Exclusive: Facebook integrates WhatsApp into Facebook for Android

Though it took Facebook a little over a year, we just got a glimpse of what the company’s first integration with WhatsApp will look like

A few months back, we first uncovered WhatsApp’s plans to integrate voice calls into its app. Now, we’ve got another early look to share with you.

It took Facebook a little over a year since the acquisition of WhatsApp to start incorporating its new asset into Facebook’s platform. On Saturday, we learned that Facebook has begun testing a new feature in its Facebook for Android app (Version 31.0.0.7.13) that includes the first major integration of WhatsApp.

As you can see in the images above, Facebook has added a “Send” button with the familiar WhatsApp icon as a part of the status actions buttons that appear under each status update. The new button appears on the right side (for left-to-right languages) for some users in the most recent version of the Facebook for Android app.

Here are more photos demonstrating the new update.

What does that mean?

We’ve known for a while that Facebook and WhatsApp work closely together to enhance each other’s capabilities. Back in the day it was Jan Koum, WhatsApp’s co-founder and CEO, who promised users after the acquisition that nothing was going to change and that WhatsApp would keep operating independently.

Up until today, we hadn’t observed any integration between the two platforms. On the contrary, we’ve seen Facebook keep pushing its Messenger platform, especially with its latest announcement at F8.

Now that this is out, we believe that this is merely a first step towards connecting the two platforms in order to sustain growth and take control of the messaging market together. According to unconfirmed rumors, teams from both companies are already working on a deeper integration that will include the ability to send messages between Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Credit: Geektime

Get Facebook Lite for your Android device

"Made for phones with limited space and connectivity, this may be the lightest version of Facebook for Android yet."

Facebook is testing a stripped down version of its mobile app that requires far less data, which could help increase usage of the social networking service among people with weaker Internet service or older phones.

Facebook “Lite” is available for devices running Android 2.2 and up. The size of the free app is 252 kilobytes, and it’s meant for 2G networks in areas with limited connectivity. Users can perform a bunch of basic functions like post status updates with photos, comment on people’s posts, message friends, have group conversations, and receive notifications. Posts from the news feed are meant to load quickly.

Early reviews on the Google Play store for the app have been positive, with many praising its low data and battery usage.

Facebook launched the app over the weekend in parts of Africa and Asia, said a report in TechCrunch. A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment further.

The Lite app appears to be related to Facebook’s Internet.org project, which seeks to provide free access to Facebook and other basic Internet services in developing countries. The Internet.org app is already available in a handful of countries such as Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Colombia. In addition to Facebook, the app provides access to other services like the weather, Wikipedia, and health and educational information. Carriers can charge users for paid access to other services. In addition to Facebook, other founding partners of Internet.org include Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung.

With the Lite app, Facebook might be testing people’s responsiveness to a set of basic Facebook services without the ancillary ones. It may also help Facebook learn how it could further improve the functions of its Internet.org app.

Facebook tested a different stripped down version of its site in late 2009 and early 2010, although only for the desktop. It was shut down in April 2010.

Facebook has not made this slimmed-down version of its app globally available on the Play Store. If you want to check it out, you'll have to manually install it on your device. To get a copy of the app, visit AndroidPolice's APKMirror website and download it directly onto your device. After the download is finished, tap the notification and install the app. 

Source: CNET & CustomToday

WhatsApp to add voice calls after Facebook acquisition

WhatsApp will add free voice-call services for its 450 million customers later this year, laying down a new challenge to telecom network operators just days after Facebook Inc scooped it up for $19 billion.

The text-based messaging service aims to let users make calls by the second quarter, expanding its appeal to help it hit a billion users, WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday.

Buying WhatsApp has cemented Facebook's involvement in messaging, which for many people is their earliest experience with the mobile Internet. Adding voice services moves the social network into another core function on a smartphone.

On Monday, Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg defended the price paid for a messaging service with negligible revenue. He argued that rival services such as South Korea's KakaoTalk and Naver's LINE are already "monetizing" at a rate of $2 to $3 in revenue per user per year, despite being in the early stages of growth.

Media reports put WhatsApp's revenue at about $20 million in 2013.

"I actually think that by itself it's worth more than 19 billion," Zuckerberg told the Mobile World Congress. "Even just independently, I think it's a good bet."

