After months of speculation and leaks, Facebook has finally officially launched its iPad app now available in the iOS App store. The app has been designed for optimal use on the tablet with a focus on consumption and easy touch screen navigation. The app has large buttons for effective navigation and also takes advantage of the iPad’s special features to do things that are not possible through a Web interface. For example, photos now take up the entire screen and users can pinch them to zoom in and out. Navigating through a photo album can be achieved through the swiping feature on the device and users can also take photos or film high definition videos from within the app.

The App includes a left-hand navigation bar for accessing the News Feed, photos, messages, Groups and settings. As with the website, notifications, chat, status updates, search and other key features are also included. However, the newly announced features, like Timeline, are not included in the iPad app just yet.

There are a number of new features that have been introduced especially for the iPad. Facebook has integrated Airplay into the app which allows users to play and share images and HD videos Apple TV or other Apple devices. Facebook games can also be played in full screen mode and games from EA, Zynga and more will support additional features such as Facebook Credits. Facebook is also making use of location services with Nearby. Nearby shows a map on screen with little icons indicating your friends in the area. Using the ipad functions users can zoom into the map, click on a person’s photo and leave a comment. Users can also check in to their location from within the app.

To download Facebook’s app for iPad click here.

Disclaimer: I am the founder of Tweekly.fm, a service that automatically sends an update of your top artists for the week to Twitter and Facebook.

Recently, Spotify (with Sean Parker’s help) got engaged to Facebook. In short, if your Facebook and Spotify accounts are connected, you will see your friends listening to music in the new ‘ticker’ as they are listening to it. A lot of people have wondered, ‘Is this useful?’, ‘Why would I want to see John listening to Backstreet Boys?’.

Before I answer that. A little background. I started Tweekly.fm in Januray of 2009. The goal was simple. I wanted to make a twitter app. I was (and still am) an avid last.fm user, so I thought it would be great to automatically share your music tastes from last.fm to twitter. At that time #musicmonday was still big. People were sharing their music tastes on Twitter every monday. It was great! Where is it now? And what happened?

The biggest culprit is Twitter’s trending algorithm. They changed it to display only novel topics. In other words, because #mm was trending every monday, it wasn’t exactly novel each time. But why didn’t people continue sharing their music tastes despite this? There was no real return. During 2009 there was also quite a rise in websites that offered the ability to tweet your songs to Twitter. I wrote a blog post on this quite a while ago in April of 2010. It was an exciting arena, one in which Tweekly.fm was competing in as well. Of those sites in that blogpost (besides Tweekly.fm), only tweetmysong are above 450 000 in alexa rankings, and blip.fm remaining at the top (because of its built-in network effects). In short, the small ‘sector’ kinda died. Nobody took the effort to tweet a song they are listening to, because not a lot of people took the effort to listen to it. In other words, little return for both people. If someone shares a song with me, it works better if there is context. For me to like the song, there are two big prerequisites: If it is a good friend, who knows my music tastes, I will absorb the effort to listen to the song. However if it is an artist (and genre) I’ve never heard of, I still have to make up my mind about, because my friend shared it with me, and expects some return. In other words, I have to make an effort to form an opinion on the song. “Hey Simon! What did you think of Portugal. The Man?”, “Uh. It is great. I kinda liked the jazzy sections in the song New Orleans”.

If it is from a ‘musical’ stranger, the only context I have is if the person elaborates on the song. “Listen to Nero – Innocence. Epic dubstep in every way”. Now I know it is dubstep and if I am a fan, I would be more willing to accept the opportunity cost of taking the time to listen to it. However, for the person who shared the song, they still need a return. If I liked the song, I must still do more effort to tell the person that I liked it, and once again the interaction rate drops off heavily.

Why is Tweekly.fm still growing? It is automatic and it has context. There is no effort on part of the listener. They just have to consume their music and it will be shared each week to Twitter. The second factor that Tweekly.fm does to a certain degree is context. 3 artists are shared in the update. This means that if people see one artist they like in the tweet, they will be more inclined to click on it. If there are 2 known artists and one unknown artist, they will be even more likely to click on it.

So why is Spotify and Facebook on the right track? Music sharing works best when it is automatic, because it takes no effort on behalf of person sharing the music. They thus expect little, if nothing in return. Any comments on the artists you  listened to is as they would say in marketing terms: a satisfying experience. Same goes for the consumer. They have no expectation to comment on the artists you share, but will be delighted if they find they share music tastes in common.

However, where their system fails, is music discovery. The only context being employed is the user listening to the music. If you know him to listen to cool electronic music tracks, you will be inclined to find out more AS they are listening to it. If you follow what they are listening to, you might pick up a pattern and then be inclined to look up the tracks yourself (“ooh, I know that song! oooh, I know that one as well! Oooh, I better check this one out, I don’t know it”)… But this I feel, is perhaps way too much effort. It beats the purpose of automatic sharing.

