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Users Spend More Time on MySpace Despite Slipping Traffic

by Will Safer, posted May 8th 2008 at 11:23AMBreaking News

Social networking is one of the biggest Internet phenomenons of the last few years, and it's still MySpace that dominates the online social networking landscape, according to Web measurement firm Hitwise.

As reported in ReadWriteWeb, MySpace takes the top traffic prize with 73.82 percent of all social networking traffic. Facebook only garners 14.8 percent of social networking traffic. Other sites take no more than two percent share, so this is really a tale of two brands.

The real story here, however, isn't who is on top traffic-wise but how long that traffic stays on a site. So, while traffic has slipped for MySpace by five percent during the last year, the average amount of time active MySpace members spend on the site has increased by a whopping 73 percent. So that means the members who do stick around really, really do stick around. [Source: ReadWriteWeb]

Pope Sending Text Messages to Australians

by Tim Stevens, posted May 7th 2008 at 9:37AMBreaking News

The Pope is Texting, MySpacingWhen the Pope arrived on our shores last month, much of the nation was subject to the pomp and fanfare that surrounded his every move. Now the Pope is making a trip Down Under for Sydney's World Youth Day next month, and those who can't watch him live (or online) will be able to follow the Pontiff via SMS.

The Pope (or one of his lackeys) will be sending "daily messages of inspiration" to the phones of thousands of Catholics during the event, which despite being called "World Youth Day," actually covers an entire week.

The Catholic church will also be setting up a social networking site similar to MySpace or Facebook, enabling believers to hook up -- and pray, of course. [Source: I4U/Reuters, via Textually.org]

What Would Facebook Look Like in Real Life?

by Tim Stevens, posted May 2nd 2008 at 6:01PMBreaking News

Okay, so you're on Facebook and have connected with dozens of friends, half of whom you haven't actually seen in years and, if you ever did, it would probably make for some uncomfortable conversation. What would it be like if one of them came knocking at your door, asking you the sort of questions Facebook asks when making introductions?

We're thinking it would look something like the above, a sketch from a British comedy team called "Idiots of Ants;" a group of blokes who have obviously been the recipient of some random friend requests over the years. Watch and see that they've got represented it perfectly, from the initial "poke" right down to graffiti on your wall. [Source: Idiots of Ants, via AOL Video]

Facebook Trumps Media and Emergency Services During Disasters

by Tim Stevens, posted May 1st 2008 at 12:19PMBreaking News

Facebook Trumps Media, Emergency Services During DisastersThere's a disaster somewhere; homes are burning, tornadoes are spinning, a shooter is on the loose, flooding is rampant -- something like that. Where do you turn? Most would click on the local news and sit through the commercials hoping for an update. Others would turn on the radio and wait for an emergency broadcast to tell them what they need to know. More and more people, however, are turning to online services like Facebook, and according to researchers they are the ones who are keeping most informed.

The report found that, in the wake of disasters like last October's fires in Southern California and the Virginia Tech Shootings, which happened a year ago last month, bloggers, Twitterers, and Facebookers are reporting information about the emergencies more quickly and more efficiently than the local media. And, it's without the "lowest common denominator" spin that most media can fall into, zooming in on celebrity homes ablaze during the fires rather than discussing evacuation information, or endlessly repeating information about the shooter in the VT massacre instead of helping victims recover.

But, it seems, emergency services are starting to get the hang of things. The Red Cross took a hint from some amateur wildfire reporters and is now using Twitter to post information about emergencies. We're hoping FEMA maybe thinks about using Google Maps during the next emergency, which might just enable faster routing of emergency supplies to where they're needed.

Of course, none of these claims take into account power failures and Internet outages that occur as a result of these disasters. [Source: Daily Telegraph]

Thousands Dance to Their iPod Music In "Silent Rave"

by Tim Stevens, posted Apr 21st 2008 at 5:19PMBreaking News


Raves are generally thought to be deafeningly noisy and held in dark, desolate, out-of-the-way places. That's the exact opposite of what happened over the weekend in New York City, where a so-called "silent" rave brought an estimated 1,000 people out onto the streets to dance -- despite there being no music played out loud.

