The research was first published on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Based on public wiki  data.

The Facebook data was compared to online personality tests taken by the volunteers. Compiling the Facebook data into an algorithm, researchers could predict whether someone was white or African American with 95 percent accuracy, whether he or she was gay with 88 percent accuracy, and which political party that individual leaned toward with 85 percent accuracy. Gender could be predicted 93 percent of the time, while age had 75 percent accuracy. People who used drugs could be anticipated with 65 percent accuracy, and identified as drinkers 70 percent of the time.

While some preferences were obvious, such as gay men liking the No H8 Campaign, others were a bit surprising. Gay men also tended to like “Oz the Musical,” but intelligent men tended to like curly fries and love thunderstorms. People who like Austin, Texas, tended to be drug users, as were people who related to the statement “Relationships Should Be Between Two People Not the Whole Universe.” Like sliding on the floor in your socks? You probably don’t own a bong. Straight men tend to be Wu-Tang Clan fans and wake up from naps feeling confused.

Naturally, computers are not prone to stereotypes, yet patterns tend to emerge. How each group relates to each “like” preference, remains to be seen, and could simply be a statistical coincidence.

“Although some of the Likes clearly relate to their predicted attribute, as in the case of No H8 Campaign and homosexuality, other pairs are more elusive; there is no obvious connection between Curly Fries and high intelligence,” the paper said.

Personality could also be predicted, and that could be a problem, though a fixable one. The study found that likes were connected with certain personality aspects in a similar ratio to the results of psychological tests. The study mentions one case where retailers used data to predict pregnancy, and in one instance, a pregnant teen was inundated with ads related to baby products though she had yet to tell her family, putting her in an awkward situation. Michal Kosinski, director of operations of the Psychometrics Centre at Cambridge University and lead author of the study, said that technology should provide some protections against privacy invasion.
“Our results [also] show that these predictions could be potentially very intrusive,” Kosinki stated in the study. “There are technical ways to make sure that individuals have full control over their data, and technology can be designed in such a way that data cannot be abused.”

Users tap an icon in the right hand corner that supports messaging on the iOS app, choose which person to call, and if that person is online, tap the “Free Call” icon to connect. If the person is offline, the button is greyed out.

Facebook first tested the feature with a launch on its standalone messenger app last month. It first launched that option earlier in the year by allowing users to send one minute messages, but then released versions that allowed for actual voice calls. Facebook commonly tests out new features of its service on standalone apps to work out the bugs.

It’s worth pointing out Facebook did not launch the service through its Skype partnership and instead decided to offer the technology itself.

The move puts Facebook in slight competition with phone companies as an alternative to a phone’s default calling application. Facebook may have a small impact on the calls we place through traditional phone networks, but is limited as it relies on both users having the application on iOS and being online. It might make an alternative landline for some users who want to talk for free at home using their WiFi connection, but again that viability depends on the ubiquity of usage. It does provide a nice alternative to cheap calling services like Vonage, Skype, or Viber.

The service also providers Facebook more user data as the social site can better determine which friend connections are the strongest. This can help with its advertising platform as well as add more intelligence to its Graph Search features the company is currently rolling out.

How long before Facebook offers video conferencing? That could bridge a major interaction gap for the social network, as users will be able to have actual conversations that go beyond mere bullet points and adorable cat photos.

So far, the service is only available on iOS, though an eventual Android launch is also expected.

The verbs run in three categories, including fitness activity (run, walk, bike), book related activity (read, rate, quote, want to read), and video activity (rate, want to watch).

The actions make it easy for developers to integrate concrete actions in with Facebook’s graph, and in turn, gain valuable marketing information. There previously were a number of connected apps, like Kobo reader or Nike+, that make it easy for users to share and categorize actions. Previously, developers could have included these actions through Facebook’s Custom Action Tool, but the company made it an official part of its development platform to simplify, encourage and standardize the process.

Apps that have already integrated the feature include Nike, Cyclemeter, Endomondo, Jawbone UP, Log Your Run, MapMyRun, Runkeeper, Runmeter, Runtastic, SPLIT Multisport GPS, Walkmeter in the Fitness category; Bookshout!, GoodReads, Kobo, Random House Inc.’s BookScout in the Books category; and Rotten Tomatoes, Hulu, Flixster, Fandango, Crackle in the Movies and TV category.

