Heather Timmons / New York Times:
India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content — The Indian government has asked Internet companies and social media sites like Facebook to prescreen user content from India and to remove disparaging, inflammatory or defamatory content before it goes online, three executives in the information technology industry say.
India Asks Google, Facebook to Screen User Content (Heather Timmons/New York Times)
Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:55:00 GMT
The social network is opening its first software engineering facility away from the US West Coast, and is also reported to have taken over Gowalla.
Facebook unveils expansion plans
Mon, 05 Dec 2011 11:43:09 GMT
Facebook is holding a special event this afternoon at its office in New York City. The event is a little strange, in that Facebook only sent invites out this morning — which may be because it will feature U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The event will also include Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer.
Facebook hasn’t given any indication as to what to expect, but I’m guessing it has something to do with expanding its presence in New York, particularly around engineering, given Schroepfer’s attendance. Its current NYC office has a handful of engineers, but is dominated by employees on the sales side. I’ll be updating this post as the event unfolds. You can also watch the event right here
Update:: the press release just went out, but event hasn’t started yet. From the release:
From the release:
To keep up with its rapid growth, Facebook today announced plans to establish an engineering presence in New York City and tap into the remarkable technical talent that the region has to offer. The Facebook NYC engineering office, the company’s first outside the West Coast, will open in early 2012 and will begin accepting applications immediately.
“More than 800 million people around the world rely on Facebook, and more than half of them visit every day. Operating at such a large scale, and innovating as quickly as we do, we need to recruit the most talented engineers in the world,” said Mike Schroepfer, Facebook’s Vice President of Engineering. “New York has a strong history of innovation and is home to thousands of talented technical people, and we want them to help us solve the challenges of designing and building the next generation of Facebook,” he added.
“Building an engineering presence outside the West Coast is a big step for us, one we would take only if we found the right combination of talent and community support,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer. “We’re particularly grateful for the encouragement and assistance of New York’s elected leaders, who understand what it takes to build a climate where technology can fuel economic growth and the creation of high skilled jobs,” she added.
Facebook To Open Engineering Office In NYC
Jason Kincaid
Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:18:55 GMT
When Facebook Timeline was announced, it didn't take long for the Internet to figure out that even though the new profile design isn't yet available to the public, anyone could get it immediately with this little hack.
Today, over 1.5 million users have activated Timeline with this workaround, making the new profile visible to each of them and anyone else who has enabled it.
Eventually, Facebook will mandate Timeline for everyone, and when that happens, expect a lot of backlash. Many people, even those who opted in to the new design, seriously dislike it. They're calling it narcissistic, cluttered, and creepy.
If you concur, and you were one of those people who enabled Timeline, there's still a way to enjoy the old profile design (while it lasts.)
Step 1: Head to the Facebook Developers page where you originally created an app to enable Timeline. Click "Edit app."
(Credit: Screenshot by Sharon Vaknin/CNET)
Step 2: The only way to remove Timeline is to delete the app. If you are an actual developer, you're out of luck. Ot... [Read more]
How to disable Facebook Timeline and get the old profile back
Sharon Vaknin
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 23:53:32 GMT
Beware of poisoned photo links
A dangerous worm is using Facebook to spread itself by posting malicious links on the social networking website that point to malware-tainted sites loaded with a variant of the Zeus banking Trojan as well as other nasties.…
Danger worm hijacks Facebook accounts to inject banking Trojan
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:02:09 GMT
A new, rough extension for Google Chrome allows you to toggle Facebook app permissions during installation, providing tighter security when playing with potentially risky apps.
Opt-out of Facebook permissions via new add-on
Tue, 29 Nov 2011 01:38:33 GMT
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Facebook Acquires The Tech Behind WhoGlue, A Company That Sued It In 2009 — Facebook has confirmed to us this morning that it did indeed acquire the Baltmore-based software firm WhoGlue earlier this month. WhoGlue builds social networking software for membership organizations …
Facebook Acquires The Tech Behind WhoGlue, A Company That Sued It In 2009 (Alexia Tsotsis/TechCrunch)
Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:15:00 GMT
Social payments are taking a giant leap forward. PayPal has unveiled a Facebook app that lets you send money to friends.
