College students give up Facebook for week, reduce stress

By Jon Hurdle

PHILADELPHIA | Fri Dec 10, 2010 5:36pm EST

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Harrisburg University students gave up Facebook and other social media for a week in September and said they were less stressed and more attentive to course work, according to a study published on Friday.

The university in central Pennsylvania blocked the use of media such as Facebook and Twitter for a week to study its effect on students and faculty.

The survey found that 25 percent of students reported better concentration in the classroom, and 23 percent said they found lectures and seminars more interesting.

Forty percent of students said they spent between 11 and 20 hours a day using social media, and several faculty and staff reported spending up to 20 hours a day with the tools.

"One has to believe that this level of usage would likely interfere with school work and jobs," the survey's authors said.

A third of students reported feeling less stressed because they were unable to use social media. The survey quoted one student saying she felt like she had taken a vacation for the week because she was not constantly checking her messages.

Some students and faculty rediscovered the value of face-to-face communications when they were unable to communicate electronically.

Several professors said their students more easily understood a difficult biological concept through a conversation with faculty than they had after trying to grasp it using social media.

One student said he actually had to talk to his professor during the blackout.

"The results suggest that a healthier, more productive life style was practiced by a significant portion of the students during the blackout," the survey said.

Six percent of students reported eating better and exercising more during blackout week. And 21 percent used the time they usually spent on Facebook to do homework, whereas 10 percent said they spent the time usually spent on Facebook to read online news.

(Reporting by Jon Hurdle, Editing by Greg McCune)

View the original article here

Online Retailers to Offer Facebook Credits as Shopping Incentives

You can already buy Facebook Credits (the social network’s virtual currency) as gift cards at brick-and-mortar stores. Soon, you will also be able to accrue Facebook Credits by shopping online, as it’s now possible for online retailers to offer the credits as shopping incentives.

Ifeelgoods, an e-commerce promotions provider for online retailers, has integrated Facebook Credits into the online shopping experience, meaning that its clients can use the credits to incentivize customer purchases and other shopping-related behaviors.

Essentially, what this means is that online retailers can now lure you in with the promise of Facebook Credits if you buy that pair of jeans you saved in your online shopping cart. Ifeelgoods will also allow retailers to offer smaller Facebook Credits incentives for e-mail newsletter sign-ups and social behaviors such as voting or FacebookFacebook shares.

As Facebook continues to grow in size and its currency becomes more versatile, Facebook Credits may prove to be the perfect complement to the online shopping experience. Though virtual in nature, the credits are still more tangible than points, and for some customers, may prove to be more desirable than coupons or other rewards.

How would you prefer to be incentivized for your online purchases? Would Facebook Credits sweeten the deal? Let us know in the comments.

Image courtesy of pmsyyz, FlickrFlickr

View the original article here

SCVNGR Releases Facebook Places Application for Businesses

Today SCVNGR, a relative newcomer in the mobile location-based game space, is releasing a Facebook Places application that businesses can use to highlight their SCVNGR rewards and challenges on their Place Page.

The application is the first of its kind and positions SCVNGR as the only third-party — as well as the only location-sharing service, period — to release something so tightly integrated with the Facebook Places experience.

The app is a Place Page add-on for businesses using SCVNGR. Once installed, it will sit prominently in the left-hand menu section of the Place Page. Visitors can then click it and tab through three sections: Rewards, Challenges and How to Play. For businesses using SCVNGR, the application is a no-brainer to install — literally just a click of a button — that promises reach to millions.

The install also guarantees greater harmony between Facebook Places and SCVNGR. SCVNGR has mapped all user activity — checkins, challenges, rewards and photos — back to the Facebook Place Page, rather than to the SCVNGR Place Page.

“Because SCVNGR has all this premium activity (challenges, not just checkins), our location-based activity items get surfaced far more often in Facebook’s activity algorithms, meaning that we get more placement, comments and likes,” says CEO Seth Priebatsch.

When coupled with SCVNGR’s previous Facebook Places integration features and do-it-yourself rewards system, the application completes the loop and turns the Place Page into something much more than a repository of checkins.

“Since traditional Facebook Pages are already getting more hits than most companies’ own websites, I’m pretty sure that Facebook Place Pages will be equally (if not more) important. Local businesses tend to have pretty weak websites and with all the inbound traffic Place Pages will get, I’m predicting that Facebook Place Pages will become the canonical online representation of most local businesses. And SCVNGR’s Facebook Place Page widget really improves those pages,” explains Priebatsch.

Google-backed SCVNGR, while still young — just like its 21-year-old CEO — has the potential to become a huge mobile hit. We’ve been closely tracking the company since its consumer launch (SCVNGR operated in stealth mode going after enterprise customers for more than a year) and have been impressed by the Boston-based company’s agility, its brand partnerships and its ability to stand out in a very crowded market where Foursquare rules as mayor.

But SCVNGR is picking up serious steam. Recently, the startup garnered 100,000 mobile downloads in just 48 hours, which is no small feat. As such, the company’s profile is starting to rise in both tech and mainstream media circles. On Sunday, SCVNGR and its CEO were profiled extensively in a piece that made the front page of the Sunday New York Times Business section.

