FastCompany Magazine

Behold The Power Of Facebook!

Oops! A Facebook Connect glitch-slash-bug banjaxed some of the world wide web’s major players yesterday, redirecting their sites to a Facebook error page. Websites that suffered a wipeout included CNN, NBC News and AOL’s Huffington Post. The Verge reported that its sister sites Polygon andSBNation had also taken one for the team. The problem seemed to be for people logging in to other sites via Facebook.

Never underestimate the power of Facebook, o beloved firms who allow your users to connect via the Facebook platform. The firm filed a document(.pdf file) for the SEC last week which stated that 50 million pages and 10 million apps are hooked up to the social network.

Facebook’s Graph Search Team tells Fast Company the backstory behind its new data viz search tool in How Facebook Survived 34 Intense Days of “Lockdown” To Build Graph Search.

What else Fast Company has had to say about the Facebook Graph Search:

• Why Facebook’s New Graph Search Is No Google
• Facebook’s Open Graph: Boons for Business, Perils For Privacy
• The Raunchy, Rude, Racist, Often NSFW Side of Facebook Graph Search Results
• Short Story Shorter: The Most Creative Uses Of The Vine So Far

[Image: Facebook via Shuttershock]

Facebook has launched Graph Search, a search engine to mine the billions of friend connections, locations, likes, comments, and tags that make up its Social Graph backbone. Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement at a media event today at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THAT 100 MILLION DOLLAR NEWARK SCHOOLS DONATION: An email chain including Bill Gates, Square’s Jack Dorsey, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, and founder Mark Zuckerberg reveals how stage-managed charity can be.

Facebook user Peter Thoeny brought this to our attention. This targeted Facebook ad featuring a machine gun seems inappropriate after the #Newtown school shooting…

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One mathematician’s ingenious solution to armoring heavy bombers inspired Facebook’s research manager to look at Facebook’s ocean of data from a new perspective.

The secrets of Facebook’s legendary hackathons — revealed! We’re talking kegerators, Zuck’s hammock — and coding!

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He may be the man behind Facebook’s actual Little Red Book, but the cultural czar heading the company’s Analog Research Lab is more than thrilled to let employees create their own cultural destinies.

From rooftop bashes and acquisition talks to staff clashes and layoffs, Hipstamatic’s founders and ex-employees describe the startup’s losing struggle to keep pace with Instagram, Facebook, and others in the white-hot photo-sharing space. Read the three-part series from start to finish.

Melissa Chow’s Like-a-Hug—a vest that gives you a squeeze when a friend likes something of yours on Facebook—sits somewhere between harmless smartphone vibration and creepy gadget caress on the haptic spectrum. 

The Rock didn’t want to do the social media thing. Then he met Amy Jo Martin. Now he has 7.2 million friends and 3.4 million followers—here’s how to follow his lead.

Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and the long march toward our wallet-less future.

(Photo via jurvetson on Flickr)

As part of our social media roadmap in the September 2012 issue of Fast Company, we asked social media’s savviest users about their best practices. Use this guide to share their rules, then add yours, and we’ll keep charting a course through this rocky terrain.

The Rules Of Social Media