It counts the number of Likes, comments, shares, RSVPs and tagged mentions of a brand that take place within the social network. On top of that, there will also be ‘Number of Friends of Fans,’ and ‘Weekly Total Reach’.

‘Number of Friends of Fans’ gives page admins a count of the total number of friends a page’s fans have collectively. It gives page administrators a better understanding into the potential reach of their page, which could potentially be used when doing “Sponsored Stories”.

‘Weekly Total Reach’ gives a measure of how many total people have posted something about your page, how many news organizations within Facebook have referenced it, and how much viral distribution the elements of your page have generated.

Those are all great features, but it just means reporting just got more complicated for marketers.

What is a narcissist? Everyone would surely have a different intepretation. Taking pictures of yourself, admiring yourself in the mirror is narcissistic behavour, but merely a subset. A narcissist, in this book, is one that is self-centred and ignores the consideration of others. It is an inflated view of oneself – narcissists fall in love with their own reflection, (not necessarily a good-looking person, ugly people can be narcissistic too) and cannot connect with others. They do not make good bosses or spouses.. but they always will have someone with them. Why? Ask someone to pick chocolate cake or broccoli – we’re tempted to take the chocolate cake every time; it’s a vicious cycle, as explained in chapter 13.

It is easy to figure out how parenting, Web 2.0, celebrity fame and media influence transmit and cause the rise in narcissism — what I personally found amusing was how easy credit had a part to play too. In their quest for material goods, people can easily get loans to fulfil their material dreams. No cookie for figuring out what led to the financial crisis in 2008.

A study asked students their confidence in their competency in Math. The Asians’ confidence were low compared to the Americans, but scored much higher in an actual test.

What marketers can learn from this is the confirmed characteristic of Gen Ys, of which very important I find is the freedom of self-expression. In recent years where social networking sites have madly sprouted and become prevalent in our everyday lives, these sites have significantly amplified the need to express ourselves (even if it is stupid). For the Gen Y, it could be “I don’t care whether anyone reads it or not, or what people think, I just want to tell my network this, and I feel better after I’ve shared it.” The act of revealing more flesh in profile pictures, the need to promote ourselves all leads to increased standards in narcissism. Even in games, the attractiveness of a character matters. The society’s focus on looks, leading to shallow relationships.

For in-depth analysis and examples, I highly recommend you to get a copy of the book.

More people are interested in spa than politics. Welcome to “Gen Me”. Do you think narcissism will only get more common in the future? Is it true that teeth whitening, and body hair removal is becoming a societal requirement and not an option?

Is it possible that we stop this, or should we even try to stop it? More people need to be aware and recognise this issue then act upon it; we could always use more humility in society. Find out more on http://www.narcissismepidemic.com/ too.

Read the excerpt. Perhaps you will find it interesting just like how I found it.

In this series, every week I jot down my experience and review about a new, free application that I’m trying out; whether on Facebook, the iTune Store, or Blackberry App World.

So Shaker emerged as the winner of TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2011. Of course, just like every other TechCrunch reader, I was excited to test it out. In my first minute of loading the app, Shaker seems like a mash-up of Second Life and Habbo Hotel. The only difference seems to be that the entire experience is based in a bar.

“Ahh, another 2D chat room, do we really need another?” I thought.

Your Facebook profile becomes a walking avatar, your pictures are placed on an virtual wall, you can choose what music is playing in the room for everyone to hear and you can even buy people drinks.

What I definitely did not like was how the application wanted permission to almost every bit of my data.

I wasn’t too comfortable with surrendering so much information (must be thanks to the enlightenment from my friends who are into security theferret_). The idea is that it is easier to make friends if you both have something in common, and on Shaker, you can easily start a conversation with someone whom you know also likes the something that you are passionate about.

For myself, I wouldn’t really find it fun because I was never a serious chatter to begin with. My experiences on Habbo were purely for entertainment where I dressed my avatar up funnily and typed nonsensical in game. (haha sorry). It will be interesting to see how this startup with $3 million funding will turn out.

Check out the next picture for the rates. You do the math. Go figure how much it’d cost for that imba virtual good. Would anyone buy it?

Update: turns out to be a bug. Probably released before double checking.

Usually, I would just glance through to see what settings the application would do to my profile. If they want to access my basic information, yeah, I’m okay. Access to post stuff on my wall? It’s annoying, but still ok if I can delete them. But look what this app is trying to do. Manage my Pages.

Why the hell would they want access to log in and manage my pages?!?!?!  It came off as a rude shock, I find that totally unnecessary for a photo contest,  in fact I see no point in that. Needless to say, I rejected access because I won’t wish to risk anything. but if they had set this on mistake, I think it is a serious problem and they are taking security too lightly.

[Update on 3 Sept '11] Here’s another by HPB’s Beat the Blues. They want to access my Facebook chat. :O

I’ve always been a big fan of The Sims – in fact when it launched The Sims 3 in June 2009 I upgraded my laptop so  I could satisfy the specifications required for gameplay.  When the Facebook app Sims Social first launched its open beta about two weeks ago, I only had 3 friends playing it. I decided I’d block it for a while since it required many friend interactions to unlock more features to proceed; and since I had only 3 friends  active I abandoned it for a while.

