A Number Puzzle From Facebook

This puzzle came via Facebook from Darla. She is not sure of its source.
Darla sees at least two logical answers and would love to hear your opinion which one is right.
4+6+8=9
8+10+12 =15
12+14+16=21
18+20+22= ?

Your answers are accepted any time until midnight Eastern Time on Sunday, on our Family Puzzle Marathon.

Facebook Challenge

A few weeks ago a number challenge arrived via Facebook.

It said that the following problem can be solved by pre-school children in 5-10 minutes, by programmers - in 1 hour, by people with higher education... well, check it yourself!

8809=6

7111=0

2172=0

6666=4

1111=0

3213=0

7662=2

9313=1

0000=4

2222=0

3333=0

5555=0

8193=3

8096=5

7777=0

9999=4

7756=1

6855=3

9881=5

5531=0

2581=?

I thought and thought and thought and couldn't figure it out.  Pre-schoolers! It must be something not related to any kind of computation. Numbers, shapes, squiggles...  After a while I cheated and  found the solution on the web.

It is the number of loops in the digits.

2581 will have only 2 loops in the digit 8, so 2581=2

To boost self-confidence of those who like me couldn't solve this pre-schooler challenge I am offering another one that uses a bit more math wisdom:

What is the next number in the following sequence:

-2, 4, -12, 48, -240, ?

Your answers are accepted any time until midnight Eastern Time on Sunday, on our Family Puzzle Marathon.

Beware of the Friendly People

How friendly are you? Well, in our age it all depends on how many friends you have on Facebook and how many Twitter accounts are pretending to listen to what you are sharing. MediaMetrix company has hired Anne-Marie (one of our winning puzzle-solvers) to help sort out the friendship connections. They told her that statistical studies have shown that the average number of friends that a person has on Facebook is 120. MediaMetrix was asking Anne-Marie to figure out what percentage of the Facebook users have 300 and more friends and therefore fall into a Very Friendly category.

Their idea was to create a special "Beware of Friendly Me" badge that could be sent to all those Very Friendly people for easy identification. Why? Because they do have a lot of power. Their voices and opinions can be heard on Facebook by over 300 readers and then re-shared further and further. Imagine you or your company mistreating one of those people and later seeing yourself being trashed all around the web. With this badge, you will make sure to give every Very Friendly person a VIP attention and they hopefully will share your praise with the world.

Can you help Anne-Marie figure out what percentage of the Facebook users are Very Friendly?

Top image by Dan Taylor, distributed under CCL.

Answers accepted all day long on Friday & Saturday, on our Family Puzzle Marathon. They will be hidden until Sunday morning (EST) and everyone who contributed something reasonable will get a puzzle point. Please, explain your answer.