Yahoo! now provides  a new service which enables you to import all of your Facebook contacts details.  Subsquently, this is a new development regardless of the applications that were granted access to users emails, as Facebook recently allowed.

It seems however, that facebook does not directly support this service but it may be part of a wider strategy to allow its users more flexibility.  Nevertheless, this could however be a start of things to come, who knows very soon perhaps other sites like Twitter and Google Buzz may also this service.

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Twitter’s Streaming API is used by around 50,000 appplications, within set limits.  However, now it is understood that a few new startups search applications have been allowed to have full unlimited access to its data, which includes data of 50 million Tweets a day.

Previously only search engines such as Google or Bing, were allowed to have the unrestricted access to twitter’s data.  The Search engines type of applications need it more than other applications in order to index and serve up results in realtime. Following today’s news, the new unrestriced access has been provided to startups such as:  Ellerdale, Collecta, Kosmix, Scoopler, twazzup, CrowdEye.

Subsquently Twitter does receive income from the big players i.e. Google and Bing.  In regards to search engine startups only it regards them as requiring a helping hand and thus allows them to use its data for free.

Photo credit: Flickr/ZeroOne

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MySpace now has a new feature for user’s activity and content similar to facebook’s stream, which is labelled as “Stream.” This new feature allows the capacity to allow much more content to become visible to users, it is now possible with detail to note what friends are listening on music, video etc.

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Twiangulate allows users to find out which friends or followers they have in common.  It also allows to show an overlap between a user social graph and any other twitter user.

Following this analysis a user is then able to make a decision whether he or she is following the people which interests them or whether to join a group of interest.  This free tool provides gives detailed analysis where overlaps may occur between twitter users.

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If someone criticizes a TED event, it is now obvious that they will not be invited again to attend or present (this follows a series of nonsense articles).  However the organizer feels he is entitled to criticise his guests as he pleases, however this implies a contradiction of the TED principles.  An example follows below of the criticism from the organizer:

“I know I shouldn’t say this about one of my own speakers,” he said on Twitter, “but I thought Sarah Silverman was god-awful…”

Perhaps TED speakers ought to present  Slavery sucks, as one speaker did.

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It seems now that Facebook will have an email client, code named “Titan”.  This follows as Paul Bucheit,  (developer of Gmail), is currently an employee of Facebook which seems to suggest that facebook has its own plans to implement and offer its users a new feature to its users.  Some specific suggestions follow below for a particular facebook email client to offer:

Automatic Filtering

It’s important for Facebook to understand how often users are interacting with each other.  By developing efficient  communication tools,  it may improve it’s capability to analyse user site data.  It then follows that it can optimize user experience.  Furthermore Facebook is then able to determine which notifications are more relevant to each specific user while attempting to give less relevance to possible spam.  This predicted email client will certainly help achieve this goal of automatic filtering information which is not related to each individual user as it downgrades its importance or relevance.

Application Attachments

Currently it is not possible to add applications to any email clients as an attachment.

A great suggestion is to allow attachments on facebook email including application additions, as a result Facebook will surely have a powerful email client to offer its users.

List Filtering

Another nice feature would be a friend list filter built into the email client.  By being able to select all emails based on your settings, listings and membership of your groups or pages.  If this suggestion is accepted then this functionality would encourage users to user their email client efficiently as well as being a popular capability among Facebook users.

User Info

Another great suggestion is by a user mousing over a user’s email address and instantly being displayed most relevant information about the user.

Large Contacts

As Facebook currently only allows  5,000 “friends”.  This follows that the networking and relationships are limited in size,  a nice feature would be to have a large contact list and being able to manage their contacts with flexibility like other sites such as in linkedin.

Sum up

It is  hoped that Facebook launches its own email client in the near future with this suggestions in mind.

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Facebook and Microsoft have partnered to create a standalone Facebook client powered by the new Silverlight 4 Beta technology.  Microsoft’s Silverlight 4 Beta enables Facebook users to browse and interact with a completely different interface.

