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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 10, 2010 9:13 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Too many people have forgotten how powerful a Thank You or a... — Too many people have forgotten how powerful a Thank You or a your welcome can be. http://twitter.com/khennings/statuses/9907930138 Like where is CREST saying thnx to this happy customer?
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Sarah Perez shared an item on Google Reader
March 9, 2010 11:35 AM - Sign in to comment - Link

Twitter has quietly changed the wording on the button users need to press to update their statuses on the Twitter.com website. It took them 10 billion (or so) tweets to realize we don’t ‘Update’, we ‘Tweet’.

A lot of people are noticing the change, although I have to say I had to hit the refresh button of my browser a couple of times before I saw it too. Could be Twitter bucket testing or a caching issue on my side.

This is of course a minor interface change and likely has nothing to do with the “nifty features” that were supposedly soon finding their way to the Twitter web interface, which is still the most popular client for Twitter users.

As a reminder: Twitter considers the word “tweet” to be a trademark of theirs, even though it hasn’t been officially assigned to the company yet.

Hat tip to @Orli for the heads up and the TwitPic.


It’s Official: We’re No Longer Updating Our Twitter Accounts, We’re Tweeting

- Cathryn Hrudicka

Tweet button is back to Update

- Alex Sauceda
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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 9, 2010 2:21 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Retweet Me

Retweet Me helps you get your voice heard. Use Retweet Me to post a status on Twitter you want retweeted, and then retweet other users’ statuses on Retweet Me. Your tweets will be retweeted.

Basically, retweet for others and you’ll be retweeted.



Post from Twitdom - Twitter Applications Database - Retweet Me

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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 7, 2010 7:37 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
HomePuzz

HomePuzz is an all-in-one status update application that integrates Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz, enabling you to update the status on all three social networks at one go. As described on KillerStartups,

Each and every action that you associate with these services can be carried out from HomePuzz – updating statuses, sending out links, uploading videos… it is truly like a dashboard that will let you dispense with visiting one site after the other in order just to be active.

Via BuzzAware



Post from Twitdom - Twitter Applications Database - HomePuzz

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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 5, 2010 2:31 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
Microsoft "Courier" Pictures — tekgoblin writes to let us know that Gizmodo has some early shots of the new prototype "Courier" booklet (foldable tablet) on the way from Microsoft. "Courier is a real device, and we've heard that it's in the "late prototype" stage of development. It's not a tablet, it's a booklet. The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 5, 2010 4:13 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Study: Users Don't Really Care or Know About Google's Real Time Feed

google-realtime

Much fuss has been made about Google's real time search feed, and its flashy new Twitter statuses. But a new user eye-tracking study is calling Google out, and suggests users don't care much for it. The thing is, the study's only half right.

The research comes from online marketers OneUpWeb, who recently studied the way a sample set of 44 people interacted with search pages. The group was divided in two, a "consumer" group told to search for a product they wanted to buy, and a "forager" group who were tasked with simply finding out about a project. The volunteers were then monitored as they beetled around in Google, with particular attention payed to where their eyes were looking on the page.

One of the most easily accessible conclusions are that the "consumers" averaged just nine seconds before settling on the real-time results presented in Google's feed for the first time, whereas the "foragers" took 14 seconds--demonstrating the different attention spans needed to quickly scan for relevant product info, or forage among the feed for more ephemeral data. Once they'd discovered the real-time feed, the consumer group clicked on one of its elements 10% less than the foragers. Again, this is demonstrating the two differing thought processes in action: If you're shopping for something, real-time data on it may not be the most useful thing, and instead you're more likely to look for a more static shopping or e-commerce link.

Perhaps the most surprising stat is that only 55% of the participants could "easily" find the RT feed. OneUpWeb's other result plugging into this is the "heat map" below, demonstrating where user's eyes spent most time peeping at Google's spartan web page. 

It's clear from the heat map that little time is spent further down the search results, which is another reinforcement of the old above the fold/below the fold thinking. The foragers were obviously perusing the data more thoroughly, and that's evidenced in the greater amount of time they spent further down Google's page, including scanning the RT feed box. You could conclude from this that the real time feed doesn't matter too much to the sample users in the study, and a questionnaire by OneUpWeb underlines this: Some 74% of the participants hadn't heard of real time data before this study, and when they discovered it it generally left them indifferent.

