February is African American/Black History Month in the U.S. and is commonly celebrated in many different institutions here that remember the accomplishments and contributions of African Americans to this country.

A look at how celebrations of Black History Month have translated to Facebook shows that such holidays don’t really have the cache to make it big on the social network, versus other holidays such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day.  This may be attributable to how popular the celebration is overall, or a lag between migrating content from web sites to Facebook, as Black History Month is a big deal in schools, businesses and governments across the country.

But, that’s not to say that there’s nothing out there.

The U.S. Marine Corps have been posting almost daily Status Updates recalling the legacy of African Americans in this branch of the military, including the first recipient of the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War and a video recounting a history of African Americans’ service in the Corps.

Other governmental entities have also jumped into the game, some going further than others.

There are simple listings that are included in the Notes or Events sections of some pages that simply list activities to celebrate Black History Month in February.  The Facebook page of Black Canada and Kingsport, Tennessee are good examples of this, as both posted Notes with information about related events and little else.

Round Rock, a suburb of 104,000 north of Austin, Texas, did a much better job of promoting their Black History Month activities on Facebook by creating a page specifically for this year’s celebration, Round Rock Black History Month 2010, which currently has 113 fans. The Facebook page is part of Round Rock’s Black History Month 2010 Planning Committee, of which the city was a prominent member.

Although just 9% of the local population is African American, one of the page’s admins said it was important to Round Rock to promote its local history as it pertained to the February celebration with events like photography exhibits, book signings, a dance and a large kickoff party. “When we were looking to plan our events for Black History Month I thought it would be best, considering the amount of people that are on Facebook,� said Michelle Cervantes of the Round Rock Public Library and a member of the aforementioned planning committee. “It’s easy to use, it’s easy to manage and it’s free.�

Cervantes told us that in previous years she’s helped organize the city’s Black History Month events using MySpace to get the word out about events, but with the growing popularity of Facebook, the committee was unanimous in deciding to use it to the same this year. Round Rock and the library there each have their own Facebook pages, she told us, so it was logical to create one specifically for this year’s Black History Month festivities.  Success for the city’s events has been mixed.  There have yet to be formal surveys to determine how successful Facebook has been in moving people from the online world to the real world, but that’s in the works.

“I think it has definitely increased the awareness that the community of Round Rock has Black History Month events,� she said, noting that future use of Facebook to organize the event was likely. “If Facebook is still popular, free and user-friendly, then we’re definitely open to using Facebook again.�

The University of Illinois at Chicago also created a Facebook page, Black History Month 2010, for this year’s festivities that’s been actively promoting the university’s events. The Facebook page is part of the university’s Black History Month Planning Committee under the Campus Programs department.

Then there are big businesses.

AT&T’s Twenty-Eight Days Facebook page is an extension of their web site of the same name to “forward momentum� in February in the spirit of Black History Month. Several black celebrities are a part of the AT&T campaign that urges the 720 Facebook fans to set a goal for the month of February to be completed by the end of the month. The page urges people to become active, “Everybody wants a page in history…this February, get started writing yours.

Finally there’s The Black List Project, an HBO documentary that is set to premiere a third installment on February 8. The page has 2,500 fans and promotional material for the documentary, which features Whoopi Goldberg, John Legend and Hill Harper, among other “iconic� African Americans. Interviews from those featured discuss subjects that examine their experiences as African Americans.

It’s possible that by next year, if Facebook continues its global domination of social networks, that even more Black History Month-related pages with even better features will be available.  It’ll also be interesting to see how the presence of similar U.S. holidays, like National Hispanic Heritage Month from mid-September to mid-October, compare.

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/facebook-brother-death/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/facebook-brother-death/" align="right"/>

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/facebook-logonew.jpg" class="alignright">This isn’t the way you should learn about the death of your 17 year old brother.

According to Sydney’s href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/death-on-facebook-first-teen-twins-online-find-out-their-brother-killed-in-triple-fatal-crash/story-e6freuy9-1225827634834" target="_blank">The Daily Telegraph, twins Angela and Maryanne Vourlis had just woken up on their 20th birthday. Like most young adults, they logged onto Facebook to check their walls and inboxes for birthday greetings.

