The social media site that dominates our lives is powering on through 2014 and has introduced a number of changes;

Investments at Facebook - Facebook is set to make ‘large, strategic’ technological investments in a bid to boost mobile revenue and a major force in premium advertiser monetisation.      
Quick Stats;

  • Advertising revenue has risen 64% year-on-year to £1.8bn in the three months to September, with two thirds of that coming from the mobile side.
  • On mobile, 1.12 billion people now use Facebook each month
  • 703 million people every day, nearly 40% growth from this time last year
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said: “We’re investing in ad-tech for a simple reason. Consumers are shifting quickly to mobile and the advertising industry is not keeping up." He also went on to add, "Similarly marketers are not confident that they can measure mobile ad performance. Many of the most commonly used measurement systems over emphasise the value of the last click. This does not make sense, given that studies of Facebook campaigns show that over 90% of ad-driven in-store sales come from people who saw an ad but didn’t click on it."

This is part of a long-term strategy that includes recent acquisitions such as WhatsApp, Instagram and Oculus Rift.

Places Directory - Facebook's new Places Directory has been discretely released and will be spark fierce competition with directory sites such as Yelp. Places Directory allows you to search the globe for destinations and then narrow down your searches for bars, hotels, restaurants, gyms, landmarks and many more attractions. It's strength lies in the fact results are ranked by user ratings and show comments from your Facebook friends. Places Directory taps into Facebook's existing technology such as Graph Search, Page Locations API, and other elements.

Facebook at work - Facebook is working on extending its network beyond the social realm and into the professional world, according to the FT, citing an anonymous source. Facebook at Work will be very similar to the current Facebook model, with collaborative tools for work on shared documents and professional/social profiles not sharing any information. It is currently being piloted in London, although effectively it has been piloted for years at Facebook HQ as they are known to use Facebook internally.

Facebook Groups - Facebook is set launch another spin off app, although it isn't creating anything new, it's giving Facebook Groups its very own app. With 650 to 700 million monthly active users and 2.5 billion pieces of content every month, its second in size only to Facebook itself. Current users having been trailing through Facebook to access Groups, so this should make it much simpler for those users while also more inviting to new users. But what is Groups anyway? Its effectively a much smaller Facebook in which you can customise your news feed to smaller group such as friends, family or work colleagues.