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Facebook has officially started rolling out its new Timeline feature that will enable users to show off the most important moments of their lives on their profile page.

The new feature, which was unveiled in early September, will first be introduced in New Zealand before it is rolled out to other countries, the company revealed on its Facebook blog today.

Facebook said Timeline would keep important life events on profile pages while less-important posts would drop off .

"Now you can share photos of what you did last weekend, and updates about how you feel today," the company said in a previous blog post.

"But since the focus is on the most recent things you posted, more important stuff slips off the page. The photos of your graduation get replaced by updates about what you had for breakfast."

The new feature will allow users to choose which life events, such as birthdays or weddings, are permanently illustrated on their profile.

Timeline raised privacy concerns in its development stage, after it was revealed it would be visible on the Timeline when you "unfriended" certain people, social media website Mashable reports.

Facebook said this was a glitch that had since been corrected.

Story: www.ninemsn.com.au

More than a quarter of Australian employers use social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook before hiring staff, according to new research.

Telstra’s Cyber-Safety survey found that almost half of those employers who admit to checking candidates’ social profiles have turned down applicants based on something unfavourable they’ve seen online.

The research also revealed over a third have hired staff based on a positive experience stalking someone online.

The findings serve as a reminder to Australians to consider their ‘Cyber CV’, said Telstra’s Officer of Internet Trust Safety Darren Kane.

‘According to the findings some of the biggest Cyber CV faux pas candidates make include posting inappropriate pictures (with 31 per cent of employers saying this counts against applicants) and posting discriminatory comments (37 per cent),’ Mr Kane said.

‘Given the impressions comments and images can create, Telstra recommends job seekers think twice before posting, tagging and uploading pictures and status updates this Christmas.’

He has advised job applicants to ensure any content on Facebook or Twitter that is able to be publically viewed is ‘positive and professional’.

Brands that include photos and calls to action see higher engagement rates with those posts

Companies on Facebook and other social sites are always trying to determine what to post to get fans engaged. While each brand is different, and its fans will respond to different things, there are some common threads that companies can keep in mind when planning social media posts and status updates.

Digital marketing agency Web Liquid analyzed 16 brands and more than 1,500 brand posts from March to May 2011 to see which Facebook posts saw the most engagement, such as comments and “likes.” Web Liquid found that Facebook posts with photos saw a 0.37% engagement rate, higher than posts with videos (0.31%), text only (0.27%) or links (0.15%).

Momentus Media, which provides marketing software for use within Facebook, came up with similar findings, even when analyzing the top 20,000 Facebook pages and between 10,000 and 250,000 posts overall. Facebook posts with photos saw a 0.21% engagement rate, while videos saw 0.11% engagement rate and links saw 0.07% engagement.

Within the text of a post, companies can encourage action by asking fans to “like” or comment on the post. Momentus Media found that Facebook status updates that contained the word “like” saw a 0.38% engagement rate and those that said “comment” saw a 0.14% engagement rate. Text updates without “like” or “comment” saw 0.11% engagement.

While these statistics are interesting, brands should determine which tactics work best for their Facebook page and their fans. Additionally, the upcoming changes to Facebook’s Timeline feature and brand pages will change the way consumers interact on the social network.

Facebook’s new Timeline relies heavily on photos, so it seems that posts with photos and videos will continue to perform well for brands. And as Facebook introduces more verbs beyond “like,” companies could develop interesting ways to increase engagement on their pages. By testing different types of posts and continuing to learn what spurs a reaction, marketers can keep up with what content fans prefer on their brand Facebook pages and keep engagement up.

Facebook doubled its revenues in the first half of this year, to 1.6 billion dollars ($A1.5 billion).

The Wall Street Journal reports that, with 750 million Facebook members worldwide, the online site has attracted major interest from advertisers.

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While propensity to click-through on Facebook is positively correlated with age, propensity to like is not, according to data released in August 2011 by Facebook marketing consulting firm SocialCode. Age has a strong positive effect on whether a user will click, but has a less pronounced opposite effect on the likelihood of them becoming a fan of a page.

Fifty-plus-year-old users, the oldest segment in the study, are 28.2% more likely to click through and 9% less likely to like than 18-29-year-old users, the youngest group observed. Compared to the rest of the younger population, 50-plus users see a 22.6% higher CTR and 8.4% lower like rate.

Interestingly, CTR by age rises much more directly than like rate by age falls. CTR rises almost continuously as user age progresses, rise in an almost direct line as users age, with a minimal plateau inside the 30-39-year-old age bracket.

However, the like rate shows some strong fluctuation before plummeting once the user enters the 50-plus bracket. Among 18-to-29-year-olds, the like rate is about 39.5%, and then dips to about 38.5% in the 30-t0-39-year-old demographic.

However, the like rate jumps back to its highest point of slightly more than 39.5% among 40-to-49-year-olds. It then dramatically drops to slightly more than 36% in the 50-plus group of Facebook users.

Overall, women are 11% more likely to click on an ad than men. Like rates, however, are almost even for men and women, with men actually 2.2% more likely to like an ad than women.

