Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Posted on September 28, 2009 - by admin

Popular apps highlight the difference between Android and iPhone

Two of the most popular iPhone apps, Pandora and Facebook, have finally been brought to the Android platform. These apps place increased emphasis on one of Android’s strengths that really makes the user experience different from the iPhone: homescreen presence.

Last week, Apple rolled out Facebook 3.0 for the iPhone which improved upon the previous app by adding new features such as Facebook Events and direct-to-Facebook video uploading. It was received with great praise by the iPhone crowd.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on August 22, 2009 - by admin

Facebook phishing app plague may be getting out of control

In the Internet equivalent of the old “whack-a-mole” game, Trend Micro researcher Rik Ferguson — who helped call attention to the Conficker worm early on — has this week been calling attention to rogue Facebook applications whose main purpose appears to be to collect users’ passwords. Using the usual attention-grabbing headings to grab users (repeating the word “sex” is apparently still effective), these apps redirect users to what looks like a legitimate login page, making users believe they need to log into Facebook again.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on June 13, 2009 - by admin

Facebook Members to Become Masters of Their Domain Names

At midnight, Facebook will give users the chance to claim a cleaner URL for their pages. What was once a messy string of numbers and letters could simply be changed to facebook.com/YourNameHere, for example. The move may make it easier to find other people and companies, but did the social networking site give businesses enough time to gear up? Is there potential for IP conflicts?

Just when you thought you had that 12:01 a.m. Saturday deadline figured out for this weekend’s big switch from analog to digital television, along comes another form of midnight madness to worry about — that is, if you want to make it easier for Facebook friends to reach you, or have a brand you want to protect from the dark side of social media.

Beginning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time on Saturday morning, Facebook will allow registration for customized URLs (example: facebook.com/YourNameHere), instead of the usual long list of numbers that show up as a Web address for a profile. The world’s largest social media network began sending out notices for the process on Wednesday, including a link for registered trademark brand owners to place their names on a restricted list, in the hope of avoiding the cybersquatting phenomenon that has long plagued the Internet domain name process.

The advantages are obvious: an easier way for users to track down their friends — or their favorite companies — on Facebook. It also gives those companies a shot at ranking higher on a Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) search.

However, given complaints from its members regarding past terms-of-service changes, is Facebook ready to get into the domain name business? Can it truly protect trademark owners from seeing their intellectual property pilfered by those who would grab a username, only to sell it back to its legitimate owner? Can Facebook’s servers handle what may turn out to be a midnight crush?

Read the full story at Technology News

Posted on June 10, 2009 - by admin

Facebook to offer first-come-first-served vanity URLs

Expect a mad scramble Friday evening.

In contrast to Twitter’s announced rollout of identity verification — measured, maybe even slow, and celebrity-oriented — Facebook is going with the sheer-mayhem approach as the service throws open the registration process for vanity URLs late Friday evening.

Vanity URLs have been available on a very limited basis previously, but most URLs are simply numeric. But on Friday at 9:01 pm PDT (a minute after midnight on the 13th for the East Coast), users will be given the option to select one username of at least five characters in length and using the Roman alphabet, numbers or a dot.

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on June 8, 2009 - by admin

Initial Pre thoughts and answers to 11 questions

I really didn’t think I would have a Palm Pre myself to answer the 11 questions I posted a couple days ago, but now that I have one I can provide you with the answers. I also won’t post a full review of the Pre here yet since there are several out there that will get you through a first impressions perspective. I plan to test it out some more and offer you with some real-life examples of experiences. Please post any questions you want answered on the Pre and I’ll assemble them into future posts to help you out.

Read the full story at zdnet

Posted on June 8, 2009 - by admin

Shrink That Link: Boosting Brevity With URL Shorteners

Some Web site URLs tend to be rather verbose, running on for dozens of characters just to get you to a particular page. If you’re sending someone a link via email or dealing with limited space, like in a Twitter tweet, it can be inconvenient. Link clippers like TinyURL and Bit.ly give you a shorter link and then redirect anyone who clicks on it to the correct page.

