Facebook Look Back videos can now be edited

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDLwDmwp9JaFrsSjZzmY8NRC8DkzJFtSyU7bU3NjKC_h3IQ9WSR-IsApMT1Fx2TGafBIowHUgX-h-awrwUmGNHWSnxx97TDaePQaC6A1gzoSRSPRpEmn8oPn2WwsK7GNunycLhUL6Tzw4/s1600/facebook_look_back_edit_option_ndtv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDLwDmwp9JaFrsSjZzmY8NRC8DkzJFtSyU7bU3NjKC_h3IQ9WSR-IsApMT1Fx2TGafBIowHUgX-h-awrwUmGNHWSnxx97TDaePQaC6A1gzoSRSPRpEmn8oPn2WwsK7GNunycLhUL6Tzw4/s1600/facebook_look_back_edit_option_ndtv.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Facebook Look Back videos</span></i></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Facebook, after rolling-out the Look Back feature to mark the 10-year anniversary of the social network, has now released tools that will allow users to edit their Look Back videos in case they are dissatisfied with them.</span></div> <div style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The editing tool for Look Back allows users to choose alternative photos and clips to put in the video, eliminating those unwanted posts that Facebook's algorithm chose for them.</span></div> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;">The Look Back video editing feature seems to have rolled out to most users, with the 'Edit' option clearly visible to us (see above), right next to the 'Share Your Movie' button.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;">News of the edit option being in the offing had been reported on Wednesday by Techcrunch, and </span><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/dont-like-your-facebook-look-back-youll-be-able-to-edit-it-soon/" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" target="_blank">Facebook had confirmed</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;"> the feature will soon arrive for the users, failing to give any particular time-slot. "We will be launching an Edit feature soon that will allow people to change moments in their movies or update the ones they shared. I don't have exact timing at the moment, but this will enable people to remove a post from the movie that was pre-selected and change it to a different one."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;">The Look Back video initiative is very much like the </span>Year in Review compilations<span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;"> Facebook has offered at the end of the year, but this time, it's in video form, and </span>highlights the biggest events from the user's entire time on the social network<span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;">The social networking giant says "this is a small gesture to thank the over one billion people who are on Facebook by providing a unique way to look back at some of their biggest moments."</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;">You can access the experience by going to </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookback" style="background-color: white; line-height: 20px; outline: none;" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/lookback</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #4e4e4e; line-height: 20px;"> while being logged into your Facebook account. //<a href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/facebook-look-back-videos-can-soon-be-edited-by-users-480447"> </a></span><i style="background-color: white; outline: none;"><a href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/social-networking/news/facebook-look-back-videos-can-soon-be-edited-by-users-480447">NDTV Gadgets</a></i></span>

Facebook Look Back videos can now be edited

Facebook Look Back videos Facebook, after rolling-out the Look Back feature to mark the 10-year anniversary of the social network, has ...

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10 Things Facebook Changed in 10 Years

