Multiple media outlets reported a couple of weeks ago that Facebook was readying a video ad program that was going to deliver video ads directly to news feeds of Facebook users…and was going to charge up to $1 million per ad.

Adblock Plus has an idea…it would like to buy the very first video ad on Facebook…and run the following video ad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRHkRiIx3R8

On a more serious note, Adblock Plus’s position is not to pass judgment on whether advertising is good or bad, but rather to give users the tools to decide for themselves what type and what level of online advertising they will accept. Adblock Plus offers Internet users the ability to block Facebook’s many recommendations on the Facebook page such as the “advertising like” components (recommendations such as People you may like, Games you may like, Games your friends are playing). The instructions to block ads on Facebook is here: https://www.facebook.com/adblockplus/posts/458004530907639

Adblock Plus’s newest blog post about everything Facebook, that was just posted today, is here: http://adblockplus.org/blog/the-future-of-facebook-ads-and-how-adblock-plus-will-deal-with-them

The bottom line is, Adblock Plus continues to offer users the ability to see whatever ads they want to see, and they also have an Acceptable Ad program that gives the Adblock Plus community the ability to whitelist ads from sites that are practicing Acceptable Ads best practices.

Adblock even created an infographic of Facebook ads in a quick survey they did of Internet users and the bad ads that those see on a regular basis: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=520850261289732&set=a.437361172971975.87251.157634214278007&type=3&theater

Barcelona, Spain – March 26, 2013 – Qustodio, a leading parental control software start-up, today announced the release of the latest version of its free software, now compatible with Mac OSX Lion/Mountain Lion and Android devices. It is already available for Window 8 PCs.

The latest version of Qustodio is aimed at giving parents better tools to manage their children’s online activities on the many devices that they use to connect to the world, including Android mobile phones and tablets. Parents can view the web-browsing activity or applications being used on any device within the family and set usage limits for certain applications and/or web pages. Parents can manage the use of all Macs, Windows PCs and Android mobile devices from one unified web-based online dashboard, called the Family Portal.

This release also allows parents to have a deeper view into social networks including Facebook. Qustodio has always tracked children’s time spent on social media sites like Twitter, FourSquare and Pinterest. But today it launched a robust new tool called Advanced Facebook Monitoring that connects to a child’s Facebook account from any device, and reports on the key activities, information and photos where a child may be tagged.

Social Activity reported on Qustodio Family Portal
To showcase this new feature, Qustodio’s Family Portal features a new tab called Social Activity. Social Activity offers parents a detailed view of all social activity performed by the child. It allows parents to see the names of contacts that children communicate with online and the time and duration of the conversation. Qustodio also alerts parents the first time a child is contacted by a new friend. This allows parents to keep a closer eye on social media interactions and intervene if necessary.

Multi-Device Management for Premium Users
Those who purchase Qustodio’s premium version will get access to a new Multi-Device Scheduler that allows a parent to customize individual time usage limits for each mobile, desktop or laptop. Using these features parents can customize their child’s experience on each device.

“Management of the multiple connected devices and online activities in the family is a new and challenging problem that we aim to solve,” said Eduardo Cruz, CEO and co-founder of Qustodio. “We are committed to providing parents useful tools to guarantee safe and responsible use of devices by children.”

Qustodio Premium Users Get Expanded Social Protection and Monitoring
For Premium users, who pay $49.95 per year, Qustodio offers a deeper level of social monitoring called Advanced Facebook Monitoring. Once activated, Qustodio monitors all activity that takes place on a child’s Facebook account, regardless of the device being used to access Facebook. The Advanced Facebook Monitoring feature provides parents with information on new friends, events, shared photos and social interactions including:

- A child’s friends list on Facebook and friends’ profile pictures.
- List of new friends on Facebook and their ages
- A list of mutual friends
- Activity log of how a child interacts with friends in the past 30 days, including time spent chatting and sharing photos.
- Published information such as: interests, relationships, work, religion, etc.
- See the photos that a child shares online and the comments that other users make on those photos.

