'Net Features : social apps

Social Technologies for the New Year

Allison Howen — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Over the last few years social networks have made a huge impact on how businesses operate (to say the least), and Web workers should know that there are no signs of this trend slowing down anytime soon.

Not only do most businesses manage social profiles on sites like Facebook and Twitter, but developers have also worked hard to stay connected with consumers by integrating social features into websites, such as “share” and “follow’ buttons. In fact, the Internet is full of extensions, applications, technologies and services that can help customers connect better with brands on the Web.

Learn how to make your site more social for the New Year with Website Magazine's "Staying Social in 2013."

Create Custom Facebook Tabs with New Social App

Linc Wonham — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:00:00 GMT

Businesses on the Web looking to move beyond their walls and info pages on Facebook now have the opportunity to add custom tabs that reward fans with exclusive brand content.

Fan Tabz is a new social marketing application from Fan Appz that empowers businesses to create multiple Facebook tabs with just a few clicks, including campaign-specific tabs for sweepstakes or promotions, custom welcome pages, fan-only wall tabs and more. Key features include the following:

• Ease of Use: Get Fan Tabz up and running with just a few clicks, then use the tab creation wizard to create and launch your new tabs. Fan Tabz also lets you organize your pages into groups for easy management of tabs across multiple pages.

• Reliability: Fan Tabz is a product of Fan Appz, a Facebook-preferred developer whose technology is relied upon by many of the world’s largest brands as well as tens of thousands of smaller businesses to power critical social marketing programs.

• Powerful and Feature-rich: In addition to using Fan Tabz to instantly create custom tabs, companies can also create customizable walls just for fans, “gate” different content for fan-only experiences and add up to five custom tabs to each page. Fan Tabz can also be used by developers to build customized tabs that are linked to brand websites or back-end systems.

Actor Rob Lowe is using Fan Tabz to help promote the launch of his new memoir. Fan Tabz enables Lowe to offer exclusive content from the book on his Facebook page in return for people becoming fans, as well as additional content only available on his Facebook page.

“Fan Tabz makes it easy to post links, photos, video or audio clips from my book and keep my fans up to date on what’s going on in my life,” says Lowe.

Fan Tabz is available for $19.95 per month.

MySpace Featured Apps Coming

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:13:00 GMT

Once the de facto social network, MySpace today is overshadowed by the likes of Facebook in a big way. Hopefully, that won't come as too big of a shock.

While that won't change in short order, at least MySpace realizes that you have to work harder when you're in second place. The network is planning to launch a new "Editor's Pick" category in its application directory next week to help members find the platform's best apps. Though that certainly won't be enough to bring back the hordes that left for Facebook, it's certainly a good start.

MySpace has already started accepting submissions from developers:

If you'd like to be considered for this category, please send an email to developerrelations(at)myspace dot com. Include "Editor's Pick Category" in the subject line, and provide a reason why you feel your application should be in the spotlight and why your application stands above the rest. Be sure to include a 200 character description and an 128x128 icon image.

Those that have developed applications for the network should definitely continue producing as long as it yields a return. This program may help considerably. MySpace remains a major player in the social sphere and should not be ignored or added to the dead pool just yet.