Instead of finding happy birthday wishes, the two twins found messages of “RIP Bobby” (their brother) and “RIP Chris Naylor” (a friend of his) all across their Facebook news feeds. Completely shocked, baffled, and hurt, the two rang their brother’s phone in the hopes it was a mistake. It was to no avail.

Next, they rang their mother. While she didn’t receive any word from the police or others about Bobby or Chris Naylor, she did know that Bobby was with his friend that night. After a call to the police, they confirmed what they had learned on Facebook: that Bobby Vourlis was dead. He passed away along with Chris Naylor in a fatal car accident that also took the life of a third teenage passenger.

You can read the whole heartbreaking story over at the Daily Telegraph, but it’s clear that the real-time nature of the web spread information far faster than even the police or phone calls could. While we understand it takes time to identify victims and send an officer to a residence to inform family of the news, the process can simply take too long in today’s world.

We offer our condolences to both families for the tragedy they are enduring. We could not imagine learning about it the way they did.

[via href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10449545-71.html" target="_blank">CNET]

Whether it’s pickles, onion rings, sausages, or purple monsters, the latest Facebook meme attempts to drive more fans to Facebook Pages than to celebrity pages. While this tactic has been used for Facebook groups for some time, the volume of new Pages dedicated to arbitrary objects that have successfully attracted hundreds of thousands or a million fans has increased dramatically in the past couple days.



Two weeks ago, the creator of the page “Can this purple monster i made on paint get more fans than the president?” reached out to us about his Page. At the time, we thought little of it because to be honest, the purple monster wasn’t that appealing. However, the page has now attracted over 650,000 fans and once it surpasses 1 million, Hot Topic has agreed to sell a copy of the t-shirt in their stores.

While I’m not sure that the creator of this Page was the person who originated the meme, it’s clear that the trend has taken off. Now there are numerous groups which are attempting to do the same thing (some of which have already succeeded):

• Can this Onion Ring get more fans than Justin Bieber - 2,184,398 fans


• can this sausage roll get more fans than cheryl cole? - 832,317 fans


• Can this purple monster i made on paint get more fans than the president? - 655,000 fans


• Can this Sexy Potato get more fans than Miley Cyrus? - 458,699 fans


• Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback? - 288,162 fans


• Can this Pickle get more fans than Twilight? - 273,188 fans


• Can this Troll Doll get more fans than Jonas Brothers? - 58,092

You can view all of the similar pages here. While we aren’t sure who the administrators of these various Pages are, there’s no doubt that this trend has gone viral. So far Facebook hasn’t prevented any of these Pages from posting updates but my guess is that after thousands of copycats begin popping up, many people will have their Pages disabled.

Are you a fan of any pickles, onions, purple monsters, or other random items?

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/onion-ring-facebook-meme-beats-justin-bieber/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/onion-ring-facebook-meme-beats-justin-bieber/" align="right"/>

href="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/onionring.jpg">src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/onionring.jpg" alt="" title="onionring" width="260" height="190" class="alignright size-full wp-image-203930" />Forget href="http://mashable.com/2010/01/29/doppelganger-week-facebook/">doppelgangers and href="http://mashable.com/2010/02/03/facebook-urban-dictionary-week/">Urban Dictionary definitions, the newest href="http://mashable.com/social-media/facebook">Facebook meme is, undoubtedly, “Can this [Insert random thing] Get More Fans Than [Insert Famous Person]?” The latest victim? Pop singer Justin Bieber, who is apparently much beloved with the young folks (and href="http://mashable.com/2010/02/01/mom-justin-bieber-tat/">their mothers). The victor? An onion ring./> id="more-203736">/> The fried food thoroughly trounced the Canadian pop star on February 6, according to the href="http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=can+this+onion+ring+get+more+fans+than+justin+bieber&init=quick#!/pages/Can-this-Onion-Ring-get-more-fans-than-Justin-Bieber/285409781939?ref=search&sid=2401404.2856880751..1" target="_blank">fan page, which was created by Facebook user Toby Brittan.

Bieber Fan Count: 1,648,758 fans/> Onion Ring Fan Count: 2,152,536 fans

Brittan founded the page on February 1, and according to href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/slackberry-cull-of-one-alfred-place-members-1891477.html" target="_blank">The Independent, the 16-year-old — who is the son of British businesswoman Sharon Brittan — has even been approached by advertisers wanting to strike up some business on the page.