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH45JkKzQA3w4w_fq4sFRBYbYsyEXwF9KHLKXsBdCYF_ES81GMgtofj-8BbbKUCJzcYCwJ6iyFNlx_BHpUYG-YaI1vBPd_W7R0GlXGI1wffD5akf6zDlFZ3Srw27Dj6xg4HAXxEYRRunk/s1600/facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH45JkKzQA3w4w_fq4sFRBYbYsyEXwF9KHLKXsBdCYF_ES81GMgtofj-8BbbKUCJzcYCwJ6iyFNlx_BHpUYG-YaI1vBPd_W7R0GlXGI1wffD5akf6zDlFZ3Srw27Dj6xg4HAXxEYRRunk/s1600/facebook.jpg" width="640" /></span></a></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember920" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here’s 10 (of course) ways Facebook has changed our lives.</span></div> <div class="ember-view ad-location" id="ember925" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"> <div class="ad-container" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <div class="ad-content" data-bindattr-27="27" id="moceanTop-tech-social-media-n21721-ember925" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1rem; text-align: center;"> <div class="ember-view" id="ember972" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember926" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">1. Facebook took the toil out of stalking</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Prior to Facebook, ex-friends and lovers had to work hard in order to reinsert themselves into the lives of their unsuspecting prey. The “phone books” of our forefathers were no match for changed names or cross-country moves. All it takes is a wistful thought on Facebook to lead effortlessly to a friend request and a reopened past – even if the recipient prefers it vacuum-sealed.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember927" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> </div> <figure class="ember-view image spanFull" id="ember930" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px;"><div class="stack-l-figure-container-img" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Duane Hoffman/msnbc file" class="ember-view" height="700" id="ember973" src="http://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2014_06/162491/facebook_4_ca3170fe0b0f1cef4345f52e4439338c.nbcnews-ux-640-700.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-width: none; min-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 596.421875px;" title="" width="640" /></span><small class="stack-credit-art-figcaption" style="bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5rem; opacity: 0.6; position: absolute; right: 8px; text-shadow: black 1px 1px 1px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">DUANE HOFFMAN/MSNBC FILE</span></small></div> </figure><div class="ember-view" id="ember931" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">2. Facebook made botched IPOs cool</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Featuring a bungled rollout matched only by HealthCare.gov, Facebook’s $104 billion IPO is the third biggest in IPO history, and <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/fury-over-facebook-ipo-grows-lawsuits-mount-150039330.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">arguably the most notorious</a>. It’s also the role model for Twitter, Snapchat and every other tech startup with public-trading aspirations.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember932" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Never mind Facebook’s $38 share price, which tanked for months after the company’s NASDAQ debut on May 18, 2012. Forget the ongoing federal investigations and lawsuits accusing the IPO team of secretly axing the earnings forecast. Would-be dotcom billionaires admire Facebook’s refusal to sell out, preferring to go public (despite a weak mobile plan).</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember933" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The social network’s once accursed stock hitting an all-time high of $61 in January has done wonders for bad memories, as does the $3 billion it plunked in Zuckerberg’s pocket, boosting the hoodie-wearing CEO’s estimated worth to $29.7 billion.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember934" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What’s not to emulate?</span></div> <div class="ember-view ad-location" id="ember939" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"> <div class="ad-container" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <div class="ad-content" data-bindattr-28="28" id="moceanTop-tech-social-media-n21721-ember939" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1rem; text-align: center;"> <div class="ember-view" id="ember977" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember940" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">3. Facebook made us OK with the NSA</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Private companies don't usually break down doors and drag people off to camps. Governments have and still do, and they do it based on meticulously maintained, detailed records.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember941" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nevertheless, companies that literally <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/34825225/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/#.UvEEJj1dWbN" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">bank on our personal info</a> (by selling it to advertisers) also inure Americans to their continuing loss of privacy. As Edward Snowden, Europe and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_identity_card_(France)" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">history</a> know, that rarely turns out well. And yet, here’s, Facebook, with its early privacy abuses, anti-privacy default settings and a CEO who until recently described anonymity as a “lack of integrity.”</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember942" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The world’s largest social network is arguably also the biggest influence in our laissez-faire attitude towards surveillance in the United States: What’s the big deal? We’ve already willingly sacrificed our privacy to Facebook.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember943" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> </div> <figure class="ember-view image spanFull" id="ember944" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px;"><div class="stack-l-figure-container-img" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Duane Hoffman/msnbc file" class="ember-view" height="480" id="ember978" src="http://media1.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2014_06/162321/duanehoffman_5f9c884ae7278c73d6f5970788fa2043.nbcnews-ux-640-480.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-width: none; min-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 596.421875px;" title="" width="640" /></span><small class="stack-credit-art-figcaption" style="bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5rem; opacity: 0.6; position: absolute; right: 8px; text-shadow: black 1px 1px 1px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">DUANE HOFFMAN/MSNBC FILE</span></small></div> </figure><div class="ember-view" id="ember945" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">4. Facebook messed up our love lives</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />From obsessing over every aspect of your BF or GF’s Facebook profile and what it means for your relationship, to posting passive-aggressive status updates when your interpretation turns negative, all this easily-accessed info would throw off anyone’s pitch. If we scrutinized our lover’s friends as potential romantic rivals IRL the way many do on Facebook, restraining orders would be the closest thing we’d get to a valentine, and plenty of ‘em.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember946" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">5. Facebook welcomed us to the new age of underemployment</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Facebook isn’t the <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/03/201331116423560886.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">only high-income, under-employing company</a> in the U.S. these days, but it’s one we patronize daily and it's one of the most ubiquitous.</span></div> <div class="ember-view ad-location" id="ember951" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"> <div class="ad-container" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <div class="ad-content" data-bindattr-29="29" id="moceanTop-tech-social-media-n21721-ember951" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1rem; text-align: center;"> <div class="ember-view" id="ember982" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember952" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Take General Motors. With its $55 billion market cap, its 212,000 employees, the company pumps billions of dollars into the U.S. economy every year. It supports whole cities.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember953" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then there’s Facebook, which has a $100 billion market cap — nearly double that of GM — yet employs fewer than 6,000 people.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember954" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shareholders might argue that Facebook doesn’t need more workers, but shareholders would be wrong … at least according to panicked users who try to reach Facebook’s customer service department. Facebook — a $100 billion company — doesn’t even have a customer service phone number.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember955" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> </div> <figure class="ember-view image spanFull" id="ember956" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px;"><div class="stack-l-figure-container-img" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Duane Hoffman/msnbc file" class="ember-view" height="700" id="ember983" src="http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2014_06/162331/facebook_9_302c3a7422a176c8d2d586d6988453b7.nbcnews-ux-640-700.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-width: none; min-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 596.421875px;" title="" width="640" /></span><small class="stack-credit-art-figcaption" style="bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5rem; opacity: 0.6; position: absolute; right: 8px; text-shadow: black 1px 1px 1px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">DUANE HOFFMAN/MSNBC FILE</span></small></div> </figure><div class="ember-view" id="ember957" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">6. Facebook built the virtual town square of the 21st century</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Did <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">Facebook turn your grandma</a>, cousin or mom into the town crier, blasting views and posting inane news? “Obama this! Dog abuse that! You won’t believe how many Upworthy links are junkin’ up your Newsfeed!” Or maybe that’s you …</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember958" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This new kind of community where people share views with family members, as well as close friends they only know from Facebook, is as real as any offline. People not on Facebook are cut off from society. Anyway, for all the obnoxious posts that offend delicate sensibilities or get someone “Facebook fired,” there’s plenty that’s positive. Post about your beloved dog or cat crossing the Rainbow Bridge, and see how fast your "community" comes running.</span></div> <div class="ember-view ad-location" id="ember963" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px;"> <div class="ad-container" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> <div class="ad-content" data-bindattr-30="30" id="moceanTop-tech-social-media-n21721-ember963" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1rem; text-align: center;"> <div class="ember-view" id="ember987" style="box-sizing: border-box;"> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember964" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">7. Facebook saved us from the Internet</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Cyberspace offers endless resources for email, instant messaging, sharing our personal news, photos or locations and catching up on curated news. But why go out when the ever-expanding Facebook hegemony offers all of that, as well as your friends, in one convenient location. Like AOL of olden days, Facebook is your Internet portal — but with a better business plan. Plus, mobile!</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember965" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> </div> <figure class="ember-view image spanFull" id="ember966" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 28px; margin: 0px;"><div class="stack-l-figure-container-img" style="box-sizing: border-box; position: relative;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img alt="Duane Hoffman/msnbc file" class="ember-view" height="700" id="ember988" src="http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2014_06/162456/facebook8_bc5cf677f2aed0f52a3b8638c52ddc1e.nbcnews-ux-640-700.jpg" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: inline-block; height: auto; max-width: none; min-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle; width: 596.421875px;" title="" width="640" /></span><small class="stack-credit-art-figcaption" style="bottom: 8px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 0.75rem; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0.5rem; opacity: 0.6; position: absolute; right: 8px; text-shadow: black 1px 1px 1px; text-transform: uppercase;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">DUANE HOFFMAN/MSNBC FILE</span></small></div> </figure><div class="ember-view" id="ember967" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">8. Facebook changed the way we grieve</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />As a new company originally limited to college students only slightly younger than its founders, Facebook didn’t launch with a plan around what to do when customers die. Once membership hit critical mass, and users inevitably did too, survivors were confronted with abandoned profiles and eerie Facebook reminders of their (now-deceased) friend. Eventually, loved ones were allowed to “memorialize” profiles, but many take comfort in posting messages there, regularly addressing the deceased on these living, virtual shrines.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember968" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box;">9. Facebook aided in disaster relief</strong><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />When an earthquake decimated Haiti's capital in 2012, a spontaneous rescue center arose on Facebook, with users posting Haiti-related updates at a rate of 1,500 per minute. Facebook now serves as a valuable platform for rescue agencies following disasters. Last week, SnowedOutAtlanta, a Facebook group that has attracted more than 46,000 members in 24 hours,reportedly connected wannabe Samaritans with more than 400 snowbound travelers trapped on Atlanta’s highways.</span></div> <div class="ember-view" id="ember969" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1rem; margin-top: 1rem;"> <strong style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">10. Facebook stole hours and hours of our lives that we’re never, ever getting back. // <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/it-or-not-10-things-facebook-changed-10-years-n21721">NBC News.com</a></span></strong></div>

10 Things Facebook Changed in 10 Years

Here’s 10 (of course) ways Facebook has changed our lives. 1. Facebook took the toil out of stalking Prior to Facebook, ex-frie...

