===>> we’ve hopped over to hosted WordPress.org. Visit Mari’s lively WhyFacebook.com blog and get the latest scoop on all things Facebook, Twitter, social media, etc!

As I’m compiling Modules and screen capture vids for my upcoming class at Facebook Fortunes, I’m seeing more and more business Facebook users getting frustrated at all the frivolous app stuff.

No offense to all the genius app creators – it’s just they are not for everyone.

So, for all fellow busy business peeps, here are a couple of quick tips I’d love to share:

1. To tone down some of the inane Notifications:

Click on the down arrow next to your Inbox, and click on Notifications.

Then check/uncheck apps on the right.

2. To block specific apps:

Quickest way is this: type the name of an app you wish to block in the Search box to the top left and hit enter.

On the search results page, click the tab for x Applications (x being the number of search results).

Click on the name of the app – scroll down and you should see a link on the right hand side that says “Block Application.”

You can also edit all kinds of settings for each App you have installed. More on this later.

This is a quick teaser for lots more setting-tweaking-how-to’s (including tons of screen capture videos) at my free class FacebookFortunes.com. Make sure you’re registered before midnight on October 10th!

If Web Strategist, Jeremiah Owyang, says it – we gotta listen. “We” being anyone remotely interested in internet marketing. Or, as it’s termed “Interactive Marketing.”

Check out this video clip of Jeremiah’s recent interview:

Jennifer Jones, of Marketing Voices, asks Jeremiah, “Where do you think Facebook will be in a year?“

Jeremiah responds, “Facebook is going to continue to grow. We’re going to see the middle class, white collar workers start adopting these tools more and more… It’s going to grow in the business workplace.”

Facebook may not be for everybody – you have to see if it’s the right demographic for you. Jeremiah says some of the key benefits to being on Facebook are:

• People are opting to provide massive amounts of information (intelligence) – their age, gender, location, interests, contacts.
• This provides the interactive marketer and business person tremendous opportunity to create more effective marketing, using a phased, flexible approach which may include:
  • Deploy a free group.
  • Create a sponsored group.
  • Contextual advertising.
  • Create a widget (application).
• Opportunity for viral growth, velocity – through word-of-mouth.

Come see Jeremiah Owyang as the keynote speaker at a special Web Community Forum event in Seattle, December 5th and 6th, 2007. I’ll see ya there!!

And, do send me a Friend Request from Facebook if we’re not buds already… just be sure to include a wee note saying how we know each other.

 Have you entered the contest yet? Come on over to Facebook Fortunes – it’s free, it’s fun and it’s the future!!!

Seems to be an interesting debate going on… yes, Facebook is the hottest, fastest, bestest site on the internet (LOL), but are there any proven strategies and, more importantly, best practices, in place yet?

I just registered for the Web Community Forum conference in Seattle, December 5th and 6th. Jeremiah Owyang is the keynote. Sounds like a good place to hang out for all things Facebook… in good taste. Hope to see ya there.

Meantime, I got tired of so many quality, successful business contacts of mine saying they just don’t get Facebook. “Is it MySpace for adults?” Hm, maybe so. But, for me, I say there definitely ARE strategic ways to use social networking sites to grow your business.

So, I just launched a special introductory course at FacebookFortunes.com – check out the contest through October 10th. Feel free to send me your feedback – post here, or contact me through Facebook.

The best nugget I recently read is:

“Facebook is the closest thing the world has to a next-generation Internet, one structured not around Web sites but around people. In the Facebook topology, every data source or service is defined by who else is using it.”

by David Kirkpatrick, Senior Editor at Fortune Magazine (as cited on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim blog).

As relationships are my specialty, Facebook gives me just one more tool – a powerful one at that – to begin to foster quality relationships with top-notch people.

Information marketers, copywriters, authors, singers, actors – you name it, many of them people I’ve admired from afar for eons, and would never have known how to reach them before.

How are you using Facebook? Can you point to how Facebook is helping you in your business or career?

1. You log into Facebook before checking your regular email.
2. You check Facebook daily, multiple times a day, or all day.
3. Your brain filters everything through Facebook now. You think, “How can I promote, or market, or share, or propagate this on Facebook?”
4. You trawl your address book for who hasn’t signed up yet, or who you haven’t invited yet.
5. You get a bigger buzz from the number of new friends who accepted your add request than you do from a trip to Starbucks. (Yeah, I know, a tough one to beat!)
6. You update your status frequently to put a feed on your friends’ profiles.
7. Hours pass before you realize you’ve done nothing but surf Facebook.
8. You carry your laptop with wi-fi wherever you go… just in case.
9. You find yourself thinking about Facebook when you’re away from your computer… Facebook even pops into your dreams.
10. Your usual bedtime has shifted by two or more hours.

Okay, I have to include a #11: You stop talking to people who haven’t joined Facebook yet. LOL. ;)

Facebook is here to stay. If you don’t have at least a basic profile up yet, or you want to optimize your Facebook participation, let me know and I can help.

And, check out my contest and FREE class at FacebookFortunes.com!