Pricing and Availability
Qustodio is available now for Mac, Windows and Android at http://www.qustodio.com and has a free version. A premium version is available for $49.95: http://www.qustodio.com/premium. Qustodio’s Android app can be downloaded here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qustodio.qustodioapp
About Qustodio:
Qustodio develops leading parental control software solutions for families worldwide. Our solutions empower parents to have greater visibility into their children’s online activity, including social networks. Our revolutionary approach provides quick and actionable information for parents, enabling parents to ensure their children use connected devices safely and responsibly. We are passionate about Internet security for children, and we love creating well-made products with excellent user experiences. We want to work with you to make the Internet a safe and enjoyable place for your kids. Qustodio is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain and can be found online: www.Qustodio.com, via Twitter: @Qustodio and on Facebook: Qustodio.

Ubisoft and CBS Consumer Products Develop Watch And Win Promotion For Hit Series And Social Game As It Surpasses 2 Million Users

SAN FRANCISCO – February 2, 2011 – Ubisoft and CBS Consumer Products are bringing the world’s most watched television drama – CSI: Crime Scene Investigation – to Facebook through an innovative watch and win cross promotion for the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Crime City social game.

Starting with the Thursday, February 3rd broadcast of CSI (9 p.m. ET/PT) on CBS, players of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Crime City will be able to watch episodes and obtain clues that will unlock special bonuses in the game. The month-long promotion marks an unprecedented collaboration between a primetime series and social game developer, allowing Ubisoft to drive viewers during sweeps month while enhancing gameplay.

The promotion will debut in episode #1113 titled “The Two Mrs. Grissoms.” Leading up to its premiere and future episodes, players will be provided a question on the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Crime City Facebook page that can only be answered by watching that week’s episode of the series. When retrieved, answers will unlock free UbiCredits that provide energy points in the game.

The introduction of this promotion comes as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Crime City surpasses 2 million monthly active users and leads into a series of new developments in the game.

Ubisoft has updated CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Crime City with new features and gameplay based on consumer feedback. Two key features that have been added to the game include new collectibles and coffee machines. The collectibles allow crime scene investigators to search through crime scenes to collect various sets of bugs, which they can redeem for experience points to increase their level. Coffee machines were introduced to the game based on player requests for alternate energy sources. They have been placed into every CSI lab and generate up to four cups of coffee per day. Players will need to visit the coffee machine in their friends’ labs to increase their energy. Ubisoft will soon rollout several new cases and features in the coming months including custom avatar creations and the ability to gift items to other players.

In CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: Crime City the player is a crime scene investigator (CSI) dropped in the middle of a teeming metropolis and challenged to solve difficult murders to bring criminals to justice. Players can explore crime scenes, earn virtual currency and build their very own crime scene investigation lab, solving murders alongside their favorite characters while exploring cool Las Vegas locations such as casinos, nightclubs, hotel suites, the desert and the Las Vegas strip.

CSI: Crime City can be accessed at:
www.facebook.com/csicrimecity.
http://apps.facebook.com/csicrimecity/

About Ubisoft

Ubisoft is a leading producer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment products worldwide and has grown considerably through a strong and diversified line-up of products and partnerships. Ubisoft has offices in 26 countries and has sales in more than 55 countries around the globe. It is committed to delivering high-quality, cutting-edge video game titles to consumers. For the 2009-10 fiscal year Ubisoft generated sales of € 871 million. To learn more, please visit www.ubisoftgroup.com.

About CBS Consumer Products

CBS Consumer Products manages worldwide licensing and merchandising for a diverse slate of television brands and series from CBS, CBS Television Studios and CBS Television Distribution, as well as from the company’s extensive library of titles, Showtime and CBS Films. Additionally, the group oversees online sales of programming merchandise. For more information, visit www.cbsconsumerproducts.com.

Gasworks Games Launches Title Town Football on Facebook

Build. Coach. Dominate!

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – SEPTEMBER 3, 2010 – Fantasy football game Title Town Football was released today on Facebook by Gasworks Games, a studio formed by veteran game developers who helped create The Matrix Online, AVP2, and Tron 2.0. Title Town Football is the first in a series of fantasy sports games Gasworks Games plans to roll out on Facebook through 2011.

Title Town Football – the total football experience for gamers of all ages – combines the competitive spirit of fantasy football with the addictive features of social gaming. Take your franchise to the top as you build facilities, coach a roster of real players, and dominate on Sunday!