Unlike Google which has hard data on users intent through keywords that can then be used to serve up related ads, Facebook typically doesn’t know exactly what users are doing in status updates. Computers are as of yet too stupid to encipher concrete activities from “LOL. Visiting my mother. Cookies up in smoke,” for example. Facebook’s new use of concrete verbs provides it analytic data on user actions, helping it to better categorize data on the Open Graph.

Naturally, there is a marketing edge behind the data. Actions in the Books and Movies and TV categories not only state what the user is reading or watching,  but what they plan to buy and how much they enjoyed it through a quantifiable rating system.

Users, for their own sake, gain a higher rate of engagement with the app.

“For example, the new fitness stories dynamically update when someone finishes their workout, and early data shows that average likes per story have increased by more than 2x,” Facebook explains in its blog post. “As we move more apps to use a common set of actions, we’ll be able to further optimize the performance of these stories and the user experience.”

Facebook will be rolling out a facelift of its News Feed this week, Reuters reported. The changes are the biggest to hit the world’s biggest social network in years. They stand to both increase advertising power as well as user engagement, a conflicting slope Facebook has been struggling to navigate. The new News Feed will have more dominant photos and videos and include a broader range of feeds for music, news and friends for better user engagement Facebook hopes will mean more time spent on the site.

At a press event introducing the changes at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters this week, Mark Zuckerberg described the new revamp as “the best personalized newspaper.”

“It’s easy to think about it as just a single stream of content but our goal is a lot broader,” Zuckerberg said.

Which hopefully will mean more time spent on the site.

“This is just going to provide more opportunity for people to click around and stick around,” Brian Blau, an analyst with industry research firm Gartner, told Reuters. “The newsfeed was kind of outdated. This sort of brings it up to maybe what’s comparable to sort of their competition, and partner sites that are focusing on media and richness.”

The new design will look the same on both mobile and desktops, though it was specifically designed with mobile in mind. Photos will have more prominence, meaning bigger friends photos and larger images in shared articles. This will also enable more compelling ads. Location checkins will feature a new map of destinations, with posts about businesses aligned with pictures of friends that have liked the business.

Facebook has also introduced new feeds to increase user engagement and time spent on the site. An “all friends” feed feature updates from friends, while a “following feed” includes branded content from news outlets and organizations the user is following. A “photos feed” is dedicated to images, while a “music feed” includes any music related activity of friends and people you’re following.

Following the company’s announcement, shares were up 4.4 percent at $28.67, though still a far cry from its opening day price of $38. Facebook has a ways to recover before it can look Wall St. in the eye, though this latest change seems like a step in the right direction. How users react remains to be seen, but in any case, they’ll just have to get used to it as the company learns how to better balance advertising with creating a user experience that keeps people interest.

The news was leaked to employees in a memo this week, according to the Washington Post.

Amazon had previously invested $175 million to take a 29 percent stake in the startup, a stake that has since declined to $52 million due to a number of operational costs that weigh down the company. Though LivingSocial managed to more than double its revenue last year to $536 million up from $250 million, it nevertheless had a net loss of $650 million, an increase over the $499 million loss the company had in 2011.

As the wind goes out of the sales of daily deal startups, LivingSocial struggles to regain share of the market in a turbulent and crowded space. Its rival, Groupon, has also struggled to maintain relevance since its troubled IPO in 2011. Groupon’s stock debut at $20 a share, but is currently worth around $5.60.

Last November, LivingSocial laid off 400 employees, or 10 percent of its work force. In December, PandoDaily reported LivingSocial was running dangerously low on cash and owed a lot to merchants.

This latest investment will be used to build reserves, solidify long term strategies, and attempt to reach profitability.

“…we have an aggressive roadmap for profitability and expansion this year, and those plans include increased investment in areas like marketing, technologies, and mobile,” the memo reads. “This new investment round will allow us to dedicate the resources we need, while also building a significant cash reserve against unanticipated events or bumps in the road.

“This new investment does not change our plans to reach profitability, and we believe that a cash-flow positive and growing company will give us even deeper resources to take advantage of new opportunities, extend our promising lines of business, and expand a robust funnel of new customers,” the memo added.

