Facebook Streaming Movies:

Warner Bros. is testing out streaming movies on Facebook with “The Dark Knight”. The movie rental costs users $3.00 (Facebook will receive 30% of revenues) and can be watched for 48 hours after purchase.  If the test goes well, we are likely to see more video streaming options on Facebook.

Foursquare v3.0:

Foursquare’s latest app version, v3.0, has some innovative new features. They have done away with the “tips” tab and replaced it with an “explore” tab. The explore tab will look at your information (where you’ve checked in, who you’re connected with, your favorite places to check in) and what you’re looking for (nightlife, sushi, etc.) to show you what Foursquare thinks you’ll like nearby. You will also be able to see how many of your friends have been to a recommended place, and what reviews have been posted about it.

The iPad 2 Available Today:

The iPad 2 has arrived. You can order it online now, and purchase it in store starting at 5pm local time. They will be sold at the Apple Store, AT&T, Best Buy, Target, Verizon Wireless, Walmart and select Apple Authorized Resellers. Starting early today, people were lined up at Apple Stores all over the country in hopes of being some of the first to get the latest tech gadget.

Image from CultofMac.com

SXSW Interactive:

South by SouthWest’s interactive portion was kicked off today in Austin, Texas. Five days of networking events, presentations, announcements and exhibits, all centered around emerging technology. For those of us who can’t be there, we can follow along with the hashtag #SXSW or visit our favorite social media news websites (such as http://techcrunch.com/sxsw/) for updates.

Japan & Social Media:

When a tsunami and an 8.8 magnitude earthquake tragically hit Japan this morning, many took to social media. Some families relied on social media to get in touch with their loved ones, and Google even launched a Japan earthquake person finder to help victims and families locate each other.

There has been an overwhelming amount of support spread though social media channels:

-Anna (@alucas9)

Facebook has Upgraded Pages. The new page design looks similar to profile pages, with latest photos showcased and navigation links on the left (tabs have been done away with).  Other new admin features worth mentioning:

• There is now a profanity blocklist, which you can set at none, medium, or strong. If you choose to use this feature, Facebook will block commonly reported profane words and phrases from posts or comments.
• There is now a moderation blocklist, in which you select words you want to be blacklisted. If someone posts or comments with blacklisted words, the content will be marked as spam and hidden from the wall.
• Page administrators will now be able to login to the page itself, which will allow them to comment on other Pages and profiles on behalf of the Page.
• Admins can now get notifications when fans interact with a page or post.
• You have the option to change your page category.

Facebook Ads:

Facebook has also upgraded their advertising options.  This week, Facebook rolled out a new kind of ad called sponsored stories, and updated their ads to allow for tab selection. Learn more:

• Sponsored Stories
  • From Facebook: “Sponsored Stories are stories that your friends published into your News Feed. These show up on the right hand side of pages on Facebook. The types of stories that can be surfaced include: Page Likes, App interactions, Place check-ins and Page posts.”

• Landing Tab Selection
  • If you are directing those who click on your ad to your Facebook Page, you can now select which tab you would like them to land on. You can now choose whether you would like visitors from the ad to land on the wall, information, a custom tab you have created, etc.

Book Reservations with Yelp:

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, you can now book dinner reservations through your Yelp app on your iPhone, iPad, or android phone. This is part of Yelp’s integration with Open Table, the real-time online reservation network. Yelp already integrated Open Table with their website, but making reservations will be even easier with the new app update.

Email Use Decreases:

You may not want to send your Valentine’s cards via email this year. A recent study by ComScore shows that email use is on the decline. From 2009 to 2010, overall email usage decreased by 8%. Email usage decreased 59% among 12-17 year olds, 1% among 18-24 year olds, 18% among 25-34 year olds, 8% among 35-44 year olds, and 12% among 45-54 year olds. Email usage actually increased in the older demographics, with a 22% increase among 55-64 year olds and a 28% increase among those 65 years or older.

Google for Weddings:

Also just in time for Valentine’s Day, Google has launched a page dedicated to weddings. As Mashable described it ,“The site is the latest attempt by Google to insinuate itself into consumers’ lifestyles.” Teaming up with renowned wedding planner Michelle Rago, they have created wedding specific templates in Google docs, Google Sites, and Picnik. Google wants this to be the place brides-to-be gather tips and tricks, create a wedding website, create save-the-date cards, and use tools to simplify wedding planning.

Getting hitched?
Google is hosting a wedding sweepstakes, where you can enter to with $25,000 and help from wedding planner Michelle Rago.

-Anna (@alucas9)

UPDATE: Note that we weren’t meant to see these new features just yet. As they were rolled out, Feedback took quick screenshots and analyzed the changes. Shortly after (as in, minutes) Facebook took itself off the internet for nearly 30 minutes in order to fix the changes, saying some prototypes had inadvertently gone live.

