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Facebook introduces single sign-on for mobile
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Business Tools, News, Social Media,
This morning Facebook announced improvements to their iPhone and Android apps, as well as changes to how they handle their sign-on platform. First, the new Groups and Places features are now fully integrated into both apps, which also brings up the Android app to be on par with the iPhone one. This will allow you to take part of all those groups while on the go. Their mobile apps hadn't been updated in a while, so it's good to see the company commit themselves to the mobile space. As a side note, they did comment that Facebook had no plan to make a phone of their own, preferring to instead bring their platform to the devices that people use.
The second part of the announcement dealt with single sign-on. Mark Zuckerberg described the troubles and frustrations that entering usernames and passwords could be on a phone, and their approach to solving it. They are now providing developers with a way to integrate a single button that will log users to their services. Now, to log into any mobile site or service that supports this feature, all you'll have to do is click on the button "sign in with Facebook". No more username or password to remember. They showed the Groupon and Zynga apps which will support this feature soon, with many more on board.
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Late Friday afternoon, the Drop.io blog posted an announcement saying that they had sold most of their technologies and assets to Facebook. Included in the deal is the fact that the site's creator Sam Lessin will also move on to Facebook. This most likely means that Facebook is looking into easy file sharing for one of its future services. The site allowed users to create an account, and freely store data on the web where they could then share it with other users.
Of more interest to us, however, is the part where the actual Drop.io service will be shutting down on Dec 15, and all data deleted. This means everyone who used the site will need to download their data if they need it. This is a chilly reminder that any cloud-based service can shut down at any point, taking all your data with it. Just earlier this year Yahoo! shut down Geocities and they simply went ahead and deleted decades worth of user data.
As we rely more and more on web services, it's worth keeping in mind that no one cares about our files more than we do.
Read More 
| Drop.io blog
Barack Obama calls Facebook users to publicly commit to vote
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: News, Social Media,
President Barack Obama has had a Twitter account for a while now, which many think was influential in getting him elected. With the election season coming up once more, Obama sent a call yesterday morning inviting people to install a Facebook app on their profiles called "Commit to Vote Challenge". The app itself is also more than just an ad. In typical social fashion, it allows you to "compete with my friends to inspire the most commitments". This is perhaps the first time a head of state has recognized the popularity of the social networks to a point where they create actual apps, in order to push their messages and invite people to participate in the vote.
Regardless of political allegiance, this is an interesting step forward, with this kind of embrace of online social sites. This is only a first step, and I wouldn't be surprised if in the coming years, we could easily see iPhone apps, online forums, and so on.
Read More | Twitter
Twitter announced on their blog that the official Twitter App is now available on Windows Phone 7. This adds to the official mobile app offerings available on iOS and Android. Compared to some other apps Windows Phone 7 customers will be waiting on, Twitter seems to be ready out of the gate, with some popular apps still being "months away". Twitter has made the app consistent with the look and feel of the rest of the Windows Phone interface.
Read More | Twitter Blog
Today Facebook introduced yet another new feature of the popular social networking site: Friendship Pages. The way they describe it, this feature allows two people who've shared a bunch of common Facebook interactions to have their own dedicated page. With this new feature, a couple, friends, or any two people can see on a single page all their common wall posts, pictures they're both tagged in, events they've both gone to, and so on. This adds a layer of personalisation to the site, and makes it easier to follow the happenings of the ones you want, through the sometimes overwhelming amount of 'stuff' that can plague your stream of posts.
Of course, being Facebook, this will also most likely bring out questions about privacy and security. It remains to be seen if Friendship Pages become popular, but we bet they'll at least bring more embarrassing moments to the masses, for those who enjoy that kind of stuff.
Read More | Facebook Blog
Today Google introduced a new service on their official blog, the Place Search tab on their home page. Not so much a completely new service, more like a merging of several offerings, this tab shows search results in a way that is more intuitive and useful for when you're looking for specific places.
When you enter search terms, such as "pizza Chicago", Google will try to guess when you're looking for a specific place instead of a website. When that's the case, the results page will be more optimized towards local search. Not only will you see a list of web sites, but now a map will be prominently shown, as if you had done the search inside of Google Maps, and it will also include reviews, links to specific business listings, images, and so on.
While it's being introduced as a new feature, I see it more as an extension of their current search, Maps, Images and location data. Still, it should make search more intuitive, and now that the company is competing with Facebook Places, Foursquare, and other such social sites, they need to keep innovating to stay relevant.
Read More | Google Blog
100 Million Facebook Profiles Captured In Single Torrent
Posted by John Kilhefner Categories: News, Social Media,
It seems that the social networking site Facebook is a lot more social than previously thought. That is, thanks to Ron Bowes of Skull Security, who created a 2.8GB torrent file containing the personal information of about 1/5th the total number of users on Facebook (500 million for those who haven’t heard.)
Ron accomplished this by crawling Facebook’s open access directory with a program that stored and filed each users data. The victims come in the form of FB users who have not changed their privacy settings to avoid search engine detection. The torrent contains the profile information of each stalked users most intimate details, such as addresses, phone numbers, and the URL to each of their profiles. Also, searching a logged user’s Facebook profile will allow you to search their friends list and find people despite their unique privacy settings.
Ron is under legal authority in how he obtained the information, so nothing illegal has been committed. But you may want to think twice about what you are sharing with others in your social network, before your entire life becomes public domain for some creep browsing torrents.
Read More | Thinq
Facebook begins testing permanent account delete option
Posted by John Kilhefner Categories: News, Social Media,
The grips of social networking can prove dominating over every waking moment. Especially if you happen to make a living from behind the lucid glow of a computer monitor. Each moment of “let me check Facebook to see what’s new” can cost valuable minutes of time that add up to decreased productivity. Up until now Facebook has only given its users looking for a way out the option to deactivate their account, leaving each and every digital footprint left intact if they ever choose to sign in again. The temptation to “check Facebook really quick” still lingers.
However, the social networking giant has now implemented a new delete account option that allows users to completely free themselves of the addicting clutches of Facebooking at last! The thing is, it’s only available to a few select users as a test group. No word on whether or not this ‘nuclear option’ will become available to all users at some point. Our guess - not a chance.
Meantime, you can add a dash of Gear Live to your Facebook.
Read More | The Next Web via Engadget
Mark Zuckerberg announced on the official Facebook blog that the social network has reached 500 million users world wide. An incredible feat indeed, but If you think that 500 million is a lot now, then imagine just how many more will sign up after The Social Network hits theaters. Also announced was the new application “Facebook Stories”. This app allows the 500 million Facebook users to share stories of how Facebook has helped them to do something significant. “Stories” is meant to tell of the miraculous feats that can be accomplished through the open, ever changing social network that is Facebook. For instance “Ben, the 17 year old high school student”, used Facebook to get his network involved in a movement to save an old town theater in Kentucky. Now if only we can get the other 499,999,999 to stop posting meaningless drivel, and start taking advantage of using it as a source of grassroots empowerment. Perhaps Facebook Stories will spark this, but methinks it will become overrun with stories such as “Jake the 22 year old college student used Facebook to organize a fart.”
You can follow us on Facebook.
Read More | Facebook Blog
It has just been announced that Amazon has purchased the vastly popular Internet shoe retailer Zappos for $850 million. The sale, confirmed in a letter sent from Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to his employees, was for $807 million in Amazon stock, plus $40 million in cash and restricted stock.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has also given some feedback on the acquisition as part of a video that he put out today, embedded above.
You can check out the full press release, after the break.
Click to continue reading Amazon acquires Zappos
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