"By being a part of Facebook, it makes it so they can focus for the next five years or so purely on adding more people."

WhatsApp's move into voice calls is unlikely to sit well with telecoms carriers.

WhatsApp and its rivals, like KakaoTalk, China's WeChat, and Viber, have won over telecom operators' customers in recent years by offering a free option to text messaging. Telecom providers globally generated revenue of about $120 billion from text messaging last year, according to market researcher Ovum.

Adding free calls threatens another telecom revenue source, which has been declining anyway as carriers' tweak tariffs to focus on mobile data instead of calls.

WITH, NOT AGAINST

Since the advent a decade ago of Skype's voice over Internet service, which Microsoft Corp has acquired, and the rise of Internet service providers like Google Inc, telecom bosses have gotten used to facing challengers whose services piggyback on their networks. But carriers complain that the rivals are not subject to the same national regulations.

Mats Granryd, the CEO of Swedish mobile operator Tele2, said he was happy to partner with the likes of WhatsApp because of the additional data traffic they generate. But he shared the concerns of other network operators that they must operate under strict national regulations that Internet companies are not subject to.

"They (Internet firms) need to be regulated a little bit more and we need to be regulated a little bit less," said Jo Lunder, who heads Russian mobile network operator VimpelCom.

Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao said he did not understand how such an important acquisition as the Facebook-WhatsApp deal could go unchallenged at a time when European network operators were facing intense regulatory scrutiny.

"These types of deal are a clear indication that the world is changing and the regulations don't fit anymore," Colao said on the sidelines of the conference.

Both Facebook and WhatsApp CEOs have cast themselves as partners to telecoms network operators.

On Monday, Koum also announced a partnership with E-Plus, the German subsidiary of Dutch group KPN, under which it will launch a WhatsApp-branded mobile service in Germany.

The European Parliament is set to vote on Monday night on a package of proposed telecoms market reforms which among other provisions would restrict the ability of carriers to charge internet companies like Facebook to give them an enhanced service in handling their network traffic.

Source: Reuters

Facebook deletes controversial privacy policy language

Facing public pressure, Facebook removed a line from its privacy policy on Friday that related to teen users and advertising.

The line was in reference to Facebook's practice of showing a user's public profile picture, comments, and "likes" with ads. Opponents said the language assumed that minors had previously discussed the terms of the site with their parents or guardians, according to The Wall Street Journal. The issue ultimately landed with the Federal Trade Commission in the form of a complaint.
 

Facebook argued that the language was not intended to expand its marketing reach.

"We also proposed an update that we thought would help facilitate conversations between teens and their parents about using Facebook," Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan wrote in a blog post. "Specifically, we added a sentence that said if you are under the age of 18 you have talked to your parent or guardian and they also agree to some of our terms. This language was about getting a conversation started; we were not seeking and would not have gained any additional rights as a result of this addition. We received feedback, though, that the language was confusing and so we removed the sentence."

Source: CNET

Facebook moves to remove ads that display controversial content

 Facebook is launching an aggressive strategy for better detecting violent, graphic, sexual, and otherwise controversial content across its site and for removing ads that appear alongside that content.

The changes follow other recent developments involving hate speech appearing on the site, which Facebook has vowed to better combat, though that has not stopped some marketers from pulling their ads in response.

The new detection-and-removal policy, which was announced Friday in a blog post, is designed to provide Facebook with a better mechanism for removing ads that appear alongside certain types of questionable content on Groups and Pages.

“While we already have rigorous review and removal policies for content against our terms, we recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are displayed alongside controversial Pages and Groups,” the company said.

“So we are taking action,” Facebook added.
Details

The new review process, beginning Monday, “will expand the scope of Pages and Groups that should be ad-restricted,” the company said. Ads from all Pages and Groups that fall into this more comprehensive restricted list will be removed by the end of next week.

Previously, a Page selling adult products was eligible to have ads appear on its right-hand side but, going forward, those ads will not be displayed next to that type of content, Facebook said. The changes will be applied to Pages and Groups containing violent, graphic, and sexual content that does not otherwise violate the company’s community standards.

