Facebook stickers and emotions now available in desktop chats

Stickers, a popular messaging function in Facebook’s mobile applications, are now available in desktop chat. Facebook announced the arrival of stickers on Tuesday, with a message popping up in the chat module that users can now attach a fun sticker to their conversation.

To access these stickers (which are popular in Asian messaging apps such as Line and KakaoTalk), click the smiley face in the text box. Then, a menu will appear with sticker options. Users can also easily visit the sticker store to access other sets of stickers, including the Despicable Me 2 stickers Facebook recently released. All Facebook stickers are currently free.

Stickers were added to the Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps for iOS and Android in the spring, but this is the desktop debut for the super emoticons.

Facebook tests new gifts prompt, bookmarks ads on mobile

Facebook appears to be testing a new ad unit on mobile (sponsored apps in the bookmarks bar) and has started putting birthday notifications in the mobile News Feed, accompanied by a prompt to buy that person a Gift. Tapping the Gift prompt (usually tailored to what a user has liked on Facebook) will lead to the user being led to purchase a Facebook gift for the person celebrating a birthday.

An Inside Facebook reader shared these new features for mobile. While the birthday and Gift News Feed stories are seen on iOS and Android native apps, the bookmark ad unit appears to only be on iOS for now.

On iOS, when a user accesses the left-side menu, featuring apps and settings, there’s a space for “sponsored apps.” Tapping this will lead the user to the mobile app. This appears to be a new kind of mobile app install ad that Facebook is testing. Facebook has been very excited about the mobile app install ad, and recently made it simpler to compose.

Readers: Have you seen this?

Top 25 Facebook pages

Once again, Facebook for Every Phone is the most-liked Facebook page — and by a wide margin, according to PageData. The page, which helps Facebook’s feature phone users, has more than 263 million fans on Facebook, dwarfing the company’s own Facebook page.

Singer Rihanna is the most popular person on Facebook, trailed closely by rapper Eminem. The most popular game Facebook page isn’t Words With Friends or Candy Crush Saga, but Zynga’s Texas HoldEm Poker — also the one page on the list to lose fans.

Since InsideFacebook.com last tracked the top 25 pages on Facebook in April, Disney fell from No. 25, with Adele taking that spot. The top 10 has stayed largely the same, with Coca-Cola moving from No. 8 to No. 7, Shakira advancing one spot to No. 8 and The Simpsons falling two slots, to No. 9.

Among the top 25 and aside from Facebook for Every Phone, Rihanna is growing the fastest this week, with Eminem and Adele also fast risers.

#	Name	Total Likes	Daily Growth	Weekly Growth
1	Facebook for Every Phone	263,709,611	+488,227	+3,422,923
2	Facebook	93,352,978	+27,022	+197,869
3	YouTube	75,563,817	+26,523	+172,263
4	Rihanna	73,251,317	+50,245	+401,499
5	Eminem	72,492,832	+55,636	+378,637
6	Texas HoldEm Poker	70,342,930	-1,480	-14,875
7	Coca-Cola	68,634,653	+20,264	+345,324
8	Shakira	66,287,365	+43,272	+285,229
9	The Simpsons	65,447,137	+17,085	+117,971
10	Harry Potter	63,121,005	+23,913	+187,817
11	Michael Jackson	60,758,597	+36,590	+263,781
12	Cristiano Ronaldo	58,866,624	+21,800	+174,769
13	Lady Gaga	57,996,363	+20,610	+123,746
14	Justin Bieber	55,151,548	+53,157	+360,157
15	Katy Perry	54,895,906	+26,521	+178,675
16	Linkin Park	54,721,360	+39,529	+262,346
17	Family Guy	53,291,995	+16,275	+113,190
18	Beyoncé	48,793,873	+43,470	+305,802
19	AKON	48,339,588	+19,598	+139,293
20	Leo Messi	46,974,890	+22,067	+134,638
21	South Park	46,948,967	+11,250	+84,497
22	Will Smith	46,922,424	+44,449	+290,773
23	Lil Wayne	46,121,089	+33,164	+234,283
24	MTV	45,818,466	+13,200	+73,675
25	Adele	44,939,088	+53,382	+370,853

Other changes since April:

• Family Guy and Linkin Park (No. 16 and 17) switched spots.
• Beyoncé rose from No. 20 to 18, with Akon moving from 18 to 19 and Leo Messi going from 20 to 21.
• South Park fell from No. 19 to 21.
• Will Smith rose two spots, from No. 24.
• Lil Wayne dropped one, to No. 23.
• MTV fell from No. 23 to No. 24.
• Adele is now No. 25 on the list. The previous No. 25, Disney, fell to No. 27. Fellow singer Taylor Swift is right behind Adele, at No. 26.

Readers: How many of these pages do you like?

Facebook stickers designer leaves that company

Shortly after Facebook launched stickers for desktop chat, news circulated that it lost one of the minds behind the popular messaging feature. TechCrunchand AllFacebook reported that Sophie Xie, the designer who started the sticker craze at a hackathon, has moved from Facebook.

According to TechCrunch, Xie left Facebook to work on a bespoke hyper-local location app. She had been a Facebook employee since 2012, and bringing stickers to desktop was her final project.

Stickers have been a craze in Asian messaging apps, but Facebook brought them to its network earlier this year. The super-sized emoticons started out as an addition for iOS, then later were added to Android. Tuesday, Facebook announced that desktop chat users can send stickers to friends.

Readers: How often do you send stickers?

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