You may have noticed a new item in the main ‘account’ menu in Facebook. It looks like this:

This is Facebook’s attempt to launch its own virtual currency. To start with Facebook credits are targeted at virtual goods such as games, but Facebook hope that it will eventually be used to buy anything online.

Good for Website Builders

For those with a Facebook page AND a physical website elsewhere, this is a potentially exciting opportunity to offer transactions within the actual Facebook environment.

And it has even bigger implications: Thanks to Facebook connect – which lets you log into other sites using your Facebook login – and Facebook open graph – which allows any site to be ‘liked’, the online currency could eventually flourish not just within Facebook but on the wide web too.

How much?

The potential downside for retailers and consumers is that Facebook plan to take a whopping 30% of every transaction. That goes way beyond the 2% that most credit card companies take.

Beanz

This isn’t the first time an online currency has been tried. Those of us who remember the heady days of the web in the 90s will recall a startup currency called ‘beanz’, which was the first play for a universal way to pay online. Beanz – like so many early dotcoms – foundered because it wasn’t widely adopted. But with 500m global users Facebook definitely has the reach to make this work.

Frictionless transactcions

Experts are saying that despite the healthy commissions, Facebook credits could provide a very easy and frictionless way to pay online. And when friction goes down, sales go up.

What do you think?

Do you think that a Facebook currency could work? How would you feel about buying – or selling – for Facebook credits rather than hard cash? Has Facebook overstepped the mark, is it becoming too big, too much a part of everyone’s lives?

Leave us a comment below.

These are the words of that, ahem, forward looking music artist, formerly known as a squiggle, Prince. Apparently, it thinks that the Internet is a poor way to distribute music.

“The Internet’s completely over,” he said in an interview for the Mirror. “I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they can’t get it.”

It’s not the first time Prince has railed against the web. It all kicked off back in 2007 when decided to file lawsuits against Pirate Bay, eBay and YouTube for ‘appropriating’ his music. He has placed a total Ban on any of these sites using his music, and has also refused to deal with others such as iTunes and eMusic.

What about his own website though? If that’s the only place people can get his music, it must be huge?

Not a bit of it – it’s been shut down!

“The internet’s like MTV,” the star said to the Mirror’s correspondent. “At one time, MTV was hip, and suddenly it became outdated.”

Has Prince read it correctly? Is this the beginning of the end of the Internet? Leave us a comment below…

There’s an interesting story over on Domain Name Wire  about a record breaking domain name sale which happened through the Sedo. Sedo is a secondary marketplace where you can buy or sell domain names. Its called ‘secondary’ because these are domain names that have already been registered, and their current owners are looking to sell them on at a profit.

Perhaps the best known sale of a domain on the secondary market was sex.com which generated $12m back in 2006. Prior to that, the heady days of the dotcom boom brought about the sale of business.com for a whopping $7.5m.

This time its the domain name Internet.eu, which went for $26,250, which makes it one of the top ten public .eu domain sales ever. There’s a perception that .eu domain names are worth a lot less than .com, .net or .org, and less too than country domains such as .uk. Still, considering the previous owner probably bought the domain for less than £50, that’s quite a big profit!

All this highlights the importance of choosing the right domain name. Its important to make sure you find something that’s easy to remember, but which is also relevant to you or your business. I’m bound to mention that you can get a free domain name with our packages. This means that your WebWorx24 website can appear as your domain name, rather than yourname.webworx24.com.

Do you already own a great domain name? Why not make us envious and let us know what it is and how much you think its worth?