In addition, when broken down by age, age has a much more pronounced effect on CTR for women than it does for men, whereas for men there is a stronger effect on like rate than for women.

For women, CTR is 31.2% higher for the 50 plus age group compared to 18-29-year-olds, whereas men only see a 16.2% difference. Compared to all age groups, 50-plus women’s CTR is 22% higher, compared to a 16.4% difference for males.

However, the oldest male segment has an 11.7% higher like rate than the youngest segment, and 9.5% higher like rate than all age groups. Women only see 7.2% and 7.9% differences, respectively.

Consumers are tapping into their networks of friends, fans, and followers to discover, discuss and purchase goods and services in ever-more sophisticated ways, according to an August 2011 advisory from consumer trends firm trendwatching.com. As a result, trendwatching.com advises it’s never been more important for brands to make sure they too have what it calls the “F-Factor,” with “F” standing for friends, fans and followers.

trendwatching.com identifies five key ways the F-Factor influences consumer behavior:

1. F-Discovery: How consumers discover new products and services by relying on their social networks.
2. F-Rated: How consumers will increasingly (and automatically) receive targeted ratings, recommendations and reviews from their social networks.
3. F-Feedback: New ways in which consumers can ask their friends and followers to improve and validate their buying decisions.
4. F-Together: How shopping is becoming increasingly social, even when consumers and their peers are not physically together.
5. F-Me: How consumers’ social networks are literally being turned into products and services.

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Facebook lawyers have revealed evidence they say proves a New York man fabricated a contract that he says entitles him to part ownership of the $US50 billion ($A47.68 billion) social network.

Included in an after-hours court filing is an image of a two-page contract signed by Paul Ceglia of Wellsville, New York, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, recovered by forensics experts from Ceglia’s computer.

The image is blurry and difficult to read but appears only to refer to a street-mapping database Ceglia hired Zuckerberg to work on in 2003 – and not Facebook.

Ceglia’s lawsuit against Zuckerberg is based on a contract that he says shows that when he hired Zuckerberg for the streets project, he also invested $1,000 in the then-Harvard University student’s fledgling Facebook idea on the condition he’d own half if it expanded.

From the beginning, Facebook has said the contract submitted by Ceglia was doctored. Now, lawyers said, they’ve got the original, retrieved from embedded electronic data.

Facebook alluded to the find as ‘smoking gun’ evidence in earlier court filings but was barred from publicly identifying it by a confidentiality order which has since been modified.

‘This smoking gun evidence confirms what defendants have said all along: the purported contract attached to the complaint is an outright fabrication,’ lawyer Orin Snyder of Gibson, Dunn Crutcher LLP, wrote on Monday.

Ceglia’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lake of San Diego, did not respond to an emailed request for comment from The Associated Press on Monday night. Ceglia is in Ireland, according to emails he’s written to his hometown newspaper, the Wellsville Daily Reporter.

In court papers filed last week, Ceglia’s lawyers took issue with Facebook’s claims that Ceglia had concealed certain documents.

‘No good-faith basis has been shown for such an accusation,’ Lake wrote.

He said Cegla had complied with the court’s instructions to turn over all of his computers and electronic media as part of the discovery process in the case.

Zuckerberg’s lawyers say six removable storage devices containing files entitled ‘Zuckerberg Contract’ and ‘Facebook Files’ are missing.

The lawyers are scheduled to appear before US Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio in Buffalo on Wednesday to argue a series of motions. Ceglia wants the judge to compel Facebook to turn over emails between Ceglia and Zuckerberg captured from Zuckerberg’s Harvard account from 2003 and 2004.

He’s also asked that the case be sent to mediation for possible settlement to avoid protracted proceedings.

Facebook wants the judge to require Ceglia to produce the original electronic version of the contract and other electronic files and to allow further ink sampling from a hard-copy version of the contract.

Zuckerberg’s lawyers oppose mediation as ‘pointless,’ saying the only resolution to the case they’re willing to accept is to see it thrown out.

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Facebook is attempting to play a strong card against telcos with the release of a new instant messaging app that will also send free SMS.

The world’s largest social media company released Facebook Messenger for iPhone and Android phones earlier this week in the US, with Australia to soon follow.

The application allows for instant free messages between friends and groups with several options for when you are notified.

But Telstra said it doesn’t expect a move away from SMS despite the availability of free alternatives.

“Telstra has seen continued SMS growth in the face of mobile social networking” said a spokeswoman speaking to News.

The app will also be in competition with Blackberry’s instant messaging service, which sends encrypted messages, preventing them from being read by any one other than the sending and receiver.

Blackberry’s maker, Research in Motion went under the microscope recently when it was found that rioters in the UK were using the service to coordinate acts of violence and destruction.

A similar card will also be played by Apple next month when it releases its iMessenger app with the iOS 5 software update.

It will provide iPhone and iPad users the ability to exchange SMS style messages without using a mobile carrier.

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About four in 10 (39%) users of the Janrain Engage social connection service used Facebook for social sign-in (SSI) during Q2 2011, according to data from Janrain. This was 30% more than the 30% of users who used number two SSI site Google.

