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This week a few years ago, I jumped on the Facebook bandwagon so that I could compete against my coworkers in the NCAA tournament. The bracket captures the essence of healthy competition that largely fuels the social networking site. Therefore it’s not surprising that this year CBS partnered with Facebook to develop a multifunction application. What is surprising is how good it is.

Here’s why I think the CBS March Madness Facebook application is a model use of Facebook.

1. It’s a one stop shop across platforms: Unlike a lot of Facebook applications that are installed and forgotten about, CBS has built it to allow Facebookers to get all the information they need from the application. For example, each team, even those that aren’t in the tournament, has its own page that lists the scores of the games, schedule, player stats and links to team news off the site. You can also watch videos and monitor the live scoreboard.
2. It’s scored the way we like it: You can earn more points for upsets and you can even win money if you do well. There is a $10,000 prize that will be given to a randomly selected person in the top 10% (who is also at least eighteen years old.)
3. There are lots of ways to interact: CBS realizes that March Madness isn’t just about filling out a bracket and watching the games but rather a ritualistic event that spans many weeks. The application allows for creation of groups so you can compare standings amongst particular sets of friends and post on the “Trash Talk Wall.” As Greg Shaheen, senior vice-president for basketball and business strategies for the NCAA says, “more fans now have more ways to view, follow, debate and enjoy March Madness than ever before.”
4. It is consistent with Facebook’s audience: The application plays into school spirit prevalent amongst the heaviest users of Facebook and encourages the taunting that is common sporting behavior through “TourneyPoke.” This application within an application allows you to send messages to friends like “ran Ali out of the gym” and “Ali called Paul a waterboy.”

I logged into Facebook this morning to see an update that they’d revised their privacy policies. The revisions allow people to set different levels of privacy for different friend groups, as well as set what friends of friends can see. I see this as a direct challenge to LinkedIn for dominance in the business networking sphere.

This is a change that’s been brewing for a while. Late last year, they added friend lists, which let you categorize your friends in whatever taxonomies you wanted (how you know them, where they live, frequently referenced friends, etc). This was helpful when you needed to find a particular friend, but not for much else.

Now, by linking privacy controls to these friend lists, it allows people to friend folks on Facebook that you normally wouldn’t, knowing that you can use privacy controls to connect them to your contact information, but not your photos from New Year’s. It also allows you to be less restrained in your posting of content, as long as you’re careful to sort your friends correctly (and I predict that in about a week we’ll start to see stories about people who accidentally dropped their boss into the "college friends" category and the ensuing results).

The big implication that I see here is that Facebook wants to be the site for business networking. Already, many younger and more web-savvy people I meet offer to connect with Facebook, though LinkedIn remains the tool of choice for business, in part because of its blandness.

I’m betting that Facebook will see success in this endeavor - they already have 68 million users, and if just one percent add one new user per month using Facebook as their business network tool, they’ll grow the network by more than eight million users in a year (not taking into account the new users bringing in people, or other growth). This doesn’t even take into account the value of the data and connections from additional networking; Facebook’s real business has always been data, and the more people link to each other, the more Facebook is able to put together a complete personal profile for advertisers.

I’m with Michael and Nancy: Facebook made a mistake by switching ideological political categorizations to partisan ones. And I say that both as a user and as an ad buyer.

First, the fact that it’s a remarkably unfriendly autofill should have been a big sign that this was a step in the wrong direction. When you’re largely based in the United States, and have put far more investment into your American political coverage (with admittedly mixed results), to have the party that most Facebookers are close to require no less than twelve keystrokes (though I’ll note that the GOP requires a mere three… no real conclusion to draw there, just interesting) is just bad user interface.

It could be improved fairly easily by making the assumption that if someone is in an American network, they’re probably a member of an American party. This doesn’t mean disallowing other selections for expatriates, just skipping them in the autofill for more likely suggestions.

The idea that candidates and parties are the ones demanding this seems strange. First, as a veteran of a Democratic campaign, I can say that Facebook ads are not a major media buy (unfortunately). While they’ll be a bigger part of the media mix this year, particularly with microtargeting, there won’t be enough money there to really make that much of a difference.19

Furthermore, if I’m advertising for political reasons, I’d rather have the liberal-conservative axis than a partisan one - a campaign is going to use different appeals to different groups, and I’d rather have more granularity. For example, I might target a "Make a donation" ad to self-identified progressives, a "Join the list" ad to moderates, and a "Who is [Candidate name]" to those with no affiliation. Instead, I’m stuck using just one metric - are they or are they not a Democrat.