Similar pages and spin-offs are already in abundance. In fact, the onion ring soon went on to beat out href="http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=can+this+onion+ring+get+more+fans+than&init=quick#!/pages/Can-this-Onion-Ring-get-more-fans-than-Stephen-Harper/282298836447?ref=search&sid=2401404.1666862733..1" target="_blank">Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Despite these political aspirations, the meme mostly targets pop culture figures such as Miley Cyrus and The Jonas Brothers, as well as the Twilight films. The challengers? Everything from href="http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=get+more+fans+than&init=quick#!/HTpurplemonster?ref=search&sid=2401404.27206929..1" target="_blank">purple monsters to href="http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=get+more+fans+than&init=quick#!/pages/can-this-sausage-roll-get-more-fans-than-cheryl-cole/293965221672?ref=search&sid=2401404.27206929..1" target="_blank">sausage rolls. My personal favorite? “href="http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=can+this+pickle+get+more+fans+than+nickleback&init=quick#!/pages/Can-this-pickle-get-more-fans-than-Nickleback/282013353726?ref=search&sid=2401404.2888905726..1" target="_blank">Can This Pickle Get More Fans Than Nickleback [sic]?” The answer? Dear God, I hope so.

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/">facebook, href="http://mashable.com/tag/humor/">humor, href="http://mashable.com/tag/justin-bieber/">justin bieber, href="http://mashable.com/tag/memes/">memes, href="http://mashable.com/tag/pop-culture/">pop culture

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src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/levels.jpg" alt="levels image" class="alignright size-full wp-image-143936"/>href="http://twitter.com/SorenG" target="_blank">Soren Gordhamer is the organizer of the href="http://www.wisdom2summit.com/" target="_blank">Wisdom 2.0 Conference, which brings together staff from Google, Facebook, and Twitter with others to explore living wisely in our modern age. Mashable readers can use code ‘Mashable‘ for a discount when href="http://www.wisdom2summit.com/Register" target="_blank">registering.

In the era of social media, our networks are much larger than they have ever been, and we have more ways to communicate with those in them. Even if you are not very active on href="http://mashable.com/social-media/facebook">Facebook or href="http://mashable.com/social-media/twitter">Twitter, my guess is that your sphere of communication has expanded significantly in recent years. Who you communicate with and how you communicate has changed radically. This new connected era brings both opportunities and challenges.

In the past we had a set of contacts, all of whom generally knew how to reach us — via phone, e-mail, or regular mail. Today, thanks in large part to social media, we have many different levels of communication, each with a specific purpose and etiquette. When we do not understand the role of these levels, they can become huge time wasters. When we do understand them however, they can help us more effectively engage and navigate these new waters.

Level 1: The Public Reply/>

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Just about everyone, including Bill Gates (who if you have not heard, href="http://mashable.com/2010/01/19/bill-gates-twitter/">recently joined Twitter), has learned the importance of having both a means to communicate with people, and a channel where people can respond. Though you can do this on Facebook through comments on Fan pages and in groups, this seems most applicable to Twitter, where people use @replies to send and receive short, publicly viewable messages.

The public reply provides an open and transparent channel for people to interact with public figures, brands, and each other, without the pressure of response that comes with e-mail. Public interactions are a great starting point for engagement that never existed before social media, and if done correctly, can often lead to more fruitful direct communication.

Level 2: The Direct Message/>

---

Once a relationship is established through public communication, the next step is often a direct message within a social network. A direct message creates a private connection without opening the floodgates of e-mail. In fact, in may even be preferable to e-mail in the long term.

Why? Especially with Twitter, a DM has a character limit, and can only come from people you follow. If you have ten e-mails (of unlimited length and possibly unknown sources) and ten Twitter DMs, which are you likely to open first? For an increasing number of people, the answer is DM.

Once you make a connection through DM and get permission to follow-up via e-mail, the e-mail is often better received. Facebook, where most people allow private messages, can also be a means to take communication to the next level.

Level 3: E-mail/>

---

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/inbox.jpg" alt="inbox image" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-143936"/>E-mail still has its place in this new era. It allows for more in-depth communication, can be easily forwarded, and sent to numerous people at once. When e-mail is used skillfully, it enables deeper communication. When not used effectively, it can become a huge time drain, as people write lengthy messages without much thought of the time and attention they are asking of recipients.

