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Lightbox employees go to Facebook, shut down Android photo-sharing app

by M. Dorn on May 15, 2012 · 0 comments

Facebook has hired the team behind Android photo-sharing app Lightbox, according to a blog post on Lightbox’s website.

The app has already been removed from the Google Play store. It is likely Facebook did not acquire the company or its technology because of its recent acquisition of Instagram. As the social network plans to keep Instagram as a standalone app, the opportunity for Lightbox was diminishing. According to the Google Play store, Lightbox had between 1 million and 5 million installs. Instagram has between 10 million and 50 million.

What Facebook gains is a team that’s focused on mobile and Android specifically. Facebook is seeking to building out its mobile offerings and determine the best way to monetize the rapidly growing user base that accesses the social network from mobile devices. In addition to its $ 1-billion Instagram purchase, the company also picked up ambient mobile location app Glancee and mobile loyalty startup Tagtile this year.

According to TechCrunch, seven Lightbox employees will join Facebook. This includes Lightbox co-founder Thai Tran, who was previously a product manager for YouTube and Google Maps.

“The Lightbox team has incredible experience developing innovative mobile products that people love. We look forward to welcoming this world-class team of engineers to Facebook,” Facebook said in a statement.

Exisiting Lightbox users can continue to visit Lightbox.com and download their photos here. Lightbox says it will open-source portions of the app’s code for other developers to build upon.

Facebook had 488 million users access its site through its mobile site or mobile apps in March. On Monday, the social network redesigned its mobile News Feed so that photos display three times larger.

Source: Inside Facebook

Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

by M. Dorn on May 15, 2012 · 0 comments

When I was starting out with Web and graphic design, I was always wondering about the fonts that real designers use. So I conducted a research to find out the most popular fonts designers like to use, their best practices, and also out of personal curiosity, their typographical needs. It would be nice to know which font is good for which situation and today I am sharing with you the results of my research.

Through a combination of data collected from Polldaddy, Forrst, Facebook and Twitter, I got feedback from 34 designers from 14 countries answering questions about their favorite fonts and explaining to me why they love them. By analysing all the input submitted I have uncovered some interesting information, which has been put together in an infographic by friends in Piktochart.

Below that, check out the Top 10 list of free and premium fonts, and some of the interesting reasons why designers have their favorite fonts.

Click on image to see in full scale.

top 10 fonts ig preview Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

Top 10 Favorite Free Fonts

Here is the list of Top 10 free fonts mentioned by Web and graphic designers in the survey. Fonts that come bundled with operating systems, fonts like Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman, Georgia, and Tahoma have been excluded.

Myriad Pro
League Gothic
Cabin
Corbel
Museo Slab
Bebas Neue
Ubuntu
Lobster
Franchise
PT Serif

Top 10 Premium Fonts

This is the list of most popular premium (paid) fonts among designers. Some of them are very expensive but the quality of the font speaks for itself.

Helvetica
Gotham
DIN
Futura
Neo Sans
Adobe Caslon
Skolar
Kautiva
Caecilia
Fedra Sans

What designers are saying

Jonny Pigg, United Kingdom

Twitter: @jonnydapigg

Impact – lovely striking bold headline font, easy to read.

Avant garde – bit common but popular with clients, smooth, no fuss lettering. Great for headings, sub-headings and body text (if there’s not too much).

Jr! hand – this turns up in a lot of my t-shirt designs.

Courier – great for sale-type banners, readable and available everywhere (handy for the Web).

jonny pigg Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

R Bitten, Brazil

Twitter: @bittenworks

Frutiger – It’s temporal, balanced and natural.

Futura – elegance, simplicity, looks good almost everywhere.

Didot – elegance and personality.

Lobster/Marketscript – my favorite retro manuscript font.

Museo Slab – a recent discovery.

League Gothic – a better impact.

Courier – another elegant font.

Rockwell – good for headlines.

Gills Sans and Helvetica are always good options too.

bittenworks Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

Edgaras Benediktavicius, Denmark

Twitter: @edgarascom

Century Gothic – solid circular letters.

