Business Pages and Profiles getting verification badges on Facebook

Facebook is helping businesses authenticate their voices on the social networking site with verification badges. The badges are set to appear besides the name of verified Pages on their timeline, when hovering over the name of a Page, in searches, stories about users liking a Page, News Feed ads for the page, as well as in the “Pages You May Like” suggestions. No action is supposedly required to add the badges to a Page. Facebook will be the one to automatically verify Pages at the “greatest risk of duplication.”

Source: Facebook Studio

Facebook sets sights on smartphone homescreens with Home and CoverFeed

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Facebook has set its sights on your smartphone's home screen. Looking to push Facebook content, status updates and the ability to message and interact with and 'Like" Facebook stories. Calling it Facebook Home, the Android overlay runs sort of like a screensaver that runs the Coverfeed application even before users 'wake' their smartphones.

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Facebook launches Developers Live

Facebook launched Developers Live, a new channel for developers to stay up to date on news, tutorials and speaking sessions.

With Developers Live, developers will have a central place to learn about the latest tools and get  access to  the product  managers and engineers who created them.  Our first live event will take place on February 19th and will feature Doug Purdy, Director of Developer Products.

Over time, Facebook has invested in upgrading the platform’s developer site [https://developers.facebook.com/], fixing bugs and improving resources; the Developers Live site is part of Facebook’s continued commitment to Operation Developer Love [https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/417/].

Facebook's Gifts leverages your connections, scopes out Amazon.com

Facebook has jumped into the Holiday spirit by offering users the opportunity to buy gifts for their friends. Facebook has been toying with the Gifts idea for some time but seems to be pushing full steam ahead this holiday season at least in the US. Hoping to take on highly successful e-tailers like Amazon.com, the new feature leverages people's connections on the social network. If it is someone's birthday or anniversary you get the option to send them a gift for real. The options vary from iTunes gift certificates to Starbucks cards to more expensive items. No indication if this will spread to Canada or the rest of the world but if it works out, we might be doing our gift shopping on Facebook next holiday season. Would you consider shopping for gifts via Facebook?