Here's the thing though. Google doesn't always place the real time feed way down the page. As the image at the top (for a search on the current Pentagon shooting event) shows, Google places key Twitter feed data right in the hotspot for user attention that the eye-tracking revealed. It's also hard to ignore the feed here, as it's the only element of the search page that actually moves without any user interaction. Had OneUpWeb studied the way users access this hot-topic real time data, I'm certain their survey would've revealed a different dynamic among user's click-throughs to real time or static data.

And that's actually the most interesting conclusion from this survey--what you're looking for will probably relate extremely closely to how interested you are in a real time data feed on Google. Google could also do a better job of promoting its real time powers, apparently, since a 75% ignorance figure is pretty large even among a small sample group of 44 members of the public.

[via PRWeb, SearchEngineLand]

To here more news like this, follow me Kit Eaton on Twitter. In real time, if you like.

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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 4, 2010 1:45 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
Yahoo Starts Facebook Connect Roll-Out with E-Mail Integration

Yahoo facebook email.jpg

Yahoo on Thursday started a slow roll-out of its integration with Facebook Connect by allowing users to import e-mail addresses from the social networking site.

"In addition to importing your contacts from sites like Gmail and Windows Live Hotmail, starting this week you can now easily add your Facebook friends' email addresses to your Yahoo contacts list," Yahoo wrote in a blog post.

Yahoo announced in December that it would link up to Facebook Connect in 2010, a move that will eventually let members check their Facebook statuses from the Yahoo Mail inbox, and access Facebook features across other Yahoo properties, like News, Answers, and Sports.

This first phase will allow you to access Facebook contacts on Yahoo. "Maybe you want to forward your cousin your airplane reservations on Yahoo Mail, but you've never emailed him before. Now you can type the first few letters of his name in Yahoo Mail and—presto!—his email address from his Facebook profile will appear in your email," Yahoo said.

To access this feature, sign into your Yahoo account, and select Contacts from the drop-down menu on the main page. Find the "import your contacts from another provider to Yahoo" link and click on that. Select Facebook and follow the prompts.

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Dennis Howlett posted a message on Twitter
March 4, 2010 6:38 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 3, 2010 9:16 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
Zune HD Facebook app reappears

It took a little while, but the Facebook app for Zune HD is now working and available for installation via the Zune software interface.  The app was actually released on Monday (after apparent testing by Softies and MVPs, judging by their Facebook statuses), but was pulled almost immediately afterward due to it not actually loading any information.

zunefacebook

The app itself does the usual Facebook type stuff: shows status updates and news feeds, photos (there’s no photo upload, but hey there’s no camera in a Zune HD, so go figure!), and even some cool Zune specific features, like the ability to post the music you’re listening to on your Zune up on Facebook.

We’ve just given it a quick look-see here, but Pocketnow.com has a video walkthrough posted, and if nothing else this app gives us a sneak peek at the type of apps we’ll see on Windows Phone 7 Series.


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Niklas Sjostrom shared an item on Google Reader
March 3, 2010 1:23 PM - Sign in to comment - Link

Tweeting Buzz Brings Universal Status Update One Step CloserWhile Twitter integration was a major selling point of Google Buzz, it seemingly went only one way.

Or at least it used to be that way. However, the recently released Buzz Can Tweet application allows Buzz posts to be automatically posted to Twitter.

By integrating Buzz updates into Twitter, the developers hope to integrate access to Buzz’s media capabilities into Twitter.

For those that find themselves constantly reposting statuses and links from one service to the other, this could be a valuable time-saving tool.

The tool provides a linkback to the user’s public Buzz profile if the Buzz update is too long to fit into a tweet. The tool also includes bit.ly integration and hashtag-based import control (updates sent to Twitter only if #twitter is at the end of the status).

The most interesting potential use of this service is based around Buzz’s media integration. Essentially, the tool allows users to use their Buzz accounts as a twitpic killer by linking to the media components of the original Buzz post. This integration is significantly simpler than linking the media with a URL shortener because it’s done automatically.

Of course, linking Buzz to Twitter has its own unique issues. It remains to be seen whether or not a Buzz post to twitter, reposted to Buzz via Twitter importation would start an infinite loop. At the very least, the tool’s creators admit, Buzz updates will reappear back in Buzz via Twitter. There also appears to be a significant time lag in certain cases, as Buzz connects to Twitter only intermittently. The tool’s developers claim that both problems are Google’s fault and that they’re hoping for a quick fix soon.

In any case, this tool probably won’t make users stop updating their Twitter accounts manually, but it could be a useful time-saving measure for those of us that make frequent use of both services.

