Facebook Privacy Now Has an Official Fan Page.

Facebook’s newly launches Facebook and Privacy Page.

The social networking site announced on its blog that it has created a page all about everyone’s favorite topic: Facebook privacy.

This page has been created because of severe backlash from the users and as well as media agencies. Time magazine even put privacy on its cover. Finally, Facebook launched new, simplified privacy settings in an attempt to make good.

Src: [blog.facebook]

Facebook Privacy Now Has an Official Fan Page.

Twitter Testing New “You Both Follow” Feature.

Twitter is testing a new feature that helps you figure out how you know — or if you want to follow — a given account.

If you catch a glimpse of this feature in the wild, you’ll see a slim strip of avatars on a user’s profile right above the grid of people that user follows. The headline above this reads, “You both follow.”

This new feature is a quick reference tool that shows deeper connections in the social media grid, and it’s a simple addition that makes Twitter seem less like a one-way communication tool and more like a robust, legitimate social network.

Twitter Testing New “You Both Follow” Feature.

Twitter gets its own 'swear jar'.

SwearJarr applies the curse-word fiduciary punishment logic to potty-mouthed Twitter users.

SwearJarr is a simple site with a simple purpose -- to clean up Twitter for a good cause. SwearJarr operates with a self-policing model, so Twitter users can check their own tweets for curse word violations by inputting their Twitter names.

The self-righteous Twitterers among us can also use the site to become an honorary member of the swear police and notify other Twitter users of their swearing violations.

The website suggests a scaled monetary donation per profanity, where the worst bad words cost more, although users can choose to donate any amount of their choosing. SwearJarr then splits the monthly proceeds between two charitable organizations; new charities are chosen at the beginning of each month.

Twitter gets its own 'swear jar'.

Facebook and Google Maps Dominate Smartphone App Usage.

Nielsen has released a new mobile application report and its findings showcase not only the increase in smartphone usage, but also what applications are most popular. For its report, Nielsen surveyed more than 4,200 people who had downloaded a mobile application in the last 30 days.

U.S. Nielsen’s study shows that 21% of American wireless subscribers have smartphones.

the average number of installed apps based on smartphone OS looks like this:

• BlackBerry: 10
• iPhone: 37
• Android : 22
• Palm: 14
• Windows Mobile: 13

Nielsen’s survey indicates that the average number of apps that a feature phone user has on his or her device is 10, while the average number of apps a smartphone user has is 22.

This survey also show that Myspace is still popular among teens and LinkedIn is strong in the 25-44 demographic.

Facebook and Google Maps Dominate Smartphone App Usage.

Cats Can Now Tweet with New Liveblogging Device.

Sony Computer Science Laboratories (CSL) Inc has developed a liveblogging device which was created with the help of the University of Tokyo, comes with a camera, an acceleration sensor and a GPS, which monitors kitty’s every move, translating actions like walking, eating and sleeping into tweets.

The device fits easily onto the cat’s collar, so as to avoid hindering its movement, which means your cat can tweet all over the neighborhood.

Cats Can Now Tweet with New Liveblogging Device.

Facebook Clickjacking Attack Spreading Through “Likes”.

A new clickjacking worm is spreading through Facebook via the “Like” feature. The attack, which is said to have hit hundreds of thousands of users, uses a combination of social engineering and clickjacking to make it appear as if a user has “liked” a link.

The messages that are being used in the link text include, “LOL This girl gets OWNED after a POLICE OFFICER reads her STATUS MESSAGE,” “This man takes a picture of himself EVERYDAY for 8 YEARS!!,” “The Prom Dress That Got This Girl Suspended From School” and “This Girl Has An Interesting Way Of Eating A Banana , Check It Out!”

Facebook Clickjacking Attack Spreading Through “Likes”.

Facebook to Undergo Judiciary Committee Probe.

Despite recent efforts to changes to its personal privacy settings interface, Facebook is still under fire for past privacy-related mistakes. This time, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee is getting involved.

In a letter to CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Friday, committee chair John Conyers wrote, “We would appreciate a detailed explanation of the information about Facebook users that your company has provided to third parties without the knowledge of the account holders — particularly in circumstances in which the users did not expressly opt for this kind of information sharing.”

Src: [mashable]

Facebook to Undergo Judiciary Committee Probe.

Are 5,001 Facebook friends one too many?

The British anthropologist and Oxford professor Robin Dunbar has posed a theory that the number of individuals with whom a stable interpersonal relationship can be maintained (read: friends) is limited by the size of the human brain, specifically the neocortex. "Dunbar's number," as this hypothesis has become known, is 150.