This fine line makes e-mail tough to master in the social media age. If you’re looking to advance to the next communication level with someone, respect this direct and private channel, and be sure to keep your e-mails succinct and meaningful.

Level 4: Phone/>

---

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/phone.jpg" alt="phone image" class="alignright size-full wp-image-143936"/>Hearing someone’s voice allows people to get a better sense of one another. While communicating via text, a person can take time to carefully craft his or her words, potentially presenting an image that may not be true or is harder to trust. A phone call allows for more immediate back-and-forth, and can be particularly helpful if a subject matter is delicate or people are considering a more in-depth relationship.

Some time back I was communicating with an editor about an issue that we had bounced back and forth several times. Finally she said, “Let’s chat about it on the phone.â€� This furthered the dialogue significantly and bypassed what may have taken weeks to sort out via e-mail.

Level 5: In-Person (or Video Chat)/>

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src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/handshake.jpg" alt="handshake image" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-143936"/>I have met numerous people in person that I first communicated with via social networks. All of these meetings were enhanced by the natural progression of our first digital communication. While at one time face-to-face interactions were the entry point, today, in-person meetings often come at later stages.

Particularly if people are considering working on a project together, an in-person meeting allows for the most in-depth connection. For some people Skype or other video chat may be enough to experience this.

Too often people think communication is only through words, but our bodies communicate as well. They communicate how comfortable or uncomfortable we are discussing a matter, our level of passion for a subject, and our hopes and fears. Meeting with someone in person allows for communication to occur on multiple levels, and people often come away with a much better sense of each other.

Conclusion/>

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In this era of social media when we are reaching out and engaging more and more people, the question is not just “Should I communicate with someone?� but “How should I communicate with someone? How can I build engagement one step at a time?� The more we allow for and understand the importance of all the various levels of communication, the more we can skillfully and effectively use each one.

More social media resources from Mashable:/>

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- href="http://mashable.com/2010/01/12/zen-social-media/">Zen and the Art of Twitter: 4 Tips for Productive Tweeting/> - href="http://mashable.com/2009/12/03/the-tao-of-tweeting/">The Tao of Tweeting/> - href="http://mashable.com/2010/01/07/social-media-changed-us/">How Social Media Has Changed Us/> - href="http://mashable.com/2009/12/09/5-tips-online-friendships/">5 Tips for Building Lasting Online Friendships/> - href="http://mashable.com/2010/01/05/effective-online-networking/">4 Steps for Effective Online Networking

Images courtesy of rel="nofollow" href="http://www.istockphoto.com/mashableoffer.php">iStockphoto, rel="nofollow" href="http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=814005">TommL, rel="nofollow" href="http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=1068199">PaulPaladin, rel="nofollow" href="http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=738133">Kohlerphoto, rel="nofollow" href="http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=82111">sandoclr

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/communication/">communication, href="http://mashable.com/tag/e-mail/">e-mail, href="http://mashable.com/tag/email/">email, href="http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/">facebook, href="http://mashable.com/tag/list/">List, href="http://mashable.com/tag/lists/">Lists, href="http://mashable.com/tag/meeting/">meeting, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-media/">social media, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-networking/">social networking, href="http://mashable.com/tag/social-networks/">social networks, href="http://mashable.com/tag/twitter/">twitter

One of the more interesting features within the new Facebook dashboards is the ability to see which applications and games the people in your friend list have been using. Although this is a great way to discover new apps, there were privacy concerns around having so much information visible to friends automatically.

Facebook took the first step to address this last week with the introduction of a privacy control at the developer level. Now, application developers can decide whether their app or game will appear in a user’s friends dashboards or not. This is useful for application types that a developer thinks a user might avoid if their friends knew they were using it. However, it doesn’t provide privacy options to the users themselves.

Since last week, Facebook has added a new privacy control on the user application privacy settings page (accessed from the new “Account� dropdown at the top right of the page and clicking on “Applications and Websites�) that lets the user do just that. There, you can see a new option for controlling “Activity on applications and games dashboards�, shown below:

The control gives users a number of options as to who will be able to see their application activity. The choices are similar to those that control status update and other wall visibility: “Everyone�, “Friends and networks�, “Friends of friends� or “Only friends�. Obviously, Facebook prefers that everyone shares information at least with their friend network.