The dancers were all listening to their own tunes, on iPods or the like, and busted moves like apparent madmen to their own beats, with no seeming rhyme or reason. The event was organized flash mob style, with 18-year-old Jonnie Wesson posting an event on Facebook. The event page got thousands and thousands of responses and, though only a small fraction of respondents actually showed, the "rave" still had several hundred folks pulsing away to the silence until well after dark, thoroughly confusing any uninformed passer-by.

It just goes to show that NYC does indeed know how to party -- even without breaking noise regulations. [Source: NY Times]

New Facebook App Tracks Crime

by Tim Stevens, posted Apr 19th 2008 at 9:07AM

Facebook App Tracks Crime in U.K.Custom little applications are popping up in Facebook profiles like no tomorrow -- so quickly, in fact, that people are having to resort to extended profiles just to keep on top of all the things. Most are, honestly, useless, but some have merit, like a new one that lets citizens of Manchester, England keep up on what sort of shady dealings are happening in their city.

The app, provided by the Greater Manchester Police force, inserts crime alerts into your news feed automatically, keeping you up to date with what's going on in the area. Users can also submit links and descriptions of crime to alert others.

This advent of this app, along with others like the newly released traffic cam app, makes us wonder: Is Facebook actually becoming productive? We think most employers would still disagree. [Source: TechCrunch]

Blockbuster Sued for Facebook's Beacon Advertising Program

by Tim Stevens, posted Apr 19th 2008 at 8:02AM

Blockbuster Sued for Facebook's Beacon Advertising Program

Last year Facebook put an embarrassing cap on an otherwise stellar year -- one in which it got $240 million in funding from Microsoft -- by tripping and falling on its face with the whole Beacon advertising fiasco. Facebook is still smarting, and now Blockbuster is, too, for its part, on the receiving end of a lawsuit for exposing personal information through the service.

In November, Facebook launched Beacon, a new advertising program enabling advertisers to post content directly to users' feeds. One of those advertisers was Blockbuster, which automatically posted feeds about what movies or games subscribers were renting. Anyone who clicked "Remember Me" when signing in, and who happened to have a Blockbuster account, was automatically enrolled in this program, which resulted in some potentially embarrassing exposures of their rental history.

Now, Texan Cathryn Elaine Harris is suing the company for exchanging and disclosing that information without her explicit permission. Facebook did offer an opt-out option to users at the peak of the negative publicity last year, but since there was never an opt-in, it sure seems as though Harris has a solid case. We'll be watching this one closely. [Source: Newsvine]

Traffic Cams Now Playing at Facebook

by Tim Stevens, posted Apr 18th 2008 at 6:35AM

Traffic Cams Now Playing at FacebookFacebook is of course one of the most popular social networking sites on the web, with millions of people connecting on there every day. Since the release of the Facebook API (Application Program Interface), the site has gained tons of functionality as well, as developers around the world were given the ability to write little applications that run within the site. Most have been somewhat silly, like the game Scrabulous that lets friends play against each other. But, a new application poses to be quite useful: enabling you to check your local traffic cams without leaving Facebook.

The Facebook app, provided by traffic cam aggregator TrafficLand, installs into your profile and gives you images of what the roads are looking like near you. Despite being captured from video sources the pictures presented to your profile are somewhat unfortunately still images, refreshed every few seconds or minutes. So, it's not exactly real-time, but it should be enough to help you guide your way home tonight. [Source: BetaNews]

Web Users Join Forces to Track and Find Stolen Car

by Will Safer, posted Apr 14th 2008 at 9:46AM

1991 Nissan Skyline GT-R

A Canadian group of car enthusiasts joined forces to conduct what was essentially an "open source" search for a Nissan Skyline GT-R stolen from a specialty dealer in Calgary.