That said, I will give them some credit: the ability to type in your own answer, such as "Independent" or "No party" is a step in the right direction. I never bothered filling in my political ideology because the generic term "liberal" was far too much of a simplification of a complex question. On the other hand, I’m a partisan Democrat so I was willing to indicate that. Allowing users to write in their own answer, as with the religion question, is a choice that will hurt marketing (because it’s more difficult to target people if they phrase the same answer different ways) but be good for users.

Hopefully, we’ll see Facebook unveil some reason for this change that makes sense, or roll it back, as they have with other poor choices. I’ll try to get some reactions from other users at South by Southwest.

Today’s election day in Wisconsin, where most of my Facebook network resides. I’ve been watching my mini-feed in fascination as various friends update their status with who they’re voting for. Could Facebook be the secret weapon that’s turning out the youth and creative class vote this year?

In particular, watching status updates come in today show that in some ways, Facebook’s core functionality is more effective in reaching other users than any application: it’s word of mouth, plain and simple, except that it’s delivered to networks of people at a reach and speed that no mere "I voted" sticker can manage. To say nothing of the fact that few of said stickers indicate for whom you voted, an endorsement that can have more meaning for young people than all the Kennedy’s in Massachusetts.

Just looking at my own feed today, here are some of the status updates I saw (names blurred out for privacy reasons):

Could Facebook, because of it’s natural ability to broadcast messages, addictive nature, and near ubiquity be a stronger mover of votes than offline social affiliations, like unions or churches? Based on the results we’ve seen from youth turnout this year, along with the growth potential as these networks age, more members of the creative class already post-college begin adopting it, and the number of people attending college increases, I’m betting that that’s the trend we’re going to see in this election and the ones that follow.

And it’s a trend that that I, for one, welcome.

One of the most interesting things about the Internet is its impact on the evolution of language, turning verbs into nouns and nouns into verbs (ala “Facebook” me). A more recent emerging trend of web 2.0 technologies doing just that is Twitter, a simple service that allows you to communicate quick and concise messages to your “followers” - friends, family and co-workers - about what you are doing. You can now Twis or Twoogle with Tweeple all day and night (not my words. You can get your own at Twitter glossary)

More interesting than “what” is “why” Twitter? As the site says, “Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues - especially when they’re timely. Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know…”

Though I don’t think it will take me 10 years to latch on to this trend (i.e. how long it took me to take up blogging), “microblogging” is going to have to evolve past its hyper-connected, information overload, time sucking, egocentricity before I add another tool to my box. To be fair though, here are some “tweets” about Twitter in true Twitter form, which limits all messages to 140 characters. What do you think? Over hyped or exactly what you’re looking for?

1. Launched in Oct ‘06, many point to last year’s SXSW conference for its take off. More info & useful links from Mark Glaser & DoshDosh
2. In Jan ‘08 Twitter reported just over 750,000 registered users with 3,399 new users daily (for sake of comparison, Facebook has 250,000).
3. “…its status & image has been upgraded from toy to tool - can [it] ‘leap from’ a small, enthusiastic group of tech-savvy people to the mainstream.” ‘ Mark Evans
4. “A hybrid of chat, social networking and blogging,” it’s built on the attraction to community, need to be social and desire to matter.
5. Pres. candidates are twittering “the new reality of Campaign 2.0, where web-savvy campaigns are trying to attach themselves to as many social networking sites as possible.” (ABC)
6. Even if you don’t use it to chat, there are a number of practical uses of short, concise messages like RemembertheMilk.com
7. “…as with most Internet phenomena, users hacked [it] into something completely different - place I turn to if I need a quick question answered…”‘ Patrick Ruffini at TechPresident
8. “Twitter hate is the new black - [though haters] do have a good point. Do you really need to know that I’m eating a tuna sandwich for lunch? Probably not…”  Robert Scoble, a top Twitterer with almost 7,000 followers
9. “…intriguing, useful & addictive for those who live on the move. One observer called it “the Seinfeld of the internet…a website about nothing.”  The Guardian
10. “More than a status app, it is being used as a 1st alert mechanism for the dissemination of news & for immediate discussion surrounding [it].” Josh Catone, ReadWriteWeb
11. Is it worth it? “the average Twitter user lists six to 12 “friends” on the site and choose to receive cell phone updates from three friends.” (ABC)
12. ‘[it's] different from other e-tools. “When u get an email, you have to respond to it, but with Twitter, there’s no expectation of a response.” ‘ Twitter founder Biz Stone
13. “…has turned distraction into an art form. It’s like hanging out at a bar with a bunch of interesting people…& forgetting that you have to go home.” Scott Karp
14. “…inability to immediately embrace Twitter means you’re old…Admitting you don’t ‘get’ [it] is like admitting you can’t hear those specialized ring tones only audible to the young.” - Helen A.S. Popkin, MSNBC

