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With Facebook Beta for Windows Phone 8 (and soon for Windows Phone 7) becoming more mainstream on the platform, one can’t help but notice all of the copycat apps on the Store, causing brand confusion.

One devilish one is literally called “Facebook WP8 beta”, in an obvious attempt to steer naïve people towards their app.

That’s not to say there aren’t some genuine attempts to make a better Facebook app for Windows Phone users, indeed there are several with nothing but good intent by the developer. But at the end of the day, corporations need to protect their brand and with 41 clone apps on the Store competing with their official one, Facebook has evidently had enough.

The team behind the new Facebook app for Windows Phone, which is currently in beta, has released a small update. Bumping the available version up to 5.0.1.1, we're looking at better support for special characters when entering text as well as a few other minor improvements.

JDB Pocketware, the Windows Phone developers of HandyScan and SkyManager, have released a Facebook app. Facebook JDB is billed as being optimized for touch input and includes a set of enhancements to make your Facebook browsing experience the best possible.

Facebook is reportedly talking with both Microsoft and Apple about creating a version of its new software (that's already available on Android) for the iPhone and Windows Phone. The software is titled "Home" and offers further integration with mobile platforms for consumers to access social features more conveniently (or intrusively).

The Windows Phone "Next App Star" contest is winding down with voting for the final four apps ending tonight at 11:59pm PST. After which voting for the championship round will take place from April 6th to 8th.

While the WPCentral app made it to the elite eight, we fell short to ProShot, who is now facing (and leading) Amazing Weather HD. On the other side of the semi-finals you will find Wikipedia leading Voice Translator.

Facebook is holding their "New home on Android" event in Menlo Park, California today and we're HALO dropping Phil Nickinson, Iron Man style, to bring you all the live coverage you can handle!

Personally, we don’t care for Facebook too much and Android while we have respect, is still too busy for our likes.  What could go wrong when you combine one messy UI/UX with another? We’re about to find out.

10am PDT, 1pm EDT. Join us here:

• Android Central Facebook home event live blog

By now you should know that we’re not big Facebook users around here. Hey, if everyone can critique the stupidity of Instagram, we can do the same for Facebook. Regardless, we know many of you love the service and rely on it to stay in touch with friends, family and colleagues. So it’s exciting to see the app get a nice 0.1 update to version 4.2 today (last update was for 7.8 in December).

Unfortunately there is no change log with this update, as it instead relies on the old update info from when the app got some Windows Phone 8 features. Also a cursory look around the app did not reveal any major new features but figuring out the labyrinth like feature-set of the world’s largest social network is never easy to begin with.

Shotly Golf (formerly Executive Caddie) has launched it's 2013 Masters Madness giveaway contest where over forty Windows Phone related items will be given away over the next thirty days. Prizes include Nokia Lumia 920s, Microsoft Surface RT tablets, Nokia Fatboy Charging Pillows and more.

To enter your chance at the giveaway, write a review (good or bad) of Shotly Golf in the Windows Phone Store then comment on the daily drawing post over on Shotly Golf's Facebook page with the word "done".

Nokia has launched Oreo Skies (think Oreo cookies) for Lumia Windows Phones. The app enables consumers to gaze to the stars (or the sun if you're using it during the day) and explore a map of stars and constellations. Messages can be sent to friends via Facebook, and the whole idea is really a social app for the massive network (it's also available via the website as an app, but asks users to download on their Lumia smartphones).