Yesterday, I logged back on and now I have at least 35 new friends who are playing it. How did it grow so fast? I realised it was the sharing feature was why I stopped playing but it was also what led to the success of the game. Afterall, it is Sims SOCIAL, right.

What’s stopping me? Even though the friends on my account are people I know, there’s no reason for me to report my location to 500 people. Perhaps Facebook is on its way to developing the mobile function to filter check-ins so only certain friends you allow will be able to see the check-ins, but I’m definitely not comfortable to let all my friends know where I am.

It’s a different ball game from Foursquare – which is another location-based service more friendly towards businesses which I’ve talked about on Squidoo.

Facebook lets you update your friends without any incentives, but on Foursquare, people are motivated to check-in because they can know about promotions and deals and perhaps special treats if they are the mayor. And particularly on tips and reviews about the location, which I sometimes find useful in preparing myself of things to expect. I also know the crowded places nearby when it becomes a ‘trending’ location so I know to avoid the place.

It would not be surprising to know though, if  Facebook holds more market share in the location-based service because afterall, they have 600 million users in their network already. but I’d still stick to Foursquare for now.

Looking forward to Facebook Deals more. *reveals shopaholic face*

There are over 140 million Facebook users in Asia and most of us use it everyday. Otherwise, some of us we might suffer withdrawal symptoms without logging on to Facebook.

Here’s a piece of great news for the narcisstic ones who enjoy changing their profile pictures every alternate days: Thanks to Flip Video, a shoot-and-share HD camcorder, there is now an application on Facebook “Flip your Profile” that makes profiles more engaging by empowering users to upload videos as their Facebook profile picture (instead of a static one).

Launched on 14 Feb 2011 in conjunction with DDB Singapore and Text 100 Singapore, the app has garnered more than 2.5 million profile video views, with an average of 5 profile videos being uploaded every minute – the statistics look fantastic. The fact that it is produced in Singapore makes it quite a feat in the Asia digital scene. Many Facebook users are flocking to try out this world’s first profile video option that is presented free for all.

It seems like this is a great tool for celebrities and businesses to engage with their fans on a personal level – Brands like Renault Columbia, Veet Argentina, Danette Paris, Standard Chartered, Singapore Kindness Movement, Jajoop Thailand and have since upgraded their Facebook profile pictures to profile videos. Asian celebrities like Nat Ho, Kevin Lester, Jonathan Leong, and Tabitha Nauser and The Post-It Guy (from Things we Forget) have also utilized the tool.

To get a video profile, there are only two steps to follow:

1) Select your browser and download the plugin, install and restart browser

2) Connect with your profile

However, only users who have the plugin installed will be able to view video profiles. This provides users a stronger motivation to pass it on to their friends so they, too, would be able to view the videos and then share it with even more people. For those who are interested in flipping their profiles, get started at FlipSG now.

Adding images

<img src="URL">

Following are add-ons for your page assuming you have learnt about FBML.
After much research, I have found the following to be useful so am sharing them for your reference – hope it helps.

Invite Friends

<fb:request-form
method="get"
type="Title"
invite="true"
content="Description!"
<fb:req-choice url='http://www.facebook.com/URL' label='GO' />"
<fb:multi-friend-selector actiontext="Share With Your Friends" rows="3"
max=45
showborder="true"
cols="3"/>
</fb:request-form>

Share Button>

<fb:share_button>
<meta name="medium" content="news"/>
<meta name="title" content="Announcing the xxx Application"/>
<meta name="description" content=""/>
<link rel="target_url" href="http://apps.facebook.com/xxx"/>
</fb:share_button>

Update: FBML is now unavailable for new users starting March 11 2011 and will be moving on to iFrames. however, existing users may still continue using the current tabs.

Earlier at iStrategy, John Goodman from Ogilvy Noor had shared about the rising opportunities and abundant potential in marketing to the third one billion after China and India.

“Being the 4th largest country in the world, with a population of about 238 million – it isn’t a surprise to know that Indonesia is the second largest market for Facebook and third largest for Twitter. We are a trending topic creator,” said Andi Primaretha, a social media consultant at Virtual Consulting.

Because the prices of mobile phones and contracts are so cheap in the country, mobile phones are more widely used than personal computers, particularly the most popular set being the Blackberry with about 2 million users in the country alone, out of 12 million worldwide. It is easy to access to social networks on the go, and this trend has been picking up rapidly. Currently, fewer than 20% of the population are connected to the Internet.. and can you imagine what the impact would be when social media gets even hotter in Indonesia?

“Collectivism culture in Indonesia has made its people to gather in several occasion and medium. We love to care about happens to other people – it could be our friend, classmate or colleagues. Marketers utilize social media to create community brand on Facebook and people in Indonesia are willing to click “like” button easily to gather with the people similar to them.”

Chocolatos
A local snack from Garuda Food. They increase engagement with their audience by featuring a fan weekly. Not only do they use the page as a channel to communicate with their customers, they also encourage them to participate by putting up pictures of themselves with the snack, making them advocates as they develop loyalty towards the brand.

Dahsyat
A music program dedicated to Indonesian songs. They have more than three million fans on their page. One reason why it is popular because they are the no. 1 TV station in Indonesia and the program is popular among average youths in the country. By providing information useful to the audience, (in this case, up-to-date entertainment) there is value-add and a compelling reason for people to want to be constantly updated.