Archive for the 'Facebook' Category

As the year progresses and we get ever closer to summer it would seem that competition in the online world is really hotting up. Perennial innovators Google are leading the pack with the announcement that they are set to purchase their third company this year.

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The ever increasing popularity of social networking site Facebook is showing dividends for the company as this week it was revealed that their finances are even healthier than expected. The site is reported to be well on its way to hitting $1billion in revenue by the end of 2010.

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Two giants of the online world, Microsoft and Facebook, have come together to form a mutually beneficial agreement. The companies have decided to revise their search pact into a global deal. This would mean that the social networking behemoth Facebook will sell its own advertisements and receive more of Bing’s features on its web results.

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Despite recently going public about his belief that privacy is no longer a ‘social norm,’ Mark Zuckerburg has made a move to placate the sizeable wing of Facebook users that are less than pleased with his website’s privacy and security arrangements. Virus protection company, McAfee have launched a partnership with Facebook in order to provide users with six months of McAfee protection absolutely free and a discount subscription after that.

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Mark Zuckerburg has poured petrol on the fires of the Facebook privacy debate by stating privacy is no longer a ‘social norm’. The comments came at the crunchie awards, a San Francisco ceremony that recognises technological achievement.

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As anyone with an internet connection, or who has been around someone under thirty recently, knows, facebook’s success over the past few years has been unparalleled. This year alone it has jumped from 50 million users to 350 million. However, facebook may now be in danger of becoming a victim of its own success as it struggles to deal with the sheer weight of personal data at its disposal.

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We’re well used to the year end search query lists, published by the major search engines, being used as handy barometers of what’s been going on that year, but this is the first time I can remember facebook doing the same thing with status updates. The social network has today published a list of the top themes in the more than 45 million status updates a day (from 30 million unique visitors) that facebook enjoys.

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The folks at Facebook will have to hope that the old adage about all publicity being good publicity is true today, as news breaks that the social network is cited in as many as 20 percent of divorce petitions. These statistics come courtesy of divorce online, a firm of lawyers who specialise in divorce cases and who say that a staggering number of marriages are now ending as a result of the extra-marital liaisons arranged through the site.

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Parents and youth advocates have long worried about the potentially harmful influence social networking sites like facebook could have on the young. In response to these worries, facebook has decided to install what is being referred to as a ‘panic button’ on their site so that children can quickly alert site administrators whenever they see material that is offensive or obscene. The button will work in a similar fashion to the one that features on the social networking site Bebo, whose demographic skews much younger than facebook.

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Aside from slightly sinister fringe benefits like being able to vet and monitor employee’s social lives, it’s fair to say that facebook has been nothing but hassle for employers. With employees wasting company time poking each other and absent mindedly posting corporate secrets on each other’s walls left, right and centre, many employers could be forgiven for wishing that the social network had never been invented.

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Social networking site, Facebook has begun testing a pared down version of its full website for use in countries with unreliable access to high speed broadband. The service, known as Facebook Lite, is being piloted in India and will allow users access to the core elements of the network like photos, status updates and the wall. The fast loading version of the site is said to have a very ‘clean’ look, somewhat reminiscent of the original Facebook site.

According to a statement from Facebook, ‘We are currently testing Facebook Lite in countries where we are seeing lots of new users for the first time and are looking to start off with a more simple experience.’

However, it has been suggested by some that Facebook Lite is, in part at least, a reaction to the proliferation of Twitter over the last few months. The theory being that a simplified Facebook would occupy practically the same space as the hugely popular social network and, thanks to the brand loyalty that Facebook has built up over the years, might therefore stand a chance of competing.

it is also thought that this new version would appeal to the reasonably large number of Facebook users who dislike the more advanced functionalities like Facebook apps.

It would appear that the British military is having some trouble making up its mind on the subject of social networking. Only a couple of months after the Sun and other publications reported that the top brass had banned facebook and other social media platforms at all military bases, it has emerged today that not only are they now allowing use of social networking sites, they are actually encouraging personnel to use them.

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Sir John Sawers, the new head of MI6 , has become embroiled in an embarrassing security breach after it emerged that his wife, Shelley uploaded several pieces of compromising information about him to her Facebook page. The postings included holiday photographs of Sir John as well as information about the couple’s children, their friends and most troubling of all, their home address.

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The government could be about to gain access to your Facebook account, that’s if new plans announced today are approved. The home office is proposing forcing some social networks to hold data on the movements of their members in an effort to disrupt the activities of criminals.

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