facebook

Facebook platform 2.0: Is mobile the key?

Only a year ago, there was a huge buzz around Facebook's new application platform. Big money was made by some, while others simply threw together whatever they could and released it to the masses in the hopes of being the next iLike.

Today, the Facebook platform is alive and well, but the hot new platform is the iPhone. People are lining up for hours to get their hands on one, and developers see dollars in those lines: Unlike with Facebook apps, you can charge for iPhone software, and developers keep 70 percent of the money collected through Apple's app store.

One of the 550-plus new iPhone applications was Facebook's own, a slightly amped-up version of the Web-based Facebook for iPhone Web site introduced late last year. It's more useful than than the mobile Web site, but it's still watered down from its desktop cousin, with just a contact list and a chat app. Notably missing are the other Facebook applications that have helped make the social network such an appealing service for both users and developers.

It would make sense if the next step for the Facebook platform was a mobile version--something where whatever you developed would work on both desktop and mobile devices, starting with the iPhone and later Android. In that regard, Facebook's mobile iPhone application is only the beginning, and just a preview of what's to come.

I think we'll see at next week's F8 event a product or service that will help developers shrink down their applications to fit into Facebook's mobile application framework. It's a move that goes squarely against Apple's engrained apps marketplace by having developers spend resources on coding for Facebook instead of themselves; however, the result will be the augmentation of the mobile Facebook experience that's closer to what people have gotten accustomed to on their computers.

Facebook's UI has already begun to change to match the finger-friendly style. The latest profile refresh has moved the applications from a sidebar to different tabs--the same look can be found in Facebook's iPhone-optimized Web app. Such a style could easily be shrunk down to fit a smaller screen, whereas the old one could not.… Read more

Funding for Facebook applications trend is about to die multi-million dollar death

One utterly moronic trend that is deservedly near death are the venture funds specifically for Facebook applications. The company has the ability to turn on/off any features it wants and can replicate any external application that it sees as successful. Being totally dependent on that was risky from day one.

Open APIs or not, Facebook is not the internet. It's a site that wants to monetize it's users. Anyone who thought differently should certainly be singing a different tune.

From the Valleywag article:

They can't say they didn't have it coming. But widgetmakers are angry … Read more

Zumobi stamps Twitter, Facebook widgets onto the BlackBerry

On Thursday, Seattle-based mobile widgets maker Zumobi announced its graphics-rich application for BlackBerry. Originally developed for Windows Mobile phones, Zumobi's BlackBerry release marks the application's second platform appearance and hearkens a handful of other improvements.

As a widget organizer, Zumobi lets users add 16 "tiles" to the application's home screen. The number keys and pearl are used to navigate among the four quadrants, and then again among each remaining quadrant to arrive at the elected tile.

Each tile, created by partners, independent developers, or users online, serves an ad, ratings scale, forwarding link, and search … Read more

Facebook fixes hole that exposed birth dates

Facebook said on Wednesday that it fixed a hole that exposed the birth dates of members during a public beta of a new design for profile pages earlier this week.

Security company Sophos alerted Facebook to the problem and is suggesting that Facebook users input fake birth dates instead of real ones to prevent any similar problems going forward because of the risks from identity fraud.

"My advice to Facebook users would be, even if your data of birth is set to be non-visible, change it to a made-up date in case this kind of blunder happens again," … Read more

Facebook face-off: Scrabble vs. Scrabulous

Scrabble is finally on Facebook. Officially. While the Scrabulous game has been online for a while and is wildly popular, it's had a sword hanging over its head since launch. Hasbro, owner of the Scrabble franchise, has threatened and tried to kill Scrabulous--while at the same time prepping to launch its own, official, Scrabble app on Facebook.

In conjunction with Electronic Arts, that official Hasbro Scrabble app is now up, in beta. How does it compare to Scrabulous? Pretty well. Too well, actually. While Scrabulous fans will see no reason to switch to the official Scrabble app, newcomers to … Read more

Why does Facebook think you might have had a sex-change?

Depending on the day, the hour, the minute and the effects of my last pedicure, I change my mind about Facebook.

Why does Facebook think I may have changed something more?

My sex, for example.

I'm about as technical as the rules of Red Rover. I don't get particularly excited when someone invites me to bite their vampire or suck up their karma.

But I have had to seriously question myself and my life-choices when I received the following notice, splashed across my Facebook page.

It is headlined WHICH EXAMPLE APPLIES TO YOU?

The next line reads: Right … Read more

How to preview Facebook's redesigned profiles

Facebook hasn't made its redesigned profiles official yet, but a number of blogs have posted a link where you can check out the redesign and play with your new profile a bit.

It's a bit convoluted at first, especially since there are some features you have to manually turn on now, like displaying lists of "networks" on a profile, not to mention the fact that your personal information (interests, contact info, etc.) is now on a separate tab from your "social" information (wall posts, etc.) Plus, your profile picture is now on the right … Read more

The Bebo party case. A ball of confusion.

Here's the controversy in a single sentence.

A woman in the UK, who has a rather nice $8million house in Spain, is suing several newspapers because they printed information that they found on Bebo about a party held at the house, information that turned out to be false, even though it was put there by the woman's daughter, Jodie.

As far as I can twig it, Amanda Hudson is claiming that the information her daughter freely placed on Bebo, describing the party as seven shades of raucous, was intended for private use only and was not for rebroadcast … Read more

Bebo party story is fake--lawsuit is not

Don't believe everything you read on Bebo.

That's the message an angry mother is sending by suing six U.K. newspapers that lifted a story off social-networking site Bebo about her daughter's supposed wild party.

The Bebo invite promised the "party of the year," for the teenager's 16th birthday. Subsequent posts on Jodie Hudson's Bebo account spoke of underage drinking, sex acts, and violence that occurred at the celebration.

Several newspapers ran the story, along with pictures lifted from Jodie Hudson's Bebo account, alleging that 400 partying teens responded to the Bebo … Read more

ShoZu shares iPhone photos in one swell swoop

There are several media-pushing services represented at the opening of the iTunes App Store, each with their own combination of supported sites. ShoZu (covered here) remains the whopper of them all with support for roughly 30 popular social sites and services. There are the major players, of course--Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, Blogger, Picasa, LiveJournal--but ShoZu isn't too high and mighty to upload text and images to some of the more niche guys, like Box.Net qipit, Snapfish, and SmugMug.

With so many services ready to cram into an app interface, things could get tangled up fast. But they don'… Read more