Perhaps when it comes to location, it still is anybody’s game.

View the original article here

How to Set, Change & Transfer Facebook Usernames

Love it or hate it, Facebook is currently the biggest and popular site on the web… except for Google. It’s ranked #2 by Alexa and it has over 1.5 billion inbound links. Because it’s such a powerful site, having a well-branded, SEO-optimized vanity username or Fan page URL on Facebook can be a big boost your business and online reputation.

Usernames must be 5 characters long and may be no longer than 50 characters.Usernames can only contain A-Z, a-z, 0-9, and periods (.)Your account must be e-mail and SMS (text message) verified before you are allowed to set or change usernames.Facebook says you cannot register usernames and try to resell them for money, or they will disable the username (or your account) if they find out.

When you’re logged into your account, type the following URL into the browser bar:

http://www.facebook.com/username

Then follow the on-screen directions. They tend to show a lot of suggested usernames with periods in them, and you may have to click the “more” button to type in the one you really want. Check the availability, double-check your spelling (don’t type in “JohnSnith” instead of “JohnSmith“>), and then confirm the name to lock it in for good.

1. Click on the “Account” dropdown menu at the far upper right of your screen. Then select “Account Settings” from the drop-down menu:

2.) Click on the button to change your username:

You are only allowed to change your username once. If you have changed your name once already and want to do it again, you’ll have to register and SMS-verify a new Facebook account. (Maybe buy one of this disposable, prepaid cellular phones for $29.99?)

Yes. It is possible to trade and exchange Facebook usernames. From the tests that I personally conducted (on 2/19/10)… it seems that the second you change your Facebook username to something else, your old username immediately becomes “up for grabs.” If someone else registered as “JohnSmith” and you can talk them into changing to another name.. the moment they change and confirm it, you can grab “JohnSmith” for yourself.

Here is a video I found on YouTube that demonstrates how to transfer / trade Facebook usernames:
(warning! cheesy music)

Facebook Usernames URLs are best for individual people. Facebook Fan Page vanity URLs are better for collective interests like: companies, organization, bands and products. Once your fan page has 25 or more members, you are eligible to set a vanity URL for it. Here’s how:

1. Type “http://www.facebook.com/username” into your browser’s address bar:

2.) Click the blue link that says “Set a username for your pages”:

Yes. As long as your fan page has more than 25 members, you can do this. First change your username to something else. Then immediately go set your the fan page name to the one you want, as your previous username will now be available.

No. According to this thread, you cannot currently change the name of a Facebook Fan page. If your company is called “Extreme Print Design” and you have a Fan page for it, and you legally change your company name to “Extreme Web Design” – you still cannot change the name of your fan page. You have to make a new fan page and start over.

No. Once the fan page URL has been set, there is no way to change it. Not that I know of.

Disclaimer: Facebook has complex, not-user-friendly, constantly evolving interface! The information in this post was true at the time of writing, but i is very likely to change in the coming months or years.

  Click here to share this post on Twitter!

  Click here to share this post on Facebook!

“To learn about the most financially lucrative social media skill for 2010 and beyond – check out my new blog Online Reputation Edge and subscribe via RSS or e-mail updates. ”

Tagged as: changing Facebook usernames, changing Facebook vanity URLs, exchanging Facebook URLs, facebook, Facebook SMS verification, Facebook user name, Facebook username squatitng, facebook vanity URLs, trading Facebook usernames

View the original article here

How to Categorize your Friends on Facebook

Blast

At first it will be tedious and mundane to add people to lists you have made friends with on Facebook; however, it will be worth your wild going forward with all that you do on Facebook. You can create lists such as; “people I work with”, “online friends” or “friends and family”. These lists can become a great networking tool and help you target the exact people you want to share various content, events, or to even have a peek at what their up to without having to sort through your uncategorized newsfeed.

Here’s how you can create your Facebook Lists Today:

1. Once logged into Facebook you will want to go to the top left where it shows the shadow of a person (where it shows people who want to be friends with you) and click on it. A drop down will appear and you will want to click on the link “Find Your Friends”.

2. After clicking on “Find Your Friends” a new page will appear with a button close to the right-hand side that reads, “Create a list”.

3. Click the button “Create a List” and a popup of all of your friends and pages that you have liked will appear. At the top you can name your list and then click on the faces of your friends that you would like to add to the list – you are able to add the same people to a variety of lists if you choose. – When you have added the people to fit the list, click on the button “create list”.

4. Now that your Facebook lists have been created go to the left column on your newsfeed and click on “friends” to see the list of your lists. When you click on the name of your chosen list – the people you added to the list will be seen in your newsfeed. P.S. You can create Facebook Lists for your pages that you own or are admin to as well.

Facebook Lists can serve a great purpose when you want to see what is happening with your friends and family. It’s an easy way to target events, and will save you tons of time from clicking friends one by one. Make your Facebook lists today and take control over who you want to see in your newsfeed, when you want to.

Share it. The world should know: Blast Tagged as: Facebook categories, Facebook Lists, How-To's

View the original article here