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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 1, 2010 11:55 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
Nokia C5: slim smartphone candybar official!

The Nokia C5 super slim Symbian S60 phone has just been announced by Nokia. Those spyshots we saw last month were bang on cue: it’s a teeny candybar phone with a svelte shell, but much more power than any Series 40 phones from Espoo, and a serious social networking twist.

While the design of the Nokia C5, the first phone in Nokia’s long awaited Cseries, is fairly conventional, with a T9 keypad, 2.2-inch screen and 12×46x112mm footprint, the fact it runs Symbian S60 3rd edition is an eye opener: this little mobile can cope with all the apps of much chunkier and expensive E and Nseries smartphones.

Although we don’t know about connectivity for the Nokia C5 (It’s still unclear if Wi-Fi is onboard), it will run the new Ovi Maps with free navigation out of the box, so it is has GPS, and on the media front, there’s a microSD slot, 3.5mm audio port for your own headphones and an FM radio.

Nokia is also touting the social networking skills of the Nokia C5, with Facebook statuses of your mates now appearing by their name in the phone book.

Not a bad package, eh? Here’s where things get really exciting: the Nokia C5 will cost just €135 (£122) SIM-free when it lands in Europe between April and June. That’s a remarkable price and one that could give the INQ Mini 3G and even Nokia’s own 6700 Classic a fright.

Check out the Nokia C5 pictures here and we’ll be back with details on networks and exact launch dates when we get them. That Nokia C6 QWERTY phone can’t be far off now, either.

Out Q2 | €135 | Nokia (Via Nokia Conversations)

Related posts:

  1. Nokia C5 leaked: smallest smartphone yet?
  2. Nokia 6700 Slide and Nokia 7230: official video!
  3. Nokia C6: budget QWERTY smartphone gears up for launch

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Moopz Newz shared a link
March 1, 2010 7:02 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
'Battlestar's' Park Lands on 'Hawaii Five-0' RemakeTricia Helfer and Grace ParkGrace Park seems to have a thing for television remakes. She shot to fame as Boomer on 'Battlestar Galactica' and now she's going to have a role on the new 'Hawaii Five-0' on CBS. Granted, in between the two roles she also appeared on 'The Cleaner' on A&E with Benjamin Bratt.

She's not the only ex-'Battlestar' babe to keep working. Tricia Helfer now has a steady gig on 'Dark Blue'. Katee Sackhoff just got cast on an unnamed ABC pilot (and had a memorable appearance on 'The Big Bang Theory'). Given both of their statuses on 'Battlestar' as ageless Cylons, it's even conceivable that down the road Park or Helfer will show up on the prequel series.

For those 'Lost' fans, 'Hawaii Five-0' also stars Daniel Dae Kim.

With the addition of Grace Park, are you planning on watching the remake of 'Hawaii Five-0'? Were you planning on watching it anyway?

 

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Orli Yakuel posted a message on Twitter
February 28, 2010 11:03 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Orli Yakuel posted a message on Twitter
February 28, 2010 10:13 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Chuck Reynolds posted a message on Twitter
February 26, 2010 5:45 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Moopz Newz shared a link
February 26, 2010 3:04 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
How big was Facebook’s recent privacy glitch?

It was like PostSecret.

Except it wasn’t random postcards, it was whole emails. And instead of people knowingly sending their darkest secrets and innermost feelings anonymously to a guy who vets them and posts them, their Facebook messages flooded the inboxes of others, revealing all manner of sexual impulse, romantic heartache and tractor accident to an undisclosed number of users. One of those affected users happens to write for the Wall Street Journal, and instead of being stingy with the juice, Zachary Seward shares with the class. Thank you, Zachary.

Calling the “errant messages” he received “totally fascinating,” Seward teased us with a new choice niblets from his gossip buffet:

Kelly has applied for a job at Starbucks. Michelle’s brother sliced his head open in a harrowing tractor accident. A Milwaukee native is “sooo mad at annabelle.” Middle schoolers in Georgia have a quiz today on Newton’s Laws. And in Kentucky, weekend plans are solidifying: “we need to go to that place and get alcohol. ALSO GET TOGETHER AT MY HOUSE FRIDAY NIGHT. COME.”

I learned that people still use o_O to indicate they’re confused and that “no stalk” means you’re not stalking someone — as in, “no stalk but your formspring stuff has been coming up on my feed.”Much of the chatter referred to Facebook itself, like the teenager who wrote, “look at [so-and-so's] wall and the convo she has on her statuses with TIM!”

