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Last Thursday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that toymaker Mattel did not own the trademarks and copyrights in the Bratz doll line, and that competitor MGA Entertainment was not liable for copyright infringement. This case properly distinguishes ideas, which cannot be copyrighted, from the protectable expression of these ideas.

The concept that ideas cannot be copyrighted, but particular expressions of ideas can, is known as the idea-expression dichotomy. By not allowing a copyright in ideas, others may build, develop, improve, and elaborate upon the same idea and express it in unique ways. It is only these unique expressions of ideas that are protected. As a result, the public is enriched with ideas while creators still have incentives to author works. In Mattel v. MGA Entertainment, the Ninth Circuit buttressed this important distinction.

The Bratz doll line is the brainchild of Carter Bryant, who developed the idea while still employed by Mattel, designing fashion and hairstyles for Barbie dolls. While at Mattel, Bryant came up with the brand name Bratz and the name of one of its dolls, Jade, while also developing some preliminary sketches and a sculpt (plastic model) of the dolls. Shortly thereafter, Bryant left Mattel to develop the Bratz line with MGA Entertainment, where it has since grown to become a billion-dollar brand. Mattel successfully argued in district court that, because Bratz was developed while Bryant was still an employee, the Bratz trademark and the copyright in the sculpt and sketches was assigned to Mattel. I will cover the issue of idea ownership in more depth in a future post.

The district court found that the majority of Bratz dolls that have been created since Bryant left Mattel infringed on Mattel's copyright in the dolls. The Ninth Circuit disagreed and found that the lower court afforded the Bratz sculpt and sketches improperly broad copyright protection. In effect, lower court provided copyright protection of both the ideas and expression of Bratz, rather than just expression. Thus, a majority of subsequent Bratz dolls were held by the lower court to be infringing.

The heart of this disagreement between the district court and the Ninth Circuit was over which aspects of the dolls were copyrightable, and which were simply basic ideas. The lower court found that a wide array of elements of the sketches and sculpt were protectable under copyright. Specifically, it decided that the following elements were copyrightable expressions rather than ideas:

1. Particularized, synergistic compilation and expression of the human form and anatomy that expresses a unique style and conveys a distinct look or attitude.

2. Particularized expression of the doll's head, lips, eyes, eyebrows, eye features, nose, chin, hair style and breasts, including the accentuation or exaggeration of certain anatomical features relative to others (doll lips, eyes, eyebrows, and eye features) and de-emphasis of certain anatomical features relative to others (doll nose and thin, small doll bodies).

3. Particularized, non-functional doll clothes, doll shoes, and doll accessories that express aggressive, contemporary, youthful style.

The Ninth Circuit, however, found that much of this was not unique expression at all, but a shared idea. In his opinion, Judge Kozinski illustrated a range of other expressions of this same shared idea:

But many fashion dolls have exaggerated featurestake the oversized heads of the Blythe dolls and My Scene Barbies as examples. Moreover, women have often been depicted with exaggerated proportions similar to those of the Bratz dollsfrom Betty Boop to characters in Japanese anime and Steve Madden ads. The concept of depicting a young, fashion-forward female with exaggerated features, including an oversized head and feet, is therefore unoriginal as well as an unprotectable idea.

While a doll maker cannot create a doll that looks exactly like Bratz's Jade, it is free to make a doll that is its own unique expression of a young, fashion-forward female with exaggerated features, including an oversized head and feet. Kozinski ensures that Mattel, or whoever owns the Bratz copyright, cannot prevent others from building upon and uniquely expressing these basic ideas that underlie the dolls.

The line between idea and expression must be properly maintained. If an idea, simply because it is somewhat detailed (like the idea underlying Bratz dolls), is deemed to be protectable expression, we will find ourselves in a world more creatively impoverished. If what are basic designs, concepts, and other ideas are improperly protected, others will not be able to build on and otherwise express these ideas. In such a world there would only be one legal form of a song that overlays rock beats with classical music or a choose your own adventure story. Copyright law is intended to encourage creativity for the benefit of the public, not to lock down every new idea. As such, what is deemed to be protectable expression must be unique and particular, and not over inclusive.

The Bratz case draws the line between idea and expression in its correct position and ensures that Mattel can't abuse copyright law to halt the valid use of an idea. Thanks to this case, future doll designers, animators, and other creators will be free to contribute their own unique expression of the ideas underlying the Bratz.

Shared by Chuck
Sounds similar to the KeyesLabs' Automatic Application Licensing for Android apps ( http://www.keyeslabs.com/joomla/projects/auto-app-licensing/142-keyes-labs-open-sources-aal )

Nice to see the Android team officially adopt a similar model.

[This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem. Tim Bray]

In my conversations with Android developers, I often hear that you'd like better protection against unauthorized use of your applications. So today, I'm pleased to announce the release of a licensing service for applications in Android Market.

This simple and free service provides a secure mechanism to manage access to all Android Market paid applications targeting Android 1.5 or higher. At run time, with the inclusion of a set of libraries provided by us, your application can query the Android Market licensing server to determine the license status of your users. It returns information on whether your users are authorized to use the app based on stored sales records.

This licensing service operating real time over the network provides more flexibility in choosing license-enforcement strategies, and a more secure approach in protecting your applications from unauthorized use, than copy protection.

Our plan is to replace the current Android Market copy-protection mechanism with this new licensing service to protect your applications over the next few months. I encourage you to check out the Licensing Your Applications section of our Developer Guide and the Android Market Help Center to learn how you can take advantage of this new service immediately.

The seed of this apocalyptic rant was planted off-the-cuffly last week when I tweeted the following:

Old JFL: "Our next act appeared on Letterman and had his own HBO special."

New JFL: "Our next act has 10 million YouTube hits."

In my first stint here, said credits usually took the form of TV shows these acts were on.

Last week, I heard Australia's Axis of Awesome lay down their YouTube stats as their cred establisher.

And they weren't alone; acts like Chris Hardwick (a.k.a. The Nerdist) and Dane Cook had their live on-stage walk-on trumpet their web 3.0 stats.

Thats's one small step for a host, once giant leap for showbiz.

So here's this week's brain-splattering lesson:

The music biz is just the canary in the coalmine; The Web is about to destroy and overhaul all of showbiz as we know it.

The evidence is everywhere.

Yowtch!

But this type of paradigm shift (now there's a term I'm sure you haven't heard in a while!) is happening everywhere in the world of leisure:

• Amazon reported that digital ebooks are now outselling its hardcovers.
  
• The geeks have inherited the earth and now rule Hollywood's roost thanks to Comic-Con.
  
• Other than tentpole events, more TV is timeshifted than watched live...and watched on devices other than TVs.
  
• Green Day is simultaneously appearing in huge outdoor concerts, on Broadway and in Rockband.