The official game trailer can be viewed on YouTube.

“Title Town combines the simplicity and fun of today’s popular Facebook games, with the strategy and competition of fantasy football,” said Andy Kaplan, co-founder and CEO of Gasworks Games. “Whether you’re new to fantasy sports, or a seasoned veteran, Title Town will get you your football fix.”

Title Town Football offers enthusiastic football fans in-depth gridiron gameplay throughout the season:

• Live the Life: Bring in fans and revenue as you perform the daily duties of a football exec, from public appearances to push-ups with your star defensive end.
• Manage Superstars: Keep an eye on your salary cap as you sign real-life players to your team roster, then decide who starts and who sits on game day.
• Purchase Exempt Contracts: Sign heavy hitters to exempt contracts. Keep high-salary players from counting against your salary cap, and get a leg up on the competition.
• Improve Facilities: Boost your franchise value and attract premium free agents by upgrading your Stadium, Training Facility, Front Office, and more.
• Show Off: Force your friends to recognize the real boss when you crush them on Sundays, earn a huge fan following, and turn your run-down compound into a world-class athletic facility.

For more information about Title Town Football, visit www.gasworksgames.com.

Follow us on:
Gasworks Games on Facebook at http://www.gasworksgames.com/facebook
Title Town Football on Facebook at http://www.gasworksgames.com/titletown
Gasworks Games on Twitter at http://twitter.com/GasworksGames

About Gasworks Games

Gasworks Games, Inc., is a leading developer of statistics-based sports games for social networks. Gasworks founders are serial entrepreneurs and veteran developers. Toby Gladwell and Andrew Kaplan, credited on The Matrix Online, AVP2, Tron 2.0, have a significant history of entrepreneurial successes including Monolith Productions and Aristen. With over 40 years of combined industry experience, the team at Gasworks Games sets the standard for quality and innovation. For more information please visit the Gasworks Games website at www.gasworksgames.com.

This is a chat between Om Malik and Jonathan Heiliger VP, Technical Operations, Facebook.

Jonathan says that hardware isn’t built for the cloud, that all hardware is designed for multi-function use in enterprises. He apparently blasted the chip makers last year and is backing away from that now. He’s saying that Facebook tests performance better than the chip vendors. No kidding, everyone tests better than the chip vendors. I’m a little surprised that they’re talking about this like news. Certainly, PC Mag wasn’t reporting that for the last 20 years, right?

We should focus on massively multi-core chips. We need software written to take advantage of multi-core and the apps we develop do also. Facebook makes full use of multi-core, especially where it makes sense like analytics. They’re big on horizontal scaling and the idea is to have many multi-cores. They started writing apps in PHP because it is easy, but it’s not fast. They had options and wrote hip-hop for PHP so it’s pre-compiled on the web server.

There are apparently 400 million Facebook users.

They systems are constantly evolving. They’re building a data center in Oregon. All of the bullshit (my word) they announced at F8 requires better back end technology. And they like to open source all of their innovations. They’re very proud of building technology to solve the problems they have.

Consumer websites starting today should be built in the cloud and be running really fast. But the cloud isn’t free. You can focus on building your product and probably waste less money on staff. Let someone else worry about the infrastructure and you can focus on the business.

After the business grows, you’ll reach a point where you’re writing a considerable check each month for the cloud services. Plus you’ll have learned more about your own systems that you’ll want to customize them. Can you really customize cloud offerings? When you’re approaching 10’s of millions of customers it’s time to get off the cloud and build your own data center for control, lower costs, and increase performance.

I’ve been playing Blur (review on the way) and one of the coolest things is the social network interaction. Once it is set up, it’s only a few clicks to post to Twitter or FaceBook what I’ve accomplished in the game. The hashtag is #blurthegame. It’s sort of cool.

Dear CNN,

I know you’re not the whole problem, but to me, you’re today’s big symptom. CNN, if I wanted my friends to know what I was reading at your site, I would tell them. If I wanted my Facebook friends to know what I was reading at your site, I would post a link. Or I would click the “Share on Facebook” link. It really takes very little effort to let people know what you’re up to, these days. I bet you’ve even reported about this, haven’t you?

