It’s impossible to browse Facebook without being bombarded by self-improvement ads—Bigger breasts! Smaller waistline! No more cellulite! As a counterpoint to these negative self-image ads, Dove has released the Ad Makeover Facebook app that allows users in Australia to “hack” Facebook and replace negative ads with self-esteem boosting messages, such as, “Your birthday suit suits you.” This uplifting app is part of Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign to promote positive female body image—and apparently mindful marketing.

Over here at Trendera, we have been pondering the online niche dating scene for awhile now… Recently we speculated that online dating was actually shifting in a major way. It used to be that young people would go online to seek mates (or hookups as it may be) that were OUTSIDE their scene. But now people are searching for not something different, but for more of the same! Though not exactly a dating site, the new Insane Clown Posse, JuggaloBook--a Facebook for Juggalos—shows how increasingly consumers are not branching out online, but rather fortifying their Isolation Nations. 

A new Berlin-based project called the FB Bureau is publicly issuing Facebook identity cards that, in principle, would work like a government-issued ID. The ID cards are made of your Facebook profile picture, name, and a QR code that could be scanned by authorities or retailers. The FB Bureau site looks like Facebook requested a shutdown—but an interesting project nonetheless from artist Tobias Leingruber.

Despite the ambivalence that many Facebook users have about the multitude of personal information Facebook has obtained and uses for advertising purposes, Facebook Connect has become a dominant means for signing up for new sites and services. Would a card containing info to our online identity be more useful than a passive government-issued ID? Perhaps, and with trust in the government waning, our ever-changing and self-controlled online identities just may be more identifying. 

Filed Under: Zappos Leaps Back Onto My ‘Good’ List

Zappos is taking full advantage of Leap Year by extending their normal one year return window to a four year return window for items bought today. Not that I like the idea of a pair of shoes sitting in a box in my closet for four years before deciding to return them, but I do like that Zappos is trying to make nice after their hacker incident last month.  Brands that make an effort to cater to the customer and making life easier (i.e. long return window) give us a sense of trust and comfort.  Also, quirky sales and promotions like this make us want to follow them on Facebook and Twitter so we can take advantage of their discounts in the future.  Good on ya, Zappos.  

Upcoming film 21 Jump Street has jumped on the “what I really do” meme bandwagon and created an edition of the Facebook viral for the stars of the film. Pretty smart! 

I’ve been seeing memes like the one above circulating around Facebook and I thought I’d explain how they work. I’m sorry if I’m bursting any bubbles by explaining this, but no—your cell phone doesn’t really have a name. 

The secret to the meme is a little hack in Facebook’s commenting and reply system. When normally tagging someone in a Facebook post, the user types “@Firstname Lastname” to find the user. This little trick—and others like it—instructs Facebook to look up the user mentioned in the @reply by a profile’s identification number, resulting in the name of a random Facebook user when you type in the code. 

Thanks to a variety of factors the presence of all kinds of memes has exploded on Facebook—if you’ve noticed an upswing in cute baby animal pictures, politically charged sentiments and funny gags on your feed, you’re not alone nor are you going crazy. Facebook has become a place where media can go viral. It’s a departure from the way Facebook photos and photo albums were used when the service first started—it’s definitely not solely for baby pictures and college exploits anymore. 

Donuts put it all in perspective. 

(Source: instagr.am)

Diablo Cody’s new movie Young Adult had a limited release December 9th to so-so B.O. numbers and opened into 1,000 theaters on 12/16.  The movie is going to have a hard time staying afloat during these crazy holiday weeks, especially with no award buzz around it (unusual for a Jason Reitman film).  Good efforts have been put into their marketing campaign and recently my Facebook Sponsored Stories really wanted me to “Like” this film.  Their Facebook page has a few photos, some video, info about the story and a link to buy tickets.  Here’s where things get weird…

On Friday December 16th Diablo did an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition and managed to insult the very Facebook demo the film was counting on to fork over $15/ticket to support Young People.  This is a direct quote from the person I had deemed a Gen Y admirer and expert…

“I feel like I’m part of a generation of people who are stuck in the past and are really self-absorbed. I mean, we’re actually taking pictures of ourselves and posting them on Facebook, and keeping in touch with people that should have been out of our lives 15 years ago. Obsessing over who’s getting married, who’s having kids, who’s more successful. It’s like we’re recreating high school every single day using social media. And it’s weird.”

photojojo:

YAY. Facebook Timeline has rolled out for all!

It lets you look back over photos and profile highlights over time. Best of all, you get to pick one big beautiful photo to greet your friends every time they visit your page.

Facebook Timeline Rolls Out

While the photo community may love this Facebook evolution, the rest of us in the Trendera office are pretty terrified of going through the last seven years of our online presence with a heavy hand on the delete button.

As an avid Word With Friends player (athlete, even), I like to think the email I received from Zynga this morning was VIP. It arrived in my inbox to tell me that I will soon fall into a severe Words With Friends (I’ll say WWF…fittingly) relapse, because—dun dun dun—Zynga is launching a Words With Friends game on Facebook, to extend the mobile game into the computer realm. With 1.6 million likes before the game is even out, WWF on Facebook is bound to be a time- and consciousness-sucking game just like Farmville. Except with words, so it’s educational and okay to play during lecture. Yup. Wonder if Zynga will monetize it like Farmville…buy a vowel?

As if I didn’t spend enough virtual time on Facebook, now I can hold and explore a tangible incarnation of my social media social life. For once, the intersection of digital and real worlds flips the other way. Like?

Our social media activity is instantly projected, and instantly forgotten. The appeal is that it’s all in the present, but when a massive portion of our socializing occurs online, our interactions are constantly “dissolving.” How do we preserve, or even remember, our increasingly meaningful social media activity? The answer is the Social Memories app, which enables you to automatically generate a beautifully designed, coffee table-worthy customizable book directly from Facebook status updates, photos, and more. Not just a collection of activity, the book unveils highlights, trends, and aggregate information that forms an insightful picture of what you were doing, thinking, or feeling at a certain point in time. Also, Social Memories reveals telling stats like “Most Active Friends,” “Friends’ Star Sign Distribution” (ok that doesn’t tell you much), and ”Most Commonly Used Word” in cool infographics of so that you can look back and be embarrassed that you used “FML” so much in 2009. 

It may be kind of a gimmicky neo-yearbook (note the sappy music in the video), but the selling point of “Give your Facebook activity new meaning” is appealing for the nostalgia factor of commemorating memories and events like weddings and births, and solidifies the increasing importance of social media in our daily lives. We have become accustomed to and demand instantaneous connectivity, but we also look for authenticity and permanence. This might appeal to older Facebook users who had social lives before the far-reaching networks of Facebook, but to those whose virtual and real social lives are one in the same, the novelty of tangible social media memories may just be seen as negating the whole point of it. Although one specific to my college years may be terrifying, it seems like just the right ironic, hilarious gift for grads.