Click on the “Customize� option, though, and a dialogue box appears with the ability to restrict the information to certain friends (or to hide it from specified friends), networks, or for maximum privacy: “Only me�. This effectively gives the user the ability to hide all of their application activity from their friends.

Although it doesn’t provide the ability to hide only particular applications, this does provide a way for those users who are most sensitive about the apps and games they interact with to hide their activity. However, we doubt a large number of users will end up setting this option.

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src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/gmail-up.png" align="right" style="margin: 10px">Gmail is set to become Google’s next major push into social media. According to href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703630404575053480962942848.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEADTop" target="_blank">The Wall Street Journal, the popular webmail service will soon launch a new feature for sharing content and status updates with friends.

As WSJ points out, Gmail users can already update their status – sort of – through Gmail’s chat feature. Currently, this feature is more akin to the traditional IM “away message.â€� However, with this new social push, Gmail will offer a timeline-view of your friends’ status updates, just like Facebook and Twitter.

Those updates might come from both Gmail and third-party services. According to WSJ, Google-owned YouTube and Picasa will be integrated into the stream. The huge question then is whether or not the new feature will include updates from Twitter and Facebook.

If so, the new features could be thought of more like a TweetDeck or Seesmic, looking to provide an aggregate view of your friends’ social media activities along with the ability to push status updates to the services you use from inside of Gmail. If not, it could be thought of as a major competitor to Twitter and Facebook as Gmail looks to covert its millions of email users into users of a whole new breed of social media service.

An issue with the latter, however, is that Gmail has historically added people to your contacts based on email interactions. Hence, this contact list often varies significantly from your friends on social sites where relationships need to be made explicitly.

In other words, your Gmail contacts aren’t necessarily the same people you want to share status updates, photos, and videos with. This is an issue that shouldn’t be overlooked in evaluating the new features Google is soon-to-unveil.

Pharmaceutical companies have begun creating a presence on Facebook characterized by control and caution. Why? Despite unclear regulations in the U.S. governing their presence online, they may still be penalized for marketing materials on the Internet. The result is, in terms of their Facebook marketing content, a mixed bag of sometimes disingenuous Pages and Groups, fluffy applications and tightly-controlled discussions.

In November of 2009 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hosted a hearing to examine this very issue: how to regulate drug companies’ marketing online — including social networks, blogs, podcasts, Wikipedia, etc. More than 800 parties tried to register to speak at the two-day hearing that included 69 speakers and 77 scheduled presentations; most attendees were either pharmaceutical or marketing reps, and the rest were a tiny fraction of consumers, non-profits and consumer advocacy groups.

According to the FDA, which regulates the promotion or advertising of pharmaceuticals in that country: “The continually evolving nature of the Internet, including Web 2.0 and social media tools… have raised questions and concerns over how to  apply existing regulations to promotion in these newer media.�

Currently there are no laws governing what pharmaceutical companies may or may not do online — aside from the general expectation that they disclose risk information alongside drug benefits. The last time the FDA broached the subject was 1996 and has since been based on guidelines for print marketing: where both benefits and risks of drugs must be presented side-by-side.

“The worry is the drug companies will find a way via the much more malleable and fluid environment of the Internet to promote their product in one-sided ways — and that’s not good,� said Steven Findlay, a senior health policy analyst with the Consumers Union who spoke at the FDA hearing. Facebook Pages for or by drug companies ought to include benefits and risks of drugs, he said, and be regulated by the FDA.

Several drug companies we saw on Facebook tried to mediate the info shared on their pages by closing their Walls, disallowing comments/likes and keeping consumers’ comments to a minimum by wielding tight control over Discussions.

The Facebook pages of Nexium (marketed to relieve heartburn caused by acid reflux disease) and Claritin Eye (eye drops for allergies) both closed off their Wall post to comments and likes. Both pages include information available on their product web sites.

“If they have a Wall, they can’t control what’s on it. If people complain about Nexium, then they’d either have to try to censor it, which would be potentially a problem, or they’d have to spend time responding to it,� said Diana Zuckerman, President of the National Research Center for Women and Families. “I would say to anyone who wants information about a medical product: Facebook is not the place to get it.�

Zuckerman testified at the FDA’s November hearing and said companies creating Facebook pages are likely to present information in such a way as to highlight the benefits without prominently pointing to the risks. Charging companies a fee payable to the FDA to monitor these sites would be the ideal way to ensure this doesn’t happen, she told us.