Seward reports that far and away, the bulk of messages received in error by him that night dealt with love, loving and lovers. Apparently, Facebook is an important tool in many modern relationships. Lucky Zach was even on the receiving end of a steamy chat session, which may have been a porn goldmine had he been a woman.

But alas, some commenters did not take the subsequent dish session in the spirit in which it was intended. Which is sad, because if we have proven one thing as people-on-the-internet, we excel at stopping and staring. It is our achilles heel and our greatest uniting interest. We like watching stars shagging, whales eating people, the bodies of pop culture icons being carried off, texts from last night, nip slips and sports reporters getting dressed. We are good at one thing collectively: bearing witness. Who among us would have resisted such an opportunity, besides Zach Seward’s morally bragging readers?

If we’ve not embraced the idea that our biggest secrets may or may not have already hit the interwebs at large, perhaps we should. An informal poll at the bottom of Seward’s piece suggests that nearly ten percent of the almost 1200 people who voted were in receipt of errant inbox messages. We’re all a hair’s breadth away from becoming the next FailBlog entry or Digg front page sensation, and the only protection is to remain really, really boring.

[Image] [via snopes]

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Moopz Newz shared a link
February 26, 2010 3:04 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
How big was Facebook’s recent privacy glitch?

It was like PostSecret.

Except it wasn’t random postcards, it was whole emails. And instead of people knowingly sending their darkest secrets and innermost feelings anonymously to a guy who vets them and posts them, their Facebook messages flooded the inboxes of others, revealing all manner of sexual impulse, romantic heartache and tractor accident to an undisclosed number of users. One of those affected users happens to write for the Wall Street Journal, and instead of being stingy with the juice, Zachary Seward shares with the class. Thank you, Zachary.

Calling the “errant messages” he received “totally fascinating,” Seward teased us with a new choice niblets from his gossip buffet:

Kelly has applied for a job at Starbucks. Michelle’s brother sliced his head open in a harrowing tractor accident. A Milwaukee native is “sooo mad at annabelle.” Middle schoolers in Georgia have a quiz today on Newton’s Laws. And in Kentucky, weekend plans are solidifying: “we need to go to that place and get alcohol. ALSO GET TOGETHER AT MY HOUSE FRIDAY NIGHT. COME.”

I learned that people still use o_O to indicate they’re confused and that “no stalk” means you’re not stalking someone — as in, “no stalk but your formspring stuff has been coming up on my feed.”Much of the chatter referred to Facebook itself, like the teenager who wrote, “look at [so-and-so's] wall and the convo she has on her statuses with TIM!”

Seward reports that far and away, the bulk of messages received in error by him that night dealt with love, loving and lovers. Apparently, Facebook is an important tool in many modern relationships. Lucky Zach was even on the receiving end of a steamy chat session, which may have been a porn goldmine had he been a woman.

But alas, some commenters did not take the subsequent dish session in the spirit in which it was intended. Which is sad, because if we have proven one thing as people-on-the-internet, we excel at stopping and staring. It is our achilles heel and our greatest uniting interest. We like watching stars shagging, whales eating people, the bodies of pop culture icons being carried off, texts from last night, nip slips and sports reporters getting dressed. We are good at one thing collectively: bearing witness. Who among us would have resisted such an opportunity, besides Zach Seward’s morally bragging readers?

If we’ve not embraced the idea that our biggest secrets may or may not have already hit the interwebs at large, perhaps we should. An informal poll at the bottom of Seward’s piece suggests that nearly ten percent of the almost 1200 people who voted were in receipt of errant inbox messages. We’re all a hair’s breadth away from becoming the next FailBlog entry or Digg front page sensation, and the only protection is to remain really, really boring.

[Image] [via snopes]

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Orli Yakuel posted a message on Twitter
February 26, 2010 4:22 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
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Moopz Newz shared a link
February 25, 2010 7:48 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Google adds Facebook status to search

Google has started adding the Facebook status of pages, not individuals, to its real-time search, following on from the news last week that it was integrating MySpace statuses into its searches.

Since it's been showing Tweets since the end of 2009, that means Google now carries updates from all the major social networks.

However, Microsoft's Bing still has the edge when it comes to Facebook. Bing can show the public status updates of individuals under the deal Redmond has with Mark Zuckerberg and Co; Microsoft has invested in the social networking site and provides its search.