Walking the Just For Laughs site last week, the digital divide was eye-poppingly evident. Live bands were replaced by iPod-packing DJs. Promotional flyers littered the ground as kids tweeted or texted reviews of shows, and intentions of attending them. Our Zoofest shows were packed with crowds who probably never read a newspaper in their lives, let alone be influenced by ads within them.

Consider the conversation I had with Guy Gal, a 26-year-old online video producer, a few weeks ago in Toronto. He was about to attend a Just For Laughs Festival Gala hosted by Louis CK. He learned the comedian was touring from one of CK's Tweets. He clicked on the URL, and bought tickets. And here's what's scary: Despite the fact that he was going to the show, he had no idea it was part of Just For Laughs. Worse yet, he had no clue Just For Laughs was even in town.

Exponential yowtch!

The Web is changing, and will continue to at a dizzying pace, the way people find out about shows, the way they buy tickets to them, the way they attend them, the way shows are marketed and--most notably--the content of the shows themselves.

Given AttentionSpan 3.0, how can I continue to shoot TV shows on a single-focused, old-Broadway-styled stage, and present them to an at-home audience with only one moving image on screen at a time?

Jeez, do I have my work cut out for me here.

So, to channel the spirit of P.T. Barnum, I invite you to step right up. Wanna really see something spectacular? Sit back and watch the greatest show of all--The way showbiz rapidly morphs into something that looks tomorrow like Nickleodeons or Vaudeville looks like today.

To start, enjoy Axis Of Awesome...and add yet another view to their YouTube deluge.

A cryptid is a creature who may be thought by some people to exist, but is not recognized by the scientific community. Cryptids appear frequently in folklore and mythology but as you will see tales of them appear still to this day. One cryptid that is well-known is Bigfoot. After the giant squid was discovered, I became fascinated (and creeped out) by these bizarre creatures. This list is in no particular order.

Champ and Nessie are creatures that have similar backgrounds and descriptions. People have reported seeing these creatures in Lake Champlain and the Loch Ness lake. Reports of Nessie describe the creature as being 20 feet long with dark grey skin. She is reported as having humps and at least one set of paddles. She has a head similar to a horses. Witness reports vary on the description, but not by a lot. The most reported sightings of Nessie occurred in the 1930s and still occur to this day. Champ has been sighted for as long as 400 years. Native American tribes have even older legends of a beast in Lake Champlain. Champ is also described as being about 20 feet long (lengths vary) with a serpentine body. He also is reported as having a horse-like head. Champ has had laws pushed through to protect him. The most interesting thing about Champ and Nessie is that they are thought to be dinosaurs that managed to survive. Descriptions of them are similar to a plesiosaur.

Chupacabras have been reported to suck the blood out of livestock, similar to the way a vampire would. The chupacabra has been a very confusing subject for crypto zoologists to research because descriptions vary so much. American chupacabras have been usually proven to be a canine breed. Usually, they have mange so bad that they look like another creature entirely. Researchers have found sightings as early as 1974. They have also found that the chupacabra is similar to a creature in legends of the Taino Indians. The Puerto Rican sightings have gathered the most interest. Sightings had been reported from 1995 to 1999. The chupacabra has been reported as having large glowing red or orange eyes, huge fangs, sharp claws, spikes running down it's back, and as standing on two limbs. In one sighting, the chupacabra changed colors before their eyes. One theory is that they are a scientific experiment gone horribly wrong.

These little guys were sighted in Flores, Indonesia, from ancient times to the 19th century. They're described as hairy and short with big guts. They walk like humans. They are said to have mimicked the words people said to them. Australians and Indonesians found skeletons of a new species of human at an archaeological site. They were believed to live over ten thousand years ago. The skeletons were about a meter tall. These skeletons were thought to possibly be the ebu gogo of Indonesian folklore. The ebu gogo have been used by Indonesians as a scare tactic to get their children to behave. The term ebu gogo means grandmother who eats anything. Legend has it that the ebu gogo and the people lived in peace for a while. The ebu gogo started killing crops and the humans' animals. They fled to caves when the humans started killing them. These caves were eventually set on fire after the ebu gogo stole a baby. Some were said to have fled to the Liang Bua caves, which is the cave where the archaeologists found the small skeletons.

Springheel Jack has been reported in London, New Mexico, Massachusetts, and Argentina, from 1837 to our time. Springheel Jack is thought to be a tall and thin man, who wears a tightly fitted hat and a black cape. He has large claws and sometimes his eyes are described as glowing a bright red. In 1837, a man, thought to be a police officer knocked on a woman's door, claiming to have caught Springheel Jack. She came back with a candle and the man had disappeared. She went outside to find a man by her gate. After giving the man the candle, who happened to be Springheel Jack, he attacked her. He spit white and blue flames out of his mouth and tore at her dress and face with his claws. He fled after the woman's sister came out after hearing her screams. In 1877, people reported their bullets shooting through him, while he remained unharmed. In the 1930s, he was reported being in Silver City, New Mexico, and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The reports remained the same. In 2005, he has been reported as jumping from one roof to the next, up to five meters high and ten meters long. Some people link him to Jack the Ripper.

Shadow people are reported worldwide and since the beginning of recorded history. Shadow people seem to be living shadows. They are usually seen out of the corner of peoples eyes. Some people see semi-transparent dark splotches. They vanish as soon as a person realizes what they saw. When people see shadow people a feeling of despair and fear overcome them. There have been some reports of being attacked or chased by these shadows. The shadows are usually larger than a normal shadow and doesn't resemble the person's silhouette. I have personally came across a shadow like this and a dreadful feeling came over me for a brief moment. It was abnormally large and moved, when I did not.

This beast was sighted in Wisconsin, USA. It has been sighted since 1936. It runs on all four limbs, or its hind limbs. It is said to be about six feet tall, built like an athletic man and covered in shaggy hair. He has a wolf-like face with yellow eyes, that glow in the light. A woman said it was the closest creature to resemble a werewolf that she had ever seen. He has a horrible odor of decaying meat. In 1936, this beast was seen digging in an Indian burial site. The watchman prayed for his life upon seeing him. The beast reportedly said gadarah to him and walked away on his two hind legs. Gadara was a Greek city, located east of the Jordan River. It is mentioned in the New Testament. According to the Bible, Jesus met a man who was thought to have been possessed by evil spirits. This man was so strong that he could break through chains. When the man saw Jesus, he worshiped him. He told Jesus his name was Legion, and that there were many like him. Jesus cured him of the evil spirits, by transferring them to a herd of pigs. The pigs then ran into the sea and died. The theory is that the beast of Bray Road was trying to tell the man about his kind and that his kind has been around since biblical times.

This creature has been sighted in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, USA. Sightings have been reported since 1966. The moth man is a gray and winged creature with large glowing red eyes located in what would normally be the creature's upper chest. It is about six feet tall and wider than a man. The first report was made by five males who were at work in a cemetery. As they were preparing a burial site, they had seen a creature that appeared to be man-like fly over them. In another report, a group of people were chased while they were in their vehicle going at least 100 mph by a similar creature. The mothman had managed to keep up with them for a while, before flying away. They claimed the mothman did not flap his wings while flying. Some people even reported their car completely dying, momentarily, when they have sighted the creature. The mothman has also been linked to UFO sightings and seemingly legitimate claims of men in black visits at a newspaper office.