Two Beaconfire clients recently opened the doors to their own Facebook pages: the National Parks Conservation Association and Conservation International. We hope you join us in declaring yourself a fan. NPCA’s page includes a list of upcoming events, videos that include Presidential Candidate Teddy Mather’s latest ads, and their latest podcast. CI’s page features videos of their work in Foja and photos from their "Stop the Clock on Species Extinction" campaign.

We also hope that if you’re a fan of Beaconfire’s work, you’ll declare yourself our fan as well. You’ll be the first to hear of cool things we’re doing (okay, simultaneous to blog readers) and all your friends will envy you. Become a fan today!

Last month, I posted on a few online tools that people can use to get involved politically. One tool I didn’t review in depth, but could have, was the official Facebook US Politics application, co-sponsored by Facebook and ABC News.

The application has become about as ubiquitous as any Facebook app not installed by default can hope to be - more than a quarter of my friends have it, and during the weeks leading up to the New Hampshire primary, I saw more updates by it than any other module.

While the module had a lot of promise, and showed off some cool features early, in my opinion it failed to live up to its potential for a simple reason: on the most politically engaged social network in history, the US Politics application is neither social nor network-y.

Why do I say this? Follow me below the fold…

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I’ve always been a big fan of Facebook Causes. I’ve written about the potential for non-profits, features that I’d like to see in future upgrades, and compared it to its contemporaries. Now, I’ve been eagerly following the Causes Giving Challenge. The Challenge, sponsored by the Case Foundation, gives organizations an additional financial incentive to jumpstart their Facebook organizing.

The contest basically works like this: organizations start a new cause, and every day the cause that received the most donors gets $1,000 from Case (in addition to whatever they bring in via Facebook). In addition, at the end of the the challenge, which runs until February 1, the organizations that get the most total unique donors get larger prizes totaling $200,000.

The campaign gets a good writeup in the New York Times:

“Philanthropy shouldn’t be defined as a bunch of rich people writing big checks,” said Jean Case, who founded the Case Foundation with her husband, Steve, founder of America Online. “Small amounts of money given by large numbers of individuals can be combined to do great things.”

“We’ve always asked how we can leverage our resources to engage a larger population, how can we get the most Americans involved in charitable giving and action,” Ms. Case said.

Some thoughts on why this is a big deal for giving via social networks below the fold…

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Are you a fan of Beaconfire and our work helping non-profits achieve their online goals? If so, why not be one on Facebook as well?

We recently launched a Facebook page where you can keep up to date on what Beaconfire is working on, support the causes of some of our clients, see what’s new on the Beaconfire Wire, and learn about employment opportunities.

You can leave a comment on our Wall, or start a discussion in the pages-only Discussion Board section. We’ll also be premiering some of our upcoming Facebook-exclusive work on our page.

Being a fan of a company, candidate, or non-profit is akin to being their friend, with a couple small differences. First, you can always see us, but even if you’re a fan, we can’t see your profile. You also won’t get updates on your mini-feed about everything we do - just (very) occasional updates in your Facebook inbox from us.

Being a fan of our page is also a great way to see how pages work for when you’re ready to start one for your non-profit. As we’ve discovered, there are some similarities to profiles, but a few things you couldn’t do on a regular profile (like add free standing blocks of HTML or flash) and a few things you can’t do that you could on a profile (like add certain applications - pages have their own separate library).

So please click on that "Become a Fan" button in the top right of our Facebook page - we really appreciate your support.

A lot has changed in the 20 years since the last potent protests in Myanmar (formerly Burma). For one, Internet access and digital cameras have placed media production in the hands of common citizens. So when blogs, images and streaming video capturing the recent protest in Myanmar began making their way around the world, authorities moved quickly to pull the plug on Internet access.

Myanmar bloggers already plagued with intermittent Internet access became more muffled as the government reportedly jammed satellite, SMS and mobile phones, and the country�??s leading ISPs became �??down for maintenance�?�. Internet cafes which serve a majority of this poor nation�??s Web surfers were sabotaged by curfews which kept their patrons away. Alas, the saffron revolution was quieted and its coverage limited to AP reports.

So what could have helped Myanmar bloggers during this shutdown? (more…)