Google, however, can only show the status update for Facebook Pages. Those, by definition, cover "organisations, businesses, celebrities, and bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official, public manner." There are about three million Facebook Pages, while the site itself has 400 million active users.

No money changed hands

The deals allowing both Bing and Google to shows Facebook data have cost the search engines any money, a fact confirmed by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. The idea is to drive even more people to the site.

Quite appropriately, Google announced the news via…a Tweet.



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Moopz Newz shared a link
February 25, 2010 5:04 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
12 Reasons You Need a Facebook Fan Page and 5 Easy Steps for Creating One

Facebook fan pages aren’t just for large corporations interested in getting involved in social media. Small businesses, entrepreneurs, freelancers and other professionals can benefit from having a fan page on Facebook.

Separate from your personal profile, a Facebook fan page is a public profile that lets you share your products, services and related information with other Facebook users. Here are some of the biggest reasons you should create a fan page today.

12 Reasons You Need a Facebook Fan Page

  1. There isn’t a limit to the number of fans you can have. This makes fan pages especially valuable for Facebook users who reach, or are approaching, the 5,000 friend limit.
  2. It’s free.
  3. It gives you a way to talk to and get feedback from your target audience, because like a user profile, you can update your fans with statuses that will appear in the news feed.
  4. You can promote events.
  5. It’s an SEO boost. Facebook is currently the second most popular site on the Web according to Alexa.
  6. You can customize the design using FBML, Facebook’s version of HTML. Check out the Static FBML app for more.
  7. You can create brand advocates.
  8. You can easily promote it with tools provided by Facebook.
  9. The Facebook Pages Insights analytics tool gives you useful information about your fans and their interactions.
  10. You can build a community for your clients and prospects.
  11. It’s another funnel to your website.
  12. You can add unlimited photos and videos.

5 Easy Steps for Creating a Facebook Fan Page

Step 1: Go to http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Step 2: Select a category and enter the name for your page (you can set your fan page to be private until you’re ready to go live).
facebook

Step 3: Add a picture and become a fan.
facebook

Step 4: Edit your page settings. This is where you customize your page, including country and age restrictions, wall settings, tabs, fan permissions, and applications.
facebook

Step 5: Publish and promote your page. You can promote with a fan box, a Facebook ad, by suggesting to friends, on your personal profile and in your other networks.
facebook

Bonus: Once you hit 25 fans, go to http://www.facebook.com/username/ to create a vanity URL for your page.

How have you used Facebook fan pages for promotion?

Related posts:

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  2. 7 Essential Steps to Creating an Efficient Mobile Office Do you want to be able to work from anywhere...
  3. Tips for Using Blogs, Twitter and Facebook to Find New Clients Social media can be a great way to find new...



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Moopz Newz shared a link
February 24, 2010 8:41 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
Yahoo Finally Announces Deal To Integrate Twitter (YHOO)

carol bartz yahoo tbi

Yahoo announced a new partnership with Twitter this morning.

Twitter will be integrated into a number of Yahoo products. Users will be able to update their statuses from Yahoo and share Yahoo stories in their Twitter streams directly.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

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Mike Hochanadel shared an item on Google Reader
February 23, 2010 11:31 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
MyNoSQL has up an interview with Ryan King on how Twitter is transitioning to the Cassandra database. Here's some detailed background on Cassandra, which aims to "bring together Dynamo's fully distributed design and Bigtable's ColumnFamily-based data model." Before settling on Cassandra, the Twitter team looked into: "...HBase, Voldemort, MongoDB, MemcacheDB, Redis, Cassandra, HyperTable, and probably some others I'm forgetting. ... We're currently moving our largest (and most painful to maintain) table — the statuses table, which contains all tweets and retweets. ... Some side notes here about importing. We were originally trying to use the BinaryMemtable interface, but we actually found it to be too fast — it would saturate the backplane of our network. We've switched back to using the Thrift interface for bulk loading (and we still have to throttle it). The whole process takes about a week now. With infinite network bandwidth we could do it in about 7 hours on our current cluster." Relatedly, an anonymous reader notes that the upcoming NoSQL Live conference, which will take place in Boston March 11th, has announced their lineup of speakers and panelists including Ryan King and folks from LinkedIn, StumbleUpon, and Rackspace.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How Twitter Is Moving To the Cassandra Database

- Kenneth Younger
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Moopz Newz shared a link
February 22, 2010 1:04 PM - Sign in to comment - Link
Facebook 1.2 for Touch Windows Phones Released with Comments and Likes

WinMo-Facebook12

Social networkers will be happy to hear that the Facebook client for touchscreen Windows Mobile devices has been updated to version 1.2 to include some small, but much-needed features such as adding Likes and comments to friend feed items.

