep Sophy Silver was quoted by the BBC saying that the reporting tool will act as a “viral awareness campaign” by informing your friends when something’s up too.

While we’re all for tools that help protect teenagers from sharing Ashleigh Hall’s fate, we’re concerned about the potential abuses of this tool. People will inevitably make errors when using it, and some might even abuse it as a means of harassment or humiliation against peers.

Here’s to hoping that there will be strong protections against that kind of abuse in the final product. Do you have any ideas about how Facebook and CEOP could make a system that protects teens but that isn’t ripe for abuse?


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Fish World for iPhone

Hey!
I'm playing one of my fave games in Facebook---> Fish World!

The problem is that,
it has no Facebook connect and doesn't sync in to my current profile just like Zynga's Farmville. :(

Hope you guys can do something about this.
I've seen there have been alot of request about it so please hear us.
Thank you!
















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Poker by Zynga in my i Phone

Hurray! Now I can play Poker in my iphone!!!



I'm still a newbie that's why I am so glad Zynga have released this game for mobile people like me.






I got alot of ample time to explore the game this time..



Keep it up Zynga! Create more iphone-facebook connect games and you're right on track!

How's the Farmville app by the way?

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Farmville for iPhone is down?

Is something wrong with Farmville for ipHone?
I have been trying to log in since last night but to no avail.
It just keeps showing this error.
Anyone pls?



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Farmville on my iPhone

Wooooow!
Finally, I can now play my fave game Farmville on my iphone.

This is soooo awesome!














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“FrontierVille” Already Has 5 Million Players

Apparently FarmVille meets Oregon Trail is a winning combination — Zynga’s FrontierVille game has reached five million active daily players on Facebook in less than two weeks.

FrontierVille launched on June 9 as a sort of spin-off to FarmVille, though it was developed by Zynga’s Baltimore studio — a different one than the one responsible for FarmVille. In fact, its lead designer is an esteemed strategy game designer known for his work on Civilization and Rise of Nations, according to VentureBeat.

The game adds some features and levels of complexity that its predecessor doesn’t have, such as the ability to control multiple avatars — an entire family.

The game’s huge initial growth is due in part to the way the game encourages players to invite their friends. When I signed up for the game, I was prompted to invite my Facebook friends three times in my first five minutes of play. Given the association with FarmVille (which has more than 200 million active users), it’s not a surprise that FrontierVille has spread quickly.

Note that Zynga says that five million is the number of “daily active” users, however. That’s not the same as the probably higher number of people who’ve at least signed up to begin with.


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