Categories
Facebook

You Could Soon Be Shopping On Facebook Messenger

If you are a business owner, you may soon be able to take customer orders and attend to support tickets right from your Facebook window. The Menlo Park based social network company has recently filed a patent application that provides a hint of this upcoming feature.

The patent application is titled ‘Techniques for Automated Messaging‘ and essentially describes different ways a business may use Facebook Messaging to automate order taking and communication with their customers. This includes allowing customers to make new orders via Facebook Messaging and letting businesses communicate the status of these orders back to customers. In addition to this, businesses may also set predefined responses to frequently asked questions which is kind of similar to what helpdesk services offer on their platform.

So how does all of this tie in with what Facebook does currently? From the various demo images provided by Facebook on their application, a typical transaction could be something like this.

1. Businesses advertise on Facebook like they do now. Only now, users may also chat with the business or buy from within the Messenger platform

order-facebook

2. The target user may now click on ‘Chat Now’. This should take them to the Messenger where they deal with an automated messaging system set by the business.

facebook-shop

3. The user may pick and choose their product of choice from within the Messenger window

facebook-shop1

4. From the business end, the Facebook Messenger could work like a helpdesk tool that comes with template responses.

facebook-helpdesk

Categories
Facebook

Facebook Testing Threaded Commenting In New Zealand

Threaded commenting on Facebook is one of the long sought requests from users. And Facebook too, many times in the past, has been caught testing the feature in small pockets of the cyberwebs.

The latest report comes from New Zealand. Our reader Chandler reports that his network is now able to reply to comments. It’s not clear how Facebook is testing this among a closed group considering that your Facebook friends can always extend beyond the group that Facebook is testing. In any case, I hope threaded commenting is provided as a feature to the entire Facebook network soon. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like

Threaded Facebook Comments

Categories
Facebook Mobile Mobile Internet

Facebook On A Sim Card

Last week INQ released two smartphones that were facebook oriented. But, now Gemalto has managed to put facebook on to a SIM card. Although no match to the latest generation of smartphones, these SIM devices which were developed in collaboration with facebook allows users to poke, send friend requests and look at statuses of friends. The sim is compatible with any GSM enabled handset. All that the user needs is a GSM SIM toolkit which is of course part of any GSM handset. The toolkit allows one to enable facebook menus, updates and other facebook related basic features.

Gemalto provides security solutions like smart cards, sim cards, e-passports and additional software applications to various enterprises like banks, wireless operators and the Government. So, there is now no need to possess a real smartphone in order to stay connected with friends.

Categories
Facebook Google Twitter

Who Will Buy Twitter – Facebook or Google?

Apparently, both Google and Facebook are holding talks with Twitter with regards to its sale. Twitter, the very famous microblogging site which started in 2006 had actually grown phenomenally in its initial years. It is estimated that Twitter would quote a price of 8-10 billion dollars. Estimates are that Twitter only managed to make 45 million dollars in the year 2010. Also, Twitter has hired more employees and acquired new data centers. Due to this, Twitter has supposedly lost a fair amount of money. It is also being estimated that the turnovers of twitter in 2011 are only going to be 11 million dollars utmost.

Now, if Facebook were to acquire Twitter, it is most likely that the only genuine competitor that it ever had up to now would be gone with a swift blow. If Google were to acquire it, it would certainly look to expand Twitter, as they have failed miserably with Buzz.

Let’s wait and see which giant gets the cherry!

Categories
Facebook Mobile

INQ Facebook Phone Unveiled

INQ Mobile yesterday unveiled two Facebook oriented smartphones that run on Goolge’s Android 2.2 or Froyo. The two smartphones viz. Cloud Touch and Cloud Q have been developed by INQ Mobile and facebook together. While Cloud Touch has a touchscreen keyboard, Cloud Q possesses the conventional QWERTY keyboard. Both the phones have facebook at their core. The Cloud Touch comes with a 3.5 inch HVGA touchscreen and a 5.0 megapixel camera with autofocus. On the other hand, Cloud Q possesses a 2.6 inch touchscreen.

As both the phones are facebook oriented, the homepage contains a facebook widget that provides live news feed from time to time. Also, both these phones run a spotify overlay along with facebook overlay. The features of facebook can be accessed directly with the help of a scrollbar which is also included on the top of the home page.

Both the smartphones would hit the markets sometime this summer.

