A recap on Facebook’s July updates

You don’t want to start off your morning with a new, repeat NEW, intern telling you “Facebook’s dead”. I’ll go all Auntie Fee on yaaaaah white-ass. So it got me thinking, what did Facebook founder and CEO Mark Elliot Zuckerberg and his team of minions get up to over those 31 days in July. Hmmm, let’s have a look see.

Facebook to acquire LiveRail

On 2 July, Facebook announced that it will be acquiring LiveRail – a company that offers a complete advertising solution for video publishers by building technologies that help connect digital, video advertising ecosystems.

Quite a mouthful hey?

In essence, it will help Facebook optimise its video ads. Users who love watching videos will now see more relevant video content in their newsfeeds, with marketers being able to focus their targeting on those users, more.

According to Mark Trefgarne, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of LiveRail, “publishers deserve a new generation of audience-aware advertising technology”. He also added that by joining forces they will “be able to draw upon (their) respective strengths to move even faster towards (their) shared vision of creating the advertising platform of the future.”

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Mark Trefgarne, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of LiveRail

Facebook Mentions – A new App for public figures

According to Facebook, there are more than a billion interactions between public figures and their fans on Facebook every week. And by Public Figures they mean athletes, musicians, actors and other influencers. And by “more than” they mean a sh*t load.

So on 17 July, Facebook decided to release Mentions – an app released by the super awesome geeks of Facebook Creative Labs. Why? It will help public figures to talk to their fans and each other on-the-go, and according to Facebook, help public figures:

See what fans are saying about them and help them join the conversation
Makes for easy story sharing with photos, videos and live Q&A
Join popular conversations (AKA trends)
And get streamlines notifications.

As with most Facebook updates – it’s still only available in the US. And one has to have a verified Facebook page or be a public figure to request access to Facebook directly.

What makes it different to Facebook Pages App? Probably only the live Q & A from what I could gather.

I wonder who will download it first – Malema or Zille?

Facebook Mentions for public figures

Introducing Save on Facebook

Save, introduced by Facebook on 21 July, is a new function that mimics the way you would bookmark webpages in Google. You can “save” items like links, places, movies, TV and music, and only see your saved items unless you choose to share with your friends.

Why do I like it? If I don’t have time to read an article “in the now”, I can simply save it under a category and get back to it later instead of having it open in an extra Google Chrome tab – it slows down the Mac, you know.

Also, the reminders are pretty nifty, but could get irritating just like any other push-notification setting. And yay – cause it’s available to everyone on iOS and Android. Around the wuuuurld.

Facebook released its second quarter 2014 results

On July 23 Facebook released a long list of numbers that looks ridiculously good. This can only mean that investors and advertisers are still turning to Facebook to reach their users.

Some results include:

A year-on-year increase of 39% Mobile Daily Active Users (Mobile DAUs) users (654 million on average for June 2014)
A year-on-year increase of 19% increase of DAUs (829 million on average for June 2014)
A revenue totaling to $2.91 billion – with revenue from advertising increasing with 67%
Mobile advertising revenue representing approximately 62% of advertising revenue for the second quarter of 2014, up from approximately 41% of advertising revenue in the second quarter of 2013.

According to Zuckerberg, “We had a good second quarter. Our community has continued to grow, and we see a lot of opportunity ahead as we connect the rest of the world.”

For the full in detail report, and not to bore those less interested by numbers, please follow the white rabbit.

Facebook Reports Second Quarter 2014 Results: A summary

The Internet.org App

On July 31, Facebook released the Internet.org App – #love #awesome #welldonemark #ijustlovethisapp # kokoliko #wrapp.

This (amazing) app helps to break down the “affordability” and “awareness” barriers to Internet adoption. Meaning that people searching for jobs, checking the weather online and learning about maternal health is all free of data charge to those who need it.

The app will first be made available to Airtel (telecommunications services company) subscribers in Zambia and then continue to grow throughout other parts of the world. Airtel customers in Zambia will have basic access to: