The Web Services Report

Twitter reworks following lists, adds functionality

Twitter is in the process of rolling out a new user interface update to its users.

This update focuses on Twitter's Following and Follower pages. In addition to a better looking list, Twitter has added more social actions to the page, including @replies, direct messages, and mobile update subscription. An extra collapsed "List View" has also been added to the traditional "Expanded View" and makes for a much more readable and quickly scannable page.

Due to the lack of a good way to browse, filter, and search through these lists, they are largely underused. This update is the first step in making Twitter's Following and Follower lists into much more usable and functional tools. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Twitter continued to build out these features more in the future, bringing in some of the functionality that third party applications have long included, such as TweetDeck's groups.

Click through to see what Twitter's new List View looks like.… Read more

Paglo rolls out real-time log search

Paglo (an "IT search engine") has been consistently adding significant new features to their offering since their launch in November, 2007. Today, they bring us their new log management application. Once implemented, this provides for the on-demand searching and analysis of log data whenever the IT pro needs access.

Real-time access to log data can help IT admins to quickly identify problems and solve them. The example that Paglo CTO Chris Waters showed me was detecting a user who is trying to brute force their way through a login, by using a dictionary attack on the password. Through … Read more

PayPal's "Do Stuff for Money" puts some cash behind your begging

PayPal just rolled out a fun little mini-site called Do Stuff for Money. The basic premise is that you can send one of your friends an offer, either through Facebook (using Facebook Connect) or e-mail, to do something of your choosing for some sum of money. For example, a recent offer reads, "Laura offered Adam $10.00 to 'Write all the thank-you cards from our wedding.'" If your friend accepts and does what you have asked, you can instantly pay them via PayPal, without having to mess with cash.

Do Stuff for Money is more of a novelty … Read more

Glue sticks to IE too

Glue, the popular Firefox extension that lets users discuss content all over the web, is releasing a version of its add-on, built for Internet Explorer, today. This is a big step for Glue for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious reason is that being compatible with IE expands Glue's potential audience significantly. Net Applications reports that IE currently holds 65.5% of the browser market to Firefox's 22.51%. Being able to reach 88% of the internet browsing population should increase their registered user base of 130,000 significantly.

The other reason why this release … Read more

Paglo fleshes out all-in-one IT management service

Paglo has been steadily building out its feature set as a Web 2.0-style solution to IT management. The latest improvements to hit the service include support for monitoring virtual machines, as well as patch management. Being able to monitor both physical and virtual machines from the same cohesive interface like this is really killer and the new patch management system is sure to ease some headaches during upgrades.

Paglo also seems firmly set on a price point of $1 per device monitored, per month. This seems like a good pricing strategy, but I would like to see Paglo adopt … Read more

Facebook adds organization feature to Friend Lists in Chat

Friend Lists has long been an underused feature in Facebook. The feature allows users to split their friends up into different groups, choosing different privacy settings for each one. It is clear now that Facebook has bigger plans for the feature and it's getting serious about trying to persuade people to use it. Recently, Facebook automatically created Friend Lists for its users in an effort to help them filter and better consume their Live Stream. Now, Facebook has redesigned their Chat feature in order to take advantage of Friend Lists. Users can now organize their previously unwieldy Chat lists … Read more

Konami Code triggers Easter egg on Facebook too

For the uninitiated or nongamers out there, the Konami Code (UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A) is arguably the most famous cheat code in video games.

It has been used in countless games and has references in multiple forms of pop culture. Lately, some sites have taken to using the code to trigger amusing events on the page. Recently, ESPN used the code to spawn unicorns and rainbows all over its pages.

Now, Facebook has dropped the code into its site. When entering the Konami code, followed by Enter, a lens flare is generated every time … Read more

Twitter follower emails, now in HTML!

Twitter's notification emails when you get a new follower have been in plain text since the site started. Today, Twitter finally rolled out a richer, HTML version of their follower notification emails. These emails include the number of people that this user is following and how many are following them back, along with their total number of updates tweeted.

This is a big step up from Twitter's old follower notification system. With the old system, you were just blindly clicking into their account with no knowledge of the user. While it's still not perfect, at least getting … Read more

Facebook maps the swine flu hysteria

Updated at 11:30 p.m. PDT: This blog misreported the percentage of swine flu interest on Facebook member pages in the states of Texas and Mississippi. The correct percentages are 0.82 percent and 0.29 percent, respectively.

There have been a lot of resources that have surfaced to help track the newly spreading swine flu. On Monday, we covered some of these online resources to help you stay on top of it. Tuesday night, Facebook released some interesting data on the conversations taking place around the swine flu outbreak. The company has posted a photo album on Facebook'… Read more