Hello from snowy Virginia!

Facebook unleashed a number of interesting tweaks today, but none so significant as the addition of the Page Login concept for administrators of Facebook Pages.

Now when you visit a Page you are an admin of, you can actually comment as you (previously when admins commented on a Page they administered it only posted as though the Page itself was responding). You can do this because you have an option to essentially login to Facebook as the Page.

When you do this, you then see the world as the Page, complete with a newsfeed wall – and in fact all of the Notifications are now the Notifications of the Page.

As the Page, you post as the Page, Comment as such, ask Questions (now integrated into Pages) and more. So now that you ARE the Page, how do you get back to being you? In the upper right, you can switch back to yourself, referred to as the, “primary account” and login.

Other tweaks to include the disappearance of Tabs; Photos accessed through Notifications create a pop-up window for browsing; and a new face-recognizing, Photo-tagging feature is also being rolled out. There’s a new version of Comments, based on Questions, being trotted out as well.

An example of the new pop-up photo viewer

The Next Web has more on the changes here.

-Dean (@dbrowell)

Alternatively, you can start a blog.

The dime-a-dozen self-proclaimed social media experts found on every corner in America will suggest that companies dipping into the web for the first time start a blog. “It’ll increase search engine optimization,” they’ll tell you in fancy online terms, motioning for you to reach for your checkbook. They’ll say a blog will keep things fresh, and help establish you as an expert in your field.

And they are right. Blogging is, truly, a great way to do all of those things.

Blogging, however, is also one of the last recommendations I’d make to an organization desiring to move into interactive media (still, many companies will insist that they “must” have one). I’ve seen very few companies blog with success, and keep up with it over time. At most (and I have no statistics, just personal observation) a company blog has a life expectancy of between 1 year and 2.5 years, at most, before a precipitous decline in postings. Check out any small or mid-sized business’ website that has a blog, and you’re probably going to see posts that publish either once or twice every month, or ended publishing sometime in early 2010. It’s a digital law, much how the online comments section of a news site will almost always contain a reference to Hitler.

Blogs are also insanely hard to make popular. At this stage in the game, the major blogs have their followings (Mashable, TechCrunch), and whipping up a popular one has the same barrier to entry as starting up a new airline. It’ll take a lot of money, time, and maybe even some jet engines.

For a company (or person) that wants to start a successful blog, it is important to think – to really, really think – about what they are doing. A blog, in essence, is an electronic monster that will always be hungry for more content. And good content. And if the content well runs dry, the blog begins to starve and shed readers who likely won’t come back and find another blog that offers similar stuff.

Content is essential. As a matter of fact, the term “content” isn’t being stressed enough these days, as the industry focuses on platforms or social network advertising or mobility. None of this stuff can work without good content that people want. Everyone can draw, write, or take pictures, but not everyone is an artist, writer, or photographer. You must have these types of creative-minded people to manage a blog.

So how does an organization blog with success? Two tips. I’d offer more, but, well, I can’t give away all of my trade secrets.

1. Divvy up the responsibility. If you create an editorial calendar and divide posts among employees or managers, you have created something with multiple authors who only have to blog once a month, possibly less. You also create a chorus of different voices with unique perspectives and knowledge.

2. Build a content engine. If the organization has what I call a content engine, then a blog – or a website’s news section – is a great choice. One client we work with, a trade association, receives multiple press releases every day from its members, which are then turned into blog blurbs. That blog is now one of the leading sources of news in its industry, simply because news is being fed to it on a constant basis.

We’ve been hearing about the end of blogging for years. That’s likely because blogs are always dying, their owners simply running out of coal to shovel into the furnace. I’d imagine, though, that this time is different, as the rise of social networking and mobility has given way to content creation in a variety of different places, in real-time, and in shorter bursts of byte-size information. From Crain’s Chicago Business:

Some [bloggers] have simply switched to another blog-like medium, say, Twitter or Facebook. Others have faced unpleasant facts about blogging. It’s cheap to do but usually doesn’t pay. Having a platform may be fun at first, but building a following takes much more work than simply typing and posting.

And millions of them go virtually unnoticed, despite the occasional breakout sensation like the humorous “Stuff White People Like” and the Julia Child-inspired “The Julie/Julia Project.”

When “people see these, they say, ‘I can do that—it will be easy,’ “ says Raanan Bar-Cohen, vice-president of media services at San Francisco-based WordPress, which hosts 16.5 million blogs. “If you’re looking for fame and fortune, blogging has as good a chance as any medium,” he adds.

Well, perhaps it’s a better chance than winning the lottery.

-Jeff (@jephkelley)