Claritin’s page has 6,600 fans and no place for comments, whereas Nexium has 508 fans and controls discussions by employing an app users have to allow access to before posting comments or questions. Nexium’s Facebook admin closely monitors these discussions, posting answers to questions or referring people to more information on Nexium’s web site.

Additional information on the pages include tabs for frequently asked questions, product information and risks, product savings programs, community guidelines for Facebook users (e.g., no obscenity or defamatory language) and tips.

Prevacid 24HR is another heartburn medication that had 8,000 fans on Facebook but took a radically different approach to its presence there than Nexium. Comments and likes are allowed on Prevacid’s Wall, although there were no active Discussions, and they even offered a coupon for discounts on their products.

There’s no penalty for misrepresenting information about a drug on Facebook, explained Zuckerman, although there is such a fine for similar misrepresentations in traditional media. What’s happened online is that pharma companies will present risk information, but it may not be where a user is likely to look, she told us.

“I think that, at the very least, these companies should have all of the same risk information that they’re required by law to include in television ads and magazine ads,� she says, noting that the unlimited space on the Internet would make this easier for the drug companies to accomplish.

Another tactic pharmaceutical companies are employing on Facebook: customized apps. Claritin’s page employed one, albeit the app was not closely related to the product. Claritin Eye Makeover allows users to upload photos of themselves to change and edit their eye color. Johnson & Johnson’s Acuminder, with 511 fans, is an app that reminds users when to change or purchase contact lenses, as well as remind them of their next eye exam.

Some companies also offer a Page or Group around a cause related to a drug. This is an especially gray area. Some examples we looked at clearly disclosed their sponsor relationship while others didn’t — either way, it appears that companies can be liable in some circumstances.

A Page with almost 109,000 members called Take A Step Against Cervical Cancer has ostensibly organized around preventing cancer — doing so by vaccinating young women with the HPV vaccine Gardasil, made by Merck. The Wall is practically non-existent, although there is information about side effects and links to Gardasil’s web sites on the page. There’s also an interactive fact book and quiz, and an app that allows users to make their own symbol against cervical cancer to post to their Walls.

Although rallying more than 100,000 people around a cause like cervical cancer and hiding the connection to a pharmaceutical company on the Info tab is not entirely a deception, but it’s also not transparent. Some similar Pages take this a step further.

Epilepsy Advocate, with 4,300 fans describes its Page as, “a community of people living well with epilepsy, their family members, and their caregivers. Epilepsy Advocates are people just like you who have shown the courage to share their stories and provide support to others.� Nowhere on the page, however, does it note that Epilepsy Advocate is a program sponsored by the pharmaceutical company UCB, which makes drugs for the treatment epilepsy. Although there are no strict laws governing pharma on social media, is it legal to promote an organization sponsored by a drug company without saying so?

It’s a slippery slope.

In UCB’s case, the Page itself is not currently illegal; however, the company is also responsible for the content. If a “user reported an adverse reaction to its treatment there, UCB would need to report it to the FDA,” according to an analysis by Adweek from December. “What’s more, pharma companies can be held liable by regulators for people discussing off-label use of their products on their sites.”

ADHD Moms, a Page for mothers of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, is similar to the epilepsy page, but discloses on the Info tab that its page of 9,500 fans is sponsored by McNeil Pediatrics, a self-described leader of ADHS treatment with its Concerta drug. Disclosure about the Page’s sponsor is a good thing, but the implicit promotion of pharmaceuticals via an advocacy group walks a fine line.

It’s a complicated issue, said Findlay of the Consumers Union, because pharmaceutical companies have previously walked this fine line between providing useful information and hiding their sponsorship of it. Pharma companies are legally required to disclose such information in advertisements offline and, after years’ worth of reprimands from the FDA for not doing so, they’ve gotten the message, Findlay said. The way this message translates to the online world has yet to be seen.

Findlay tells us that a draft of regulations or guidelines for online marketing could come this year with a final ruling within two years. These regulations will most likely clarify the full disclosure of risks/benefits issue, he said.