The dealer-owner posted word of the stolen car on a blog for Canadian car fanboys, and the thread got a response that did more than lament the crime. Fellow enthusiasts went into action, with the first one of them spotting the stolen car and actually snapping a photo of the supposed perp, which he posted online. Then other readers in the area reported sightings (it is a unique looking vehicle) and narrowed the search area. Still other readers worked to narrow the search, based on location and description, to a Facebook page the perp maintains.

Finally, one reader drove around the neighborhood where the car had last been seen and, finding it, blocked the vehicle in and called police, while also asking a friend to post a note on the online thread, which the car's owner read. He drove to the spot, called police, and the thief -- an 18-year-old high school student -- was arrested within minutes. The arrest itself was caught on video and, of course, posted on the site.

In all, the car was recovered (with minor damage) within 48 hours, thanks to the online community.

A heartwarming story.

From New York Times.

Woman Sleeps With 50 Men From Facebook "I Need Sex" Group

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 12th 2008 at 11:21AM

Woman Sleeps with 50 Men from Facebook
Those with insatiable sexual appetites used to have to go to underground swingers clubs, key parties, or put ads in the newspaper, but then the Internet happened and the super-randy started to hook up 24/7, first via instant messaging programs, then via dating/sex sites and Craigslist. Now, of course, they have Facebook and MySpace Technically, these sites are just for making friends, not for quick hook-ups, and the rules strictly forbid nudity and sexual solicitation, but every now and then, the ultra-horny go a little 'Craigslist personals' on Facebook's ass.

Take Laura Michaels of Bristol, England, who, according to the UK's Sun newspaper, created a Facebook group called "I Need Sex." Within 10 minutes, 35 men had joined the group. After an hour, 100 men had joined. She invited the men to contact her and met up in person with those she liked. In the end, Michaels slept with 50 men in total from the Facebook group, which, for those of you who are slow, is literally half of the group.

"I Need Sex" has since been taken down, but Laura has no regrets. She says that she was satisfying her own desires, despite what other people may think of her. All we can say is "kudos".

From Newsvine

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Facebook Adds "People You May Know" Feature

by Thomas Houston , posted Mar 31st 2008 at 11:07AM



Facebook debuted a new feature last week called "People You May Know." It's pretty much self-explanatory and straightforward -- Facebook uses advanced algorithms (i.e. looks at friends of your friends) to build a surprisingly accurate list of people you probably know. If you're a LinkedIn user, you've probably seen something very similar -- LinkedIn's version is appropriately named, "People you may know."

Much like the status updates and birthday sections, the new feature is extremely easy to use, and you'll find it automatically added to the middle of the right sidebar when you log in to your Facebook account. The list -- generated from your list of friends and your friends' friends -- isn't 100% perfect. We're not surprised that it pulls in a couple people we've never even heard of, but it sometimes works almost too well. We're not sure we really want to see old acquaintances from school or that person we met at a party a few months ago.

From News.com

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Hands-On With Adobe's New Free, Web-Based Photoshop Express

by Thomas Houston , posted Mar 27th 2008 at 5:05PM



Today, Adobe launched a beta version of Photoshop Express. Aimed at anyone who wants to do quick edits of pictures, this new flash-based version of Photoshop is totally free and runs right in your Web browser -- perfect for anyone who doesn't want to clog up their computer with a full program installation or drop hundreds of dollars on the regular version of Photoshop. The service also allows you to manage and share photo galleries with friends and family with at very own yourname.photoshop.com.

Photoshop Express gives you 2 gigabytes of online storage, and allows you to connect, edit and share your photos directly with Picasa, Photobucket and Facebook. We gave it a quick spin today and are impressed with the program's slick, clean, and easy-to-use interface, but this is definitely not a Photoshop replacement. While you can clean up your pictures and easily share them with friends, you won't be able to "photoshop" images like this.

