More Facebook news

Facebook Removes Firewall from Applications

NewsCloud writes "Last week, Facebook quietly removed sign-in restrictions that previously hid third party applications from the public Web. In other words, Facebook now allows its third party applications to be viewable on the Web by ...
Slashdot: Generated for rossturk... - http://slashdot.org/

Facebook Beacon's traffic inflation

Many people were enraged when they got a closer look at Facebook Beacon and realized they were giving away so much data (to Facebook) and getting back nothing for it, really. One of the first to stand up against Facebook was GigaOM's Om ...
WebMetricsGuru - http://www.webmetricsguru.com/

Shuddup You, Facebook!

Again, I am not being closeminded to Facebook, but just because I have previously said you have to look at such things from the inside, it does not mean I have to embrace them equally with desire. I see an incredible environment of ...
CogDogBlog - http://cogdogblog.com

Facebook dumper may have staged Digg-linked hack [Sandra Soroka]

Sandra Soroka, the New York videoblogger who dumped her boyfriend through her Facebook status message may not have had her Flickr account hacked by outraged Digg users, as we previously reported....
Valleywag - http://valleywag.com

Latest Facebook News

Is Beacon Inflating Facebook's Visitor Numbers?
By Erick Schonfeld
While Facebook's Beacon program has been drawing the ire of many people because of the privacy issues surrounding it, advertisers might be equally concerned about whether Beacon is inflating Facebook's overall visitor and traffic ...
Techcrunch - http://www.techcrunch.com

OpenSocial Delayed Until Next Year
By Nick O'Neill
Waiting on the Facebook platform competition to come rolling out? It's not happening anytime soon. Even MySpace announced their platform at the Web 2.0 Sumit and there are still no applications available on the site. ...
All Facebook - http://www.allfacebook.com

Facebook Message email notifications now include the actual Message
By Justin Smith
Facebook just pushed a feature that will be welcomed by heavy users of Facebook messaging: actually being able to view the message contents in the notification email Facebook sends to let you know that a new message has arrived. ...

Inside Facebook - http://www.insidefacebook.com

Facebook Founder Apologizes for Ad System
By Gregory Mone
The social-networking site Facebook may have to find another way to cash in on its huge user base. The company's new "social ads" program, called Beacon, has been controversial, forcing company founder Mark Zuckerberg (pictured here) to ...
Popular Science Blog - http://popsci.typepad.com/popsci/

This week in social networking

Social Networking Website VOIS.com Continues to Attract

US Based Social Networking Site Friendster Reaches Japan, Korea

zdnet Resources - OpenID

Social Networking Research

The power of social networking sites

Social networking site launched in Ann Arbor

Jamiroquai release new social networking enabled site

Boyd's law of social network sites - Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

While I was off the grid, Cory Doctorow created a law of social network sites and named it after me:

boyd's law: "Adding more users to a social network [site] increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance."

This comes from a brilliant column that he wrote for InformationWeek about how the Facebook communication technology (combined with their not-so-open platform strategy) resemble AOL's old segregation/segmentation approach to users. (Remember the days when AOL users couldn't email anyone who didn't have an AOL account?) Embedded in this discussion is a concern for how social network sites are extremely socially awkward. My favorite quote: "It's socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list -- but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war. The least-awkward way to get back to a friends list with nothing but friends on it is to reboot: create a new identity on a new system."

Boyd's law of social network sites - Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog

The Days of our Facebook: How Love Moved to Hate

It's always amazing to me to watch how quick the internets shift on a product, service or person.

One day it's love, the next day it's hate. It seems that we are in the hate portion of Facebook these days. Let's take a quick look back at the past few months for: The Days of our Facebook: How Love Moved to Hate

Hong Kong billionaire takes $60 million Facebook stake - MarketWatch

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing has invested $60 million in social networking Web site Facebook, equivalent to a 0.4% stake, and has the option for an additional $60 million investment, according to a report by a technology blog.

The All Things Digital blog on Friday, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the transaction, reported that 79-year-old Li would not make the investment through his flagship companies Hutchison Whampoa Ltd.

The investment is likely part of a strategy to forge closer relations between Facebook and Li's media flagship Tom Group, the report said.

Many of Hong Kong-based Tom Group's holding, which include outdoor media, publishing, sports promotion, and internet properties, are geared towards the China market and could help Facebook tap into the fast-growing advertising market there.

Hong Kong billionaire takes $60 million Facebook stake - MarketWatch

Why You Shouldn’t Trust Social Networking with Health Information

There’s a lot of hype (and startups) to go along with trying to get you to buy into their “social networking” websites for health issues. Usually these companies have been backed by venture capitalists who expect both a relatively quick and large return on their money.

When a company is beholden not to its founders’ vision or its own mission (no matter how grand that mission or vision might be), but to financial backers who have little interest in the actual goals of the company other than to see it go public or purchased by the highest bidder as quickly as possible, guess who suffers the most? You’re right if you picked you, the user.

Since a company is an entity, not a person, it doesn’t have to be personal in these decisions. It makes them as a disconnected “other,” simply something that is trying to convince you that it is “helping” you by offering your data to others, even when it does so at times without your knowledge or permission.

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/12/02/why-you-shouldnt-trust-social-networking-with-health-information/

Top 6 Social Networking Sites as of Nov.

just a quick list:

1. MySpace - 58.8 million unique visitors.
2. Facebook - 19.5 million unique visitors
3. Classmates Online - 13.2 million unique visitors
4. Windows Live Spaces - 10.3 million unique visitors
5. AOL Hometown -7.9 million unique visitors
6. Linkedin - 4.9 million unique visitors

How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Putting Effective (Online) Social Networking Into Practice

Interesting details about socnet markeing and building a community:

Over the past month, I've been doing a little action research for an article on ways to be effective using online social networking sites. To do the research, I've been asking my "friends" in different online social networks, "What is your best practice or tip for using online social networking sites for your organization." I didn't just ask people from nonprofits as I wanted to get a multi-disciplinary view.

So, I started with reading and reflecting on some recent blog posts by two gurus on the topic: Chris Brogan and Connie Bensen. In response to a query, Connie provided a brilliant synthesis of the key networking principles which were my starting point for putting some ideas into practice.

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media: Putting Effective (Online) Social Networking Into Practice