Atmospheric beasts are reported to have semi-solid bodies and are often invisible. They can fly, but have no visible wings. Sometimes atmospheric beasts are reported as UFOs. Ivan T. Sanderson claims that most UFOs are actually atmospheric beasts. He theorizes that atmospheric beasts are animals that live in the clouds. Sometimes the atmospheric beast is reported to change shape, color, and texture. People who believe in atmospheric beasts think that the creature will die if they ever touch the ground. Some people even report them spitting streams of water at them. Others report that the beasts smell like mildew and feel like a giant soft tongue. They also seem to resemble animals of the sea, rather than land animals.

The Maryland goatman has been seen in Prince Georges County, Maryland, USA, since the 1970s. It is reported as having the lower body of a goat and the upper body of a man. He also has the horns of a goat. He's about 7 feet tall and 300 pounds. The goatman was first sighted by a couple of lovers who had been making out in their car. The goatman had an ax in his hand, while staring at the couple. He then ran into the woods. A woman reported that she had seen the creature in her backyard while her dog was barking urgently. She was too scared to go outside and found that her dog had had it's head chopped off, when she went outside the next morning.

There are legends of this creature in Africa. He is said to have looked like a mix of a man and a monkey. Legend had it that the creature had magical powers and enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Female pongos turned into gorgeous women in order to get close enough to a man to eat him. Pongos and humans could reproduce hybrid kids who looked like normal humans, but had cannibalistic tendencies. In 1847, the pongo was amazingly discovered to exist. However, it is now called a gorilla and known to be a vegetarian. Okay, I admit this animal is obviously no longer a cryptid. However, it shows that reports of cryptids may sometimes be over-exaggerated, and if some are found to exist they may actually turn out to be pretty damn ordinary.

Reuters - BP Plc defended its embattled chief executive on Wednesday and denied he would soon leave as the company prepared to launch within days a new approach to ending the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

If you spend a good part of your day using the computer, the 20-20-20 rule, that I recently learned recently from my doctor, might also help you relax your tired eyes.

The rule goes something like this.

The screen is bright and therefore, if you don't blink your eyes as often as you should while working at the computer for long hours, you can have dry eyes sometimes even followed by redness.

To help you deal with this problem, the 20-20-20 rule suggest that after every 20 minutes, you (the computer user) should take a break for at least 20 seconds and look at objects that are 20 feet away from you.

Since it is nearly impossible for any computer users to remember that they have to take a break every 20 minutes, there are free software programs that can help you in your mission.

For instance, there's a Windows utility called Eye Defender that sits in the system tray and, after a fixed interval, it will auto-run a visual training (see video below in full screen) for the eyes on your screen.

You are supposed to follow the pointer on the screen and this in turn should help relax your eyes.

WorkRave is another handy app that reminds you to take breaks at regular intervals to prevent computer related stress (including eyestrain).

It offers two kinds of breaks micro-breaks, these are short and are mean to relax your eyes, and then there are rest-breaks where you are supposed to walk or stretch a little. Workrave also has a built-in wizard that demonstrates the various types of stretching exercises that you can do during these breaks.

If you are an active computer user, these tools need to be on your desktop.

Related: Software reminds you to Exercise

Give your Eyes a Break with the 20-20-20 Rule

Originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal.

This is a guest post by Terry Van Horne. Terry is the founder of SeoPros and a 15-year veteran of Web development, currently working out of his consulting and development firm International Website Builders. Terry's interests are primarily the socialization of search and analysis of social Web traffic and applications like Twitter.

Search Meet Social ... Now Play Nice!

In the last SEO Training Dojo Friday Chat, I discussed using the Tumblr micro-blogging tools as a content distribution strategy. A few SOSG warriors wanted me to expand on it, so I decided to share this case study here on the WordStream blog. The temporal nature of universal search, which I had kinda stumbled upon before I embarked on this campaign, is partly why this strategy worked as well as it did.

This particular campaign took place during the holiday shopping rush. Timing the release of content and the channels the content was sent down were, IMO, big factors in ROI and conversion rate. I believe this is because people are sometimes frantically looking for gift ideas when shopping for Christmas. What better gift than something someone has just shared and better still "liked" recently on Facebook or another community? This strategy leverages the need to find a gift.

Universal Search Has Changed the Game Plan

Events are getting different treatment than they have in the past. Studying the SERP to understand the competition is important to a marketing campaign. The e-commerce space I was in was definitely seasonal I watched a reference and a media/blog site containing the primary term go from positions 1 and 2 to nearly getting bumped off the first page around December 15th.

During this time, the "Shopping Paks" (blocks of shopping results) get that much bigger, so there is no big change in position on the page it's just Google taking another piece of SERP real estate that drives traffic, pushing merchants below the fold. Hmmm, wonder if that helps those PPC listings in the "hot spot" at the upper left in the SERP? #JustSayin'

Just in case you haven't noticed, universal search is dominating the SERPs for the top terms, which means when the number regurgitaters say it is only about 25% of the queries, they are quoting very misleading numbers. Brothers and sisters, the universal results are driving some big traffic! So if you aren't tweeting or doing some kind of social media, you are not sending the temporal signals needed to crack the universal SERP. Where are the best places to get your temporal signals? Social networks, press releases and public relations campaigns!

Social Marketing 101

In this strategy, I used the micro-blogging communities Tumblr, Typepad and a couple of others that were supposed "spam holes." The client had a crew from the "Far East" doing Facebook and Stumbleupon. I bought unique articles which I made multiples of by stripping out product descriptions (for Tumblr) and editing the language.

I had already started a press release campaign using a mix of paid and free releases to announce events, product releases, support for a cancer charity and another charity for impoverished children. The company understands the role of PR (the old kind) so I had a budget to promote the scheduled "events." This is a new strategy I was implementing for the first time.

Press releases were supported by tweets, including coupons, direct links from Tumblr, the company website press release page, Squidoo, HubPages and a few others. The Tumblr strategy was to stick to narrow niches of products featuring name brands the audience was already interested in. Again, fulfilling shoppers' needs is still a super strategy and I can't think of a time when it's not the best marketing path to take.

All promoted press releases were for major events you'd find written about in a major NY paper, or significant change like a green product announcement or an online contest with a prize of up to $1000. The company milestone announcements were for the release of the first exclusive in-house brand and line of products.

This strategy was built on my instincts, which were screaming that news was creeping into the SERPs everywhere. Then I started to see the flux in the SERPs as Wikipedia and a well-known media/blog site seemed to be moving up and down based on the seasons. Of course, we now all know the period from Black Friday to about December 23 turns many query spaces very transactional in nature. Yes, the Christmas shopping season was largely responsible for this strategy being successful.