The app itself has only been on Windows Mobile since last May, but it seems like it has all the usual features one would need, like checking friend statuses, replying to messages, making wall posts, and uploading pictures. If you’ve had a chance to check out Windows Mobile 7, you’ll know that Facebook is already well-integrated into much of the experience, but older handsets will still deserve some lovin’.

You can grab Facebook for Windows Mobile free in the Marketplace, with localizations available for English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Polish and Greek.

[via the::unwired]

Related News from IntoMobile:

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Moopz Newz shared a link
February 22, 2010 7:23 AM - Sign in to comment - Link
How to Make a Facebook Group Popular
  • Make it about something that a lot of people are thinking about at the time. It could be a news item, sport, or just something funny.
  • Include a few of your friends in the project. That way, they can invite everyone from their friends list as well, and they can ask their friends to invite and so on.
  • Use a traffic exchange, ie magnifytraffic.com. If the person is signed into facebook at the time that site comes up onto their page, they may choose to click on ”become a fan”, therefore giving you another fan. Plus, this is free.
  • Keep adding regular statuses about the group. When someone ”likes” or comments on the status, it comes up on their profile that they have done so, meaning that their friends might see it and join the group.
  • Ask people to invite their friends. Not that many people actually do this, but if one person invites everyone on their friends list, you’re bound to get a fair amount of new members.
  • Post funny pictures and links on a regular basis to keep your current members interested. If they see something funny on the group, they might want to share it with a friend so will ask them to join, and your member numbers will increase because of this.
  • Don’t lie to your members. If you tell them to join and they’ll get something free, they’ll just become angry and then leave your group as soon as they realise it isn’t for real.
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(jeff)isageek shared an item on Google Reader
February 19, 2010 6:39 PM - Sign in to comment - Link

More than 3.5 million events are created each month on Facebook, and the average Facebook user is invited to 3 of them per month. So if you’re one of the millions who uses Facebook Events to share your plans, or Facebook Birthdays to keep track of friends birthdays, then you should check out fbCal.

Built by calendar aggregation company Mixin, the free service lets you automatically synchronize this Facebook information to a variety of other calendar services, including Google Calendar, Apple’s iCal (including directly in the iPhone), Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Sunbird, and Lotus Notes.

Once you complete the syncing process, you’ll be able to see calendar entries for events and birthdays from Facebook within any of these programs.

Facebook itself lets you subscribe to individual events, which is a good option if you want to only add individual events. It has previously also let you do a bulk export of events so you can track upcoming ones automatically, albeit not with granular features that fbcal offers. However, while the bulk exporter option is still available for use by developers on the platform, and live for people who have previously set it up, it is no longer visible on the Events page. It used to be, but seems to have disappeared with the redesign earlier this month (we have an email in to Facebook about that and we’ll update when we hear back).

Instructions obviously vary for each program, and the company details them here. There are a few options to note for the calendar entires. You can choose to subscribe to various types of event statuses you’ve previously marked in Facebook, from “Attending” at the minimum to “Attending, Maybe attending, Not attending, Awaiting Reply” at the maximum. You can also subscribe to your Facebook calendar entries by RSS, if you prefer using Google Reader or another reader. Or you can download your existing entries directly — the problem with that option is that you won’t get the automatic updates from Facebook. FbCal provides the calendar in the iCalendar format (.ics), which is also used by other calendar applications beyond the ones we list here. Finally, among general features, you can set the time zone so the events match your calendar.

The birthday feature can also be useful, although it is a bit noisy if you have a lot of Facebook friends — a good addition would be a way to select the Facebook friends whose birthdays you want to remember.

We tried the service out with Apple’s iCal, and it worked very well. Click on the iCal logo for Events and the iCal desktop app loads, and asks you to subscribe to the Events calendar you’ve selected. Hit Subscribe and you’ll create a new Facebook Calendar (you can then choose a color, and other iCal options), then you’ll see your Facebook items auto-populated.

Mixin’s fbCal Automatically Syncs Facebook Events, Birthdays to Other Calendars

- Sarah Perez

Here's a solution for syncing Facebook events and birthdays to your calendar -> http://bit.ly/9u6ZSO

- Corvida
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