The Week in Review

The 12 Best Ways to Customize Your Facebook Page

Facebook pages have their limitations, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a wealth of add-on services that don’t solve that problem. Mirpoapps, Tabfusion, Pagemondo and Clobby are among the 12 best services to use to customize your Facebook page — some are free, others aren’t. Also, Facebook just changed the maximum width for your page tab to 520 pixels, down from 760 pixels. If you don’t adjust to the new standard, your page will appear broken. (TechCrunch, Inside Facebook)

Private Browsing Data on Firefox is Suggestive

Lunchtime, around 5 p.m., 10 p.m. and a couple hours after midnight are peak times for the use of Firefox’s private browsing mode. The average private browsing sessions lasts 10 minutes. (Mashable)

Facebook Needs a ‘Follow’ Feature

A two-tier system would enable users to share things with friends and followers — two separate groups. This would make Facebook richer than Twitter and would be a preemptive Google Me-killer. (TechCrunch)

Foursquare for Businesses and Individuals

According to this writer, Foursquare isn’t such a great marketing platform for most businesses, thanks partly to the friction that comes from privacy concerns. For individuals, Foursquare is fun, competitive and serves as a way of telling your friends about the cool places you visit. It can also be great for those promoting their cause or building a personal brand. (Econsultancy)

All About Conversion Rates

Even though a lot of people talk about website conversion rates, many are a bit fuzzy about what they mean and how to use them. This post attempts to clarify this area and unpack the ideas behind promotions, the progress toward conversion and different kinds of conversion rates. (Business Insider)

The Power of Quora

If you think of Quora as just another run-of-the-mill Q-and-A website, you’re thoroughly mistaken. It also offers the opportunity for professionals to market themselves, which is enhanced by the game mechanics involved. Then there’s the wiki- and Digg-like elements to the site, as well as its powerful SEO rankings. " High value content + early maven adopters + topic orientation + SEO friendly content + bacn + high user engagement = a very montizeable product one day." (Both Sides of the Table)

Choice Paralysis

Your e-commerce sales could be suffocating because your users are given too many options to choose from. You can combat this by limiting their choices, differentiating between choices and hiding less popular choices, among other things. (Econsultancy)

Reinventing E-mail

Hilary Mason, the lead scientist at Bitly, is using her own homemade E-mail Classifier, which is a series of layers on top of her Gmail account that prioritizes her e-mails for her based on filters and past messages. This could be good news for e-mail users, but bad news for e-mail marketers. (NYTimes.com)

Three Facebook Limitations

Believe it or not, Facebook does have its share of limitations for marketers. It limits a user to "liking" no more than 500 pages, restricts messaging capabilities when your group reaches 5,000 members and requires split powers between a page’s creator and administrator. (Search Engine Journal)

Google Streams Results

Google might be making the "Enter" button obsolete for its users. The search giant is testing a feature that streams updated search results as users key in their query. This is yet another step it’s taking toward real-time, but it remains to be seen how this would affect paid search if it were to be fully implemented. (ReadWriteWeb)

Branded Virtual Goods Are Surging

A report from Viximo and Virtual Greats forecasts that branded virtual goods will generate $150 million in 2013, and reach an annual revenue of $318 million by 2015. " The report indicates that people are willing to pay more for virtual goods if they’re associated with a brand, a point it substantiates with a case study that outlines sales of Snoop Dogg’s branded virtual goods on social game WeeWorld." (Mashable)

The Almighty Notebook

Even though your job might be completely based online, one of the most valuable productivity tools could be offline. Behold, the mighty paper notebook. It’s always on hand, never needs to be recharged and will never become outdated. (MediaPost)

Foursquare’s Battle Plan

Now that Facebook has gone and ruined the party, what will Foursquare do to fight back? It’s set to focus on its strength — being a tool people use to discover new places in their cities. Also, the company could be rolling out photo uploading and sharing features, as well as separate check-ins for venue employees and customers. (Business Insider)

Facebook Places for Marketers

What can marketers do with Facebook Places? The first step is, of course, getting your Place. After that, it might be a good idea to merge it with your page and to advertise it. Place owners can’t target ads to those who’ve checked in to their establishments already, but that might change. (Inside Facebook)

Yahoo and Hulu?