First off, let's make it clear I use no fake accounts on any communities, the exception being the usual suspects for bookmarking. Secondly, in no way is this a link wheel. Yes, it uses some of the same techniques, i.e., was there some cross linking of communities? You betcha! However, the bottom line is a link wheel is the millennium version of the old link farm or network! What I did was far from a link network, and if "finding my audience" is spam? Then call me a spammer ... that's my job!

The networks I targeted were based on a feeling of the audience being suitable for the products. Goes to relevance, my son. Relevance for my audience is what I seek only a dimwit chases search engine relevancy with expectations of selling to real peeps! Real is all that matters (i.e., that always puts lots of colored paper in the bank).

How I Made Sales and Drove Traffic Using Press Releases and Social Networking

Tumblr and Typepad are my favorite social networks. Tumblr was originally targeted because it seemed to be a young audience with disposable income, and Twitter searches were indicating that new activity had emerged in colleges. (Maybe it has been around for a while, but I'm well past hanging with college kids.)

The Tumblr community did visit the store with no tracked direct sales ([sigh] Google Analytics). The social distribution tools I discovered on Tumblr were just icing on the cake. I will be going into them in more detail later in the post. Typepad was great for visibility but beyond that not a lot of traffic and no sales.

Typepad is a favorite because the publishing and social tools work well together. The RSS feeds produced here are useful because it is an easy and convenient way to get more social distribution with little echo because of the varying sizes you can publish in. The excellent social tools provide superb control enabling me to produce more signal with less "RSS feed echo."

RSS feed echo is the result of having the same RSS feed piped into multiple social networks. IMO, this is too easy to spot and I got to think Google is wise to how easy it is to distribute these RSS pipes. What the threshold is I'm not sure. But I'm sure I don't want to find it, so I am careful of not tripping any filter that may exist.

Some of my Squidoo pages were in the Google results almost off the hop. I was able to use the Squidoo pages to drive traffic and sales! Ahhhhhhhh social nirvana! The sales were not Facebook-like but were sales none the less. Squidoo provides a number of ways to bring in multiple RSS feeds and pages come together quickly because a lot of the content can be sourced through feeds. I also like the multimedia nature of the content editor.

I also loved that they used Amazon product feeds, as the client had a store there as well. This is another way of getting around the restrictions on multiple links to one site. Especially useful was the ability to pull Tumblr feeds into a page based on tags. This ensures that the feed will always be relevant as you have control of the products displayed in the feeds. I used separate accounts in Delicious to do the same thing with news bookmarks.

The HubPages social network was my least favorite, because it seems to be poorly programmed or maintained. All I know is some images were impossible to upload. Linking to our sites was harder because of system restraints on the number of links to a single site and lack of viable options. Though there are many of the same components, the functionality of these was far below those I used on other networks. The workarounds on others for the linking problem were either not available or wonky. Therefore, HubPages also took much longer to build than all the others.

FckyeahTumblrRockz

The above is the attitude you often see in these young Tumblr users. Tumblr is the only social site that I actually go to spend time just surfing, i.e., for entertainment. Generally my surfing is restricted pretty much to work and Mapleleafs.com and related fan pages. I just love finding the works of truly talented young people. Tumblrati are for the most part photographers, graphic artists, young undiscovered models and web developers and in some cases some pretty odd kids. Let's just say fckyeah is a frequent 7-letter beginning to many nicks. You will see a lot of Formspring.me posts in some streams.

The really cool part about Tumblr is all the fantastic tools it has to distribute and publish content. First stop is the dashboard. There you have the ability to view your queued and draft posts. It is also where you can reblog and share other Tumblr posts from peeps you are following.

The publishing editor tool has a variety of formats for different types of posts. Video, text, link, chat, photo, audio and quote (works really well with the bookmarklet). Besides the usual queue and draft post options the publisher also has options to publish now, tag, have keywords in the post url and send to Twitter (setup in Customization of the template). In other words by far the best editor and post publisher I've ever used.

The scheduling tools at the top provide real control for queuing a number of posts and precisely timing their release. Since Tumblr is a secondary distribution, I have the time set for a period when I am busy and there is a good window to my audience during those hours, so I automate this a bit using the scheduler in the post queue.

Note that the publisher has the ability to publish at an exact time in the future. These features are excellent for people who are looking to increase productivity without the appearance of it being a sock puppet account. The "queue post" app also has options for publishing a set number of posts, starting at a specified time each day, with specified time intervals between posts.

Just like those pitches you see on TV ... THERE'S MORE! You can go the "customize page" to set up a custom URL and hook the RSS feed into Twitter and other places. Pretty much any social aggregator I've seen includes Tumblr. You can also pull in the Tumblr RSS feeds by tag. Did I mention that?

THERE'S MORE! Not only do you get these awesome publishing tools click the Goodies link at the top and you'll find a cornucopia of distribution and publishing tools. The bookmarklet is stored in your bookmarks and when you select text and click the bookmarklet, it sends the highlighted text to Tumblr! You may have seen a few of my Tumblr bookmarklet tool quotes on Twitter when I was publishing facts as I collected stats for the video SEO posts I was working on.

The TypePad bookmarklet is better still, with the ability to also include pictures! I get lots of stats from emarketer and it was an easy way to also post the graphs with the text. I will be doing more with TypePad in the Future.

There are more apps on the Goodies page. I use some of them, some I plan to use in the future, but that's not it ... THERE'S MORE! At the bottom of the Goodies page, under Tumblr 3rd party apps, you guessed it: even more tools and apps that work with Tumblr! So Tumblr provides not only some of the slickest micro-blogging tools, the Goodies page with more publishing and distribution apps ... THERE'S MORE! The Tumblr API looks very robust and gives you even more ways to use Tumblr. The only drawback is that at times Tumblr gets pretty slow and will time out on 3rd party sites, so this can be a problem. I found this out publishing on Squidoo during Christmas shopping season.

Looking for more? I have put more on this topic and case studies in the SEO Training Dojo, so to join today!

This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.

Google was granted an interesting patent today. The title is "System and method for modulating search relevancy using pointer activity monitoring". Here is how the abstract for the patent describes it:

A method and system of modulating search result relevancy use various types of user browsing activities. In particular, a client assistant residing in a client computer monitors movements of a user controlled pointer in a web browser, e.g., when the pointer moves into a predefined region and when it moves out of the predefined region. A server then determines a relevancy value between an informational item associated with the predefined region and a search query according to the pointer hover period. When preparing a new search result responsive to a search query, the server re-orders identified informational items in accordance with their respective relevancy values such that more relevant items appear before less relevant ones. The server also uses the relevancy values to determine and/or adjust the content of an one-box result associated with a search query.

