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Anyone wishing to “friend” the U.S. Army now can, thanks to a new Facebook page and blog.

The Facebook page, which launched last Thursday, already has nearly 3,000 fans. Yelps of “Hooah” litter its wall.

“In just a weekend the Facebook site has become a vibrant community,” said Lindy Kyzer, a public affairs specialist in the online and social media division of Army public affairs. “We have soldiers, spouses, retirees, family members, even a grandmother whose granddaughter just signed up.”

Both the Facebook page and new blog, called “Army Live,” are meant to allow people inside and outside the service to speak informally about the Army. The Facebook page asks viewers to comment on such topics as “Why did you join the Army?” Or “Who is your favorite noncommissioned officer?” It also features podcasts, photos, links to other Army-related Web sites and even a way to follow the Army on Twitter.

“It’s a one-stop shop for people to connect to us,” Kyzer said.

via U.S. Army steps into networking world with Facebook profile | Stars and Stripes.

The thumbprint of social media on search engine optimization is evolving. It used to be that the big rage was figuring out how to develop link bait that had a strong chance of making the front page of Digg, Reddit, or other similar social news sites. The results were good, mostly in terms of getting a volume of links to a page on your site.

This is still a great tactic, but social media can do so much more today. For example, with Twitter or Facebook it is possible to use networking and information sharing techniques to build high quality links. I have seen sites from a number of different spaces use Twitter effectively as a PR outreach mechanism.

This new type of PR has become a new technique for link building and promotion. However, fast forwarding from today, there is the widely held belief in the SEO community that social media will be a major source of ranking signals for the search engines in the future

via The Evolving State Of Social Media & SEO.

Facebook remains on the lookout for acquisitions after its failed attempt to buy microblogging site Twitter, one of the companys directors and largest investors says. “Were still focusing on growing as much as possible,” says Peter Thiel in an interview with BusinessWeek.

In Facebooks first public confirmation of the talks, Thiel said the parties disagreed over price and structure when they seriously considered a deal last fall. “It became pretty clear it wasnt going to happen,” Thiel says from the mid-Manhattan office of his hedge fund Clarium Capital. “The deal would have to be done with Facebook stock. And then you have to figure out how much the stock is worth.”

via Facebooks Thiel Explains Failed Twitter Takeover – BusinessWeek.

Last night, well-known Internet entrepreneur Marc Andreessen appeared on the “Charlie Rose” television interview show, talking about the digital sector and unveiling the news that he is creating a new venture fund.

I had heard rumblings about Andreessen’s funding efforts earlier this week, with sources I talked to nicknaming it “Project A.”

Actually, Andreessen said the new firm is called Andreessen Horowitz (zzzz), because he is doing it with longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz.

“For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen.

Although he gave few specific details about the fund, Andreessen essentially said he was simply putting a structure around his own active angel investing, which has included start-ups like Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn and many more.

His new effort will focus on early-stage investments, he said, noting that “our claim to fame is, we’ve actually, you know, by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, we’ve done it, we’ve been on that side of the table for a long time; we know what it’s like.”

Adding that he and Horowitz had made 36 investments over the last three years of up to $200,000, Andreessen said his new firm will make up to $1 million bets on start-ups.

Of course, for most of the interview, Rose zeroed in on hot topics like Facebook, the social-networking site on whose board Andreessen serves.

The voluble tech star did his job, talking about how Facebook could turn on the spigot and make all sorts of money anytime it wants and about the recent controversy around its Terms of Service kerfuffle.

He also talked about the Andreessen-backed Ning social network service, the Apple (AAPL) iPhone, Twitter, why the New York Times irks him, Google (GOOG), the Amazon (AMZN) Kindle e-book reader and gaming.

via Marc Andreessen Crosses Over to the “Dark Side” With New Venture Fund (Here’s the Video) | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD.

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The backlash against Facebooks updated privacy policies is about to expand. The Electronic Privacy Information Center EPIC is preparing to file a formal complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the social networks updated licenses, PC World has learned.

“We think that Facebook should go back to its original terms of service,” says EPIC Executive Director Marc Rotenberg.

EPIC expects to have its complaint submitted to the FTC by the end of Tuesday.

Wide-Reaching Reaction

The wave of reaction, of course, is hardly limited to official organizations. More than 38,000 Facebook users have joined a user group protesting the change, and countless blogs and news sites have written extensively about their concerns. The issue comes down to a couple of alterations within the companys terms of use that, it would seem, give Facebook eternal ownership of your personal content–even if you decide to delete your account.

The changes were actually made in early February but not widely noticed until Sunday, when The Consumerists Chris Walters stumbled upon the subtly shifted language. The section in question explains how Facebook has an “irrevocable, perpetual” license to use your “name, likeness, and image” in essentially any way, including within promotions or external advertising.

That clause, Walters noted, wasnt new. What had changed was that a sentence at the end of the paragraph was now mysteriously missing. The deleted line stated that the license would “automatically expire” if you removed your content. With that line omitted, Facebooks license to use your content is simply “perpetual” and “irrevocable,” even decades after you delete your stuff.

via Facebook Privacy Change Sparks Federal Complaint – PC World.

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