That said, Express lets you make a range of basic photo edits -- red-eye correction, exposure changes, cropping and more -- that will be more than enough for most non-professional photographers. Also, we were impressed with the app's speed, especially considering the Web-based nature of the site. Ready to try it out? Sign up here.

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Student Not Expelled For Facebook Study Group (Follow-Up)

by Will Safer, posted Mar 19th 2008 at 6:30PM

facebookThe student at Toronto's Ryerson University who -- when we last checked -- was facing expulsion for creating an online collaborative study group on Facebook, has now been cleared of academic misconduct -- although he still received a penalty to his course grade.

Chris Avenir, the 18-year-old student who created the Facebook group, claimed the activity on the online study group was the same as students meeting in person to work on coursework and advice.

Their professor, however, had stipulated that specific parts of homework assignments be completed individually. He accused Avenir of 146 counts of academic misconduct: one for creating the Facebook group and then one for each student who eventually joined.

After an engineering faculty committee review, Avenir was cleared of the 146 infractions but was still punished with a failing grade on the specific homework assignment, which was worth 10 percent of his final grade. Not enough to cause him to fail but still a major drag on his overall performance. He will also attend a workshop on academic misconduct.

Reports of Avenir's predicament drew considerable interest on blogs across the Web, including many comments from Switched.com's readers.

One comment from Switched reader "De" reads: "I don't see it as being any different than the use of [a] Blackboard. As long as it cannot be accessed during an actual test, meaning that cell phones and text messaging should be off, then it isn't cheating."

But not everyone sided with the student. Another Switched reader who identified himself as "VJCMAJD" wrote: "If you can't ultimately complete the work on your own and think for yourself, you fail. Losers rely on others to get the job done."

From AOL News/AOL Money & Finance.

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Facebook's Own Israeli-Palestinian Dispute

by Will Safer, posted Mar 18th 2008 at 12:12PM

Can there be virtual border disputes and rival claims to a country even online? Apparently so, as Facebook found itself being criticized by both Palestinian and Israeli members who live in the West Bank.

FacebookThe popular online social networking site was, for a time, identifying Israeli settlers whose homes are in the West Bank as being residents of Palestine. The settlers disagreed and threatened to close their Facebook accounts -- plus they claimed Facebook was making a political statement. In response, Facebook decided to allow people who live in the West Bank to choose either Israel or Palestine as their home.

But this move has upset many Palestinian residents of the West Bank.

Now there are people on both sides who have created Facebook groups with names like "It's not Israel, It's Palestine" and, of course, "It's not Palestine, It's Israel."

At least their arguments are simple, even if the underlying problem is not.

Maybe someone can come up with a Facebook group where people from both sides can join?

From Reuters.


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Facebook to Add Instant Messaging

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Mar 17th 2008 at 12:01PM

Facebook Hopping on the Instant Messaging Bandwagon
It was bound to happen eventually (if for no other reason than MySpace did it first) -- Facebook is finally offering up an instant-messaging service. Ironically, Facebook's new IM service may have the effect of killing off a couple of chat applications already available on the social-networking site.

Initial rumors claimed that the new Facebook IM service, which is to be embedded into people's profiles, would be based on Jabber, the same standard underlying Google Talk. This would have meant that other IM programs, such as Pidgin, Meebo, or even Google Talk, could connect to the Facebook service easily and bring it to the desktop. These rumors, of course, turned out to be false, and Facebook IM, at least initially, will only be available on Facebook pages.

With MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, AIM, Skype, Gizmo, and Google Talk already clogging the Internet, we're pretty confident we don't need any more new IM services. Especially not ones that can only be accessed on the Web by logging into a separate place from all your other IM services. But if Facebook ever manages to get all the other IM programs to work with its IM service, then it might become an attractive online chat place indeed.

From TechCrunch

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