Facebook begs to differ.

What would be an impressive, even exhaustive, number of friends in real life is bush league for Facebook's high rollers, who have thousands. Other social networks use less-intimate terminology to portray contacts (LinkedIn has "connections," Twitter has "followers"), but Facebook famously co-opted the word "friend" and created a new verb.

Friending "sustains an illusion of closeness in a complex world of continuous partial attention," said Roger Fransecky, a clinical psychologist and executive coach in New York (2,894 friends). "We get captured by Facebook's algorithms. Every day 25 new people can march into your living room. I come from a failed Presbyterian youth, and there was a part of me that first thought it was impolite not to respond. Then I realized I couldn't put them all in a living room -- I needed an amphitheater."

Are 5,001 Facebook friends one too many?

'How to fake six pack' - Youtube sensation

A university student has become one of the most viewed people in the world on YouTube after her 'How to fake a six-pack' video gathered over 20 million hits.

Natalie Tran entered the list of the 20 most-watched videos of all time on YouTube with the parody of an ad that showed how women could achieve the look of a six-pack under the guise of make-up products.

Her site, Community Channel, was said to be the most-subscribed YouTube site in Australia with more than 600,000 viewers, News.com.au reported.

'How to fake six pack' - Youtube sensation

Now its Bangladesh turn to ban facebook.

After banning popular social networking sites like twitter and facebook and partial ban on video sharing site Youtube by pakistan over religious sentiments, now its turn of the brother country to ban the social networking facebook.

No official announcement was made yet on the decision but the Daily Star newspaper quoted an unnamed Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission official as saying that "part of the reason (of blocking the network) is the posting of some anti-religious and porn links by users across the globe".

"We have blocked all access to Facebook temporarily... It was done in line with a decision of government high-ups," the official said, adding some users had posted anti-Islamic content about Prophet Mohammad, which the government took seriously.

Now its Bangladesh turn to ban facebook.

Could Student's Facebook Page Topple a Towing Company?

Power of social networking see it here. A Michigan business is learning the hard way that one simple Facebook page can pack a whole lot of punch.

Since January, a Facebook page created by a Western Michigan University student for Kalamazoo residents to complain about a local towing company has swelled to more than 12,000 members. Now, the company, T & J Towing, is suing the student for $750,000, saying the "libelous and slanderous" site is causing it to lose income. Justin Kurtz, the 21-year-old student who launched the site, said it all started back in January, when T & J Towing hauled away his car from his apartment building's parking lot, claiming that he didn't have a parking permit.

Could Student's Facebook Page Topple a Towing Company?

Facebook launches Q&A feature.

The social-networking giant is asking members to sign up as "experts" for a real-time response feature called Facebook Questions, which it rolled out in beta format Thursday.

A page on the site is asking prospective experts to ask three questions, answer them themselves and submit them.

"Your expert writing will be seen by tens of millions of people -- including job recruiters," Facebook wrote. "And we'll bring our best beta testers out to California to tour Facebook headquarters and meet the team."

Some of the sample questions Facebook proposed:

• How can I get over my fear of flying?
• What are women looking for in a relationship?
• How did the Beatles find success?

The crowd-sourcing move will once again put Facebook head-to-head with some other titans of the Internet. A user-based, question-and-answer service would trod turf similar to well-established Yahoo Answers and Aardvark, which Google purchased in February.

Facebook launches Q&A feature.

Facebook type social networking site for Muslims goes online.

IT professional Omer Zaheer browses MillatFacebook. Photo: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

Six young IT experts in the city of Lahore have set up MillatFacebook – using the Urdu word for nation – which they hope will become a hub for Muslims around the world.

Omar Zaheer Meer, one of the founders, said the site was launched on Wednesday and had already attracted 8,000 users.

The aim, he said, was to register their disapproval of the images of the Muslim prophet and to offer an alternative to a site that has also been criticised for its lax and confusing privacy controls.

"We are saying that we are technologically independent and that you can't make money from us and then not respect our views," he said.

Thousands of people in Pakistan have demonstrated against the US-based social networking site for hosting a contest calling for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Facebook type social networking site for Muslims goes online.

facebook acts, simplifies privacy controls.

Faced with a backlash that wouldn't go away, Facebook announced changes Wednesday that will make it easier for users to change privacy settings and block outside parties from seeing personal information.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that feedback from users over recent privacy changes, which made some user information public by default, was crucial in the decision to tighten controls.