Automatic sharing allows serendipitous behaviour to arise, because of the non-effort to share it. In Facebook’s case, it doesn’t clog up the stream, because it occurs in the ticker. That is great. However, if they really want to ramp up music discovery, they need to use music recommendations to explain the context of songs that people are sharing. If Robert Scoble is listening to bluegrass band that I’ve haven’t heard, the system should preferably show context while he is listening to it. Like when Last.fm recommends new artists, they recommend it based on your current library of artists. In other words, it should preferably match up the closest artist I have listened, while also providing other information (such as genre and current position in world charts for example). This way, I can immediately discern context when music is automatically shared.

Who should be doing this? Last.fm. They have the resources and data available to do this. I can already see what my ‘friends’ on there are listening to, but there is no context. They know what I’ve listened to, they should just bring it together. I wrote a script the other day to test this. Of my 87 friends on last.fm, it returned to me the following dataset:

Of my friends who listened to music the current week and based on last.fm’s current music recommendations to me, I should listen to:

[Beirut] => 4 [Skrillex] => 2 [Björk] => 2 [Gold Panda] => 1 [The Wombats] => 1 [Band of Skulls] => 1 [Cut Copy] => 1 [Röyksopp] => 1 [St. Vincent] => 1 [Cults] => 1

It is very slow, because I have to make several API calls, so it is not available for testing (I might upload it github later). So in other words, what the above code says: “Of the artists we recommend you listen to, your friends listened to Beirut, Skrillex, Bjork, Gold Panda, Wombats, Band of Skulls, Cut Copy, Royksopp, St Vincent and the Cults this week”.

So: What it boils down to. Facebook and Spotify are on the right track. Music sharing works best when it is done ‘frictionlessly’, but now it just needs more context. I hope Last.fm gets there before them, but maybe it is just because I am a bit biased.

Looks like Google+ might have some trouble ahead. Recent reports suggest that Google+’s novelty is wearing off as stats point to declining return users to Google+. Be honest – those of you who have signed up for Google+, how many of you still return to it regularly? We are betting not a lot. Compare that to Facebook users who generally tend to visit the site daily, if not multiple times a day.

Once they were enemies, but now Facebook and Twitter have teamed up with each other against Google. While the option to import your tweets into Facebook has been available for quite some time, Facebook will now natively allow users to tweet their Facebook status natively. No plugins needed.

There are some gotchas however. You need to obviously provide Facebook with your Twitter details, and your status updates have to be set to “public” in order to post to Twitter as well.

This is a interesting move by Facebook and Twitter, but I really hope they release some info on its uptake. Our opinion is that most people’s use of Facebook and Twitter vary greatly. Status updates sent on the network is not necessarily meant for the other network. For example, your techie/webby friends might be on Twitter, and your friends (and acquaintances) are on Facebook. This might be the reason for Google+’s recent decline in traffic. And no, the “Circles” feature does not help, it just increases complexity for the average user. (For some great insight into this read Simon‘s great post “Should I use Google+?“)

Right now we do not know when exactly the feature will go live, but expect it soon.

Facebook has updated its iPhone app with a number of new features and privacy improvements, some of which reflect the recent enhancements of the website.

Facebook for iPhone 3.5 now makes sharing with others easier with the added ability of tagging friends, places and posts and sharing external links form a web view. There is also an added new design for profiles and group walls making viewing clearer and simpler. The sharing tool has also been improved to add privacy controls on posts and match the settings on the website.

In addition, a number of bugs have been fixed including those in photo tagging and chat, improved notification speed, easier selection of filters in the news feed and overall improved stability and performance.

Unfortunately, it seems that Facebook has removed the iPad version of the app.

To download the app click here

Those of us who are addicted to our mobile phones (hold on, who is not?) know all to well that accessing social media sites like Facebook and Twitter is a lot easier on your phone than on a PC, and in many cases, a lot more useful. Instead of waiting until you are in front of a computer, you take out your phone and access the sites right on the spot, and keep your friends (or followers) updated. So here we have a great infographic from the guys at Flowtown to explain how phones have affected social media.

Some interesting Stats:

• People who access Facebook from their phones are twice as active on the social network.
• There is a good spread across all age ranges for people accessing social networks from their phones. Clearly, it is not only the young ones who do it.

If you cannot see the infographic, please click through. (more…)

Just as I posted on LivingSocial.com coming into South Africa, we now have Facebook Deals making its entrance. If anyone thought the social buying landscape was going to be shaken up by Groupon, it seems it is only now becoming of age.

In a slightly new style of doing deals, Facebook Deals has appointed Habari Media as their official sales partner, which is said to be launching in August 2011. And that, by my watch, is in 5 days time. However, this is not going to be the “rush and buy the deal without reading the fine print and be unhappy later” kind of deal – customers are going to use a Foursquare-type check-in to earn rewards and deals alike.