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Facebook Accused for Selling Data Of Reading Private Messages

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtLuy4OIRTFwCf35dSAGPIYyDlckN3rx8Vw8v46n-RG_cqk-U3JrFtaA4JKo63YDTlEHxIEi4Ds5ObAlyQR7s88TbuNF3wg22VjJ0UzVbtHgDfbvsozqka3pIKNJi8eQoJjSZZpltR8rs/s1600/facebook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtLuy4OIRTFwCf35dSAGPIYyDlckN3rx8Vw8v46n-RG_cqk-U3JrFtaA4JKo63YDTlEHxIEi4Ds5ObAlyQR7s88TbuNF3wg22VjJ0UzVbtHgDfbvsozqka3pIKNJi8eQoJjSZZpltR8rs/s1600/facebook.jpg" /></span></a></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Two Facebook users, Michael Hurley and Matthew Campbell, filed a <a href="http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1611&context=historical" style="border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">class action lawsuit against Facebook</a> on Dec. 30, 2013, alleging that the social network "has systematically violated consumers’ privacy by reading its users’ personal, private Facebook messages without their consent."</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The lawsuit also alleges that when Facebook finds a link in a private message, <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/01/facebook-sued-for-allegedly-making-private-messages-into-public-likes/" style="border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">it essentially clicks on the URL</a> and if that site has a Facebook "Like" button, the inclusion of the URL in that message is registered as a "Like" for that webpage.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The plaintiffs want Facebook to pay each member of the class action lawsuit "$100 a day for each day of violation or $10,000."</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that Facebook was <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/10/03/how-private-are-your-private-messages/" style="border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">scanning private messages</a> and also registering "Likes" for links in private messages. According to the WSJ, Facebook said it filtered private messages for spam or hints of criminal activity, but also promised that "absolutely no private information has been exposed."</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The complaint is without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously," a Facebook spokesperson told the Huffington Post.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The lawsuit alleges that Facebook, rather than just filtering messages for spam, mines them for data that it sells to advertisers, marketers and other data-miners. In 2011, the company made $2.7 billion in targeted ad sales, according to the lawsuit.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Facebook is not the only company accused of reading personal correspondence for one reason or another. Google has also been sued for reading Gmail users' emails without their consent.</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; list-style: none; margin-bottom: 15px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Internet security expert Graham Cluley argued recently that it's <a href="http://grahamcluley.com/2014/01/facebook-scan-private-messages/" style="border: 0px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_hplink">in our best interest for Facebook to scan our messages</a>. "[I]f you didn’t properly scan and check links, there’s a very real risk that spam, scams, phishing attacks, and malicious URLs designed to infect recipients’ computers with malware could run rife," Cluley wrote. // <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/03/facebook-lawsuit-private-messages_n_4536154.html"><i>huffingtonpost</i></a></span></div>

Facebook Accused for Selling Data Of Reading Private Messages

Two Facebook users, Michael Hurley and Matthew Campbell, filed a  class action lawsuit against Facebook  on Dec. 30, 2013, alleging that ...

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5 predictions for Facebook advertising in 2014

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha-JGsnDCXRgHN7sdYUEZaTZmkcvf2NHjiUqCY7tfusQR0g2wcRqR1P6-A5TcKwpWUyjpBUoXhsc4FYCKlr0BfCxSLsUsTjLO-arYmS9Cbi4m7RsJOwhiayI8Ze6aZlick7vmIS4FAy0k/s1600/shutterstock_151503620.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha-JGsnDCXRgHN7sdYUEZaTZmkcvf2NHjiUqCY7tfusQR0g2wcRqR1P6-A5TcKwpWUyjpBUoXhsc4FYCKlr0BfCxSLsUsTjLO-arYmS9Cbi4m7RsJOwhiayI8Ze6aZlick7vmIS4FAy0k/s1600/shutterstock_151503620.jpg" /></span></a></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since 2013 was such a big year for Facebook advertising, it’s worth asking: What’s in store for 2014? Here’s a look at five key Facebook advertising predictions that marketers should watch for in the New Year:</span></div> <div style="border: 0px; line-height: 21px; margin-bottom: 20px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span id="more-86156" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"></span></span></div> <ol style="border: 0px; line-height: 20px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 0px 0px 18px 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"> <li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Graph Search on mobile will change the Facebook advertising game.</b> Facebook’s inevitable release of Graph Search for mobile (it’s already available on desktop) will be a positive turning point for Facebook ads. Advertisers will be able to place ads on Facebook depending on users’ mobile search terms. They will also have the ability to place a type of sponsored search result, depending on the user’s search, with social context. Facebook <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/13/facebook-cuts-sponsored-results/" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s;">previously offered</a> a sponsored results ad type that was widely <a href="http://www.insidefacebook.com/2013/06/13/facebook-eliminating-sponsored-search-results/" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s;">denounced</a>, but that applied to a previous incarnation of Facebook’s search functionality. Now that search on Facebook is fully baked into the social network’s DNA, especially on mobile where it will play an increasingly influential role, look for Facebook advertising to get a lot more interesting – and competitive – in 2014.</span></li> <li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Great creative is now essential on Facebook.</b> Brands will need to put much more research and focus into the images they use in their Facebook ads because the ad size is so large on Facebook (especially in the News Feed). The relatively short lifespan of a Facebook ad means that brands must have a vast quantity of engaging images at the ready in order to keep their ads near the top of users’ News Feeds. Unique, constantly refreshed creative is necessary in order to keep a brand’s ad relevant to users. This is especially true for direct response advertisers, who must rely on engaging, creative ads to entice a consumer into making a purchasing decision.</span></li> <li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Offline conversion for retailers. </b>Speaking of consumers’ path-to-purchase on Facebook, the ability for retailers to track offline sales conversions from ads viewed on Facebook is another critical step Facebook is taking to give advertisers deeper insight into how their ads actually drive some type of consumer action. As <i style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Inside Facebook</i> recently reported, Facebook has released an update to its Custom Audiences that advertisers to measure offline sales. This update will help advertisers use sales data to overlay on their Facebook data to show what actions a consumer may have taken based on viewing a brand’s ad on Facebook.</span></li> <li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></b><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bye-bye right-hand side ad types. </b>Right-hand side ad types will lose favor in 2014 in response to advertisers’ preference for the higher-performing page-post ads and app install ads. The former ad type has been on the decline for some time. Advertisers will be urged to make Facebook their de facto homepage and vehicle for ad content, which will reinforce the concept of Facebook pages as “mission control”. The right-hand side ad placement will continue but it will be miniature format app ads or page-post ads. This change will make the user the de facto quality assurance for Facebook. Users will increasingly have the ability to engage, like and, of course, report an ad, ensuring quality content wins the battle for ad space.  <b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></b></span></li> <li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></b><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Facebook will continue its shift away from engagement/affinity ads to performance-based ad solutions.</b> For performance-based marketing professionals, such as my Matomy Media Group colleagues and me, Facebook’s recent shift away from engagement and affinity ads, such as its introduction in April 2013 of cost-per-action ad buys, is welcomed news. We have long advocated for more performance-based advertising opportunities on the social network. Advertisers need more than just the ability to engage with consumers. They need to be able to drive consumer actions. Performance-based advertising on Facebook gives advertisers that option.<b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></b></span></li> <li style="border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"></b><b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Bonus: Stepping into Twitter’s territory. </b>Facebook has known for a while that the things its users talk about are supremely interesting and relevant for advertisers. Twitter proved that basing an advertising model around brand mentions really works; Facebook is bound to follow suit. Already, we are seeing Facebook taking steps into Twitter’s territory by <a href="http://socialmediatoday.com/will-sigsworth/1712966/facebook-testing-trending-feature-news-feed" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s;">showcasing</a> which topics and brands are trending in users’ News Feeds, and by aggregating hashtagged terms. It will come as no surprise to see an ad product appear in 2014 to support both of these Twitter-like additions.</span></li> </ol> <div> <span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Via : <a href="http://www.insidefacebook.com/2014/01/02/5-predictions-for-facebook-advertising-in-2014/">Inside Facebook</a></span></span></div>

