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I’ve been steadily increasing my amount of time spent of Facebook as of late. Whether that’s good or bad is undetermined at the moment, but after having been on there for 2 years now, I thought I should give it a second chance.

And while wasting away precious minutes cruising through people’s obscene pictures and wall posts, I stumbled upon something useful—and advertisement at the bottom of a page. Incredible, I know. Actually, it was advertising a coordinated promotion of Facebook and iTunes in which users could download Summer Samplers containing 25 free songs of hot new artists. Brilliant isn’t it? If you’re a member of the Facebook community and enjoy free music, then I’d be on the lookout for these advertisements. Otherwise, the easy route is to join the Apple Student Group (I know its difficult, but I had to do it.) and then click on the post at the top which is an explicit explanation about the program. From what I can remember reading, a new sampler is coming out every Monday until September 30. So, better hurry up and get yo’ Facebook on!

In more recent news, Facebook is allowing students to develop new features and come up with some new ideas by releasing an application programming interface (API). This developer network will allow people to create applications utilizing the data from profiles, photos, events, and friends. I’m taking a look into this and determining what sort of things might be interesting to try and develop, or to assist with the development of an application. Regardless of my involvment, I’m sure there are to be some pretty fun and interesting things that will come out of this.

Last but not least, Facebook will be offering credit cards. Yep, credit cards. Mashable has a good post about this new ‘feature’.

Facebook, America’s second largest social network, is set to announce a partnership with J.P. Morgan Chase to promote the Chase credit card. It’s a one-year marketing agreement, and Chase will become the exclusive credit-card sponsor to Facebook. The program is due to roll out by the end of the week. Facebook members will see banner ads inviting them to join a special Chase network (sounds like MySpace Marketing) – members of that group will then earn reward points for their actions, like paying their bills on time and “other activities”. You can convert your points into a charity donation, or redeem them for “fraternity prizes” such as TVs.

Any body else see a problem with this? Do college students really need to be offered a chance to further their debt?