On the short-messaging service Twitter , space is at a premium: You’ve got 140 characters to make your point, and you probably don’t want to waste half of it on a super-sized link to your latest YouTube obsession.

There’s an increasingly popular quick fix: a free URL shortener. On one of these Web sites, you can plug in a long Internet address, known as a “URL,” and it will assign you a much shorter one that is easier to post in e-mails, on Twitter, Facebook or anywhere else. Some link-shrinkers let you personalize the new address with a unique phrase such as your name, or show you how many people click the link after you’ve posted it.

This convenience may come at a cost, though. The tools add another layer to the process of navigating the Web, potentially leaving a trail of broken links if a service suddenly closes shop. They can also make it harder to tell what you’re really clicking on, which may make these Lilliputian links attractive to spammers and scammers.

Read the full story at Technology News

Posted on June 1, 2009 - by admin

Facebook scarred over bid to keep clean breast

Facebook has apologised after it banned images of a British woman’s mastectomy scars, published on the social networking site to raise awareness of breast cancer.

The company initially rejected the images of Sharon Adams, 45, as “sexual and abusive” but, after a major outcry among users, it reversed the decision, saying it had made a “mistake” in removing the photos.

Read the full story at SMH

Posted on May 25, 2009 - by admin

The Vatican’s Web 2.0 Strategy

Though the Pope has warned against overindulgence in online hangouts that take the place of real-life human interaction, the Vatican also sees value in social networks’ ability to help forge friendships and spread the church’s message. To that end, the Vatican has begun reaching out to the digital generation through portals such as a Facebook application as well as an iPhone app.

Pope Benedict XVI has entered the world of social networking sites and smartphones with a Vatican portal that includes Facebook and iPhone applications.

The Pope2You Web site was launched Thursday and allows Facebook users to send virtual postcards with photos of Benedict and excerpts from his messages. An application for iPhone and iPod touch gives surfers video and audio news on the pope’s travels and speeches, as well as on Catholic events worldwide.

The new portal is the latest update in the Vatican’s efforts to broaden the pope’s audience and reach out to young people. Earlier this year, Benedict got his own YouTube channel, which is now also linked to the portal.

Read the full story at Technology News

Posted on May 20, 2009 - by admin

New iteration of Flock browser bolsters Twitter, multi-service support

The Mozilla-based browser rolls out an upgrade with an eye to the social-networking faithful.

Of all the specialized browsers out there, Flock is perhaps the one best suited to the social-networking scene, with support for a constellation of services such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and so on. To date it’s been a nice way of keeping an eye on one’s daily flood of information, but serious interaction required that you pop open a browser window. (Such a burden.)

You might find you never need to do so again with the 2.5 version, just released for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Those who closely follow streams from highly prolific twitterbugs may need to go to the main browser window from time to time, but for most purposes, the Twitter reader in Flock rises to the level of the very best standalone readers. (And their new non-Twitter toys aren’t so shabby either.)

Read the full story at Betanews

Posted on May 20, 2009 - by admin

Facebook Knocks Down Another Single Sign-On Hurdle With OpenID Adoption

Facebook has given the nod to OpenID, a standard that aims to provide a single sign-on for users of multiple online services. Integration is the holy grail for Web 2.0 services; if users can access all of their accounts in one fell swoop, it makes it much more likely that they’ll take advantage of a larger number of offerings.

Facebook is adding support for OpenID to its Web site, allowing users access to the social media sign-on platform. Facebook is the standard’s largest relaying party — that is, the largest Web site accepting log-ins from OpenID.

The move is beneficial to Facebook because a great many of its users are likely active on other social media sites, Sterling Market Intelligence Principal Greg Sterling told TechNewsWorld.

Accepting OpenID “is a philosophical position that is consistent with what Facebook has been trying to achieve,” he remarked.

OpenID is an open standard for user authentication and access control that makes it possible to log onto many services with the same digital identity. Supporters of the standard include Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) , IBM (NYSE: IBM) , Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) , VeriSign (Nasdaq: VRSN) , and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) .

Read the full story at Technology News