"The patent presents a couple of assumptions about how mouse pointer movements can be interpreted," explains Bill Slawski at SEO by the Sea, who presents a much more readable explanation of the patent. "For example, a longer hover over a result may indicate a positive opinion about how relevant a listing on the results page might be to a query. And, if someone moves their mouse pointer across a snippet line by line at a normal reading speed, it may indicate a higher level of attention to that result than if pointer was kept in a static position or moved randomly."

"So, the speed and movement of a mouse pointer as well as where it is placed on a search result page might be tracked to see how much attention a search pays to different search results," he adds. "If someone hovers over one sponsored listing, or ad, but not another, that might indicate more attention and interest in the ad hovered over. If a local map is shown, or a definition, or some other OneBox result, and the searcher viewing the page hovers over those OneBox results for a while, that could be an indication that the map or the definition or other OneBox listing was helpful."

The patent was filed all the way back in 2005, and like Slawski notes, there's no telling if Google will actually utilize it. A lot can change in 5 years, especially in this industry. Either way, they've been granted the patent. You can read it here.

Google's App Inventor software for quickly creating Android smartphone apps is already pulling in positive reviews, and early concerns about the flexibility and general capabilities of the development kit look to have been relatively unfounded. Robert Oschler has been in touch to describe his experience with App Inventor: he put together a chat-bot style text to speech app with Twitter integration, and it took him little over a day of tinkering.

AppEliza is a free ELIZA style therapist chat-bot for Android phones. You talk to it and tell it your problems, and it responds via Text To Speech. It can also echo your conversation to a Twitter account. AppEliza incorporates Google's speech recognition web service and the Eyes-Free Text To Speech package, the former is part of every Android phone and the later is a free download from the Android Marketplace.

The excitement here isn't the app since AppEliza is a simple pattern based chat-bot that reacts to trigger words and phrases, mainly those dealing with feelings and family, and uses the power of ambiguity to fake it the rest of the time. The excitement is due to AppInventor, the tool that was used to create AppEliza in a single day, except for the Twitter support that I added to it this morning and that took a little over an hour.

Hyperbole is a huge problem on the web but I feel confident as a veteran developer to call AppInventor one of the best rapid development tools I have ever used and I am astonished at how fast I am able to create Android applications.

Not yet in the Android Market, you can download the AppEliza .apk file here and check out the sort of Twitter integration that's possible here. If you've tried App Inventor we'd be interested to hear from you; let us know in the comments.

At the TedGlobal 2010 conference Peter Molyneux showed off the latest progression with Milo and Kate for Microsoft's Kinect. The game, which puts the player in the shoes of Milo's friend, takes full advantage of the new capabilities brought on by the Kinect add-on by using voice and body controls as well as voice and body recognition.

One of the most intriguing points that came out of the demonstration was that Milo's mind will be cloud-based and will not reside on the retail disc. This allows Milo's mind to be constantly evolving even after the game ships. This will increase the accuracy and responsiveness of Milo the more people interact with him. It's unclear however if this will require the game to have an internet connection to function, although my bets are on it does.

Eyes-on: Peter Molyneux's Milo and Kate' project [Wired]

Milo and Kate Milo's Mind is in the Cloud - [eXophase.com]

Guest post by Scott Christensen.

What invention could be more straightforward than a needle? Maybe a hammer (stick with a rock attached) or a knife (sharp rock or bone). Ancient tools get a long time to evolve during which they generally improve and bugs work themselves out. Gimmicks get adopted and abandoned. Forms become simpler.

The common hand sewing needle would seem to be fully evolved from the thorn or fish bone that it started as. But one bug remains. Older eyes have difficulty seeing well enough to thread a needle. Cave men and women never lived to be old enough to have this problem. But Pam Turner did. The first time inventor from Minnesota had secretly laughed when her mother had trouble threading a needle in her middle years. But when she found herself struggling with same problem, she did that cool thing inventors do; she asked why. And she fixed it. After millennia of existence as a pokey thing with a hole in it, the hand sewing needle has now evolved into a pokey thing with an ingenious thread-by-feel side-opening slot.

Ms. Turner's operation is totally home-grown DIY invention. She began prototyping and sharpening all the needles herself. She buys machine time by the hour from a shop that has theprecision equipment to cut the unique slot that makes theneedlework.

The Spiral Eye side threading needlesI ordered arrived in the mail a couple days after ordering them online from the inventors website. They're small, so the packaging is minimal: a greeting card. Each needle is pushed into a small felt dot stuck to a business card which is slipped into a small plastic sleeve inside the card.She designed all this herself, though she considers herself an inventor more than a designer. (The website could use some help.)

I have observed that there is always a difference on the amount of pixel being displayed at least one pixel. Nothing can be perfect, and looking at the same website on each browser, you get to see no difference at all. But when you get a closer look at it (in between frames or image spaces), you will see that pixel difference.

Sometimes, due to the browser's different pixel-fetching, arrangement of letters in a paragraph also differs. Some of the letters, especially if it contains hyphenation, it moves up-down as you shift from IE7 to FX.

1.1 Font Display

I guess this is probably due to the pixel display of the two different browsers. In Internet Explorer 7, you can see up-close the emboss-styled texts. You can easily spot the difference if you are using Firefox's IE Tab Add-On. Upon switching from one tab to another (from IE7 to FX), you can see how the font's display changes from
embossed to un-embossed states.

1.2 Horizontal and Vertical Spacing Display

This is again, probably due to the pixel display of two different browsers. As I have mentioned above, opening same sites on two differentbrowsers would only seem to display the same buttons, frames and image spaces. However, upon close inspection, you can easily spot the difference by using Firefox's IE Tab Add-On. For super-techies, you can see the difference by overlaying screen-shots (e.g. Photoshop CS3) or by manual screen-shot pixel measurement to measure the exact distance or pixel difference.

Now my question is, why can't they just follow strict standards (or atleast in proximity)? I mean, I've read some articles in which these two browsers have corresponding or equivalent add-ons and other stuff, but how come in terms of the things I've mentioned above, there is really a difference? It would have been much easier on everyone else's part users, developers, designers, and as testers, as well.

Read more related articles here.

Despite its privacy issues, Facebook clearly has a key role in global Internet activity. It has become a kind of universal social network, being used for both personal and business needs. For many individuals, companies and organizations, Facebook has become an integral part of their branding strategy and promotional campaigns.

Facebook provides many tools for maximizing the effect of your presence on the social network, most of all by means of business pages, also known as fan pages. Using a variety of applications and Facebook API tools, one can get creative not only with the page content, but with the design, too.

In this post, we'll give you an idea of how to use Facebook for your business and self-promotional efforts. Below, you will find best practices for custom Facebook fan page designs, with various approaches to creating an attractive, descriptive and engaging Facebook business page. In addition, the selection of tutorials and resources for Facebook fan page development might help you get started with your own effective Facebook presence.