There are different kinds of deals to earn:

• Individual Deals are those offering something for someone checking in – this could be a discount or an actual product/service. Imagine a free coffee for checking into a new coffee shop.
• Loyalty Deals rewards customers after a certain number of check-ins (finally something for all the Foursquare mayors in South Africa?).
• Friend Deals offer discounts to a group of up to eight friends – so this equates to the sort-of Swarm Badge effect that Foursquare has.
• Charity Deals mean that a business gives money to a cause when you check in.

The only group buying deal really is the Friend Deal, all the others would be to build awareness and loyalty. But Facebook Deals does not only generate awareness, and place feet with a merchant – they also create a loyal following. And in the end, one can imagine the kind of “sharing” and “liking” that will really place small and large businesses on the map, online and in person.

According to Habari Media, there are at this point in time “over 300 000 local Facebook users who daily check in to Facebook Places, with no incentive to do so.” The biggest eyebrow-raiser, as always: Where does Facebook Deals get a cut? So far, the only way for them to earn bucks here is on the advertising that businesses will spend on to attract people to their Places. This does not necessarily seem viable.

There are many also debates:

• How accurate is this sort of check-in? Foursquare in Africa is not accurate and I doubt Facebook Deals will be.
• How do the merchants check it? If I check into a coffee shop four times from my office and arrive on the fifth time for my loyalty cup, how would they know?
• How does one know where to check in? Will the iOS, Android and RIM Facebook apps start telling us what is around us? Or is Foursquare still going to trounce Facebook Deals in South Africa in this regard?
• What if someone wants to check in and not let others know – will this be available?
• Can merchants add their own deals? What will they add? Can offices add deals, such as on Foursquare?

Many points remain to be answered, but one thing seems sure – Facebook Deals will be in South Africa in August 2011. The questions are: Will you be using it, and will it be worth it for businesses and customers?

Count us fooled. A few days ago Facebook did a seemingly normal little update to its iPhone app – only to have Techcrunch figure out that it contains the secret iPad version of the Facebook app, using a universal binary. A while back Mark Zuckerburg said they will not build an iPad app, because it is not a “mobile device”. Despite recent mumblings of Facebook switching its focus to HTML5 only development (Project Spartan), it looks the FB developers have indeed been very busy with a great looking new Facebook for iPad app.

The apparent refusal by Facebook to develop a full iPad app until now has long been one of those things that bothered many users, so its great to see this new app. The design is pretty great. The app seems to work in two panes – with simple navigation on the left hand side, with content on the right. Simple pop-ups appear whenever you want comment and “like”, and new interface looks great for photos. Another weird design decision is the new dark left hand side, which is a welcome shift from Facebook’s traditional white and blue designs.

At present the only way to install this “unofficial” FB app is to install the current iPhone FB app on a jailbroken iPad. We are not going to tell you how to do it, but a simple Google Search will help you out. But we are more than willing to wait a little. So when can we expect it? Most sources seem to suggest that it it imminent – so lets give a few weeks… Expect our runthrough here the moment it arrives.

Images: TechCrunch (and MG Siegler who clearly does not have an issue with his profile page being shown over the entire web…)

I can hear the collective scratching of heads across the world as people are pondering whether they should use Google+. Your tech/web friends have all loudly blabbered about it on Facebook or Twitter and now you are wondering what the fuss is all about? Bandwidthblog has a write-up here to educate yourself on what Google+ brings to the table.

Should you jump ship, abandon your farms and party photos to a new social network? Not yet. Google+ is experimenting with a new model of online interaction, called ‘Circles’ (which is similar to Diaspora’s ‘aspects’).

Facebook’s interaction is simple. If we accept, we both see each other’s information: a simple handshake if you will. Twitter’s interaction is asynchronous: I follow you what you say, but it is not necessary to reciprocate and follow back.

Google+’s interaction is a bit more complicated. On the get-go you add individuals to certain circles of your life (‘work’,'friends’,'music buddies’, etc). When you share something, you share it with whatever circles you choose. Once that funny cat video is shared, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the people whom you intended it for will actually see it. If they don’t add you to a circle, it will appear in the ‘incoming’ stream (incoming stream? what?). Another important thing to note, is that ‘circles’ are known only to you. If you add “Rob Bikeperson” to “Biker Mice from Bars”, they will only know that they have been added to “a” circle, but not which specific one. In other words, you have your own context about the certain circles of your life and another person has their own context.

Are you lost?

Exactly. Here is a graph to make it easier to understand. Click to enlarge:

Still lost? Exactly.

Some web enthusiasts are claiming the downfall of Facebook (and Twitter). To me Google+ just works differently. It is a new and interesting experiment around the idea of putting different facets of your life front and center. Putting it online comes with its own territory.

Google+ as it stands now is for users who are information consumers. The majority of users on Facebook aren’t facing this problem to such an extent that they would take the effort to understand a new model such as Google+. It’s an important iteration, but not the killer social network that it wants to be.

Graph: By Lee S. translated and reposted by Axel Aigret, Cyril Galliné and Nathalie Gilson. You can view it here.