Facebook Event Live Blog – 1:30pm EDT
2:25pm: Folks are on stage taking questions in a Q&A session. We’ll cut the feed here and bring you any interesting bits that come out of it later on. You’ve got 5 minutes to tune into this week’s PhanCast LIVE!
2:20: Mark Zuckerberg is back. He says “I think we’re done.”
2:16pm: Gap, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, The North Face, National Park Foundation, Palms Resorts and Hotels, and the Golden State Warriors NBA team, McDonalds, JC Penney, H&M, the San Francisco 49ers NFL team, Starbucks, and American Eagle will all be using Deals.
2:15pm: Allows a business to get rid of loyalty scratch cards. Digitize it and put it on your customers’ phones!
2:14pm: Showing how easy it is for companies to set deals up on their official Facebook pages. Just plug in the details of your deal and let Facebook do the rest!
2:13pm: Emily White – director of Local – takes the stage.
2:11pm: How Deals works: Imagine I’m with friends walking down the street and looking for a restaurant to eat at. With Deals, use your phone’s location to check out restaurants with the best deals around you. Nothing surprising here. Check in to claim the deal, show your phone to the cashier, and you’re saving money!
2:10pm: He’s enthusiastic, this one! A lot of energy as he invites Tim Kendall – director of Monetization – to talk about Deals.
2:08pm: He’s showing how easy it is to use the new Places APIs. Lines of code make my brain hurt.
2:07pm: And now the slide doesn’t work. Awesome! Dave Fetterman is back on stage battling with projection technology.
2:06pm: Demoing Loopt with Facebook Single Sign-on and new Places support. Checking in on Loopt also checks you in on Facebook Places. He’s having problems with the demo. He’s demoing it on the iPhone ;)
2:05pm: Sam Altman – Loopt’s CEO – takes the stage.
2:04pm: Loopt, Foursquare, Yelp, SCVNGR, and more signed on to the private beta.
2:01pm: This guy is pretty cool. I want to be like him.
2:00pm: Initially, only the read API for Places was available. Now, the API opens up writing and searching functions.
1:59pm: Dave Fetterman – Senior Engineer for Facebook – takes the stage to talk about Location and Places API.
1:58pm: The old “under the seat” joke. Cruel.
1:57pm: Other companies: Flixster, Loopt, Yelp, SCVNGR, BooYah, and more.
1:55pm: Zynga Live Poker Comes to Android. (With Single Sign-on, of course!)
1:54pm: Justin Cinicolo from Zynga – GM of Mobile – takes the stage.
1:53pm: It was literally three lines of code to add this functionality.
1:51pm: Groupon rep steps on stage to demonstrate Single Sign-on with their app.
1:50pm: Single Sign-on leads to Happy People which leads to Happy Developers. Yay!
1:49pm: He uses Groupon as an example. Launch groupon, hit the Facebook Login button, and you’re good to go. Need to change your password? You’ll change your password for every app that uses single sign-on.
1:48pm: Single Sign-on is about making it easier to log in to your apps using your Facebook account. Sign in once, and you sign in everywhere.
1:46pm: New location APIs. Also building a platform for businesses to post deals for people in their area.
1:44pm: Facebook Single Sign-on will allow you to login once and access everything you need.
1:43pm: Talking about there’s no need for a phone if they can get their platform out to as many phones as they can.
1:42pm: Zuckerberg: We’re not building a Facebook phone.
1:41pm: Groups and Places also on the Android version. Places on Android will help them gain global share with the new platform.
1:41pm: Also refreshing the Android app. Zuckerberg admits the Facebook app is noticeably behind the iPhone’s.
1:40pm: Well, why not? The iPhone version is getting Places and Groups support. Let’s see if their Android offering gets the same treatment.
1:39pm: Refreshing the apps across various platforms. Right now he’s talking about the iPhone app, but we’re not worried about that. Bring the Android goods!
1:39pm: That’s up form 65 million people since last year.
1:38pm: 200 million people using Facebook Mobile across all platforms. Wow!
1:37pm: Zuckerberg: “We’re going to talk about the mobile platform we’re building tonight.”
1:35pm: Brandee Barker form Facebook says stand by as they work with key partners to announce some new products today. We’re standing by, alright, and there’s Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook CEO).
1:33pm: An event wouldn’t be an event without there being a delay. Hopefully they don’t keep us waiting long!
1:30pm: The stream is live! We see a bunch of eager bloggers ready to break some news. And I’m playing “Where’s Rob Jackson?” as we wait for them to begin.
Hey guys, if you can’t make it to Facebook’s site for the live stream of this event, we’ve got you covered. We’ll be bringing you the latest updates in this here post from the moment the event starts until the moment Rob is all Facebook’d out. Refresh the post for the latest starting in 15 minutes!