Last December, the Unabhaengiges Landeszentrum fuer Datenschutz maintained that as German law protects “the fundamental right to freedom of expression on the Internet,” German citizens should be able to utilize the social network “largely unnoticed and without fear of unpleasant consequences” by using a pseudonym. That’s a direct contradiction of Facebook’s real names policy, which requires users to use their real names “so you always know who you’re connecting with,” as the policy states. Facebook said the rule is designed to “keep communities safe,” though it does little to actively enforce the policy when user’s opt for alternative names.

“It is unacceptable that a U.S. portal like Facebook violates German data protection law unopposed and with no prospect of an end,” Thilo Weichert, Privacy Commissioner and head of ULD, said in a statement at the time. “The aim of the orders of ULD is to finally bring about a legal clarification of who is responsible for Facebook and to what this company is bound to.”

The court effectively ruled that German data protection laws did not apply to Facebook as the company’s European division was headquartered in Ireland and outside of German jurisdiction.
In response, the ULD pointed out that the ruling effectively creates “a one-stop-shop system such as in a European privacy basic regulation,” according to a translated statement from the German data protection agency. It vowed to appeal on the grounds that the agency should have jurisdiction over the use of the network by German citizens.

Thilo Weichert ,head of the ULD, described the court’s decision  as “more than amazing” and “contradictory.”

Naturally, Facebook celebrated the decision.

“We are pleased with the decision, [which] we believe … is a step into the right direction,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “We hope that our critics will understand that it is the role of individual services to determine their own policies about anonymity within the governing law – for Facebook Ireland European data protection and Irish law. We therefore feel affirmed that the orders are without merit.”

“2013 is poised to be digital’s most exciting year yet as the growing ubiquity of digital platforms presents marketers with nearly endless opportunities to connect and engage with consumers,” said Linda Abraham, comScore CMO and EVP of Global Product Development. “It’s clear that the dynamics of the marketplace have fundamentally evolved through the adoption of smartphones and tablets and the increasingly ‘digital’ nature of all media. Navigating this changing landscape requires a holistic understanding of the key trends, underlying drivers and new opportunities that the digital ecosystem will bring in the year ahead.”

And while Google continues to lead online search, Bing has gained ground, pushing out Yahoo for the number 2 position in terms of search engine popularity. Now that Facebook’s search is powered by Bing, this trend will only continue to escalate, at least until Facebook’s new Graph Search grows large enough that it doesn’t need to rely on Bing so heavily.

Of those 6 trillion ads, about 1.4 trillion were served in the fourth quarter, a 6 percent increase over the previous year. About one in eight ads are socially enabled, encouraging the consumer to follow the ad through “like” or “follow” buttons.

Strong marketing ROI metrics have led to a healthy digital ad market, but the report noted that an average of 3 out of 10 ads fail to deliver correctly to be viewable, meaning ad companies paid for an ad spot that failed to load. The report predicts that the industry will respond, anticipating that advertisers will “demand more accountability and publishers to reconfigure their site design and ad inventory to improve performance in the coming year.”

Programmatic buying has led to smarter advertising, which has caused the industry to focus its targeting rather than expand its efforts. About 144 advertisers delivered 1 billion ad impressions in the fourth quarter of 2012, fairly comparable to the 145 that delivered advertising in 2011.

Advertisers are putting greater efforts into private exchanges where they can use analytics to prove the effectiveness of  the ads.

AT&T took the lion’s share of the advertising at an impressive 1.04 tillion, more than double Microsoft’s 50 billion, which took second place.

Facebook was the most popular smartphone app in America, present on 76 percent of phones. Google, however, owned five of the six most popular apps Maps, Google Play, Google Search, Gmail, and YouTube take positions two through six.

The lawsuit, as well as similar cases still pending, contends that analysts of large underwriting investment banks lowered financial forecasts of Facebook just before its IPO and informed only a small number of clients, and that Facebook failed to make disclosures about weakened revenue growth due to difficulties to monetize a growing mobile platform. US District Judge Robert Sweet dismissed the lawsuits of plaintiffs William Cole, Hal Hubuschman and Linda Levy because they bought their shares on the stock’s opening day after Facebook had already amended its IPO filing.

The plaintiffs do have the option to revise and refile the lawsuits.

Filed by investors on behalf of a corporation, the lawsuits are derivative cases, not class actions taken on behalf of a group of shareholders.

