When New York Times website crashes, newspaper turns to Facebook Notes

When The New York Times’ website suffered some downtime Wednesday because of technical issues, the newspaper turned to Facebook Notes to post stories.

Using Facebook Notes, The New York Times posted the entirety of three stories onto its Facebook page.

The newspaper explained the issue in a Facebook post, linking to a note containing a news story:

As you may be aware, The Times is experiencing a server issue that has resulted in our Web site being temporarily unavailable. We expect the site to be restored soon.

In the meantime, we are publishing key news articles in their entirety here on Facebook.

It will be interesting to see the engagement metrics on these stories at the end of the day. Facebook Notes are becoming a rarely-used utility for users and even rarer for pages. There have been some rumblings that Facebook might strengthen Notes, using its acquired team from Storylane, turning it into a Tumblr competitor.

Photo courtesy of Erika Cross / Shutterstock.com.

Mediabistro Online Course

You’ve mastered writing and editing for publications. But can you crop and resize photos, navigate a content management system, or understand what makes a great user experience? Learn all of this in our Online Production for Writers and Editors class starting Tuesday, August 20th. Hurry – this class is almost full! Register now.

View the original article here

CityVille: McDonald's is back again, this time in Times Square

Trying to prove that you can never have too much advertising in a Facebook game, McDonald's has come back to CityVille yet again, with the newest installment in the themed restaurant franchise being the Times Square McDonald's. As usual, this Times Square McDonald's replaces the general "Burger Restaurant" in your city, but this will only remain true for a limited time.

In this particular promotional period, you'll have just 12 days to earn enough mastery points to receive a special prize at the end worth an 18% payout bonus. Each time you wish to supply the business, it will cost your 100 Goods. For each supply, you'll earn a single mastery point, and the business is considered to be completely mastered after you've collected 20 points. Remember, in order to more quickly master this particular business, you'll want to only leave it "open" in your city. That is, only supply it with Goods and leave the rest of your businesses static, so that all of your town's potential customers immediately head to the McDonald's.

Again, this Times Square McDonald's building will only be available in the game for the next 12 days, at which point the business will likely revert once again into a general Burger Restaurant. Make sure to master this version in time for the exclusive new decoration and good luck in doing just that!

Are you excited to see McDonald's returning yet again to CityVille? What other sorts of real-world businesses would you like to see represented in the game? Sound off in the comments.

Bookmark this site!

View the original article here

60 million monthly users engage with apps on Facebook mobile platform; average 5 times per month

Facebook Director of Product Management Carl Sjogreen revealed that more than 60 million monthly users engage with mobile applications via Facebook, 320 million times per month since the mobile platform launched in October 2011. Sjogreen shared this statistic during a fireside chat with Founder of Inside Network Justin Smith at the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco.

[Update 2/9/12 12:47 p.m. - An earlier draft of this story was unclear that the 60 million users who engage with apps on Facebook's mobile application are monthly active users.]

This means that 60 million users navigate to either mobile web or native applications that integrated with Facebook each month, and these users engage with apps roughly five times per month. With 425 million monthly active users who access the social network via mobile, this also means that roughly 14 percent of Facebook’s mobile users engage with third-party apps directly from the mobile platform. The company has not offered numbers on how many of its 425 million mobile users have smartphone devices that are capable of running third-party Facebook apps.

When asked about the value proposition of HTML5 to application and app developers, Sjogreen said, “We don’t really care whether developers build for mobile web or native apps,” noting that in his view, the decision is not either-or. Instead, Sjogreen made the point that ”The people you want to play with trump whatever the platform the app is on. If your fundmental gameplay revolves around interacting with friends, then being cross platform is really important.”

Many developers face a dilemma. They can develop native apps for iOS and Android, which can include advanced functionality and graphics, but are often more costly and difficult to maintain. Alternatively, developers can build HTML5-compatible mobile web applications, which lack some of the advanced features of native apps, but can accessed on any platform, which significantly reduces development costs and enables all users to access their apps.

Sjogreen’s comments reinforce that Facebook will support all developers, but emphasizes cross-platform compatibility as an increasingly important factor to consider. This makes sense in the context of building social applications where users interact with friends across different platforms and devices. For app distribution and notifications through Facebook to work effectively for users, apps need to be accessible on whichever device an individual is using at the moment they receive a notification or see activity in News Feed or Ticker.

For more coverage of Sjogreen’s fireside chat from Inside Social Apps today, see our liveblog summary here.

View the original article here

When Super Mario 3D Land hits Times Square, fans freak out [Video]

by Joe Osborne, Posted Nov 14th 2011 10:00AM

Look, we both know that Super Mario is kind of a big deal. When a new game featuring the plumber in red and blue leaps into release, it almost always sets the standard for whatever Nintendo machine it lands on to much fanfare. But we had no idea that said fanfare could ever surpass "Nintendo 64 Kid" levels. That is, until Super Mario 3D Land for the 3DS arrived.

To honor Mario's long-awaited entrance into the third dimension, Nintendo transformed a part of Times Square in New York City into a real-life chunk of the Mushroom Kingdom. And the results are entertaining, to say the least. Between trained stunt artists leaping around like Mario and a dude dressed up like a raccoon tanooki, dude knows how to draw a crowd. Well, at least a crowd of super Super Mario fans. Who knows, this just may be what the 3DS needs.

Are you a bonafide Mario fan? What do you think of Mario's first romp into 3D, and more importantly, the 3DS? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

Bookmark this site!

Tags: 3ds, mario, nintendo, nintendo 3ds, super mario, super mario 3d land, super mario 3d land new york, super mario 3d land times square

View the original article here

CityVille gets new tropical items: It's Tiki times two!

Just yesterday, we gave you a complete look at the new tiki-themed decorations and buildings in CityVille, but wait! There's more! The game has been updated again this evening, showing off even more tiki-themed items, including some functional buildings that go for coins (notice I didn't say they were cheap).

Here's the new set of items that are now available:
Muana Lani Theater (Community Building) - 80 City Cash - Allows 2,150 extra citizens to live in your town\Nanaue Treehouse (Home) - 55 City Cash - 1010-1990 PopulationKu Drive-In (Business) - 300,000 coins - Requires 330 Goods; Earns 1759 coinsSong Bird Pet Shop (Business) - 150,000 coins - Requires 320 Goods; Earns 1719 coinsLono Lanes (Decoration) - 20 City Cash - 12% bonus payoutParrot Jungle (Decoration) - 25 City Cash - 14% bonus payoutSand Castle (Decoration) - 10,000 coins - 4% bonus payoutFish Fountain (Decoration) - 10,000 coins - 4% bonus payout
As a special note, the Sand Castle item isn't a fully constructed Sand Castle - it's a set of people building a castle on the beach, with a completely sand footing. That is, placing it on the grass makes it really stand out, so if you haven't expanded out into the beach yet, you might want to do that before purchasing one of these.

Some of these items are limited edition, only being available for four or five days, but items like the Pet Shop and Sand Castle are available for life. With this theme looks like it will turn into something fairly epic in the game, we'll make sure to let you know if more content is launched in the theme in the future.

What do you think of this new set of tiki-themed items? Do you always purchase all of the limited edition items that are available, or does item exclusivity not do anything for you? Sound off in the comments.

Bookmark this site!

View the original article here