5 predictions for Facebook advertising in 2014

Since 2013 was such a big year for Facebook advertising, it’s worth asking: What’s in store for 2014? Here’s a look at five key Facebook ...

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Google and Facebook write your end-of-year cards for you

<div class="cnet-image-div image-REGULAR float-none" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; float: none; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin: 10px auto; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 518px;"> <img alt="With its auto-awesome feature, Google+ creates a movie with musical accompaniment out of what it deems to be your best photos and videos of 2013." class="cnet-image" height="282" src="http://asset3.cbsistatic.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/12/23/GooglePlus-autoawesome-year.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="518" /><div class="image-caption" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.8em; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.133em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> With its auto-awesome feature, Google+ creates a movie with musical accompaniment out of what it deems to be your best photos and videos of 2013.</div> </div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> If you're one of the countless people who feels guilty about failing to send end-of-year letters to your friends and family, perhaps it's time to let Google or Facebook do the work for you.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Both companies have released tools that compile what they judge to be your top moments of the year for easy sharing with your social contacts. Of the two, the Google+ auto-awesome movie is more interesting -- at least if you actually have some photos and videos uploaded onto Google+ -- since it builds something new rather than just repackaging some highlights from the year's posts.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Google packages what it deems to be your best Google+ photos and videos of 2013 into an embedded YouTube video. You can see ones that are public or from your contacts with aGoogle+ search for #year2013. The results show animated GIFs of the videos, but clicking on a post takes you to a movie version with Ken Burns-esque photo zooming and the cheerful music.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of engineering, announced the feature on Monday.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> nd Google gave itself a little marketing present with the feature. At the end of the movie, viewers see a Google+ plug including the suggestion: "Give the gift of awesome photos. Help your friends install the Google+ app and turn on auto backup."</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Google's auto-awesome feature examines photos that people have uploaded then takes actions like combining a group of them into an animation. More recently, Google's auto-awesome feature took a seasonal turn by adding falling snowflakes to snowy scenes and making Christmas-tree photos twinkle.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Facebook described its feature this way: "Your year in review is a collection of your biggest moments on Facebook from this year, including life events, popular posts you've shared and posts your friends have tagged you in," Facebook explained. Facebook also amasses yourfriends' top moments into another year in review that you can browse.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> It's cleverly convenient, though the Google and Facebook highlight selections may not agree with your own. But let's be honest here -- who these days actually writes and sends real holiday letters to all their friends and relations? Surely only a tiny fraction of people, and for the rest, a Google+ slideshow or Facebook page could be a convenient way to share a year's worth of shots.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Just don't be fooled into expecting that people will see any kind of personal touch in your year-in-review page. It's a nice idea, but both the Facebook and Google features have a very mechanical, algorithmic feel.</div> <div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> <i>Via: <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57616240-93/google-and-facebook-write-your-end-of-year-cards-for-you/">CNET</a></i></div>

Google and Facebook write your end-of-year cards for you

With its auto-awesome feature, Google+ creates a movie with musical accompaniment out of what it deems to be your best photos and videos o...

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WhatsApp claims 400 million active users

<div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">WhatsApp's CEO, Jan Koum in a <a href="http://blog.whatsapp.com/index.php/2013/12/400-million-stories/" style="outline: none;" target="_blank">blog post</a> revealed the news and also noted that the company added 100 million active users in the last four months alone.</span></div> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgWNFiDb0RlG8GvSgu3aex6FquSb_h-2fVJl4A-KOlF1YDdHSPaTEBZu6B_c7RitcwL9BtZhkvJCTSTKxvor4th4kVkYhfEqD__M4-hEibDC4JPspCx7HDVlkPNmO7Ep4AVan23GEO91E/s1600/whatsapp-logo-branding-635.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTgWNFiDb0RlG8GvSgu3aex6FquSb_h-2fVJl4A-KOlF1YDdHSPaTEBZu6B_c7RitcwL9BtZhkvJCTSTKxvor4th4kVkYhfEqD__M4-hEibDC4JPspCx7HDVlkPNmO7Ep4AVan23GEO91E/s320/whatsapp-logo-branding-635.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">WhatsApp</span></i></td></tr> </tbody></table> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The blog post said, "Our goal in creating WhatsApp was to empower people through technology and communication, no matter who they are, or where they live. WhatsApp has reached a milestone that no other mobile messaging service has achieved: 400 million monthly active users, with 100 million active users added in the last four months alone. This isn't a count of people who just registered for WhatsApp - it's the number of people who are actively using the service every single month."</span></div> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The mobile focused messaging company told <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20131219/whatsapp-does-a-passive-aggressive-stats-release-to-call-out-others-for-bullshit-metrics/" style="outline: none;" target="_blank">AllThingsD</a> that WhatsApp wants to turn the discussions of the shared numbers by other mobile instant messaging services to be about active users and not registered users. AllThingsD quotes Koum, "We're a bit fed up and frustrated about people talking about registered users. We think it's important for us as a leader in the space to speak up and be ethical."</span></div> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A recent report had suggested that some messaging apps have been using marketing muscle to compete with big names in instant messaging service. The report claimed that WeChat, a unit of Tencent, had budgeted up to $200 million for marketing overseas.</span></div> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In November, Line messaging app claimed to have a user base of 300 million worldwide, out-of-which it added 100 million users in just four months. However, Line declined to reveal the number of active users currently using its services. AllThingsD cites Kik Interactive's figures of 100 million users, though notes that the company never detailed the number of active users.</span></div> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The WhatsApp blog post also noted that the company currently has just 50 employees, and mainly include engineers. Further, it claimed to reach the 400 million mark without spending money on targeted ads or even marketing campaigns.</span></div> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">WhatsApp has been growing rapidly and has been a leader in the mobile instant messaging service. The popular mobile instant messaging service reached 300 million active user base in August and in no time has reached 400 million active users.</span></div> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">AllThingsD has shared some statistics of the WhatsApp service which include 16 billion messages per day; about 32 billion messages are received per day and some 500 million images are sent per day by users on WhatsApp.</span></div> <div style="line-height: 20px; outline: none;"> <i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Via : <span style="outline: none;"><a href="http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/whatsapp-claims-400-million-active-users-is-fed-up-of-others-bogus-numbers-460980">NDTV Gadgets</a></span></span></i></div>

