Don't Count Out Facebook as a Competitor to Google

Don't Count Out Facebook as a Competitor to Google

What FB Lacks in Search Market Share, it Makes Up for in User Time
Saturday, February 20, 2010
By Chris Crum

In case you were wondering, Facebook is pretty popular. Google is of course the undisputed king of search market share, but Facebook has the edge in some areas. Social media is the obvious area.  While Google is hoping to make some serious headway here with Buzz, Facebook is far and away the dominant being in the world of social networks.

Compete shared some data with us that emphasizes just how big Facebook is, and just how seriously it should be taken. If these stats from Facebook weren't enough for you, Compete points out that Facebook has surpassed Yahoo as the #2 site online in the U.S. in terms of unique visitors, just under Google.


In December, according to Compete, Facebook's unique visitors in the U.S. had increased by over 121%. That's pretty incredible, because I seem to recall Facebook being pretty popular in late 2008 too.


In terms of social media sites, none of the others even come close in the U.S. - not even the world's second largest search engine, YouTube:


So Facebook is already bigger than the second largest search engine. Add to that, the fact that search on Facebook itself is rising. According to comScore, Facebook's search query percentage increased by 13% from December to January, growing to 395 million searches:


Greg Sterling notes, the numbers in the chart "are likely internal searches on Facebook for content or friends, rather than web search. This is not the same thing as people conducting searches on Google, Yahoo or Bing more generally. And 13 percent growth is certainly strong, but not "phenomenal.'"

Facebook's search feature, which has been emphasized somewhat with the latest redesign, lets users search people, pages, groups, apps, events, posts by friends, posts by everyone, OR web results. Sterling makes the case that internal Facebook searches are different from web searches one would perform on Google, but in some ways, Facebook search simply goes places that Google doesn't (while also going Places that Google does via the Bing-powered web search).

Facebook is almost like its own web in some ways, and that is becoming truer all the time as Facebook gets more of users' time spent online (which it is doing through status updates, news, apps/games, videos, music, events, and possibly email in the future...we also suggest Facebook consider adding blogging to the mix).

Look at this newly released data from Nielsen about time spent online. In January (in the U.S.), Facebook users averaged 7 hours a month on the site. As a point of comparison, Google users spent about 2 hours.


In some ways, that doesn't really take anything away from Google, because Google's job as a search engine is to get you where you need to be to find what you're looking for. However, Facebook users appear to be finding plenty of stuff they are looking for along with stuff they didn't know they were looking for, as well as just hanging out and being entertained. With Facebook's search feature, they're able to find what they're looking for without having to leave Facebook until the search result (at least theoretically).

Whether you think Facebook's search growth is "phenomenal" or not, you can't overlook the fact that more people are using the search feature, and some unknown percentage of that is pulling from Bing. Maybe this should be construed as a good reason not to overlook your Bing SEO efforts. Maybe it's also another reason why Facebook should be viewed as one of Google's key competitors (along with Microsoft, Yahoo, and increasingly Apple).  Actually, Sterling points out that Google recently listed Facebook officially as a competitor for the first time in its annual 10K filing.

Google is seemingly going after the market that Facebook dominates with the launch of Google Buzz, but status updates are just part of the big picture. Search is just part of the big picture. It's all about getting the user's attention, is it not? Here are some tips for running a good Facebook page.

What do you think? Discuss here.

via webpronews.com

Driving Traffic with Twitter

Driving Traffic with Twitter

Twitter Can Be a Primary Traffic Source
Sunday, March 22, 2009 

By Chris Crum

Reports suggest that social networking is now more popular than email. Twitter in particular grew 33% in only a month according to Compete data. Skittles increased its own traffic by 1332% in one day after a campaign that sent Skittles.com directly to a Tweet-stream (the site has since moved to different strategies of a similar nature like a Facebook page and currently a Wikipedia entry, which is in itself another interesting story).



 Do you have tips on how to use Twitter to drive traffic? Tell us... 

