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Gossip: Is Facebook cutting costs by axing perks?

Facebook might be hiring former Google employees left and right, but if current rumors are true, don't expect them to start instituting a free-food policy like Mountain View's any time soon.

Gossip blog Valleywag has reported for the past few days that Facebook is doing away with a $600 monthly housing subsidy offered to employees who opted to rent living space within proximity the company headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. The latest rumor says that new hires are losing their housing subsidy, and that existing employees will only keep it until they move to new houses or re-sign … Read more

Upcoming D6 live blogs: Jerry Yang, Mark Zuckerberg

We'll be covering the highlights of the D6 conference today and tomorrow, but we're devoting special live blog coverage to two key interviews:

At 1:45 p.m. Pacific Time, Jerry Yang and Susan Decker of Yahoo At 5:00 p.m., Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook.

If you'd like to sign up for reminders, use the forms below.

Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference.

Facebook: Yep, we're doing the open-source thing

As rumored earlier, Facebook will indeed be announcing an open-source project for its developer platform. The social network released a statement Tuesday to clarify the gossip--while still not offering much in the way of detail.

"We're working on an open-source initiative that is meant to help application developers better understand Facebook Platform and more easily build applications, whether it's by running their own test servers, building tools, or optimizing their applications," a statement from Facebook read.

"As Facebook Platform continues to mature, open-sourcing the infrastructure behind it is a natural step so developers can build … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 732: Make family, not phone

An amusement park in the U.K. thinks you'll have more fun if they confiscate your smartphone. I think I would not go to that amusement park. I don't care if they say I'll have more fun-- I don't trust them with my iPhone. Also YouTube and Viacom are spatting again, and Brazilian beetles might lead to photonic computing! Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 732

Why Friday audio sucked

What we just learned about Windows 7 http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9952067-56.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9951638-56.html

First pictures from Mars Phoenix lander … Read more

Will open-source Facebook accomplish anything?

The rumor mill is swirling that Facebook is set to announce the open sourcing of its application platform. While presumably a response to Google-led OpenSocial, the larger question is whether it will matter.

Open source is very good at some things, and not so good at others. For example, if Facebook wants to open source its application platform to make it easier to create and integrate applications into the Facebook platform, open source is good at that. Just look at Mozilla's Firefox or Drupal.

But is this Facebook's biggest problem? Ben Lorica hints at a bigger underlying problem that no code license can solve:… Read more

Facebook heading for the open (source) road?

Just when you thought the landscape of social-networking developer APIs couldn't get any more complicated, here comes another curveball.

Facebook will reportedly open-source the code for its application platform, according to TechCrunch. The announcement may be just days away.

Facebook representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

It makes sense to do it now: the Facebook Platform just hit its one-year anniversary, and while it remains extraordinarily popular, developers have found an alternative in OpenSocial. Created by Google and then spun off into a nonprofit organization, OpenSocial is an open-source developer standard that any participating social site … Read more

Facebook To Open Source Facebook Platform?

TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook will open source it's Facebook Platform (no official word yet on if this is true or what license it will be available under.)

While some see this as a response to OpenSocial and other data movement issues, I see this as a direct attempt at market domination. Facebook already has the dominant site, by open-sourcing the platform it gets ubiquity without hurting monetization.

This move would also take some of the pressure of scaling the architecture and dealing with APIs that may/may not affect the service. It seems like a win/win for … Read more

Some perspective on Twitter and its brethren

The obsession with the ups and downs of Twitter among my friends has generated a great deal of bloviation, including my own. On a slow news weekend, Twitter's performance problems are fodder for a bit of theater and for getting some daily keyboard exercise.

The image below is meant to bring some perspective to the Twittersphere. On one hand, Twitter navel gazing (or any other navel gazing) is a waste of resources in the context of what is going on in the world. On the other hand, Twitter and its brethren are becoming viable communications vehicles for spreading the &… Read more

Control BitTorrent downloads from Facebook with Morrent

So much for Scrabulous being an end-all diversion on Facebook. Try Morrent instead, a simple tie-in to the popular BitTorrent software uTorrent that runs right in Facebook (read: sans software) and lets you monitor your torrent downloads and uploads from wherever.

Aimed mainly at folks who want to check up on their downloads at work or away from their primary machines, Morrent is more than just a convenient status window--it doubles as a remote control. You can pause and re-prioritize downloads. You can also start downloading new torrents by uploading them back to your home machine.

While the same results … Read more

Facebook adds more services to Mini-Feed

Facebook users can now import YouTube, StumbleUpon, Pandora, Hulu, Last.fm, and Google Reader into the social network's Mini-Feed.

By doing this, Facebook users will be opening up their actions at these sites to their friends. The service, which was announced on Facebook's blog on Friday, is similar to one offered by FriendFeed.

Facebook had already included Flickr, Picasa, Digg, Yelp, and Del.icio.us. in Mini-Feed. Facebook executives have said that it intends to focus on adding data from third-party sites.