WhatsApp claims 400 million active users

WhatsApp's CEO, Jan Koum in a  blog post  revealed the news and also noted that the company added 100 million active users in the last ...

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Facebook Home Gets Year-End Update

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzK07nxL5O9xtRGD6ciKewEggGN4aMtjt4cIbX6XF3c4TllKfksOWJnfmWGaEjt2uaA8fcdncoNWEQRNZU1qqZJsZ1oAToLAg8V7XbLwQeW9r-dri0soFQ_YNsY8TRz_qsoGTat3H5Skz/s1600/facebook-logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzK07nxL5O9xtRGD6ciKewEggGN4aMtjt4cIbX6XF3c4TllKfksOWJnfmWGaEjt2uaA8fcdncoNWEQRNZU1qqZJsZ1oAToLAg8V7XbLwQeW9r-dri0soFQ_YNsY8TRz_qsoGTat3H5Skz/s1600/facebook-logo.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Facebook Logo</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Facebook on Thursday rolled out an update for its Home app, bringing new features for the new lock screen and several other handy improvements.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With the latest version of Home, the first thing you'll see when you wake up your phone is your lock screen featuring a background you choose. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see the time, date, and weather.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Facebook on Thursday posted a YouTube video showing off all the new features. From your lock screen, you can swipe to the right to view featured Facebook posts and press and hold on a photo to zoom out or double tap to like it.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Having control over what you see in Home is important, so we've made it easy for you to personalize your experience," Facebook software engineer Jenny Yuen said in the video.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From your lock screen, press the vertical "…" button to access Settings, where you can choose which apps you want to connect to Cover Feed, including Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Flickr. After doing so, you'll see posts from those apps in your Cover Feed.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">From the Settings menu, you can also personalize your wallpaper with Facebook photos you have taken, photos of just your close friends, or photos of all friends. When you're browsing through photos you can quickly hide images you don't want to see with same vertical "…" button.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Grab the latest version of Facebook Home from <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.home&hl=en">Google Play.</a></span><br /><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Via : <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2428638,00.asp?google_editors_picks=true">PCMag</a></span></i>

Facebook Home Gets Year-End Update

Facebook Logo Facebook on Thursday rolled out an update for its Home app, bringing new features for the new lock screen and several other ha...

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Facebook wants To Dominate Mobile Video Ads

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxg3osNAu4Nl-__W5lex-_wIRFVHVRXq_tJOehYAmiONhIR0BDDnVrt8jNpGUtIHywx9dIicWxDE_J5wcmJp64Mi8qQPOVGgpk-vwRBk6gyCu4EM9XJooVBVWdScw6xcPeSZey-TrgXxYG/s320/gty_facebook_ll_130821_16x9_992.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: start;"><i>Facebook</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxg3osNAu4Nl-__W5lex-_wIRFVHVRXq_tJOehYAmiONhIR0BDDnVrt8jNpGUtIHywx9dIicWxDE_J5wcmJp64Mi8qQPOVGgpk-vwRBk6gyCu4EM9XJooVBVWdScw6xcPeSZey-TrgXxYG/s1600/gty_facebook_ll_130821_16x9_992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span></a></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Facebook’s taking on an unlikely target: YouTube.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The social network is not planning to become a video Website, but a leaked pitch deck <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/13/facebook-vs-tv-and-youtube/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; border: 0px none; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; transition: 0.3s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">published by TechCrunch</a> indicates that Facebook would like to be advertisers’ go-to for mobile video ad spend. The presentation, “Facebook for Business: Video on Facebook,” delves into the stats that bolster its claim.</span></div><div class="what-to-do" style="background-color: white; border-left-color: rgb(211, 211, 211); border-style: none none none solid; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 3px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 15px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="what-to-do-header" style="border: 0px none; display: block; font-size: 18px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What to Do:</span></span><strong style="border: 0px none; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Use Facebook with other ad campaigns to maximize effectiveness. Consider Facebook especially when targeting millennials. Compare analytics from Facebook and YouTube campaigns to determine best practices for different demographics and products.</span></strong></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Why Facebook? Three reasons: First, changing consumer behavior means that marketers should “be where people are. Secondly, it allows them to “reach all of the people who matter to you.” Finally, Facebook’s News Feed is “the most engaging digital real estate.”</span></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="tweet" style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; display: table; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 30px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px none; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Facebook claims its ads are 60 percent more accurately targeted than the competition.</span></em></div></blockquote><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The first element, changing consumer behavior, refers to the fact that television is “no longer a guaranteed audience.” According to eMarketer, people will spend more time on digital media than on TV in 2013. Nielsen, which has long released the TV ratings that advertisers depend upon for media buys, recently announced that it would <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/business/media/nielsen-to-measure-twitter-chatter-about-tv.html?_r=0" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; border: 0px none; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; transition: 0.3s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">incorporate Twitter messages </a>to create a new metric for rating TV shows based on social engagement.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">That digital media includes Facebook. The company reports that people check their phone 100 times a day, and Facebook 10 to 15 times each day. Facebook and Instagram make up 21 percent of total time spent on mobile. In general, eMarketer reports that more than 28 percent of time spent online or on a smartphone is <a href="http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Key-Trends-2014-Always-On-Means-Always-Social/1010448" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; border: 0px none; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; transition: 0.3s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">spent on social networking</a>. Social networking ad spending, which was 8.5 percent of total U.S. ad spend in 2012, is projected to hit 12.2 percent by 2015. Digital ad spending in general, which will be $9.5 billion in 2013, is expected to reach<a href="http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Retailers-Digital-Ad-Spending-Reach-Record-Levels-2013/1010418" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-transition: 0.3s; border: 0px none; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; transition: 0.3s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"> $13.8 billion by 2017</a>.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; margin-bottom: 22px; outline: none 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A second element, “targeted reach,” is basically a testament to the 179 million people who use Facebook each month. Per day, it’s 128 million people, 101 million of which are on mobile. Television, according to Nielsen ratings, reaches less people ages 18 to 24 each day than Facebook does. Further, Facebook claims that it can deliver “incremental reach” above TV, increasing its reach primarily among 25- to 34-year-olds, and especially during the day, when it increases reach 125 to 160 percent.</span></div>

Facebook wants To Dominate Mobile Video Ads

Facebook Facebook’s taking on an unlikely target: YouTube. The social network is not planning to become a video Website, but a leaked pitch ...