Many brands large and small are realizing the potential that Twitter provides. "As exciting as it may be to hear about what your friends, or total strangers for that matter, ate for breakfast, some companies are realizing that a more effective use of Twitter is to mine it for clients, recruit employees and answer customer service questions," notes Kim Hart with the Washington Post.

Twitter is becoming a primary traffic source for many sites as John Battelle points out (Facebook is driving a lot of traffic as well). This will only continue to become truer as real-time search continues to grow.

"Social search has been predicted (and funded) for years," says Battelle. "It's finally happening. The conversation is evolving, from short bursts of declared intent inside a query bar, to ongoing, ambient declaration of social actions. Both will continue, but it's increasingly clear why Google's obsessed with Facebook (and Facebook with Twitter). And they are not alone."

MarketingPilgrim's Andy Beal and many others expect Twitter to eventually be acquired by Google. "Twitter is becoming an important communications channel–intrinsic to the web," says Beal. "Aside from the being able to pick up the company for a fraction of the $15 billion Google has in cash, Twitter is a key component of the search engines’ ambitious goal: to organize the world’s information." Beal finds what he perceives to be hints in the following interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt.




And again, there is of course that whole need for real-time search thing. But Twitter's finally just getting its own search in the spotlight (you can search within your own friends/followers with Twellow now) . There are even featured users showcased, which may or not be an indication of the widely speculated-upon revenue model for the company (Twitter might even start serving local news too).

"When people ask me when Twitter will make money, I tell them, 'In due time,' says Twitter CEO Evan Williams in a quick bio-piece chronicling his professional life up to the present. "They forget that we're only 30 employees who have just gotten started. Right now, anything we would do to make money would take our time away from acquiring more users. We have patient investors."

The average user doesn't care about how Twitter is monetizing its business though. And the users are what drive any success that it will ever have. Users are clearly finding plenty to get out of the service. It hasn't jumped the shark yet.


In fact, it plays so big a role on the Internet that it earned Williams a trip to the White House with a number of other tech leaders. We don't exactly know the product of conversations that came from that, though Data.gov, another site from the Obama administration to be launched, was announced shortly after that meeting. Some wonder if the site and the meeting are related.

Regardless of how much influence Twitter is having or is not having in Washington, there is no denying that it has made a tremendous impact on the web in general and the way people and businesses communicate (it's even inspired a similar model from social network king Facebook).

What businesses can get out of Twitter:

- Traffic. Social networks have taken over email in terms of popularity. Twitter is a very popular one, and continues to grow rapidly.

- People can "opt in" to follow your Tweets, so your messages will be well targeted. This makes it a great place to make announcements to your most loyal customers.

- Twitter can serve as a great channel for customer service if you keep up with it like these brands are.

- It lets you interact with the public while increasing brand awareness

- Twitter's search function can help businesses better manage their online reputations in real time.

- Facebook apps can let you update Twitter/Facebook together. This means your Tweets can become your Facebook status and vice versa. Facebook is the most popular network around. Between Facebook and Twitter, you can build quite a following.

There are quite a few benefits for a company without a known revenue model and a service that many people still don't understand the point of. As Twitter grows, that seems to be changing though.

Update: Listen to what avid Twitterer Michael Gray has to say about making Twitter work for you in this exclusive interview from PubCon:

via webpronews.com

8 Sources of Web Traffic

Consider These 8 Sources of Web Traffic

By Chris Crum - Thu, 02/18/2010 - 4:23pm.

Ways to Get Traffic Besides Search
Over the last year or two, I've written a number of articles about different ways to get traffic to your website. Here is something of a compilation of these concepts. Obviously search engine optimization is an important component, but I'm going to leave that out here.