Categories
Facebook

Voice Calls To Facebook Friends Coming Soon?

An interesting bit of rumor has been doing the rounds lately across the blogosphere. According to some Facebook users, the popular social network might be testing a new ‘Call‘ feature on the user profile pages. These users have reported to have noticed this button appear on the top right of their friends’ profile pages. However, pressing this button did not initiate any calls and neither have their friends reported to have received any alerts.

It is being speculated that Facebook may integrate its service with Skype’s VoIP calling service. It is worth noting that both these companies had signed a partnership late last year that will make it easy for Facebook users to call and video chat with their friends using Skype. Is the partnership already bearing fruits? We will await an official confirmation in this regard.

Categories
Facebook Mobile

Facebook Phone Rumors Resurface With INQ Cloud Touch Filing

It has been quite a while since we wrote about the Facebook Phone. For those who are not aware, sometime last year, folks at TechCrunch broke the news about Facebook possibly working on a new “Facebook phone. While no details regarding the phone itself was available, it was seen as a way for Facebook to cater to the heavy social networking users – primarily teenagers.

The rumor itself was pretty audacious. However, Mark Zuckerberg went out of the way to quell these speculations that raised suspicions that there might be some truth in the rumors. A recent Bluetooth SIG filing now sheds more light on these rumors.

In the filing, INQ has filed a new device called “Cloud Touch” that is “an Android smartphone built to make messaging faster and smarter. It’s designed around the way people naturally communicate and has Facebook built into its core. The homescreen features multiple entry points to different Facebook functions, while a dynamic widget displays a feed of status updates, albums, videos and photos.

It is worth noting that a report on Bloomberg that was published soon after TechCrunch broke the story had claimed that INQ could be manufacturer of this new phone. With the recent filing seemingly confirming the news, it will be interesting to see what the official response is from Facebook.

Categories
Facebook Gaming Web

Cityville Beats Farmville As Most Popular Game On Facebook

Farmville has finally been dethroned. Although this social gaming application, which at one point in time was synonymous with social gaming on Facebook, had been replaced by Phrases DIY trivia builder application as the most popular application on Facebook, it still retained the tag as the most popular gaming application until now. No longer.

Data collected by app metrics firm AppData has showed that Zynga’s Cityville has replaced Farmville as the most popular gaming application. This is across any single platform and is not limited to Facebook alone. According to data revealed by AppData, the new game from Zynga amassed as many as 61.7 million monthly users – just 22 days after its launch on December 2. Farmville on the other hand has reported close to 56.8 million during the same period.

Another noteworthy information is that Zynga’s total traffic during this period adds up to 261.6 million active users that is close to being its all-time peak. That’s 63 million more than what Zynga reported for November this year.

Categories
Facebook

Mafia Wars Atlantic City For Mobile Phones Launched

Zynga has launched a mobile version of its popular Mafia Wars Atlantic City game. This is the social gaming company`s first ever application to be designed for the mobile web. Well, it just seems like Zynga has a lot to show to its potential investors rather than just sticking to the social games on Facebook. This game makes use of the HTML 5 format which means that it will be able to run on most smartphones.

One advantage that HTML 5 has is that it is not platform dependent like Adobe Flash and other native formats, which is apparently the reason why Zynga chose to build the game in it – Build once, and run on multiple platforms. Zynga makes a significant chunk of its revenues from Facebook and it is likely that the company feels it’s time for them put their hands in the mobile market.

You can play this new Mafia Wars game on your mobile by visiting m.mafiawars.com or download it from the GetJar application store.

Categories
Facebook Google Microsoft

New Microsoft Bing Social Gaming Platform In The Making

Software giant Microsoft could well become the first company to have social games running on their search engine. Their search engine Bing would soon be hosting the social game “Happy Island” and from doing this the company thinks that it will be proving its innovative talent in the sector.

The company apparently came up with the idea to incorporate social games on their search engine when their biggest rival Google came up with a fully fledged application and gaming store for its Google Chrome OS. Speaking about the launch, Parri Munsell, executive producer of Gaming on Bing has said,

“We believe this launch brings several important innovations to the social gaming industry, starting with the ability to experience great gameplay before being required to sign in,”

As per Microsoft’s press release there is a 100 percent possibility of other games like “Zuma`s Revenge” and “Bubble Town” to making in into the search engine soon. As for “Happy Island”, the game already has its presence on Facebook, iPhone and Android devices.