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Twitter has reversed changes

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrPfhw67sBO7CKuEZYEsvvn4Sc9Uv9l9p3nzyr3o9Wx2AoXJge1HSjuMhnjuRhDuL2tLh_YXchiQzKPxqgYaNytMhrfWU0fD5ozjNDrLGXkNTujK_aLfhtu0NBNvcTwRUsJHDf7bjZtaC/s1600/twitter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVrPfhw67sBO7CKuEZYEsvvn4Sc9Uv9l9p3nzyr3o9Wx2AoXJge1HSjuMhnjuRhDuL2tLh_YXchiQzKPxqgYaNytMhrfWU0fD5ozjNDrLGXkNTujK_aLfhtu0NBNvcTwRUsJHDf7bjZtaC/s1600/twitter.jpg" /></a></span></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="width: 464px;">There have been concerns over the rise in the number of cases of trolling on Twitter</span></i></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The changes allowed blocked users to continue to see tweets and interact with accounts that had blocked them, leading to an outcry. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Twitter said it was reverting to old rules, under which users are not able to follow an account once blocked.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Blocking is used by people to stop trolls and rude online commentators from interacting with them.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"We have decided to revert the change after receiving feedback from many users - we never want to introduce features at the cost of users feeling less safe," Michael Sippey, Twitter's vice-president of product, <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/2013/reverting-the-changes-to-block-functionality">said in a blogpost</a>.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"Any blocks you had previously instituted are still in effect."</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Source : <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25361255">BBC News </a></i></span></span>

Twitter has reversed changes

There have been concerns over the rise in the number of cases of trolling on Twitter The changes allowed blocked users to continue to see tw...

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Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and LinkedIn have formed an alliance called the Reform Government Surveillance group for NSA muzzle

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZp-i5PYgtSas2bsD-jNIMzqvsyRLCXnFKrFR0FJUdUldWs35grQCE3Q6I7J9iMdZqfduiEw6JfQloLvyFcCAyu4j5SmviYxFUyBaedoMa2t70MYlupP2ZU6McBX5b67vJGrvig-Mxrq-5/s1600/it-security-v1-620x465.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZp-i5PYgtSas2bsD-jNIMzqvsyRLCXnFKrFR0FJUdUldWs35grQCE3Q6I7J9iMdZqfduiEw6JfQloLvyFcCAyu4j5SmviYxFUyBaedoMa2t70MYlupP2ZU6McBX5b67vJGrvig-Mxrq-5/s1600/it-security-v1-620x465.jpg" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Eight companies, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and LinkedIn have formed an alliance called the Reform Government Surveillance group. Although usually fierce competitors, the group have come together in agreement over the U.S. government's spying programs -- brought to light by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden -- and have formally requested "wide-scale changes" to the regime.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Snowden's revelations have included alleged wiretapping, the storage of phone call records illegally, fibre-optic cable infiltration used to monitor communication on an international scale, and the use of malware to monitor computer networks by the U.S. agency.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><strong><br /></strong></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">According to the <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/nsa-collects-5-billion-cell-location-records-a-day-snowden-leaks-say-7000023942/">latest document leak</a>, the NSA is gathering close to 5 billion records a day on cellular devices worldwide. The <em>Washington Post</em> says large amounts of domestic data is "incidentally" recorded, which allows the agency to track millions of people worldwide based on how and where mobile devices are used.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">On the <a href="http://reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/">alliance's website</a>, an open letter to President Obama and Congress signed by the firms acknowledges that governments have "a duty to protect their citizens," but argues that Snowden's information leaks over the practices of the NSA and U.S. government in wholesale spying have highlighted "the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide."</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25297044">the revelations show</a> a "real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information." Brad Smith, Executive Vice President of Legal & Corporate Affairs at Microsoft said that "surveillance should address specific, suspicious targets under defined legal process rather than bulk collection of Internet communications."</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Marissa Meyer, CEO of Yahoo, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/major-tech-companies-unite-to-call-for-new-limits-on-surveillance/2013/12/08/530f0fd4-6051-11e3-bf45-61f69f54fc5f_story.html">said</a> "recent revelations about government surveillance activities have shaken the trust of our users, and it is time for the United States government to act to restore the confidence of citizens around the world." Google CEO and chairman Larry Page commented that user data security was "critical" for firms, but this has been "undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world."</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual -- rights that are enshrined in our Constitution," the letter states. "This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It's time for a change."</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The U.S. President agrees to an extent. During a recent appearance on MSNBC's <em>Hardball</em>, Obama said that he plans to "propose some self-restraint on the NSA," and push for "some reforms that that can give people more confidence." At the interview, Obama said:</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"All of us spend more and more of our lives in cyberspace. We've got to be in there in some way to protect the American people, even as we're making sure the government doesn't abuse it. The Snowden exposures have identified some areas of legitimate concern, but some of it has also been highly sensationalized.</span></span><br /> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The people at the NSA generally are looking out for the safety of the American people. They are not interested in reading your emails or text messages, and that's not something that's done."</span></span><br /> </blockquote><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The company alliance states that they are all taking steps to keep user data secure, including the deployment of encryption technology to scupper "unauthorized surveillance on our networks," and plan to push back government requests to ensure they are both legal and reasonable.</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Source : <a href="http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-apple-google-facebook-call-for-nsa-muzzle-7000024074/">ZDNet </a></i></span></span>

Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and LinkedIn have formed an alliance called the Reform Government Surveillance group for NSA muzzle

Eight companies, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo and LinkedIn have formed an alliance called the Reform Government ...