By the way, it's been two years since Smashing Magazine's Facebook fan page launched (now with 18,500 fans). We have worked hard to integrate discussions, useful tips and give-aways to make the fan page more appealing and engaging.

[By the way, did you know we have a brand new free Smashing Email Newsletter? Subscribe now and get fresh short tips and tricks on Tuesdays!]

Showcase Of Well-Designed Facebook Fan Pages

Giants of the Industry

Big brands demonstrate the best use of Facebook by far. Getting millions of fans may not seem like a big deal for Coca-Cola or Victoria's Secret, but these companies managed to create fan pages that engage users on a much deeper level than by just asking them to click the Like button. An interesting trend seen across this category is of large companies taking Facebook to a new level, putting it at the center not only of their social media campaign, but of their entire online presence.

Starbucks
Currently with the number one fan page for a brand on Facebook (with almost 8 million fans), Starbucks takes a distinctive approach, focusing less on loud entertaining apps and more on high-quality content and beneficial offers for its fans. Starbucks has learned how to effectively use status updates and how to share a lot of interesting, useful and engaging material aside from its product updates. The company also offers a couple of interactive apps that not only are fun (e.g. the Instant Story tab) but that offer tangible benefits (e.g. discount coupons, and functionality that allows fans to manage their Starbucks accounts right in Facebook). The fan page also has an interactive map that links to the company's regional Facebook pages (just as BlackBerry does, as we'll see). With no unusual visual indicators on its fan page, Starbucks demonstrates that functionality is at least as important as aesthetics.

Red Bull
The fan page for Red Bull is by far one of the best on Facebook. By implementing a number of innovative ideas and engaging apps, Red Bull makes the best of its Facebook presence and thus stands out from business pages for other brands. A good example of this is its Twitter stream, which, instead of featuring just Red Bull's corporate feed, assembles tweets from sponsored sports athletes and allows fans to connect with them beyond Red Bull's domain. Live Web TV that anyone can view right on Facebook and a variety of fun games also encourage users to interact with the brand. While the welcome page is not in the default menu bar, it's quite informative and serves as a compact graphic map of the entire Facebook page. Red Bull is also a pioneer of using Facebook as a recruiting tool; adding a careers board to a profile with so many fans makes sense indeed. Bravo Red Bull!

Skittles
Although Skittles' fan page features two brightly designed, eye-catching tabs (one a graphic presentation with links, the other promoting its Mob The Rainbow campaign), the company has set its Wall tab as the default. This is typical of popular brands that don't require an introduction. It allows fans and visitors to the page to immediately follow the company's updates and join the conversation.

Coca-Cola
Another giant with a million-plus Facebook fans, Coca-Cola has a fan-centric Facebook page. It encourages active user participation and interaction between the brand and its fans. The landing tab is set to the Coca-Cola introduction, which contains a dynamic box with latest updates and a Like button, links to other social network profiles for the brand, a fan highlights strip, and info about the product and the page's creators (by the way, this Facebook page was created by two Coke fans and then later supported officially by the company). Another highlight of the Coke fan page is photo albums: in addition to some standard product shots and event photographs, many other albums are included, presenting Coca-Cola not only as a popular beverage but as a multi-generational icon. Here is a good example of how to make use of photos on Facebook.

Twilight Saga
The default tab for the official fan page of the blockbuster series Twilight Saga is a large graphical tab promoting the latest episode, Eclipse. The custom tab incorporates elements of the movie's website and the trailer, live Twitter updates, links to official websites and other info. Two other custom tabs are dedicated to the second film, New Moon, and the official movie soundtrack. The entire page is rich in content and delivers its information effectively.

More Beautiful and Engaging Facebook Pages

Room 214
A nice approach to the Facebook welcome page is demonstrated by social media agency Room 214, based in Boulder, Colorado. The default tab, with its nice duo-tone and sketchy font, looks minimalist and attractive, and it focuses on introducing its team members. The About tab has a clean two-column layout, with some basic info about the company in the left column and cute roll-over links to the staff's Twitter accounts, official website, blog, contact page and corporate Twitter page. Another graphic tab covers the agency's clients. A simple yet well-executed fan page design.

Porsche
The ColorStyler tab on the fan page for Porsche is so darn great that one immediately wonders why on Earth they didn't make it the default tab? The pure FBJS tab allows users to select a Porsche model and customize its look in a live preview mode, with a nifty color and rims picker. One then can send the Porsche image to a friend or publish it on the page's wall. This hidden gem makes the entire page shine.

Digital Turf
The fan page for Digital Turf is an interesting and rather confusing case. The page design itself is wonderful: the excellent company presentation, two-level sub-navigation, diverse data and cute style is a feat of FBJS and makes this one of the most attractive business pages you'll see on Facebook. Here's the confusing part: Digital Turf specializes in developing Web-building and media solutions for political campaigns and organizations (maybe not exclusively, but that does figure prominently in its list of services). The question is whether this design style communicates the company's strengths well enough to attract its target audience. If it solved this concern, Digital Turf could turn its fan page, which is awesome as it is, into a Facebook promo bomb.

Revision Eyewear
The main tab of the Revision Eyewear fan page features an impressive Flash intro, with bold photographs and transitions and a dynamic Become a Fan link. The eye-wear manufacturer also uses Facebook for its charity work; a custom graphic tab on the page explains its causes and displays donation links (the Become a Fan button turns into a donation buttonvery clever).

Thurston & Betts PLLC
The Facebook page for law firm Thurston & Betts is notable for its Like Us! tab. A simple informational scheme in the center, with nice roll-over buttons leading to the company's website, is a clever solution: neat yet substantial. The tab also includes the firm's main contact info and a map of its location. It's difficult to imagine a better Facebook page design for a law consultancy.

Daddy Design
The fan page of Miami-based Web design studio Daddy Design includes two custom tabs: About and Portfolio. Both tabs use the page's entire width, which, along with the striking orange color scheme, makes this page hard to pass by. The business page is tied closely to the company's official website design, and it highlights a neat FBJS portfolio, with links to Daddy Design's social profiles. It actually creates the feeling of a website within the Facebook page. Great work.

1-800-Flowers
In our opinion, this is one of the best uses of a Facebook business page for e-commerce. By becoming a fan of 1-800-Flowers on Facebook, you can access up-to-date content, send virtual gifts to friends and shop for flowers right on Facebook (via the Flash-based application Alvenda). The company's Welcome page has a simple and attractive grid, consisting of four sections that engage visitors with various activities. Also, the cool promo code field offers a discount to anyone who hits the Like button.

The Game Team A
The Game, for the Sony PS3, has two beautiful fan pages on Facebook, dedicated to each of the two teams in the game. The two pages have a similar design, featuring beautiful graphical tabs (and especially fine typefaces) that link to the interactive Facebook applications. The About tab includes an interactive worldwide game stats map, which is a nice touch.

Oxelo
Oxelo's fan page would be rather generic if not for the inventive Diabolo Roller tab, which promotes its new model of roller blades. Built with a Flash app, it allows a nifty 360-degree view of the product.