The app, simply titled Send Money, is just as straightforward as its name. You have the choice to send either an ecard with money or just money with no card. You select a card, choose a friend to send it to and then select how much money to send.
“The PayPal and Facebook infrastructure have now merged,” PayPal’s Anuj Nayar says. “This is another way to personalize the act of giving money.”
While there are several ways to pay with PayPal via Facebook (Payvment comes to mind), this is the first app to enable peer-to-peer payments via Facebook and PayPal. And because it’s a peer-to-peer transaction, there is no transaction fee, though PayPal’s regular limits and international fees still apply.
“Sending money, person to person, is free,” PayPal Senior Product Marketing Manager JB Coutinho said. “If it’s funded by a PayPal balance or linked to a bank account, it’s free.”
And while the primary aspect of the Send Money app is its enablement of transactions across the world’s largest social network, the ecard aspect is being emphasized as well. PayPal was quick to point out that more than 500 million ecards are sent every year, and that’s why PayPal is offering dozens of choices for everything from birthdays to congratulations.
We can see the app really taking off. Users who see on Facebook that it’s a friend’s birthday can quickly fire up the app and send a card and some cash within a few minutes. The app is just as useful for things like lottery pools and reimbursing friends for lunch. It’s a big step toward making social payments a reality.
If you want to learn more about the PayPal Send Money Facebook App, we’ve created a simple walkthrough of the payment process. Check it out in the gallery below.
The PayPal Send Money Facebook App
The Facebook app lets you send money and/or ecards to friends.
PayPal Launches Facebook App for Sending Money to Friends [EXCLUSIVE]
Ben Parr
Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:00:05 GMT
Skype deepened its partnership with Facebook today by adding Facebook video calling to both its Mac and Windows applications.
Skype desktop app now makes Facebook video calls
Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:02:00 GMT
Facebook users have been bombarded with explicit and violent images in the latest malware campaign aimed at the giant social networking site, a security researcher said Tuesday.
Facebook Users Hit by Nasty Porn Storm
Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:33:47 GMT
Facebook on Tuesday announced it was hiring the co-founders of MailRank, a startup that focused on prioritizing email.
Co-founders Bethanye McKinney Blount and Bryan O’Sullivan will be joining Facebook in December and shutting down MailRank, the two announced on MailRank’s blog.
“We started MailRank to focus on the email that matters, combining powerful technology with a simple interface,” the blog post reads. “It’s been rewarding to build a solution to problems people face every day. At Facebook, we’ll be working with a first-class team on our favorite types of technology problems while supporting a great product people use every day.”
An introductory post from MailRank described the company as a “solution to the problem of email overload” via “hands-free prioritization without complicated configuration and rules.”
The post goes on to say that they will discontinue MailRank’s private beta for Outlook to “focus on our new jobs.” A Facebook rep declined to comment further on what the two will be doing at their new employer.
Facebook famously introduced a “modern messaging system” last November that was meant to be seamless, informal, immediate, personal, simple and minimal. In a press event explaining the move, Mark Zuckerberg emphasized at the time that the product was “not e-mail.” The introduction, plus Google’s launch of its short-lived Google Wave in 2009, led to some speculation that traditional email was about to be overhauled. Two years on though, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Facebook Acqui-hires Email Prioritizer MailRank
Todd Wasserman
Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:55:36 GMT
Maybe you woke up from a long night and realize you've made a horrible mistake, posting dozens of embarrassing pictures (or worse) to Facebook. Maybe you've just decided that your five years on Facebook were experimental and you'd rather move on.
In either case, deleting more than a couple of posts or pictures can be a major pain. CNET's Elinor Mills recently wrote up a neat Android tool called Exfoliate that can scour your Facebook history and permanently delete some or all content. (iPhone users should see it come to the App Store soon.) Here's how to use it:
Facebook Wall before Exfoliate.
- Install Exfoliate from the Android Market.
- Tell Exfoliate which data to delete. This is mostly straightforward, organized into time and content type. If things don't seem to work out the first time, try again with Background Override checked. If you're on a network you trust, you can uncheck Use Https Only to speed up the operation considerably.
Step 2: Choose data to delete.
- Sign in to Facebook. Exfoliate doesn't retain your log-in i... [Read more]
How to delete all your Facebook posts and comments
Rob Lightner
Mon, 14 Nov 2011 21:02:34 GMT
