Google on Tuesday added a small but welcomed feature to its Reader service: favicons. These are the little square icons provided by sites that show up both in your address bar and open tabs (in most browsers at least). Google Reader users can now opt in to see them in their feed source list, where previously, feeds just showed up as little blue RSS signal logos. According to Google it was the top requested feature from Google Reader's product ideas mini-site.
In many ways favicons are a logical step in simplifying the feed reading process, since you can now find a particular feed in a long list of sites without even looking at the names. This is especially important since Reader displays feeds out of alphabetical order. However, some might find it to be sensory overload; luckily there's a quick toggle to turn them on and off right form the subscriptions list.
Google's choice of where to put the favicons is a tad strange though. For now, they exist only in the source subscriptions page, and not on the article pages where most of the reading is done. This is most apparent when cruising down a list of mixed items from various sites where users will still have to rely on the site names to identify where the content is coming from.
Also worth noting is that users of the Better GReader Firefox extension by Gina Trapani (formerly of blog Lifehacker) has long had an option to add site favicons to Google Reader's interface.
A bland list of blue feed icons in Google Reader gets the favicon treatment, an optional feature that can be turned on and off.
(Credit: CNET)
Oops! Facebook posted this screenshot of a new feature to Twitter and then pulled it.
(Credit: Facebook)It looks as if Facebook was a little premature in using its Twitter account to announce "Prototypes," a Google Labs-like operation that lets members beta-test new features for the social network and offer feedback.
The tweet offering a screenshot of Prototypes was swiftly deleted--but props to The Next Web for snagging it before it was pulled.
So what are the "prototypes" in question? Facebook seems to be experimenting with desktop notifications, content discovery, and upgrades to its Events invitation service. Next to each test feature is a star-based rating system through which, presumably, users can offer their feedback.
Facebook plans to take the stage at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco early on Tuesday afternoon to make a developer-related announcement. It's pretty likely that this has something to do with it.
Facebook explains new home page layout (click image for more from Facebook).
(Credit: Facebook)PALO ALTO, Calif.--Facebook on Wednesday announced major changes to the ways users could filter information, along with an overhaul to its pages feature.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg started out a morning presentation here by noting that one of the biggest trends in social networking is organizing streams of information. Sites like Twitter and MySpace were making strides in helping to organize these streams, and Facebook needs to do a better job at it, he said.
"We're at a point now of expecting this information sharing to keep moving faster and faster," he said. "Today we're taking a few steps to move in that direction. This isn't something we've been working on for a long time...We're not sure exactly where this is going to end up."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks about changes in the stream of information.
(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)To that end, Facebook's director of product, Chris Cox, gave a quick tour of Facebook's past, including changes in privacy features and branching out from a closed, collegiate system to one that even his mom could join. All this was leading up to a new option by which, as Cox puts it, "profiles and pages become the same thing."
"Now users can open up their profiles to other users to subscribe to," Cox said. "That means pages will become more like the profile. They're going to have a presence that looks and feels just like" his mother's Facebook profile.
Some of the launch partners include CNN, U2, President Obama, The Today Show, and Michael Phelps.
Launch partners for the new public pages.
(Credit: Josh Lowensohn/CNET)The move, Zuckerberg said, in part is intended to help people share the two sets of information they have on the service, both for their family and friends as well followers on pages. This helps public pages become more of a broadcast medium than a shrine.
Zuckerberg added that the change will open up new avenues for revenue for advertising. "Even with our current models of advertising, those are the drivers that make it go up," he said. "In this there are new models that people will think about...once you have a connection through streams and different ways to communicate, (and) over the lifetime of that connection there are many impressions, many clicks. People will think of connecting with people as a metric."
A new look for the home page
Along with the privacy update, Facebook on March 11 is rolling out a new home page that Cox said is "focused on organizing the stream from everywhere and everyone you care about."
It will feature filters that give users granular control over the types of information the home page displays. This moves some of the navigation from the top of the page back to the left where it was before the last redesign. This includes filters for specific applications so that users see only updates from those apps. Previously these appeared in a drop-down menu.
Facebook will be pushing out the new layout to users later Wednesday in an opt-in preview version (as it did with the last major redesign), then in full to all other users on March 11. Any changes before that full launch will be from user feedback.
"What we always do is track the stats," Zuckerberg said.
Facebook is updating its home page and giving profile pages to big brands.
(Credit: Facebook)Remember that wonderfully mysterious Facebook preview group that reared its head back in March? Well it's been gone since the launch of the platform, but new features and interface tweaks continue to make their way into the system piece by piece. Here are three of my favorites that have rolled out in the last few weeks. Several more, and a roadmap for future updates can also be found at: www.facebook.com/whatsnew.php.
Vote on news feed stories you link and don't like. Your preferences will change what you see without having to muck with any settings.
1. News feed voting. Like the potentially upcoming Google search results tweak we reported on a couple weeks back, Facebook's already put together a way for you to tweak what kind of stories you're seeing on the news feed. Results of tweaking the sliders aren't immediate. Instead, the company says the new feature learns your tastes and adjusts accordingly.
There was already a slider for this in the feed preferences page, but now you can simply tweak them on the fly by voting a piece of news up or down. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to do much for the sponsored posts that make their way onto your news feed, but it's a lot easier than having to navigate to the feed preferences sliders.
Now you can turn any shot into a profile picture.
(Credit: CNET Networks)2. Making profile pictures out of any shot. Originally you could only do this with shots you had uploaded as your profile pictures from the edit profile menu. Now you can do it with any shot you've been tagged in, regardless of whether you uploaded it or not. There's even a little crop tool to help you grab your face out of a crowd. It won't let you crop down a shot beyond a certain invisible threshold, but it's far better than having to save the file locally to make edits, or having to kick it out to a third-party service like Picnik or Fotoflexer.
3. Outside e-mails actually mean something. Facebook has finally gone about opening up their outside messages to anyone you e-mail. Previously, if you e-mailed someone with a message--be it a wall post, or private message, they'd get an e-mail facebook telling them your name and a link to go see it (which required signing in). Now you get the complete message without having to jump through the hoops. You still have to respond via Facebook, but there's a link in the e-mail that takes you straight to the composition screen. Unfortunately this doesn't work with their events service.
See also: 7 cool, unadvertised Facebook features, which includes an early version of the profile picture picker, albeit with a little less pizazz.
Facebook has a new group called Facebook Sneak Preview that is the social-networking equivalent of a focus group. The Facebook team will be showing off screenshots of upcoming Facebook features to get feedback to potentially avoid another user backlash like the one that came with the news feed privacy hullabaloo of 2006.
Right now there are three screenshots showcasing an updated layout with less clutter and more commonly used navigation put in the right places. One change in particular shows the networks selection option and the message in-box in a tabbed menu bar at the top of the screen. Normally if you're a member of multiple networks, you have to select between them halfway down your profile. Putting that and your message in-box on the top is just a good idea. There are other little tweaks, but it's good to see them taking an active approach to making the site more user-friendly.
Not new--but cool nonetheless--is the option to comment on each screenshot, allowing users to add their opinions on the changes. The same goes for a general forum on the main page of the group, which is currently being moderated by Facebook staff to keep conversation on-topic. We've got all three screens below.
[via Facebook Blog] ... Read more
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