Facebook
Some sites have been known to get even more traffic from Facebook than they get from Google. I suggest setting up a Facebook page. Compete recently found that demographics of Facebook users strongly resemble demographics of Internet users in general. Essentially, that means that people of all kinds are using Facebook. You have potential customers on Facebook.
Twitter
For some sites, Twitter is their primary traffic source. Now that Google is including real-time search in their search results, Twitter itself is getting more traffic. For newsy Google queries, newsy tweets are getting a lot more exposure. Twitter also has a way of making content go viral (much like Facebook does, only on a much more open and public level). 
LinkedIn
I spoke with entrepreneur Lewis Howes this week about LinkedIn as a traffic source. A lot of people see different advantages to that network, but often don't consider it a significant traffic driver. For Howes, its in his top five. He talks about ways to build your LinkedIn strategy as a traffic-driving tool.

StumbleUpon
Last year, WebProNews talked to Brent Csutoras about how to drive traffic with stumbleUpon. He said StumbleUpon is capable of sending anywhere from thirty to two hundred thousand unique visitors over a period of a week. More on that here.

MapQuest
MapQuest has a new geo-search engine, and is making improvements to its business search functionality. "We also have nearly 1 million City Search listings that provide a wealth of information and has the ability to drive traffic to the business web site," a spokesperon recently told me. "Businesses can offer very helpful information including menus, coupons, and more on their CitySearch listing.  Businesses should contact CitySearch to become part of the information feed." More on that here.

QR Codes
Have you considered creating yourself a QR (quick response) code that people can scan with their mobile phones? Think about what Google is doing. It's handing out stickers to businesses to put on their windows with codes that go to Google Place Pages. There are also ways you can make your own codes that direct users to your site. Then you can put that code in print media, signage, business cards, etc.

Blogs
You can still get a significant amount of traffic from blogs. Alice.com proved this a while back. The catch is that you have to do something extraordinary that acquires the attention of bloggers. Find ways to get noticed.

Pictures
A while back, we looked at some data from Hitwise that showed some photo searching habits. Including photos and optimizing content that includes photos can pay off in traffic, particularly in cases where photos are in demand. For example, if you can get photos of an event or of a brand new product that you are selling.
These are only a few ways to get significant amounts of web traffic, but each one requires some effort on you part. You have to work for traffic, and there are plenty of tools available to you to do that. However, don't just expect to slap up a profile or a piece of content and expect the traffic to come pouring in. It doesn't usually work that way.

via smallbusinessnewz.com

5 Reasons to Write Procedures in Twitter

Posted by Julie Norris on January 11, 2010 · 8 Comments 

Recently, I’ve been exploring the need for writing procedures in real-time, focusing on Twitter in particular. This is the fourth post in the series. In my last post, I was asked by Larry Kunz in a comment for thoughts on situations in which one might write procedures in Twitter. Five come to mind; I’ve described them below.

Push Information

The beauty of Twitter is that you can quickly disseminate information to a large, targeted audience. Initially, it would, of course, be followers of the feed in question. Retweeting then magnifies that distribution, possibly exponentially. In classic online docs (help, websites, knowledgebases, and the like), we wait for users to come to us. By using Twitter, we can go to them.
This puts an entirely different spin on the whole question of doc development. When planning a content strategy, consider this: what might you want to hand-deliver to your users vs. requiring them to come to you to find?

Quick Fixes

Let’s say, for example, that you have a procedure regarding a fix that’s needed immediately. If one user has a question about it and asks a question on a Twitter support feed, you can be sure that there are many that have the same question. So if a person retweets a procedure, it could possibly travel far. If there’s a negative comment (e.g., something along the lines of “this app doesn’t work, it’s awful”) it might compel a company to get out a fix or explanation, or a quick procedure to quell disruptions.
Example: late last year there were there hacking attacks that affected WordPress sites that hadn’t been upgraded to the newest version. Site managers that had not yet upgraded needed to act immediately to fend off an attack on their sites. News came through Twitter. It was retweeted everywhere. That’s how I found out about it. In such a case, you could write a quick procedure about the upgrade requirements as well as other information. Who knows how far a procedure might travel? I think that tweets pointed people to blogs and sites that had procedures or information about how to address the situation – which in itself is another excellent example.
WordPress is updated frequently. There are docs and blog posts in existence that describe how to upgrade to the latest version. It doesn’t matter what version; the same basic procedures apply to any upgrade. (That’s the beauty of WordPress. There’s so much information out there, and the open-source community is so helpful and collaborative. It’s wonderful.)
If you have an app that has regular updates (as WordPress does), or just has an impending release, why not have something written beforehand that you could point to when necessary? When I ran my Twitter procedure experiment on 12/29/09, Larry Kunz (@larry_kunz) made this suggestion:
“Also, and I know this is a lot harder than it sounds: anticipate the situation, and have responses pre-written, ready to go.”
This is exactly the type of situation that fits Larry’s suggestion. Anything that occurs on at least a periodic basis (such as app updates) should have some docs already written somewhere. Plus, said docs should be written in a generic fashion that would be applicable to any upgrade situation (content management in action) – not just one in particular. You can always address particulars, but have some clean generic docs ready at all times.

