Facebook credits are on the best way to become a global currency for services offered via Facebook. In the last months acceptance for credits increased significantly and an increasing amount of Facebook users purchased credits for the first time. Currently, most currency is spent in games or apps and Facebook is constantly adding new ways to spend Facebook Credits including downloading music, watching movies or TV episodes.

When a currency is formed it is only a matter of time until reward programs start popping up.  Plink, who launched in January this year, is heading to fill the pockets of virtual currency spenders by rewarding them for dining and making purchases at restaurants and stores. This is how it works: Plink members create an account at Plink.com, link their credit or debit card, and begin earning Facebook Credits by dining-out or shopping at participating restaurants and offline retailers. Participating retailers include Dunkin’ Donuts, Quiznos, Red Robin and Taco Bell.

“Facebook Credits is the missing ingredient that’s been needed to connect social media to offline sales,” said Peter Vogel, co-founder of Plink. “Now with the ‘glue’ of Facebook Credits our national restaurant and offline retailer partners have a way to tap into the nearly 800 million users on Facebook, motivate them to become loyal customers, and reward them.”

Just yesterday Arby’s Restaurant Group, the second largest quick-service sandwich chain in the U.S., joined Plink to increase gamer’s budgets.  Through this partnership, Plink members can now earn Facebook Credits at more than 3,500 Arby’s restaurants.

“We’ve experienced great success with the combination of offline and online marketing and experimenting with Plink is another innovative way to tie the two together and continue to drive loyalty with our valued customers,” said Bob Kraut, Senior Vice President Advertising and Brand Communications at Arby’s.

National restaurant chains are the initial focus of Plink as they represent nearly one-third of the total restaurants in the U.S. and spend significant dollars on marketing and advertising.

Plink was designed to be simple and easy for restaurants and offline retailers, among others, to implement. The program requires no POS (Point-of-Sale) integration and no paper coupons. Restaurants and offline retailers simply pay Plink a percentage of the sales generated by Plink members.

Plink began acquiring members through advertising efforts on Facebook, targeting social gamers, an audience of 60 million players in the U.S.

“Pay Later” Option For Virtual Goods Tested By Facebook
Pay your Virtual Goods later might actually be an option for gamers in the future if Facebook gets their way. A new system is currently being tested where the user can spend Credits they haven’t paid for and repay the balance later. The balance can only be repaid by using a credit card or PayPal. No offers, gift cards or mobile payments can be used and the debt is not required to be paid right away. There is currently no information available regarding how far into debt a user can go without repercussion.

Facebook Brings Back App Requests
App requests are back on the right side bar on the homepage. Counters for requests will be displayed to the left and text alerts on the right. This is meant to make users more positive to use apps and respond to requests. Since the removal of the requests, game and application growth has been suffering and Facebook now hopes to turn this around.

Facebook Credits On Sale In The UK
Tesco and the game retailer Game offers Facebook Credit gift cards in more than 1000 stores in the UK. Game will sell the cards in denominations £5, £10 and £25, while Tesco will provide £10 and £20 versions. The cards can be used on Facebook in order to purchase Virtual Goods in approximately 200 games that currently are supporting the currency. The Virtual Goods economy is expected to reach £550 million at the end of the year and some estimates points that the entire U.S. Virtual Goods economy might reach $1.6 Billion this year.
“Social gaming is becoming increasingly popular, so we are pleased to offer what might be an ideal Christmas present for those who enjoy playing social games on Facebook”, Tesco commented.

Facebook Customizing Its Products For Specific Locations
There are more and more signs that Facebook is trying to customize its products to make them work in other countries, with special focus on Japan, South Korea and Russia, countries where Facebook is more eager to grow. The translation tool is one example, making it possible for Facebook to spread to other countries and get instant feedback from users. In Japan, Facebook has released a customized interface for mobile users, an app that helps with job searching and a way for users to transport Facebook content to Mixi. In South Korea, Facebook has launched a site about the country and offered a few job openings. In Russia, Facebook has made some deals, allowing mobile users to get free access to the site and a deal with Russian search engine Yandex.

Facebook Places Not Popular In The U.S. Military
Members of U.S. armed forces has up until very recently been allowed to have Facebook Places enabled on their phones, not any more it seems. A document originally presented by the US Army has been passed out, ordering members of the army to disable the application. “The main concern relating to the use of the application, is that it may inadvertently compromise the locality of a military user. Of significant note, users on operations or in Northern Ireland, are potentially putting themselves at risk by drawing attention to their exact whereabouts”.

Statistics States: Facebook On Fire
Recent statistics provided by Omniture, shows that Facebook received 151.126 million unique visitors past October, compared to 97.372 million October 2009. This suggests an increase in traffic with astonishing 55 percent in just one year. The good news continues; according to newly published data provided by Hitwise, one in four page views in the U.S. took place on Facebook last week, which translates as 10 percent of all internet traffic available. More people are clearly visiting the site and staying longer as well. In October ’09 people were spending 17.840 million minutes on Facebook in total, whereas this October that number had increased to 42.578 million minutes, meaning a growth of 72.1 percent.

Your Facebook Profile Becomes A Published Book
Ninku Archivist, a publishing company offers its clients the possibility to get their Facebook profiles published as a book for $24 annually. The service is also available as a free trial where three chapters will be created. One text chapter with a month’s worth of status updates, links notes etc; one photo chapter with all your photos and one profile chapter; telling a story about you with information from your Facebook profile.