So, I’m sending out a big “Fuck you” to you, CNN, and to any other site that participates in this travesty of a Facebook scheme, whereby your privacy settings on Facebook have no bearing whatsoever on whether other websites can share your browsing habits with your Facebook friends. These sites include ABC, CBS, the Yellow Pages, IMDb, engadget, Pandora, Yelp, and MLB—among many others. So far. Just to clarify: I’m not talking about the “Like” button I can choose to press. I’m talking about reading an article on CNN—or hell, clicking on one by accident—and CNN cold telling my friends I was there.

Actually, I’m not even on Facebook, and this kind of thing is a big part of the reason. I actually think about what I tell my friends—and what I tell which friends. I’ve written here before about how Facebook and other “social” sites homogenize our friends. You can fling bits of information like poo in the general direction of your friend-mass, and your friend-mass will fling bits of poo in your general direction, too. But now, if someone who is friends with you happens to visit the same page as you—that friend will see your smiling mug at the top of the page. “Hey, Bill! Your friend Jack read this story about Larry King’s divorce too!” “Hey Sally! Your friend Roberta spent 43 minutes on this porno site! How long will you spend here?”

And that’s the other thing: Who cares if Jack was reading about Larry King? I promise you that even among the Facebook users who shrug and say that they don’t browse anywhere they’d be ashamed to be seen, there is still not one who thinks this is awesome. No one is saying, “Great! Now I don’t have to waste all that time flinging my own poo!” They’re flinging their poo because it makes them feel like they’re not alone in the world. I don’t think poo-flinging by proxy is going to give them that warm sense of personal connection with their friend-mass.

So quit it.

Your ex-reader,
Sarah

By Sarah Pike

At some point in every good dystopian story I’ve read, we find out that the miserable, benighted good guys—or the demented, unimaginative losers who should be miserable—dug their own hole. They were trying to create a utopia but ended up in a Brave New World. They gave up freedom for security and ended up forbidden to read or convene. They wanted a classless society but ended up with an identity-free one.

Facebook and Twitter are turning us into children and drones. We wanted to keep up with our friends but ended up becoming faceless recipients of, and undiscriminating fire hoses of, spew.

When was the last time you wanted everyone you knew, or sort of knew, to know everything about you? When you were a child, I hope, and needed everyone from your best buddy to your mom to the supermarket cashier to know that you drank a cup of apple juice and then peed for a really long time. I would like to say no one is interested. Alas, it seems I overestimate people. Evidently, you do want to know if I drank a cup of apple juice and peed for a really long time. Tsk.

The tragedy of coworker “social networking” has been amply covered elsewhere, largely framed in terms of the consequences of spewing personal exploits at your boss. That aside: Coworkers, I’ve seen what’s on your walls, and it makes me want to quit and have my short-term memory erased. No, what you’re doing for your dad’s birthday isn’t private, but it’s fracking boring. Would you subject me to that information in person? You are lame and without boundaries and now I can’t look at you without cringing.

Much more disturbing is that people seem to be losing their sense of what not to pass along very, very quickly. I’ve had a few embarrassing moments when someone disclosed something I’d said that I couldn’t conceive of anyone in their right mind repeating. The passers-along would never have done that pre-Facebook. But now what you tell one you tell all. I know it’s not a totally new phenomenon, but I’m seeing it more and more and I really do blame Facebook and Twitter for making “friends” a unified entity.

Then there’s the other side. I don’t need to be the focus of anyone’s life—when’s the last time you knew your real friend status? Are you her best-best friend, her second-best friend, her friend with no life who will answer the phone and talk to her when she’s wasted? There’s something insulting about getting the same friend-feed as everyone else. Call me demanding, but if you want me to know something, tell me. In turn, if there’s someone from high school I want to be back in touch with, I will find that person. The rest of the class of ‘91 can broadcast their updates right into their own navels, where they belong. If I sound a little too invested in this issue, it may be partly because there is a kernel of personal sorrow; I don’t know that anyone who wanted to find me would be motivated to look beyond Facebook anymore. My friends used to send (infrequent) personal updates, photos of their kids. Now I’m SOL on news because the only place to get them is on Facebook—and I’m not going back there.