Trebuchet MS – high readability, web safe, nice.

DejaVu Serif – my favorite serif font.

Rockwell – my favorite slab font.

Convington – very nice modernized retro font.

Comic Sans – makes me laugh.

edgaras benediktavicius Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

Keiron Lowe, United Kingdom

Twitter: @Keiron_Lowe

Lobster has been so overused it’s become the new comic sans! The most popular font used by designers is definitely Helvetica Neue.

keiron lowe Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

Cameron Olivier, South Africa

Twitter: @cameronolivier

If it is free-for-web fonts, FontSquirrel is for the win but as such, my ‘favourite’ fonts are from a very limited stock.

Trebuchet Ms. mostly because it’s on the standard web compatible list, underused, has some great lines and a very tasty italic version.

Quicksand – love the light version – although the font in general is well produced and has some great lines.

Makes – for good heading text, albeit softer, with its subtle curves.

Museo Slab – a great slab-serif. All the Museo’s are great in their own right really, particularly the Slab.

Marketing Script – what a great little font – has a great hand-written feel without being ‘kiddie’. Really like using it as a constrained "easy" font.

Aller – another great font. The different weightings are handy, but the display variant lets loose a little and makes for some great headlines.

ChunkFive – a great, solid heavy font. Really like the heaviness and impact it makes in the page.

cameron olivier Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

Stacey Lane, United States

Twitter: @stacigh

DIN, Gotham, Caecilia, FF Meta, Helvetica Neue.

With the exception of Caecilia, all of these are sans-serif fonts with loads of varying weights. Caecilia is also on this list because it is very geometric and I love the Slab. Also, all of these fonts have a relatively large x-height, which is my preference.

stacey lane Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

Sergiu Naslau, Romania

Twitter: @serjeniu

Franklin Gothic – this font screams for attention. It’s big, bold, and it plays well with other sans-serif fonts.

Helvetica – when it comes to readability, it’s Helvetica or Tahoma. It has its own personality (Inserat or Neue). When it comes to designing a logo, when it comes to the typography, I always play with Helvetica first.

Tahoma – this font is a team player. When it comes to integrating content into the layout and putting everything together, Tahoma looks like it was made to be there.

Brush Script Std – the handwriting look blows me away, in general. In online projects, they tell a story and it appeals to the ego too.

Georgia – this font works great when it comes to capitalizing everything. When you play with the kerning, the letters always look good. It fills the space between the letters, not add to it (too much space lettering in Helvetica may destroy the visual impact).

sergiu naslau Top 10 Fonts Web Designers Love

Conclusion

So there you have it a brief but telling research about the relationship between designers and their fonts. A big thank you to all the designers who helped me out by taking the survey, answering questions as well as sharing their favorite fonts with the design community at large. What about your favourite fonts? Have your say.

Play cards the Egyptian way with Pyramid Solitaire Saga

by M. Dorn on May 15, 2012 · 0 comments

King.com’s “Saga” series of games makes up some of the most consistently popular titles on Facebook, and between them they have covered a wide variety of puzzle genres so far. Pyramid Solitaire Saga is the latest addition to the collection, following the popular solitaire format seen in titles such as Subsoap’s Faerie Solitaire, Big Fish Games’ Fairway Solitaire and PopCap’s Solitaire Blitz.

Pyramid Solitaire Saga’s take on Solitaire involves a predefined arrangement of cards stacked in a Mahjong-style arrangement, with some or all of them face-up. Players must remove cards by playing a card from their deck that is one higher or lower than the card they are trying to remove, but may only play onto cards which are not partially or completely covered. If no cards can be played, the player draws cards from the deck one at a time until they can play.