 The way Facebook classifies what is offensive content and what is not is complicated. In terms of graphic content, “we understand that graphic imagery is a regular component of current events, but must balance the needs of a diverse community,” the site says in its community standards.

For instance, “sharing any graphic content for sadistic pleasure is prohibited,” the site says.
Hate speech policies

Facebook introduced new policies to combat hate speech on the site last month, following the campaign of several high-profile women’s groups including Women, Action and the Media, and the Everyday Sexism Project.

Around the same time, some big-name brands like Nissan and Unilever’s Dove company pulled ads on the site.

The review process will be carried out manually by humans at first, “but in the coming weeks we will build a more scalable, automated way to prevent and/or remove ads” that appear next to controversial content, Facebook said.

“All this will improve detection of what qualifies as questionable content,” the site said, adding, “we will continue to work aggressively on this issue with advertisers.”

The changes will not impact Facebook’s business, the company said.

Facebook’s revenue is derived almost entirely—84 percent in 2012—from ads.

Other ad-dependent companies are also grappling with how to deal with questionable content. Google has recently made moves to remove adult-themed blogs on its Blogger platform that also have adult advertisements.

Source:http://www.techhive.com/article/2043271/facebook-moves-to-remove-ads-displayed-with-controversial-content.html

Facebook security bug exposes 6 million users' contact info

Facebook accidentally exposed 6 million users’ contact information. Watch out for an email alert from the network to find out if you were affected by an apparent security bug.

The bug allowed the emails and phone numbers of some 6 million users to be accessed by contacts or friends of friends as part of the site’s friend recommendation algorithm, the social network’s security team said Friday.

If you upload your contacts or address book to Facebook in order to find friends, Facebook uses that information to determine if your friends are already on the network or if you should invite them to join. That contact information may have been included in account archive information that users can download. In other words, people who have some connection to you may have been able to view your contact information when they downloaded their archive. Facebook said it disabled the Download Your Information tool, fixed it, and turned it back on within a day.

Facebook’s security team said each affected user’s information was downloaded just once or twice, which is a small consolation. The company also noted that no financial information was included and only Facebook users have access to the download tool (so information was probably not sold to advertisers).

“Although the practical impact of this bug is likely to be minimal since any email address or phone number that was shared was shared with people who already had some of that contact information anyway, or who had some connection to one another, it's still something we're upset and embarrassed by, and we'll work doubly hard to make sure nothing like this happens again,” Facebook said in its Friday announcement.

This isn’t the first time Facebook users’ personal information has been exposed. Facebook in 2011 introduced a White Hat bug bounty program, where security experts can file reports about bugs and collect rewards. This most recent bug was discovered by one such researcher.

Facebook Launches New Ad Platform

The world’s largest social network platform, Facebook Inc., launched a new strategy of advertising on Feb. 29, engaging leading brand names such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Starbucks Corp.

Messages from businesses will feed into users’ Facebook page when they hit the “Like” button, and news feeds will be activated and offers and notices will be available direct to consumers.

This new product is called “Premium,” and marks the first possibility for ads to appear on mobile phones as well as on the log-out screen, and changes will be visible from April onward.

There are more than 400 million users who utilize their mobile devices to access the social networking site, according to Facebook estimates.

The timing of this advertising initiative is strategic, as it is prior to the company’s initial public offering (IPO) of stock, which is predicted to occur in the next quarter. Reports have indicated that the IPO could value the company at around $100 billion, and likely to raise at least $5 billion. As such, this strategy could allow potential investors to see Facebook’s advertising potential.

One of the key distinguishing features of Facebook’s new advertising methodology is an emphasis on integration into the conversation of the user’s network. There are still permanent advertisements placed on pages that have their own role in promoting products and services, and this format will remain.

According to Facebook’s vice president of product, Chris Cox, “The definition of the word ‘advertise’ is to draw attention to. … The definition of a story is narration, which you’d think is what people prefer.”

Facebook’s latest advertising technique also can be considered more measurable and is designed to provide more insight into consumer behavior and generate results when it comes to action-orientated or response-driven campaigns. Premium is said to enhance user engagement by five to ten times more than traditional ad space on the website.

The majority of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based Facebook’s income is sourced from advertising sales, which contributed to around 85 percent of its total revenues of $37 billion in fiscal year 2011.