After enabling the Silverlight client and all the permissions dialogs, the result is a GUI (graphic user interface) in a black finish.  Silverlight powers big fonts among other features.  After setup is completed, browsing is easy and a nice new feature is the new interface on the photo album on the right side.  Another relevant element is the events tab which is a better alternative to the way that the Facebook Events calendar can be viewed.

Definitely check out the Silverlight Client and try browsing Facebook in a different way.

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Following the changes, at google reader it has been noted that Facebook Pages Cross Platform Updates are now only available  to feed readers.

On Google Reader, each post receives its own feed item.  Furthermore, each post also can have an image and the feed content displayed.  Despite the functionality, it does appear to work at the moment, however as facebook users prefer the stream to be comprehensive via the RSS format, nonetheless Facebook does not favour this option.  Facebook has recently prevented applications that convert the facebook pages stream into RSS.  The main reason behing this decision is possibly to attract its users to keep coming back to the site for content updates and interactivity.

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An increasing number of Facebook users are having their accounts compromised. In this post it is given a how to protect yourself against malware and malicious behaviours.

IQ Quiz Ads

The IQ Quiz Scam has become ubiquitous on the Facebook Platform, and those users who install applications can expect to see an advertisement for an IQ Quiz Scam at some point.

As soon as you click on one of the ads, you’ll be brought to a site where you’re asked up to 10 questions which are relatively easy to answer. You will then be prompted to enter your phone number to view the results. Don’t enter your phone number!.

If you want to protect yourself from IQ quiz scams, do not enter your phone number into any sites outside of Facebook.

Western Union Money!

In the eventuality of people losing their wallets abroad and needed to get money sent via Western Union, do wonder that if the person can get access to Facebook, they probably can access a phone. While you should always help out your friends, you can avoid being duped by international fraudsters by asking your friend to call you in order to wire the money. Unless your friend is in the middle of a jungle in the Congo, they should be able to call you.

Facebook Phishing Pages

One of the most common ways Facebook accounts get compromised is through simple phishing scams. The way it works is that a user’s account is compromised by a hacker and the hacker then uses that account to automatically post links on each of that user’s friends’ walls. Sometimes the system will send messages to the friends such as “Check out this funny video of you!” with a link that redirects to a page with a fake Facebook login page.

It’s pretty straight forward, and it’s easy to avoid, however countless people have fallen for this scam. The easiest way to tell if it’s a scam is by looking at the URL of the page you land on. The best way to protect yourself is, anytime you see a Facebook login page, leave it and go to http://www.facebook.com in your browser. That way you can ensure you are logging in to the correct site.

Koobface Worm

In this attack, a user will receive a message from what appears to be one of their friends. The message will say things like “Paris Hilton Tosses Dwarf On The Street; Examiners Caught Downloading Grades From The Internet; Hello; You must see it!!! LOL. My friend catched you on hidden cam; Is it really celebrity? Funny Moments” and many others.

Included in the message will be a link to a page which appears to be a YouTube video. If you click on the video, you will be prompted to “upgrade your Flash player now” and will then be asked to download a file which contains the Koobface worm. If you download and install the file, your computer will automatically log in to Facebook and send similar messages to your friends. The best way to avoid this scam is to avoid all links that are posted on your wall or in your inbox that are out of the ordinary. Also, never download a file after clicking on a link.

Other Malware And Links

The best thing to do is always be weary of strange links posted to your profile or inbox as well as avoid downloading any files that you’re prompted to, no matter what. While many of the scams on Facebook are harmless to your computer, its important to protect yourself against any viruses and worms.

Some Facebook applications have used toolbars among other things to make money from their application. Some of these toolbars will significantly damage your computer. The bottom line is this: be on guard any time you see something suspicious. If you do happen to fall for a scam though, make sure to immediately change your password. If you aren’t able to access your account because you were phished and your password was reset, fill out this form.

Koobface icon via thingamatech

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Any Facebook user is familiar with the number of engagement ads which are displayed on the homepage.  The clickable “Become a Fan” link has been upgraded to help advertisers raise awareness of a product, service, or brand.  Now,  polling and event engagement ads include the ability to become a fan immediately after RSVPing for the event or completing the poll.

Facebook has been experiencing a lot of success in selling large brand ad campaigns which convert users into fans.

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