One analyst exhorts Yahoo to make a bold move and acquire Hulu, which could cement Yahoo’s status as a go-to entertainment destination online. (paidContent.org)

The Good and the Questionable of Facebook Places

No one can cover everything in a single presentation, so the good people at ReadWriteWeb followed up with Facebook about some of the nitty-gritty details of Facebook Places. The good news is that check-ins will be hard to game. The questionable news is that removing inappropriate places seems like an ambiguous and vulnerable task. (ReadWriteWeb)

Three Reasons to Use Flock

If you just can’t help yourself from surfing social networking sites on your Web browser, it might be time to give Flock a twirl. It’s a souped-up version of Google Chrome that brings your social network connections in as searchable resources. Also, Flock allows you to respond to updates right in the middle of the page. There are other options like this, but it’s hard to beat Flock’s omnibox search. (NYTimes.com)

Branding, Blogging, Link Ponds

If you’ve been reluctant to toss your ideas and identity into the swirling stream that is the Web, here is one man’s experience to help you dip your toe. Branding is difficult and instead of thinking outside the box, try creating something people didn’t know was missing, something that needs to exist. Research will help you along this path. Blogging is a daunting task, so take baby steps and grit your teeth and write your opening post. Structure a content plan and feel free to share your stories. Lastly, think about creating link ponds, which are content pages on a site that are frequently linked to, internally and externally. (Search Engine Journal)

Ten-Year VC Returns Are Negative

For the first time in a decade, VC funds have posted negative 10-year returns, according to Thomson Reuters. As of March 31, VC funds have generated a cumulative return of -1.5 percent, going back to the fourth quarter of 1999. (peHUB)

RIM Looking for a Mobile Ad Network

It might be a bit behind, but RIM is apparently shopping for a mobile advertising networks. Millennial Media might be the most attractive target, though it’s asking for between $400 million to $500 million. (WSJ.com)

Coupons Are Better Than Check-ins?

Despite all the buzz Foursquare and other location-based platforms are generating, Groupon might prove that coupons are better than check-ins for notching deals. Coupons will work better for Groupon than they will for Foursquare because deals and coupons can be used by anyone, there’s no software requirement, there are no privacy concerns, merchants will actually see foot traffic into their stores, and deal and coupon sites help make the coupon a success, while promoting a local check-in promo is a harder sell. Foursquare’s niche is loyalty and it should do its best to reward it. (CenterNetworks)

Facebook Places: Marketers Optimistic but Worried About Privacy

Facebook’s new geolocation tool will create more interest in the space from brand advertisers than ever before. With more than 500 million users, Facebook immediately has the favor of marketers looking to assert themselves in the mobile realm. However, there’s still concern about any backlash over privacy concerns. (ClickZ)

E-mail Marketers Don’t Respond to Unresponsiveness

According to Return Path, only 12.5 percent of marketers do anything about unresponsive e-mail accounts. Eleven of the 40 retailers surveyed, or 27 percent of them, eventually stopped sending messages to those unresponsive accounts, but 10 of them never tried to re-engage the customer. (Econsultancy)

25 Great Facebook Brand Pages

A lot of Facebook pages are quite bland. With just a little bit of elbow grease and some fiddling with Facebook Markup Language (FBML), some brands have been able to pump out some inspiring Facebook pages. Abercrombie & Fitch (simple and bold), BMW (large call-to-action), Fox News (clear call-to-action choices), Nokia (specific online communities) and Red Bull (visually alluring call-to-action) are some of the 25 brilliant examples. (Econsultancy)

Google Chrome Web Store, Tablet Debuting in the Fall

The Chrome Web Store is expected to be launched in October, while a Chrome OS tablet could rear its head on Black Friday. The Web Store, which will emulate the iTunes App Store and will rely on Google Checkout while charging only a 5 percent processing fee. These murmurs dovetail nicely with rumors of the Chrome Tablet, which should make for a convenient outlet for the app store. (VentureBeat, WebProNews)

E-mail Marketing Challenges

Yes, the e-mail marketing industry is changing and requires adaptation, but that doesn’t justify the blaring headlines berating the sector lately. Still, it’s worth our time to take an honest look at the challenges facing the industry: 1) spam labeled as an “e-mail problem”; 2) high ROI; 3) consumers’ rising expectations of e-mail; 4) everyone thinks they’re an expert; and 5) a shortage of experienced talent. (MediaPost)

Payvment: E-Commerce for Facebook

Payvment offers a free e-commerce application that can be integrated into Facebook pages. Yesterday it launched an API that enables vendors sync their inventory and distribution systems with the app. Implementing Credits could be in Payvment’s future but it currently utilizes PayPal. (Inside Facebook)

Facebook Places Makes its Expected Debut

It’s finally here: Facebook Places was unveiled to the world on Wednesday and it’s pretty much what everyone expected. It rides on the trail blazed by Foursquare and Gowalla (both of which are purportedly partners with Facebook Places) but might pose a serious threat to both companies. The privacy controls are sufficient, in case you were wondering. Facebook appears to be taking a shot at grabbing early advertising dominance in the local and small-business realm, not to mention the mobile arenas, two areas that (you guessed it) Google has been making stronger plays for lately. This surely steps up the tension between the two Web giants. (NYTimes.com, AllThingsD, TechCrunch)