Yahoo (12%) and Twitter (8%) remain well behind in third and fourth place, respectively. SSI allows users to sign into a restricted access site using existing sign-in data, rather than having to create a new account.

Tracking quarterly SSI preferences since Q4 2009, Janrain finds Facebook, after losing popularity between Q4 2009 and Q1 2010, began a dramatic ascent in SSI usage during Q2 2010, hitting 30% in Q4 2010. In Q1 2011, previous number one Google sharply lost close to 10 percentage points of SSI usage as Facebook surged past it to claim the number one spot.

The other most interesting SSI trends in the past seven quarters have been slight but steady growth in Twitter use and a dramatic drop in use of combined “Other” social networks for SSI.

There has been significant jump in the popularity of Facebook for social login on mobile apps in the last quarter, moving 60% from 35% in Q1 to 56% in Q2. Facebook’s growth in this segment came mostly at the expense of Google, which dropped 7%, and Twitter, which dropped 6%. Yahoo’s share dropped slightly, but it remained ahead of Twitter.

On media and digital publisher sites, Facebook is the most popular choice. Yahoo’s share has declined 6% during the past year and half, but its popularity as a sign-in provider is still more pronounced in this space than in any other vertical. However, for the first time, Google has eclipsed Yahoo as the second-most- popular choice.

After a consistent quarterly growth rate of 5% since Q1 2010, Facebook’s share of social sign-ins on retail sites has stabilized at a shade under 50%. On entertainment and gaming sites, Facebook’s leading share has declined a bit, with Google showing substantial growth and Windows Live having its best performance in any vertical with SSI share of almost 15%. In Europe, Facebook remains atop the list at 43%, with Google maintaining its position as the second most popular option. Facebook and Twitter are the leading destinations for socially shared content. 59% of users choose to share to their friends on Facebook, and 33% choose to share with their followers on Twitter.

Looking at the different kinds of companies/products Facebook users are fans of, an April 2011 study from ROI Research and Performics finds the highest percentage (46%) are fans of entertainment-related products. This category is followed by food (41%), restaurants (40%) and apparel (35%).

Service providers tend to be among the least popular categories, including categories such as educational institutions (22%), telecommunications (19%), and financial service companies (15%).

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A new social networking site for ultra-Orthodox Jews takes customary segregation of the sexes online and also bars pictures or ads deemed immodest in ultra-Orthodox society.

Go to www.faceglat.com and the home page has signs in Hebrew and English directing men to click on to the right of the page and women to the left.

Sign up and you will see a page identical to those on Facebook, but here photos posted on a man’s wall may only be of other men; likewise for the women’s side.

The virtual divide mirrors the practice at Orthodox Jewish synagogues, weddings and other events where the sexes are physically separated. On certain public bus lines running through ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods, women must stand at the back, to the outrage of feminists.

Israeli news website Ynet says FaceGlat — Glatt is a term used in kosher food certification — was founded by Yaakov Suissa from the Habad hassidic movement.

‘It’s not an alternative for Facebook, but something intended for a particular public,’ Ynet quoted him as saying.

‘I believe that it would be much more convenient for a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) man or woman to publish pictures and all kinds of other things to people of the same sex only.

‘People who are God-fearing and care about their children’s education cannot tolerate the ads and pictures one sees on the regular Facebook,’ he said.

Men who sign in to FaceGlat as men cannot visit or post on the women’s wall and vice versa, although at the moment there seems to be nothing preventing a member of either sex signing up under a false name and details.

Ynet says that plans for the site’s future include modifications to prevent gender impersonation.

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The federal government says education, rather than legislation, is the best way to protect children using Facebook and other social media.

But the government has agreed to look at proposals being prepared by South Australia, including tighter age limits on use of the social media and giving parents more rights to access their children’s Facebook accounts.

The SA government will prepare a discussion paper on the issue after raising its concerns at a meeting of state and federal attorneys-general in Adelaide on Friday.

Federal Justice Minister Brendan O’Connor said the government was loath to legislate where legislation was not going to work.

‘I think education is the key,’ he said.

‘We need to make sure young people are informed about the potential risks.

‘The cyber world is a magnificent place, it’s a fantastic educational tool, it’s a fantastic place for people to engage socially.

‘But the internet is not a benign playground. There are potential threats to young people in particular.’

South Australian Attorney-General John Rau said Australia was going through a revolution in the way people consumed and generated information.

‘That is a technologically driven change that is way ahead of the legal system and probably the thinking of most governments around the world and certainly in this country,’ he said.

‘We are grappling with changes that are moving more quickly than most people would have thought possible only a few years ago.’

SA’s proposals are likely to include a provision to raise the age for Facebook users and to also require the site to seek proof of age.

They will also consider allowing greater parental access.

Facebook currently requires users to be aged at least 13, but there is no requirement to provide proof of age.

A SA mother found recently that her teenage daughter had uploaded inappropriate pictures of herself to her Facebook page but the mother was prevented by Facebook from removing them.

Mr Rau said that case highlighted the concerns of many parents, while Mr O’Connor said more needed to be done to educate and inform young people of the dangers associated with posting material online.

‘People need to think carefully about what they upload, what they put onto their Facebook and social websites,’ he said.

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