Product Launches and New Features

If a company has an app revision or new feature and wants to get the news out, a related procedure in Twitter might support marketing efforts. (As in, here’s our new feature; here’s how to use it.) It also never hurts a company to promote visibility of their products, keeping the company in mind. Pointing out features that would help users and save them time is always a good idea.

Real-Time

People are growing accustomed to getting information right now. They may not have the patience to look through online docs to find it. I cannot emphasize real-time considerations enough. There’s also always the possibility that one of your tweets will be picked up and distributed immediately once it hits the airwaves.
Either put a quick procedure in Twitter, or put in one tweet that links to the appropriate location in online docs or some other location, such as a SharePoint portal. Help your users. Answer their questions before they know they need them. Fix their problems. Monitor support questions and get something out there once in a while. Why not put a short FAQ in your support feed, particularly if it’s asked regularly?
After all, excellent customer service is always a good idea. Given that tech writers must perpetually sell their worth to a company, it sure can’t hurt to help customers.

Go Where Your Users Are

If users are scanning Twitter regularly or using Facebook, that’s where some of your docs should be. If they’re reading your blogs, think about adding procedures there. You can embed Twitter feeds in multiple places: WordPress sites, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Wave. Also, in Facebook, people can leave comments for each tweet that becomes a status item in Facebook. Look at the Mashable page for an example.
Remember: social media is a primary mode of communication these days. Start using it, if you’re not already. If nothing else, mentions of detailed docs and links to them can easily be integrated into these locations.
If your users are all at Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and the like much of the time, why not go there? If not, you may find yourself standing at an empty storefront.

About Julie Norris
I'm a writer. What else is there to be? Mostly, I tech-write, primarily software help. Been doing that for over 20 years, starting after getting my degree in Technical Communications. When possible, I also write for fun; perhaps I'll toss up some of those thoughts as well.

via 2morodocs.com

Is it Becoming Less Critical For Businesses to Have Websites?

Is it Becoming Less Critical For Businesses to Have Websites?

Can You Be Successful Without a Website?
Tuesday, February 16, 2010

By Chris Crum

I don't think there's any question that you need a web presence to survive in today's business climate. But do you still need a traditional website, or has the web moved on in that regard?

Do you still need a website to be successful online? Share your thoughts.

First off, let me be perfectly clear in that I'm not advising anybody not to have a website. That said, there are a lot of ways to have a web presence without actually having a site, and let's face it - maintaining a site (let alone a successful one) takes time, money, and resources.

According to data from Compete, Facebook has become a bigger traffic source than Google for some sites, and for many others, it is right up there with Google as a major traffic source. If it can drive the traffic, then that means the people are already at Facebook. You can be on Facebook without having your own website. Businesses can build a Facebook Page, complete with analytics provided by Facebook itself, and they can spend time making that page a good one. Here are some tips on how to do that. Facebook pages are perfectly capable of being found in search engines. In fact, they are often right on the first results page.

