Inside Facebook reports that fbFund appears to be "mothballed". fbFund is a seed fund and joint venture run by Facebook Founders Fund and Accel Partners. Investment capital for the fund was provided by these entities.

fBfund gave startups up to $100k in investment, as well as access to key people, presentations on technology, product, marketing, and business topics, mentorship, and even office space. Eric Eldon writes:

After noticing that the company has been completely quiet about fbFund plans so far this year, we asked it about its plans. "At this time we have no plans for future iterations of the program," a company spokesperson tells us, “but we will keep you posted as soon as we have anything new to share.” The company also says that it will "continue to support innovation from the startup community through initiatives like the developer garage program."

fbFund operated for two years, funding companies building Facebook’s developer platform, and as Eldon points out, it has kind of taken a backseat to the big boom in the social gaming market.

Wildfire is a company that offers social media marketing technology to businesses, to help them create branded campaigns like sweepstakes, contests, coupons, giveaways, quizzes, and virtual gift campaigns, and publish them simultaneously to Facebook pages, company websites (integrated with Facebook), and on Twitter. The company recently sparked some buzz with its "Facebook-safe" sweepstakes service for those who "run a business and know the value of promotional campaigns on Facebook but have been stopped by the logistics, legal aspects and costs," as All Facebook’s Raj Dash puts it.

"The timing couldn’t be better – we founded Wildfire around the time of the last f8 and now here we are just a few days after the 2010 f8 reaching another big milestone for our company!" Ransom says of the funding.

Wildfire Founders Victoria Ransom and Alain Chuard

"Since the last f8, we launched an easy-to-use social media marketing platform for brands, agencies and small businesses, reached profitability within 1 month of launching our product and won the fbFund twice," she adds. "We serve thousands of companies and have powered tens of thousands of social media marketing campaigns. With today’s investment from Summit we’re confident that we’ll be able to reach new heights."

Now that Facebook is taking over the web, one would have to imagine that services such as those provided by Wildfire will be increasingly in demand.

The fbFund is designed to support developers and entrepreneurs who use Facebook’s platform; winners can receive up to $100,000 in seed money, along with a lot of official assistance.  Facebook’s reason for providing all this is that the finished products are supposed to become pretty huge draws.

So let’s get on to the list of finalists.  The Connect sites include Frintro, GovIt, RunMyErrand, RentMineOnline, MyChurch.org, GreetBeatz, Workstir, NutshellMail, RunThere, DropPlay, Magellan, Life360, and Vittana (those last three are in private beta).

Next come the platform apps: Travel Brain, Networked Blogs, Gameyola, Photos I Like, Paradise Paintball 3D, Veechi Classes, SamaSource, and BitStrips (private beta).  And finally (for now), the iPhone apps: FriendFreak, Near+Now (Sortuv), Paparazzi, and CrazyMenu.

Another 25 finalists should soon be announced, and then the overall fbFund 2009 winners will be chosen.

This competition probably won’t change the course of history, but it might have a big effect on some developers’ lives and alter the way Facebook’s perceived.

The Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act of 2008 was signed into law on Monday. The new act requires sexual offenders to include email addresses and IM names on the National Sex Offenders Registry. Yesterday, Facebook announced that they will comply with the new federal law, just as they have worked with states’ attorneys general in keeping sexual predators off Facebook.

As Chris Kelly pointed out in the company’s blog post on the KIDS Act, the old system was deficient:

Unfortunately, we both consistently find that [the state] registries lack the essential email and IM data for comprehensive and rapid screening. The process is also less efficient and less effective than anyone, especially concerned parents, would like, which is why we’re such ardent supporters of the KIDS Act Registry.

Also in the news today is Facebook’s funding of developer startups. fbFund is a $10 million fund for apps developers that started last year. When it began in July 2007, the fund was supposed to use a “fast-track approval process.” However, no money had been announced until now.

Today, Facebook announced the 25 recipients of $25,000 each. They’ll receive the money to work on their original, meaningful social apps on Facebook and throughout the Internet on Facebook connect.

The winners:
• BarTab • BlackDrumm • Bottle Rocket • Check My Campus • Daikon • Faithfeed • Good Call Sports • GroupCard • Kontagent • Koofers • Mousehunt • Newsbrane • PartyBuzz • Pongr • ProfessionalProfile • RealGifts • Social Arcade • Socialfly • Teach the People • Thankster • TrailBehind • Twenty20 Cricket • vDream Racing • Weddingbook • Wildfire

Five of these startups will receive an additional $225,000 at the end of the second round of the competition. To qualify, over the next few weeks the startups must:

build and submit their final applications and create a video showcasing their work, which will be found on the fbFund competition page. As round two kicks off, users will have the chance to try these applications, watch the videos and vote for their favorites. Final judging of round two will factor in user voting, as well as input from Facebook, Accel Partners and Founders Fund.

The winners will be announced in December.

Comments

fbFund Gives Financial Awards To Facebook Apps

After all, competitors in the hunt for fbFund’s money are being asked to improve their creations.  In a final event that’s much funnier than it sounds, competitors in the Monty Python bit are simply asked to end their own lives.  So, however much the two groups may resemble each other in the beginning, they should be headed in different directions.

According to the Mercury News, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg stated, “We are just looking for innovative and disruptive things.  We don’t think we can build all these applications ourselves.”

That’s a reasonable attitude to take.  Zuckerberg also took a reasonable approach to forming the fbFund; grants provided by it will range in value from $25,000 to $250,000, and will come out of a $10 million pot created by Facebook, Accel Partners, and The Founders Fund.  Accel and The Founders Fund both contributed to Facebook’s success, so the fund is essentially an internal affair.

And from an outside perspective, the whole arrangement tends to create a no-lose situation.  Either we get a bunch of impressive Facebook applications, or we get a lot of apps to laugh at.