With shares more than 25 percent below Facebook’s opening day price of $38, investors have been left holding the bag following the botched May 18 IPO. Facebook managed to raise $16 billion in the most anticipated IPO since Google went public in 2004.

The plaintiffs had argued that several media outlets reported Facebook had provided analysts with warnings about its mobile efforts, and that information was selectively disclosed to buyers. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs failed to prove such disclosure “significantly altered the total mix of information in the marketplace,” and that Facebook had “repeatedly made express and extensive warnings” about its transition to mobile.

Sweet did rule that a proposed class action against NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. over the IPO would remain in his court. The plaintiff had asked that the case be moved to the New York State Supreme Court where it was filed initially. Facebook lawyers had argued the case belonged in a Delaware court because that is where the company is officially incorporated. Sweet argued that any cases dealing with NASDAQ’s trading system fell under federal jurisdiction because the system follows SEC rules.

The suit is one of 1 cases involving NASDAQ and the IPO. On the day Facebook went public, auction software failed to keep up with the speed of the sale, resulting in delays, botched cancellations and sales. In the case to remain in Sweet’s court, plaintiff Michael Zack issued a cancel order that took an hour and a half to process.

It took some sizable companies to attain that kind of reach. The company surpassed 650 clients with 300 leading online businesses. Customers include Wal-Mart, DirectTV, RedBox, Beats Electronics, Pacific Sunwear (PacSun), American Heart Association, Jelly Belly, Barneys New York, Bad Boy Marketing Group, Adidas, Food Network, AlItalia and LUSH Cosmetics. The company now works with over 50 percent of the comScore Top 100 U.S. web properties.

“Gigya’s growth over the last year has been astounding,” said Patrick Salyer, CEO of Gigya. “We’re on our way to becoming universal on the web and we won’t stop until every consumer-facing enterprise is using our technology.”

Last year, the company tripled its sales growth over 2011. Its fourth quarter was the company’s largest ever with 33 percent quarter-over-quarter growth.

Gigya works to socialize the web by providing companies with a one-stop shop to share social experiences. The company provides social log-in, commenting, sharing features and gamification through easy plug-ins that encourage sharing.

The company has more than 150 employees, with plans to add another 70 over the next year. It has offices in Mountain View, CA, London and Tel Aviv. It most recently raised $15.3 million last year.

Yet Facebook’s graph search is very different from web search, despite that it was designed by Lars Rasmussen and Tom Stocky, two ex-Google heavyweights Facebook attracted to its side. Graph Search is designed to find content already on Facebook’s Open Graph, which includes comments, content shared, music listened to, and very soon, what movies you may have watched on Netflix. If the search can’t be covered in Facebook’s Open Graph, Microsoft’s Bing steps in to provide web search in a new partnership between the search engine and Facebook. The Open Graph includes a billion people, 240 billion photos, and 1 trillion connections.

Notably, Facebook’s Graph Search serves up information Google has no access to, and is centered on four key areas: People, Photos, Places and Interests. You can discover which restaurants in the city have been enjoyed by your friends, which ones own dogs, and which are staunch Republicans. The results are based not only on your friends, but the frequency of your interactions with them.

“If anyone else does this search they get a completely different set of results,” Stocky said at a press conference. “Even if someone had the same set of friends as me, the results would be different [because we know our friends differently.)”

Not yet available to the public, Graph Search is currently in beta. It will begin with English speakers in the US first. There is a waiting list to join the beta test.

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg described Graph Search, along with news feed and Timeline, as “one of the three main pillars of Facebook.”

The search results will be actual answers, not just links to the answer, Zuckerberg explained.

“We came up with something we think is a lot more natural,” he said.

As the new Graph Search makes an ideal dating tool but also a potentially sketchy super stalking tool, the company rolled out Privacy Shortcuts a few weeks ago to make it easy to opt some content out of the search function. Nevertheless, this level of openness introduced to the social network will have unintentional consequences.

Yet it also has enormous marketing potential, and pretty much turns Yelp on its head. Upon news of Facebook’s Graph Search, Yelp stock slipped 8 percent.

Facebook stock did not exactly surge at the news, either. After starting out on a high of $31.71, the stock slipped to a low of $29.88 before recovering slightly to $30.10