You know what else is often right on the first page? A set of local search results from Google Maps, courtesy of Google's Universal Search integration. Within those results (which are very often right at the top of the SERP) are links to individual businesses' "Place Pages". From here, users can find coupons, reviews, store hours, etc. There is a very good chance users will find this before they find your site anyway.



Google is actually going to great lengths to get people using these Place Pages. They are even sending out stickers with barcodes for stores to hang on their windows. When a user scans this barcode with their mobile phone, they will be taken to the business' Place Page. Social media profiles can also appear on these pages (although so can website links of course).

I probably don't have to tell you that the web is rapidly becoming more mobile. Smartphone usage and mobile broadband subscriptions continue to accelerate, and people are using a variety of devices, operating systems, browsers, and apps. Making sure you have a site that looks right across all of these is no easy task. This is not so much of a worry when it comes to Facebook pages, Google Place Pages, and other third-party entities.

In many cases, it seems that small business sites are becoming harder to find through organic search. If you look you can find them, but users want convenience, and they are probably not going to look too hard if they can find what they are looking for on the first search results page (or right within Facebook where they're already spending their time).

Social profiles show in up in search, and often early. The very nature of social media is viral. If one Facebook user becomes a fan of your Facebook page, that user's friends are going to see it. Then, maybe a couple of them also become fans. Then maybe a couple of their friends become fans, and that trend can continue on and on. The more people who become fans, and the more exposure that page gets, the more chance that page has of acquiring links, which of course can lead to better search engine rankings, not to mention a larger presence on Facebook itself, where a large percentage of Internet users are already spending a great deal of their time. Your reputation and following within the social networks themselves may do your profile well in the eyes of Google too.

If you sell things online, there are obviously many different options out there without having to sell from your own site. In fact, even Facebook and e-commerce are on the road to becoming more and more closely attached. People can buy/sell physical goods through Facebook.

A great deal of focus has been placed on Facebook in this article for the simple fact that it is the world's most popular social network. That could all change in time. But that doesn't mean the points would not sill apply to other services. Google is going to be placing a lot of emphasis on Google Buzz this year, and it's going to become integrated with more and more Google products. Currently, Google profiles are kind of the central place for a Buzz presence. Users can include any links they wish right into that profile (Facebook page, Twitter account, blog, eBay/Amazon listings, etc.)There's no telling how big Buzz can be, and there's always the possibility that something else will come along and take the world by storm. And that is one of the reasons...

Why it Still Pays to Have a Site

Can you be successful without a site? I think so. However, having a site gives you a more stable foundation, and still creates more opportunities than if you didn't have one. When you have a site, you have control. You don't have to adhere to the policy guidelines of any third-party platform. If Facebook decides to shut its Pages down (as Yahoo did with GeoCities, for example), you still have your own site that they can't touch. For that matter, having your own site certainly lends credibility to your brand.

Still, social networks continue to work on making data more freely able to flow among one another via a number of open standards like Activity Streams, AtomPub, OAuth, PubSubHubbub, Salmon and WebFinger. "The idea is that someday, any host on the web should be able to implement these open protocols and send messages back and forth in real time with users from any network, without any one company in the middle," says Google software engineer DeWitt Clinton. "The web contains the social graph, the protocols are standard web protocols, the messages can contain whatever crazy stuff people think to put in them. Google Buzz will be just another node (a very good node, I hope) among many peers. Users of any two systems should be able to send updates back and forth, federate comments, share photos, send @replies, etc., without needing Google in the middle and without using a Google-specific protocol or format."

Google itself, even has its own site dedicated to making user data for its various products exportable. That's just Google, but the web in general appears to be moving more in this direction.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a site, or even that you don't need one, but I think it's an interesting discussion. For now, I'm going to say having your own site is still in your best interest, but has a more social Internet with more portable data made a standalone site less critical? Is having a website going to be less important in the future? 

via webpronews.com

Reasons to Have a Facebook Page and Ways to Make it Better

Reasons to Have a Facebook Page and Ways to Make it Better

Chris Crum | Staff Writer
Get More Out of Your Facebook Page

I don't have to tell you that Facebook can be a tremendous source of web traffic. There's a good chance that most of the people you know are on it, and the ones who aren't may be eventually.