The ultimate goal of each level is to remove all of the specially-marked “scarab” cards from the board while scoring enough points to get at least a one-star rating. Some levels also have additional objectives such as finishing the round with at least a certain number of cards remaining in the deck, or removing a chain of a certain number of cards without drawing. Failing to remove all the scarabs, attain a one-star rating or complete an objective causes the player to lose a life. They must then retry the level if they have lives available, or wait to recover if they do not. Players can also ask friends for additional lives or purchase a full set — they cannot, at this time, purchase lives that will take them over the upper limit.

As the game progresses, players gain access to various “charms” which make levels a little easier. Some of these must be crafted using gems that the player acquires through play, while others are permanent and must be unlocked using Facebook Credits. The functions of these charms vary from having additional cards in the draw deck at the start of play to being able to shuffle all visible cards on the screen.

It would be easy to dismiss Pyramid Solitaire Saga as a simple clone of Solitaire Blitz (which, in turn, some might accuse of being a clone of Faerie and Fairway Solitaires) but in practice the level-based structure gives the game a very different feel to the more frantic “time attack” gameplay of PopCap’s title. Players can take their time over levels rather than rushing to clear as many cards as possible as fast as they can. It also gives a sense of progression in gameplay beyond simply competing with friends, which is good for those players who prefer to concentrate on their own performance rather than how they shape up against their rivals.

Coupled with the pleasant (if unremarkable) graphics and sound along with King.com’s solid but unobtrusive monetization strategy, Pyramid Solitaire Saga looks set to be another strong title for the publisher. With 820,000 MAU and 380,000 DAU already, the game is off to a good start — it will be interesting to see if it matches its stablemates over the coming months.

Follow Pyramid Solitaire Saga’s progress with AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

Play

King.com’s skills at user acquisition will likely make this fun (if relatively unoriginal) solitaire title a big success.

Source: Inside Social Games

Facebook proposes changes to Data Use Policy, updates disclosure on potential for off-platform ads

by M. Dorn on May 15, 2012 · 0 comments

Facebook proposed a number of changes to its Data Use Policy on Friday, including an updated disclosure about the potential for Facebook data to be used to serve ads on other sites.

The social network also added a number of examples and tips for users to better understand its policies. A pdf of the tracked changes and an explanation of the proposed updates are available from the Facebook Site Governance page. Users have until this coming Friday at 5 p.m. PDT to comment on the changes.

Notably, Facebook has modified its wording about the potential for ads off Facebook to suggest that if it began showing these ads, they may or may not include social context. Part of what makes Facebook ads effective is that they highlight the connections between a business and a user’s friends. However, users might be upset if this information began appearing in ads elsewhere online. Perhaps the company is considering whether to create an ad network that doesn’t show these connections so explicitly. Regardless of whether its ads display social context, the demographic and interest data Facebook has on more than 900 million users could allow Facebook to create an ad network that targets ads more effectively than Google’s AdSense.

Most of the changes Facebook is proposing to its Data Use Policy include editing language related to new features like Sponsored Stories, Timeline and Activity Log. The company has also added clearer examples of what its policy means for users per recommendations from the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s Office, which audited the social network’s data collection practices last year. Here are some of the significant additions to the policy:

New language that explains how Facebook will retain data. The company will continue to retain most data received from advertisers for 180 days, but it notes that there may be some times when it will need to keep information longer. For example, if an advertiser creates a Facebook page, the social network won’t delete information the advertiser puts on its page simply because 180 days had passed. Instead, Facebook will delete it when when the page owner deleted it or closed its account.
New language to explain that, in addition to websites, apps — including those on page tabs — may also use instant personalization.
New section explaining Facebook’s use of “cookies” and other tracking technologies.
New language about groups and subgroups to reflect the launch of “Groups for Schools,” which are special groups that are only open to people who have a confirmed email address for a particular school.

Since 2009, the social network has taken a unique approach with its terms of service. Before instituting any new policies, the company shares proposed changes with users, who then have a period of time to comment and ask questions. For example, in April, Facebook proposed revisions to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities based on feedback it received on the first draft in March. In some cases, Facebook even puts issues up to a vote.

Last week the social network created a new hub for all of its terms and policies here.

Source: Inside Facebook

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