Teesey Tees
Teesey Tees use its Facebook presence effectively: it partially implements an e-commerce element from its website that allows Facebook users to browse t-shirt designs in a sleek FBJS gallery, directing them to the regular store for purchases. The fan page also includes a blog and a charming fan-only tab containing a discount code. There is no About or Welcome tab, and the default tab is set not to the product gallery (which one would expect) but to the Wall. While this is normal for big brands, it's not so clear why a company with a smaller audience, such as Teesey Tees, would do this. Still, this is an attractive and well-executed fan page.

Threadless
Popular t-shirt producer Threadless takes the e-commerce on its Facebook fan page to the next level. Here, the native Facebook tee design gallery is supplemented by a size-selection menu and shopping cart buttons, which direct the user to the cart on Threadless' website. The customer review section, with its Share and Like buttons, enhance the shopping experience of this fan page. Threadless also makes good use of the video and photos tabs, which, along with the live webcast section and active discussion board, make for an engaging, community-oriented Facebook presence.

Cranium
Board game Cranium has a beautiful Facebook fan page, which includes several promotional FBML pages. It doesn't have any JavaScript gimmicks, just cutely drawn illustrations and cheerful colors that make for a positive visual experience.

Mark Meyer Photography
Mark Meyer's business page is a good example of how to promote one's personal brand effectively on Facebook. Using FBML and FMJS, the Alaska-based photographer outfits his custom tab with sub-tabs for his blog and photo gallery and an exquisite image slideshow. Status updates are also cleverly done, so that the Wall (the default tab) takes on the appearance of a photoblog.

Livescribe
The Buy Now tab on the Livescribe Smartpen fan page has an Amazon-ish design: it's rich in content and options, but may require the touch of someone like Jacob Nielsen to be truly usable. Livescribe effectively uses multimedia on its Facebook page, which certainly presents its product favorably and is good for fan interaction on the page. But we would suggest that the company rearrange the position of its tabs, putting some interesting sections (such as the Pencasts, which are animated Flash videos of handwritten notes and audio captured by the Smartpen) in the main bar, instead of, say, the standard Boxes tab.

Bodum USA
The highlight of Bodum's Facebook business page is its excellent use of an iFrame to embed the company's online store and interactive catalogue, which is powered by iPaper, onto the Facebook profile. In other words, Facebook users can shop for Bodum products without leaving the page.

Soul City Church
The Welcome tab of the Soul City Church Facebook page is by far the smoothest pearl in our collection of fan page designs. The clean layout, the neat typography and icons and, of course, the awesome combination of black-and-white photography and energetic green elements result in a stunning intro page. It portrays the church as a progressive and contemporary community. Credit for the great job goes to Monster Eyes.

Diesel
Famous apparel brand Diesel has three out-of-the-mold tabs, the most noteworthy of which is the one labelled Sex Sells. It is built on a Flash app and provides a stylish and original showcase for the denim collection of the same name.

Lancome Germany
This one will appeal to those who admire good typography. The About section of Lancome Germany's Facebook page takes on a website-within-a-tab format. It features elegant and polished typography, accompanied by high-quality photography.

Eco-Artware.com
The Facebook business page for Eco-Artware.com features a nice FBJS Shop tab. It's a pseudo-shop, though; in fact, it's just a featured product gallery, in which both product thumbnails and catalogue categories are linked to the official online store. Nevertheless, the clean grid layout and nice roll-overs for the product images make this a beautiful and useful fan page tab. Eco-Artware.com also makes good use of the Boxes tab by setting it as the default.

311
The official Facebook page of music band 311, particularly the News & Multimedia tab, is eye candy. Designed in a cool retro poster style, it contains basic info about the band and a built-in multimedia player. A large Fan Photos section reflects the band's commitment to communicating with its fans. Well done!

Rei
Outdoor gear and clothing provider REI uses its Facebook profile to foster strong interactivity, rather than merely to present a plain front. Its fan page is basically a community portal where the company engages people with its social campaigns and projects. The fan page includes two Flash tabs that feature community pictures, links and fun family games.

Desigual
The fan page for Spanish apparel brand Desigual is bursting with color, freshness and style. It is versatile, with various types of promotional and entertaining content, yet not overwhelming. The mood is set equally by great content and classy design elements. Desigual points out that the page was started by fans and then made official by the brand; this is clearly illustrated on the Wall feed, where user-created updates are set to default along with the company's messages.

Volkswagen
Currently featuring its soccer fan campaign, VW shows amazing use of FBJS on its page. Rich in content, up to date, well designed and heavily supportive of user-created content, this is the best Facebook business page that a popular automotive brand could have.

Living Proof
The fan page of cosmetics manufacturer Living Proof is all about interactivity and dialogue between the company and its customers. Chief among its many features is the dynamic Flash introductory tab, containing basic info about the company,a lab tour,a mini blog, links to customer support services and a corporate Twitter feed. The business page also includes an interactive app that helps customers choose the most suitable products.

Inspired Magazine
Inspired Magazine is one of the few Web design blogs that have customized their Facebook fan page. No fancy applications or high-volume presentations here; a minimalist FBML tab is quite enough to grab the attention of a random Facebooker and give them reasons to Like the page.

Sony Ericsson
Current Sony Ericsson promotions are presented via beautifully designed tabs, with videos, contest forms and interactive applications inside.

BlackBerry
Besides its several promotional tabs built with Facebook Javascript and Flash, the BlackBerry fan page features a nice FBJS map with links to local Facebook business pages. This does a good job of integrating the company's Facebook presence and promoting its local pages.

Resources And Tutorials

Here is a list of websites and tutorials to help you understand the basics of developing and promoting your Facebook business page.

Facebook Developers
This is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to take advantage of the variety of opportunities offered by Facebook. Related documentation, forum discussions, wikis and a showcase of best practices for Facebook integration are all aggregated in one place for both beginners and advanced developers.

Hyperarts
A lot of excellent tutorials related to Facebook fan page development can be found in the Static FBML & FBML archive on the Hyperarts Blog. The tutorials are geared to both beginners and advanced developers. The blog also features a series of video tutorials, which we're sure will come in handy for many of you. Some of the most interesting tutorials from Hyperarts are highlighted below.

All Facebook
On the unofficial Facebook Blog, you will find news, articles, tips and stats related to the world's fastest-growing social network. An extensive guide titled How to Develop a Facebook Page That Attracts Millions of Fans addresses its subject well.

How to Create a Facebook FBML Template
In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create a Facebook fan page in Photoshop. It uses a page for a photographer as an example. This is the first in a series; the second lesson covers the coding part. The source files, including the code, are available for download.

Facebook Programming step-by-step tutorial
This tutorial series consists of 22 lessons and covers all aspects of Facebook programming, including application development, displaying fan-only content and creating an interface for a Facebook page.