Facebook Is Aiming At Becoming Your Homepage
Facebook has started prompting some users to set up the site as their homepage, by the use of a bar at the top, showing pictures of some of your friends. Facebook is testing different methods on a small group of users in order to see which method brings the best result. Being people’s homepage is good for traffic as well as branding and could ultimately help Facebook replace Google, which is used as homepage by many people today.

MySpace Announces Mashup With Facebook
With a newly redesigned website, MySpace has announced that it is implementing several new changes, that will take the social network into a whole new direction. Amongst the new changes is a mashup with Facebook. The Facebook Like button will be appearing throughout the site and users can now login to MySpace directly with their Facebook profiles. This is all in line with MySpace’s new focus on social entertainment.

Facebook Credits Now Available in UK Retail
Facebook credits, the popular currency used on the Facebook platform, is spreading around the world becoming more popular. Retailers in UK now offer the currency as gift cards pre-loaded with a certain amount. The expansion of the Credits system is very important, if Facebook intends Credits to be a universal online currency in the future.

New API-Controlled Test User System For App Developers Implemented
Facebook has implemented a new application testing system which makes it easier for developers to create fake user accounts, in order to test applications. The fake accounts befriend each other are not spamming real users. Previously, developers had to create real accounts, something that required a lot of time.

50 Percent of Small to Medium-Sized Businesses Block Facebook at Work
In a recent survey the company Webroot found that smaller to medium-sized businesses are more likely to establish policies that prevents workers from using social media sites during work hours. 1000 companies participated in the survey and 81 percent of workers said that their company had an Internet Policy in place. 50 percent said that they were not allowed to visit social networks, 39 percent have a company that does not allow Facebook.

Facebook Makes Changes to the Flash Player
Facebook has changed the dimensions of the flash player in the news feed. The new dimensions are 398 by 398 pixels, making it smaller than previous. These new dimensions could make some flash attachments to be displayed improperly; why Facebook are now urging developers to check that their material looks right.

This Week’s Five Fastest Growing Facebook Applications
The popular search engine “Bing” resides at 1st place this week and now boasts a fan base of 4.9 Million users. “Quiz Whiz” from developer Quizzes lets the user take quizzes about various things, as well as create your own quiz. There are currently 1.595.172 people using the application, placing it on 2nd place. 3rd place goes to Digital Chocolate’s “Hollywood City”, focusing the player on being the next Hollywood mogul. 1.271.431 new players joined this past week. Momentus Media conquers the 4th place with their “Badges” application, adding 1.012.837 new users this week. “Crime City” grabs the final and 5th place and continues to grow on Facebook. The game adds 952.910 new users this week.

Top Five Most Explosive Facebook Applications
Digital Chocolate’s “Hollywood City” grabs the 1st place with 1.270.689 new players last week. “Badges” with 1.108.520 new users takes the 2nd place this week closely followed by the quiz “How Old Are You Inside” which a total of 523.691 users have been taking this past week. 4th place with 430.773 new users goes to “Friend Stats”, which lets the user know how many top fans they have. On 5th and final place another Digital Chocolate game called “Island God” resides. The game registered 412.335 new users last week.

Today US retail giant Target announced that Facebook Credits gift cards will launch at Target stores nationwide beginning Sept. 5. Target will be the first brick-and-mortar retailer to carry Facebook Credits gift cards. The newly-launched Facebook Credits gift cards are expected to sell well during the upcoming holiday season. Facebook credits are integrated in over 150 social games on the platform.

“With social gaming becoming increasingly popular, Facebook Credits gift cards provide an easy and convenient option for Target guests to purchase virtual goods.” said Mark Schindele, senior vice president, merchandising, Target.Facebook Credits gift cards will be available in increments of $15, $25 and $50. The $15 Facebook Credits gift card has been created exclusively for Target.

More than 200 million people play games on Facebook each month. The controversial Facebook Credits are accepted by many of the leading games on Facebook, including Zynga’s FarmVille and Mafia Wars; CrowdStar’s Happy Aquarium; PopCap Games’ Bejeweled Blitz; Playdom’s City of Wonder; and EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars from Playfish. “Gift cards are easy to use and very popular. We’re looking forward to launching in Target stores and giving people the ability to purchase Facebook Credits for their own use or to give as gifts to their friends and family.”, said Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook.

Leading Social Game Developer RockYou announced that it has entered into a five-year agreement to make Facebook Credits the exclusive virtual currency in RockYou’s social games and applications. As is standard for all developers on Facebook, RockYou will receive 70 percent of the revenue from Facebook Credits. The companies worked together earlier this year on RockYou’s advertiser sponsored “Deal of the Day” program to reward people with Facebook Credits when they interact with in-game advertising. More than 1 million people completed the Deal of the Day with Facebook Credits in the first four days after it launched in April. To date, RockYou has issued over 5 million Credits in its popular “Zoo World” game alone, using both direct pay and advertiser sponsored solutions.

“Facebook is showing a long-term commitment to social gaming — and that’s very exciting,” said Lisa Marino, chief revenue officer at RockYou. “We look forward to continue working with Facebook and Facebook Credits. As users adopt Credits, there may be a great opportunity for us to increase revenue from both a virtual goods and advertising perspective.” “We’ve worked closely with RockYou on developing Facebook Credits for some time, and their input has been valuable in evolving the product,” said Deborah Liu, product marketing manager for Facebook Credits. “Facebook is dedicated to providing value and helping developers succeed on Facebook Platform, and Facebook Credits is an important part of accomplishing this goal.”