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Now Twitter to be available on mobile without Internet

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGrfqDs0HROu9NSzDJEuK46qe7ODPezO7sb4Kitccf1TQHQ4SWoub158U2l8wPwthNV5MeedKkaOv13xmKDGAn4PmVVGUmXVLqTbuFrFY6jjM4s6H6BGlerotXlkd-zY7OzNkA1NUrjmSb/s1600/twitter-on-feature-phones.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGrfqDs0HROu9NSzDJEuK46qe7ODPezO7sb4Kitccf1TQHQ4SWoub158U2l8wPwthNV5MeedKkaOv13xmKDGAn4PmVVGUmXVLqTbuFrFY6jjM4s6H6BGlerotXlkd-zY7OzNkA1NUrjmSb/s1600/twitter-on-feature-phones.png" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13px; text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo </span></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span class="articleLocatio</span>n"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span class="articleLocatio</span>n"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> Twitter Inc is tying up with a Singapore-based startup to make its 140-character messaging service available to users in emerging <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/markets?lc=int_mb_1001" style="cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">markets</a></span> who have entry-level mobile phones which cannot access the Internet.</span></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">U2opia Mobile, which has a similar tie-up with <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/subjects/facebook?lc=int_mb_1001" style="cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Facebook</a></span> Inc, will launch its Twitter service in the first quarter of next year, Chief Executive and Co-founder Sumesh Menon told Reuters.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Users will need to dial a simple code to get a feed of the popular trending topics on Twitter, he said.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">More than 11 million people use U2opia's Fonetwish service, which helps access <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/subjects/facebook?lc=int_mb_1001" style="cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Facebook</a></span>and <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=GOOG.O&lc=int_mb_1001" style="cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">Google</a></span> Talk on mobile without a data connection.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Twitter, which boasts of about 230 million users, held a successful initial public offering last month that valued the company at around $25 billion.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">U2opia uses a telecom protocol named USSD, or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, which does not allow viewing of pictures, videos or other graphics.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"USSD as a vehicle for Twitter is almost hand in glove because Twitter has by design a character limit, it's a very text-driven social network," Menon said.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Eight out of 10 people in emerging <span class="mandelbrot_refrag"><a class="mandelbrot_refrag" data-ls-seen="1" href="http://www.reuters.com/finance/markets?lc=int_mb_1001" style="cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">markets</a></span> are still not accessing data on their phone, he said.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">U2opia, which is present in 30 countries in seven international languages, will localize the Twitter feed according to the location of the user.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"So somebody in Paraguay would definitely get content that would be very very localized to that market vis a vis somebody sitting in Mumbai or Bangalore," he said.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 23px; margin: 0px 0px 20px; orphans: auto; padding: 0px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The company, whose biggest markets are Africa and South America, partners with telecom carriers such as Telenor, Vodafone and Bharti Airtel Ltd. U2opia usually gets 30 to 40 percent of what users pay its telecom partners to access Fonetwish.</span></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span class="focusParagraph" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_1" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_2" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_3" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_4" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_5" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_6" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_7" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_8" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_9" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_10" style="background-color: white;"></span><span id="midArticle_11" style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"For a lot of end users in the emerging markets, it's going to be their first Twitter experience," Menon said.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Source : <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/05/us-twitter-partnership-u2opia-idUSBRE9B413M20131205">Reuters</a></span></i></div><div style="background-color: white; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Image Credit : <span style="line-height: 13px; text-transform: uppercase;">REUTERS/KACPER PEMPEL</span></i></span></div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 19.1875px;"><br /></span>

Now Twitter to be available on mobile without Internet

People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo   Twitter Inc is tying up with a Singapore-b...

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Massive hack stolen 2 million Facebook, Gmail and Twitter passwords

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGzOmzyowanYhEvyOqVVhPQlJPeBVvu3W7XlR0P6NDX1mhPTfGnfW9XNsjOPCQEw232GYo0QwdjCB0tA6hmYhsGVPo39az-C4wV8LgZXj1FbF5aTEkppw1Xc64kVHWqKLZwkxwI1sh9kFo/s1600/131204130551-facebook-password-620xa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGzOmzyowanYhEvyOqVVhPQlJPeBVvu3W7XlR0P6NDX1mhPTfGnfW9XNsjOPCQEw232GYo0QwdjCB0tA6hmYhsGVPo39az-C4wV8LgZXj1FbF5aTEkppw1Xc64kVHWqKLZwkxwI1sh9kFo/s1600/131204130551-facebook-password-620xa.jpg" /></a></span></span></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Massive hack stolen  2 million Facebook, Gmail and Twitter passwords </i></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><h2><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Hackers have stolen usernames and passwords for nearly two million accounts at Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo and others, according to a report released this week.</span></span></span></h2><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> The massive data breach was a result of keylogging software maliciously installed on an untold number of computers around the world, researchers at cybersecurity firm <a href="https://www.trustwave.com/" target="_blank">Trustwave</a> said. The virus was capturing log-in credentials for key websites over the past month and sending those usernames and passwords to a server controlled by the hackers. </span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> On Nov. 24, Trustwave researchers tracked that server, located in the Netherlands. They discovered compromised credentials for more than 93,000 websites, including: </span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span> <br /><ul><li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">318,000 <span>Facebook</span>  accounts</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">70,000 Gmail, Google+ and YouTube accounts</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">60,000 <span>Yahoo</span>  accounts</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">22,000 <span>Twitter</span>  accounts</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">9,000 Odnoklassniki accounts (a Russian social network)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">8,000 <span>ADP</span> <span></span> accounts (ADP says it counted 2,400)</span></span></li><li><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">8,000 <span>LinkedIn  </span><span></span>accounts</span></span></li></ul><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Source : <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/04/technology/security/passwords-stolen/">CNN </a></i></span></span><br />

Massive hack stolen 2 million Facebook, Gmail and Twitter passwords

Massive hack stolen  2 million Facebook, Gmail and Twitter passwords Hackers have stolen usernames and passwords for nearly two million acc...

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Apple buys social media analytics Topsy Labs