Static FBML: Not Every Facebook Fan Page Needs an Application
In this tutorial the well-known blogger Alison Gianotto walks you through what a Static FBML is and why it's sometimes quite enough to create an attractive and efficient Facebook fan page.

Extending Facebook Static FBML Tabs with Dynamic Content
Continuing from the previous guide, this tutorial explains how to add some spice to your Facebook fan page using the DynamicFBML function. You can build an image or video gallery or even a micro-site inside a Static FBML tab quite easily.

Creating a Custom Facebook Page
This useful guide gives you a head start on building your own fan page on Facebook. The tutorial includes such basics as Facebook page creation, restrictions on Facebook, creating tabs and displaying navigation and content elements using FBML and FBJS.

Google Analytics for Facebook Fan Pages
Another great post by Webdigi.co.uk, in which they show you how to get around Facebook's limitations. Even though Facebook supports only restricted JavaScript, which is usually not enough for Google to correctly track visitors, the guys from Webdigi.co.uk successfully managed to get all functions of Google Analytics working on their fan page. You can learn how they did it by reading this tutorial.

How To: Build a Facebook Landing Page for Your Business
This is Mashable's brief guide on how to add and configure a Static FBML tab on your Facebook fan page.

Internet Explorer and Static FBML: Using External Style Sheets for CSS
This insightful article discusses aspects of applying CSS styles to your Static FBML application in Internet Explorer versions and other browsers. The post includes an important update that takes into account changes in Facebook's API that affect the implementation of CSS styles in static tabs.

8 Essential Apps for Your Brand's Facebook Page
This article suggests a number of Facebook apps you could use to attract fans to your brand's landing page and to make them return repeatedly.

Add a Custom Tab to Your Facebook Fan Page (Starter Template Included)
Like some of the aforementioned tutorials, this one teaches you how to embed a custom tab in your Facebook fan page. But this tutorial is a bit more detailed than previous ones, explaining how to build HTML and CSS that adheres to the new 520-pixel width requirements set by Facebook, how to add a YouTube video and how to avoid using iFrames. Also, it contains a starter template code with comments.

Facebook Best Practices for Non-Profit Organizations
This Facebook fan page guide is written by Diosa Communications, a company that specializes in social-media consulting for non-profit institutions and small businesses. It's not exactly a list of best practices in the traditional sense, but rather a number of recommendations on how to set up and promote a fan page to the best effect.

Adding iFrames to Your Facebook Applications: 2010
Recent modifications in Facebook's API further restricted the use of iFrames. For instance, you can't embed one in Static FBML anymore. iFrames can still be used in the Canvas Pages application, though, which is the topic of this tutorial.

Developing a Facebook Application for Absolute Beginners
Applications have proven to be an essential component of successful Facebook fan pages. They're an effective tool for enhancing interactivity and engaging users. Fortunately, creating a Facebook application is not that difficult. Learn how to do it by reading this thorough tutorial by Emanuele Feronato.

Showcase

Not many galleries of Facebook pages exist yet. Still, the ones that do give us a pretty good idea of trends in this area.

Facebook Designs
This gallery is rarely updated, but it features some really cool Facebook page designs that we haven't seen in other showcases.

Custom Facebook Page gallery
Custom Facebook Page is run by the social media marketing group North Social. The gallery contains over 60 Facebook page designs, sorted into several categories. The most recent showcase is dated December 2009.

Facebook Showcase
Facebook Showcase is the most frequently updated gallery of the ones covered here. A lot of inspirational Facebook page designs can be found here.

Facebook Platform Showcase
This showcase is slightly different. Here you can explore how companies around the world integrate Facebook on their websites.

Customize Your Facebook Fan Page: Tips, Tricks, Applications
A quick overview of basic tips and tricks for customizing and improving your Facebook fan page.

Facebook Fan Page Templates

Many freelance designers and design studios offer customization services for Facebook pages. Standalone fan page templates are less widespread, at least so far. To provide you with the best possible starter kit, we've collected Facebook business page themes that you can get either free or at a cost.

Free Templates

Free PSD Facebook Template | Preview | Details
This 520-pixel Photoshop layout of Facebook fan page tab is available for free downloading. If you are looking for a simple graphical presentation for your Facebook page, this template may come in handy.

Free PSD: Facebook Fanpage Template | Preview | Details
This is a free mock-up Facebook fan page with editable text, posting times and other elements.

Absolutely Free Cool Facebook Template | Preview| Details
This graphic FBML template, along with the PSD file, fonts and HTML mark-up, is available for free downloading. The package also includes an installation manual.

Free FBML Template | Preview | Details
You can use this multi-tabbed Facebook page template for free only if you maintain the links to its creators and the copyright info in the footer.

Facebook Template Page | Details
This is quite a different Facebook page template. Basically, it's a worksheet available in text and PDF formats, allowing school students to construct a Facebook page for a character from a story or some other purpose. The template has been downloaded over 10,000 times and has gotten a lot of positive feedback because it is a new and exciting way for students to comment on their readings. You have to register to download the template.

Commercial Templates

Photographer Facebook Template | Preview | Details | All FB templates
A sleek graphical FBML tab, with an image gallery, text sections, social networking buttons and a reminder to Like the page. The template package consists of source files and the Facebook installation guide. Price: $11.

Corporation Number 1: Facebook Tab | Preview | Details | All FB Templates
A minimalist Facebook page theme, with space for one main image, the company's logo or tagline, two paragraphs of text and links to social media resources, including an optional RSS feed. The user simply provide the content, and then the developer implements it in this template. Price: $98.

Website Hyperarts FBML Templates | Preview | Details| All FB Templates
This package from Hyperarts allows you to choose between three Static FBML layouts. Take into account that these require that you make HyperArts a temporary administrator of your fan page. Price: Starting from $99.

Facebook Static FBML App 520px Site Template | Preview| Details
An attractive FBML template with integrated Flash file, which is XML-based. It includes a home page, with optional RSS feed, an About page, an image and video gallery and a contact info page. The template comes with installation instructions and some tips on creating a successful page. Price: $17.

My Style Facebook Flash Template | Preview | Details | All FB Templates
Among the highlights of this Flash-based FBML template are diverse transitions, multi-tab sub-navigation and a large image gallery in the tab header (760 pixels in width, of course). Instructions on how to upload the template are attached; and the developer offers additional customization services. Price: $13.

Website Image Gallery Template | Preview | Details | All FB Templates
This FBML template features a FBJS image gallery, horizontal top menu navigation, social networking links and side images. The website does not mention whether installation documentation is provided; perhaps it is provided upon purchase. Price: $20.

Facebook Flash Template | Preview | Details
This is another version of the Flash-based Welcome tab for Facebook fan pages. It's actually a mini-site, 520 pixels in width, with three sub-pages, including a slideshow and image gallery. It comes with step-by-step instructions on setting it up on Facebook. Price: $13.

(al)

Julia May for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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