The social network is consuming more and more of people's time, and thanks
to mobile devices, it is always accessible. If you don't have a Facebook
Page, you may be missing out on not only traffic to your site, but a chance
to engage with customers and ultimately help your brand's reputation.

One of our blog partners, Jay Baer, of Convince& Convert
wrote a great piece about why you need Facebook for your company. He highlights "11 things you need to know." These things include how Facebook has 350
Million global users and counting (although Facebook has sinced announced
reaching the 400 million user milestone), and how the average Facebook user spends
55 minutes per day on Facebook. Nearly 80,000 sites use Facebook Connect.

He also notes that the Facebook Fan Box is becoming more pervasive, the average Facebook user has 130 friends and fans 2 pages per month. His statements are backed up by various reports and studies.
Perhaps you have a Facebook Page, but it's not performing how you'd like.
You feel it's a waste of time. "If your Facebook fan page is a bit of a ghost town, you're not alone. A fantastic study by Sysomos of 600,000 Facebook fan pages shows that only 4% of pages have 10,000 or more fans - and only .76% have 100,000 or more," says Baer. "That's why it is so critical to focus your Facebook strategy on activating the fans you have, not just collecting fans like baseball cards."
"The Sysomos study also found very little correlation between how frequently the Facebook page admin posted to the wall, and total number of fans.
However
- and this is important - there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of fans," he says. "Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook fan base, it is imperative that
you move beyond simple Wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content."

Promote Your Facebook Page.

Here are some places you can do that:

1. Prominent link on your site
2. Facebook Fan Box
3. Author Bio section on articles/Blog
4. Email newsletters
5. Other social media profiles
6. Google Profile (which is getting more attention now as a result of Google Buzz)
7. Business Card
8. Signage
9. Email Signatures
10. Advertisements

Have you employed these promotion methods?


Another one of our blog Partners, Dave Taylor, offers some tips from Patrick O'Keefe, author of the book Managing Online Forums, on making a Facebook page more interesting. Among
these are:

- Participate and make it routine
- Ask questions
- Host events on your page
- Highlight contributions from others
- Go beyond just text
- Integrate your other online presences
- Take it easy with apps, boxes, etc
- Run offline events, if you can

One thing you want to do is pay attention to your Facebook analytics. Pay attention to stats. Pay attention to changes Facebook makes in this area. For example, recently it was discovered that some admins were starting to see impression counts for each post, as well as the number of likes and comments for each impression. Like Baer says, test content types to see what works best.

via uk.mc244.mail.yahoo.com

HOW TO: Integrate Facebook, Twitter, and Buzz into Your Gmail

HOW TO: Integrate Facebook, Twitter, and Buzz into Your Gmail

With over 9 million posts and comments in two days, Google Buzz has stormed the web like a swarm of locusts. An array of strong features, integration with Gmail, and lots of press have turned Buzz into an overnight phenomenon.
If you’re like a lot of us, you’ve suddenly found yourself using your Gmail even more than you already were. Spending so much time in Gmail and Buzz though inevitably takes away from your Facebook and Twitter, and who wants to sacrifice their tweeting and facebooking?
Luckily if you’re a Gmail user, you don’t have to sacrifice either, even while you’re browsing your email or your buzz.

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Gadget Integration Is Your Friend

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Yesterday we caught a Buzz post by Ari Milner where he described how he turned his Gmail into his personal “social command center.” How did he do it? In his words:

“The key was using Gmail Labs feature at the bottom of the list called ‘Add any gadget by URL’. This allowed me to add these 3 features to my Gmail sidebar.”