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNv-xx-Lwy-BNLcQcUX_J0zUmdwBxlPs3MT4GbEHLU1CXJKJXRgmg2-8pREmIt8WPmsN5x-cZ2bC936nl4YCS5CfFFQpoNq7rKIpsbS4Wu8y8leG8dWC_H-Ckng6l6s5YKvgqsB2Wt19Zd/s1600/_71486629_topsy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNv-xx-Lwy-BNLcQcUX_J0zUmdwBxlPs3MT4GbEHLU1CXJKJXRgmg2-8pREmIt8WPmsN5x-cZ2bC936nl4YCS5CfFFQpoNq7rKIpsbS4Wu8y8leG8dWC_H-Ckng6l6s5YKvgqsB2Wt19Zd/s1600/_71486629_topsy.jpg" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 16px; text-align: start;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Topsy specialises in plumbing Twitter data to track user sentiment towards brands like Apple</span></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apple has bought social media data analytics firm, Topsy Labs, which specialises in using data from Twitter to track customer sentiment.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Topsy is one of the few firms to have access to Twitter's entire data stream.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It has recently created a searchable database of all tweets sent - more than 400 billion - since Twitter's launch.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Apple did not say how much it paid for the firm, but the Wall Street Journal which first reported the story put the figure at around $200m (£122m).</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Topsy competes with firms like DataSift and Gnip to figure out who is influential on Twitter, what terms are trending, and the impact of specific Twitter campaigns.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is Apple's second acquisition in recent weeks.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last month, it announced it had bought Israeli firm PrimeSense, which specialises in making 3-D motion detection technology.</span></div><span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; display: block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Surprise move?</span></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As it confirmed the latest deal, an Apple spokesperson declined to give details of the firm's plans with Topsy.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose," the spokesperson said.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">However, some analysts said Apple could look to use the data analytics for a variety of purposes, not least a better placement of its products across social media.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"There are millions of people sharing their thoughts on platforms such as Twitter on any given day," Sanjana Chappalli, Asia-Pac head of LEWIS Pulse, a firm specialising in digital marketing services, told the BBC.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"For companies to be able to understand what is popular with these users and what they are interested in, and then use it to their advantage, they need to filter the content and understand it.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Topsy gives Apple the tools to do just that," she explained.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Manoj Menon, managing director as consulting firm Frost & Sullivan added: "Brands across the world are looking at ways to use the time spent by customers on social media to enhance their brands, and Apple is no different".</span></div><span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; display: block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span class="cross-head" style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Personalised search</span></span></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the same time, companies operating internet search engines have also been looking to tap into the social media sector to try and offer more personalised search results to users.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"They are looking at what your friends are commenting on or tweeting about and then giving you similar recommendations when you look for information online," said Ms Chappalli.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">She added that search engines such as Google and Bing have been moving in that direction for some time.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Apple, with its Safari web browser on all its devices, could do with such an analytics capability provided by Topsy to achieve that," she added.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the same time, some analysts suggested that Apple could also use Topsy's technology to its own data, such as information from the App Store.</span></div><span class="cross-head" style="background-color: white; display: block; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px 0px 16px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"></span><br /><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"Apple may also be able to provide better user experience to customers by integration of analytical capability to its products and services," said Mr Menon.</span></div><div style="background-color: white; clear: left; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Source : <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25195534">BBC News</a></span></i></div>

Apple buys social media analytics Topsy Labs

Topsy specialises in plumbing Twitter data to track user sentiment towards brands like Apple Apple has bought social media data analytics fi...

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Facebook deliver more news , in News Feed

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxhi1Blc5_GmZ4lneCpQDvEHctq1RKXzMUzXERjUVpKGkG9X2KIxSX0hgs_fG-JnzLvaTtnjglUxz4H9p0-_BOE84I53rf9s02jiIgmgnj_v1cjAkcEi9jbr06Bx6EHEPmkE5LB2gX_Bz1/s1600/DisplayMedia.ashx.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxhi1Blc5_GmZ4lneCpQDvEHctq1RKXzMUzXERjUVpKGkG9X2KIxSX0hgs_fG-JnzLvaTtnjglUxz4H9p0-_BOE84I53rf9s02jiIgmgnj_v1cjAkcEi9jbr06Bx6EHEPmkE5LB2gX_Bz1/s1600/DisplayMedia.ashx.png" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12px; line-height: 13.59375px; text-align: left;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Click on a link and Facebook may suggest a few more articles for you to check out.</span></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Facebook said Monday that it will start showing members more links to news articles when they visit the social-networking site, especially when they do so from their smartphones. The news-focused alternation marks yet another change to the formula that Facebook uses to pick the content that shows up in the News Feed.</span></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">With the <a href="http://newsroom.fb.com/News/768/News-Feed-FYI-Helping-You-Find-More-News-to-Talk-About" style="border: 0px; cursor: pointer; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">adjustment</a>, the social network will attempt to surface more of what it calls "high quality content," or links to newsy articles about current events, sports, or interests. Should a person click on a link to an article, he or she may also find three related articles tacked on to the origin News Feed post, as pictured.</span></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We've noticed that people enjoy seeing articles on Facebook, and so we're now paying closer attention to what makes for high quality content, and how often articles are clicked on from News Feed on mobile," Facebook Engineering Manager Varun Kacholia and Software Engineer Minwen Ji wrote on the company's blog.</span></div><div style="-webkit-font-smoothing: subpixel-antialiased; background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19.984375px; margin-top: 10px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Source :<a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57614264-93/facebook-to-deliver-more-news-fewer-memes-in-news-feed/"> CNET</a></span></i></div>

Facebook deliver more news , in News Feed

Click on a link and Facebook may suggest a few more articles for you to check out. Facebook said Monday that it will start showing members m...

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Facebook Testing Timehop-Like Feature to Surface Past News Feed Posts

<h1 class="title" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(202, 206, 209); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #020202; font-size: 34px; line-height: 1.2; margin: 0px 0px 7px; padding: 5px 0px 10px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Facebook is getting the slightest bit more nostalgic.</span></span><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://allthingsd.com/20131129/facebook-testing-timehop-like-feature-to-surface-past-news-feed-posts/facebooktimetravel/" rel="attachment wp-att-375712" style="color: #0087bb; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img alt="FacebookTimeTravel" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-375712" height="400" src="http://i0.wp.com/allthingsd.com/files/2013/11/FacebookTimeTravel-190x285.png?resize=190%2C285" style="border: 0px; float: left; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 12px 12px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" width="266" /></span></a></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The company is trying out a new feature inside of the News Feed that lets users surface old Facebook posts from their Timeline.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Facebook confirmed the new feature in a statement: “We’re testing a new way to help you remember favorite moments by making it easier to revisit previous News Feed posts,” a Facebook spokesperson told <strong style="border: 0px; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">AllThingsD</strong>. “When you click on this notice, you will see a selection of some of the top posts from your News Feed from a year ago. This is just a small test at this stage.”</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The feature is much akin to startups like <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20120306/social-media-gets-a-past-links-from-a-life-lived-online/" style="color: #0087bb; text-decoration: none;">Timehop and the now-defunct Memolane</a>, single-serving apps that connected to users’ various social media accounts and resurfaced status updates, tweets and photos from years past.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I found Timehop in particular to be equal parts charming and embarrassing when looking back on what I had to say just a year or two ago.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">But as an app that served little purpose outside of digging up the past, it was difficult to see any direction in which it could evolve. I’ve also been suspect of how long people would keep an app devoted entirely to this purpose before deleting it from their phone.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It makes sense, then, that a site like Facebook — which aims to essentially be a digital-identity service and record of your online life — has subsumed the functionality. It’s also a simpler way to look into the past without requiring the work of digging back through your entire Timeline.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">As Facebook said, the feature isn’t being pushed out widely at the moment. But the timing of the test seems perfect: It comes smack in the middle of Thanksgiving and the holidays, the time of year perhaps best suited to nostalgia and self-reflection.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0.45em; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Via: <a href="http://allthingsd.com/20131129/facebook-testing-timehop-like-feature-to-surface-past-news-feed-posts/?reflink=ATD_yahoo_ticker">AllThingsd</a></span></i></div></h1>

Facebook Testing Timehop-Like Feature to Surface Past News Feed Posts

Facebook is getting the slightest bit more nostalgic. The company is trying out a new feature inside of the News Feed that lets users surfac...

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