The scam has been spreading virally through Facebook via “fan pages” with names like “Whole Foods Market Free $500 Gift Card Limited – first 12,000 fans only” and “Whole Foods FREE $500 Gift Card! Only Available for 36 hours!” The fan page asks Facebook users to add it as a fan, thus pushing awareness of the page through those users’ Facebook networks, and then asks them to fill out a credit assessment and other forms that request personal information. The scam then uses a form of malware to crash users’ computers and the information they have entered is left vulnerable.

This is a scam, don't join this one!

As always, check the Facebook Security page for information or to report a scam!

Another excellent post by Dawn (@lettergirl)!

5 Reasons I’m Not a Fan of Your Business on Facebook

And thanks to this post, I have lots of work to do – I spend a good amount of time connecting, but my Facebook page needs to be touched up. 

Definitely read this.  And anything else Dawn writes.  Oh, and also definitely read the comments!

The governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, has found a novel use for Facebook: conducting town hall meetings. On Wednesday, March 31, at 7:15 p.m. ET, the governor will use his Facebook Fan Page to make a major announcement and to gather feedback from his fans on “helping Republicans win the 2010 elections.”

Facebook’s been a powerful tool for politicians for years:Facebook Election 2006 and Barack Obama’s “A+” use of Facebook in the campaign are just two of many examples.

With every purchase of 1/4 lb. Brisket on March 2nd, the 32¢ payment received will be donated to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. One per customer, participating locations only (see below) and cutter’s choice brisket.

Also, Rudy’s will donate 50¢ to Clinton Bush Haiti Fund for every new verifiable Twitter follower and Facebook fan from February 23^rd to March 2^nd!

From Mashable.com:

In a private meeting with the press, Mr. Deng took the time to explain the new Facebook () redesign and all of its new features in-depth. I whipped out my Kodak ZI8 and filmed the entire conversation and demo. While he didn’t reveal many new details, he did provide a very useful overview that made Facebook design and its plan much easier to understand.

From F-Secure.com:

Facebook recently published a nice new feature: Reply to this email to comment on this status.

This seems like a very handy feature to have if you’re trying to converse with friends on the go.

But is it secure?

As it turns out, based on our testing, anyone can use the Reply To address, from any e-mail account.

Of course, the notification links are only sent to the account holder’s primary e-mail, but we all know just how often e-mail accounts are phished/hacked, right?

Try it yourself. Send an e-mail message to this address, include a subject message, and you’ll see the results, posted in Matti’s name, here.

Coming soon to a comment near you — EMAIL REPLY SPAM.

Also, read more at AllFacebook.com here:

The problem is, that email notification address is accessible by anyone.  Meaning that if someone were to find that email somehow, they could respond on this thread, regardless of whether they’re your Facebook friend. Unfortunately for Facebook, it’s relatively difficult to control this security vulnerability.

So as more and more of you become comfortable with the wonder that is Facebook, realize that every good thing has people looking to take advantage of it – stay diligent and remember to keep good security practices!

During our talk, I brought up a slide that showed the statistic that if Facebook were a country, it would be larger than Japan….

Well that just changed!

According to CNN.com, Facebook just crossed the 300 million threshold.

300 MILLION.  There are about 307 million people in the US.

In July they hit 250 million, which means they’ve grown about 800,000 NEW users per day.  About 50 million users.

Some statistics, from Facebook’s Statistics page:

General Growth

More than 300 million active users

50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day

The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older

User Engagement

Average user has 130 friends on the site

More than 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)

More than 40 million status updates each day

More than 10 million users become fans of Pages each day