“One should never make the mistake of underestimating the capacity, the resources and the willingness of companies to really aggressively marketing their products and to walk a thin line obeying the regulations,� he says. “They’ll go right up to the point where they don’t want to cross into illegality — but they come close.�

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/ea-madden-nfl-facebook/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/02/08/ea-madden-nfl-facebook/" align="right"/>

href="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/madden10-1.jpg">src="http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/madden10-1.jpg" alt="" title="madden10-1" width="260" height="190" class="alignright size-full wp-image-203882" /> EA Sports President Peter Moore href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=aVlyOBqLsfSw" target="_blank">told Bloomberg that the popular Madden NFL series of football video games will make its way to href="http://mashable.com/social-media/facebook">Facebook.

We haven’t heard a peep about a launch date. Moore says we will definitely see Madden on the Facebook platform, but the social media version will be simpler than its console cousins, because EA wants to “make Madden more accessible.”

Facebook games are a big deal these days. FarmVille and Mafia Wars developer Zynga just href="http://mashable.com/2009/12/15/huge-farmville-maker-zynga-raises-an-astounding-180-million/">raised $180 million in funding. The news that established (but more niche) href="http://mashable.com/2010/02/02/civilization-facebook-2/">long-time video game franchise Civilization is coming to Facebook this summer has gotten a lot of press and interest, too.

More presciently, EA just href="http://mashable.com/2009/11/09/ea-acquires-playfish-2/">bought a huge Facebook game company called Playfish for $400 million. The quote from Moore about EA’s Madden plans didn’t mention Playfish, but it’s possible that the acquired company’s resources will be used to develop and publish Madden on Facebook.

EA launched Madden NFL 2010 for the video game consoles just in time for the href="http://mashable.com/tag/super-bowl">Super Bowl, so hype for the brand is already high right now. This was a good time for the company to let this news slip out.

It seems like just yesterday that upon launch of the Facebook Application Directory, the very few outspoken proponents of the new app world pondered when big brands would jump in to the space. Back then in 2007, one of the first big brand sponsorships ever announced was when HP decided to jump on board with the “Graffiti” application in late 2007.  Well, they’re back again, this time with a snowboarding game.



The introduction video will have you as excited as you could possibly get about a Facebook applications.  With a full production video introduction video shouting out the various moves within the game like “The BooyahIt’s a bit strange that they manage to squeeze in an advertisement for an HP laptop, but whatever.  As the on-screen players holler in enjoyment, you’re also treated to some pretty impressive graphics of the game.  It’s a pretty neat setup and certainly a step above the introductions for most Facebook Games (although Playfish is raising the bar with Gangster City).

Being a long-time social gamer, I’m not such a huge fan of the next screen in this game.  After seeing some brief instructions, I clicked “play now”, which immediately took me to a page where I’m asked to log in and sign up to the HP Games world.  Games on Facebook are always best when they leverage the “one-click and play” techniques, and it’s doubly as important if I just clicked “play now”.  The better option here would be for HP to ask for information after I’d played my first round.  In any case “play as a guest” was an option, so I chose it.

The game is meant to be easy to pick up and play, and it is. You attempt to do your three basic tricks to activate the “booyah” super trick.  You can chain tricks during jumps, and can actually get a decent amount of speed.  It’s a pretty quick and easy thrill, and I had a good time with it at first.

Unfortunately, the game has some control and polish issues that need to be addressed before it can really compete with other two-dimensional snowboarding games.  For one thing, picking up speed is too slow, and if you miss a few jumps, you can never regain enough speed to finish the track.  When you do run out of time, there is no warning and you immediately cut to your game over screen.  Finally, it’s minor but the fact that there is no animation when you jump is very jarring, although the effect is hilarious.

The big bonus here is that if you complete all the tracks in a week, you’re entered into a contest to win one of several cool laptops.  It is not a skill based competition (this type of tournament is legally tricky), but rather a raffle which you gain entry to by completing courses.  Overall, with the prizing, this is an application worth your time.

HP and Intel’s application here isn’t their first.  Intel has been into Facebook applications for a little while, with their last application, Progress Thru Processors, was devoted to using Intel personal computers’ spare processing power to help complete computer simulations of Malaria treatments in Africa and climate change solutions.  I wonder if we’ll see more from them.  HP certainly will, as the game is under “apps.facebook.com/hpgames”, indicating they may try to run other promotions in this space with users who have already signed up.