By utilizing third-party gadgets, he transformed his Gmail into a place where he could access his Twitter, Buzz, and Facebook straight from his Gmail. Here’s how:

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Step By Step: Integrating Your Social Media into Buzz

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1. Activate “Add any gadget by URL” in Gmail Labs — you’ll find it near the bottom of the list.
2. Now go to Settings –> Gadgets. Here you’ll find a place to add Gadget URLs.
3. Add the TwitterGadget App. Any iGoogle gadget will do actually, but the best one in our opinion is TwitterGadget, a fully-functional Twitter service for iGoogle and Gmail. This lets tweet from the sidebar or open up your Twitter with all of your tabs intact. It even supports multiple accounts.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “https://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml”

4. Add the Facebook Gadget. In the same way you added TwitterGadget, you can add Facebook to your Gmail. While Google has an official Facebook gadget, it doesn’t play nicely with Gmail, so we suggest using the app Ari Milner users: Facebook Gadget by iBruno. It will expand into the rest of your Gmail for easy Facebook management.

To add it, copy and paste this URL into Gmail’s Gadget settings: “http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/facebook.xml”

5. That’s it! Google Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail are now all wrapped up into one. Pretty nifty, no? Let us know about your experience in the comments.

via mashable.com

New Facebook Design

by Jing Chen Friday, February 5, 2010 at 2:46am

Over the past few months, we've been testing several different designs of the home page to improve navigation to and discovery of commonly used features. Today, we started rolling out the most recent navigation updates to help you find what you are looking for on Facebook. Now from the top and left menus you can quickly get to what's new and important.

Stay Updated from the Top Menu

In the top menu, you will find your newest notifications, requests and messages.  For example, when you receive a Facebook notification about someone writing on your Wall or tagging you in a photo, you'll see a red bubble appear in the left-hand corner near the search bar.  When you click on the icon, you'll see a drop-down menu with your most recent notifications.

Notifications drop-down menu

The Home and Profile links can now be found in the top-right corner along with your Account menu, which includes your privacy settings and the ability to log out.

Discover Content from the Left Menu

The left menu has been organized to make it easier for you to communicate with and discover content from your friends. You can now access your messages and other core features all in one place, to the left of your News Feed.

With the Photos dashboard you can browse recent photos of your friends, and the Events dashboard lists your upcoming events along with events your friends are attending. The Friends dashboard will help you find friends, see which of your friends have recently updated their profiles and filter your News Feed by Friend Lists you may have already created.

Photos dashboard

We have also made Chat more prominent by showing you a list of some of your online friends in the left-hand menu. This list is not comprehensive, but includes people who you communicate with frequently. To see a list of all of your online friends, you can open the Chat bar in the bottom right-hand corner or click "See All" at the bottom of your left-hand menu.

Interact with Games and Applications

We're making it easier for you to find and interact with applications and discover new ones, with the new Applications and Games dashboards, accessible via the "Applications" and "Games" links on the home page. The dashboards will surface the applications you've interacted with most recently as well as your most recent application activity and your friends' activity.

You will also start to see counters next to the applications you have bookmarked on your home page. Counters will notify you when you have a specific action to take, so that you never miss your turn in a game or an update from a friend in an application.

You can bookmark your favorite applications using the "Add Bookmark" button in an application, and then you'll have one-click access to them from the left-hand menu beneath the Applications and Games dashboards. Click the "More" link to see all of your newest bookmarks.

Games dashboard

Another way to receive personalized updates from applications will be in the Applications and Games dashboards. News items will appear alongside applications in the dashboards with actions such as "Clean Stinky" in Pet Society or "Joe just beat your high score!" in Bejeweled Blitz.

We think sharing information about the applications you use enriches the shared experience between you and your friends.  At the same time, we feel strongly that control is an important element of any information sharing on Facebook.  That's why these features are launching with an entirely new privacy setting.

If you would rather not have your recent application activity visible in the dashboards to your friends, you can change this through your Privacy settings . We're also working on a more granular set of controls for specific applications, so that you can turn off activity for certain applications while leaving it on for others. We'll have more information to share on this soon.

We hope the simplified design of the home page will make it easy for you to stay connected with the people, applications and activities that matter the most to you. To learn more about the new design, check out the site tour.

via blog.facebook.com