"We think that they're the right thing to do," he said. "We listened to the feedback, and we agree with it."

Facebook will begin rolling out the new privacy controls Wednesday, he said, and they should be in place for most users within the next few weeks.

facebook acts, simplifies privacy controls.

facebook facing the heat, pledges for easier privacy.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg pledges easier privacy. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that Facebook "missed the mark" over recent privacy concerns.

In a column in the Washington Post newspaper, he said the social network would soon make changes to users' privacy options.

The move may placate some of the growing band of members who had pledged to quit the social network on 31 May.

"Sometimes we move too fast - and after listening to recent concerns, we're responding," wrote Mr Zuckerberg.

facebook facing the heat, pledges for easier privacy.

Long-lost brothers reunite via Twitter.

(Mashable) -- We've heard of musicians finding collaborators via Twitter and reporters finding sources, but what about long-lost brothers finding each other? Well, that's what happened to Matthew Keys, online news producer for KTXL FOX40 News in Sacramento, California.

"I have a routine of checking my e-mail, Twitter and Facebook before bed each night, just in case something happened during the evening that I didn't catch, " Keys told us. Well, at nearly midnight, Keys saw a message that would lead to a pretty big piece of news that he didn't previously "catch" -- a message from a man named Adam Smith reading: "Hey is your mom's name Jackie?"

Obviously, Keys was a bit freaked out. Still, after seeing Smith's picture, which looked familiar, the young man recalled having spoken to his brother before. "Adam and I actually met in a web forum," he explains. "Neither of us can remember exactly how we came to meet, but we kept in touch off and on over the past year on MSN and Skype."

Long-lost brothers reunite via Twitter.

Uprise of facebook rivals ?

Facebook has brought world wide negative attention due to change in its privacy law which made some people to quit the social networking to quit. Almost 11,000 members pledged to quite the facebook by May 31st which facebook might not bother due to its large members in millions.

Right now the only competitor of the facebook is twitter the micro blogging service site which recently entered into world top 10 sites in Alexa based web ranking. Though other rivals like Bebo, Myspace, friendster had seen decline in their property in the last 24 months.

Uprising of new and young rivals

The latest round of privacy issues with Facebook has provoked considerable interest in some more embryonic social network projects.

Mr Bryant said: "Many people are looking to Diaspora as a new model - something which is standards-based, open-source and distributed."

Uprise of facebook rivals ?

Group sets May 31 as 'Quit Facebook Day'

Over privacy concerns many people are considering to quit facebook and follow its alternative twitter. Many Celebs like Cory Doctorow, an author and co-editor of the popular blog BoingBoing, tweeted that he had signed off from Facebook for good.

Frustrated by Facebook's recent privacy changes, a group is urging users to delete their Facebook accounts en masse on May 31.

The campaign comes amid complaints that the social-networking juggernaut is diminishing users' privacy with its "open graph" model that adds Facebook connections on other sites across the internet. A handful of glitches during the rollout of the changes have, in fact, put some personal info at risk, if only briefly.

Group sets May 31 as 'Quit Facebook Day'

Pakistan blocks Facebook over 'Draw Mohammed Day'

Pakistan is blocking access to Facebook in response to an online group calling on people to draw the Prophet Mohammed, officials said Wednesday.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority issued the order a day before "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," scheduled by a Facebook group with the same name, because of "the objectionable material" on the social networking site, said Khoram Ali Mehran of the telecommunication authority.

Pakistan blocks Facebook over 'Draw Mohammed Day'

10 things you didn’t know about Twitter

 Courtesy of telegraph.co.uk

1. Twitter has its own DJ booth

Located in the centre of the office’s "breakout" space, it’s the place where celebrities come and "guest mix". The latest starlet was no other than Conan O’Brien, a US TV host and comedian, who then joined the host of other DJs and signed a cartoon version on himself on the Twitter wall of fame.

2. Tea time with Twitter

DJing usually goes on during the company’s weekly "tea time" session on Friday afternoons. It may sound very English and proper– but tea has long been replaced with beer to the soundtrack of someone jamming.


3. Twitter’s office was once home to Bebo

Michael Birch, the British-born entrepreneur who co-founded Bebo with his wife Xochi, was once based in Twitter's offices. Birch, who is now working on a host of new web start-ups in a building just down the road, proudly informed me that the Twitter DJ booth was indeed his creation. However, in his new office space, he’s opting for a more relaxing option this time round: a massage room.

10 things you didn’t know about Twitter