gHacks technology news » social networking

FriendFeed Acquired By Facebook

Martin — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:02:43 +0000

The owners of the popular social networking website Facebook have acquired FriendFeed, a web service that allowed users to share information with friends and groups easily. Details on the acquisition are sparse at the moment with the exception that FriendFeed will continue its service for the time being. All FriendFeed engineers will join the Facebook development team and it is likely that features that made FriendFeed popular will be added to Facebook in the near future.

It is not clear at this point in time if FriendFeed’s service will continue to be offered or if the website will be shut down eventually.

Both parties involved seem to be very happy with the deal while many members of the FriendFeed community appear disgruntled. Two of the main concerns are related to privacy. One fear is that user data will be carried over to Facebook, another that Facebook and FriendFeed are being used to address different groups of people. Many use Facebook to stay in touch with close friends and family while FriendFeed was being used as a way to communicate with groups of users who shared similar interests.

Below is the official press release that was issued by Facebook and the blog post written by FriendFeed:

PALO ALTO, CALIF.—August 10, 2009—Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed’s four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook’s engineering and product teams.

“Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends,” said Bret Taylor, a FriendFeed co-founder and, previously, the group product manager who launched Google Maps. “We can’t wait to join the team and bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world.”

“As we spent time with Mark and his leadership team, we were impressed by the open, creative culture they’ve built and their desire to have us contribute to it,” said Paul Buchheit, another FriendFeed co-founder. Buchheit, the Google engineer behind Gmail and the originator of Google’s “Don’t be evil” motto, added, “It was immediately obvious to us how passionate Facebook’s engineers are about creating simple, ground-breaking ways for people to share, and we are extremely excited to join such a like-minded group.”

Taylor and Buchheit founded FriendFeed along with Jim Norris and Sanjeev Singh in October 2007 after all four played key roles at Google for products like Gmail and Google Maps. At FriendFeed, they’ve brought together a world-class team of engineers and designers.

“Since I first tried FriendFeed, I’ve admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. “As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use.”

FriendFeed is based in Mountain View, Calif. and has 12 employees. FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being as the teams determine the longer term plans for the product.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.

FriendFeed blog post:

We are happy to announce that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle…

The FriendFeed team is extremely excited to become a part of the talented Facebook team. We’ve always been great admirers of Facebook, and our companies share a common vision. Now we have the opportunity to bring many of the innovations we’ve developed at FriendFeed to Facebook’s 250 million users around the world and to work alongside Facebook’s passionate engineers to create even more ways for you to easily share with your friends online.

What does this mean for my FriendFeed account?

FriendFeed.com will continue to operate normally for the time being. We’re still figuring out our longer-term plans for the product with the Facebook team. As usual, we will communicate openly about our plans as they develop — keep an eye on the FriendFeed News group for updates.

My humble prediction is that FriendFeed will continue operations until the end of the migration phase. Any thoughts on this? Possible alternatives?

Tags: acquisition, deals, facebook, friendfeed, social networking

Be Careful What You Write About Online

Martin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:42:07 +0000

With all the social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and the million others out there it becomes very easy to tell the world about yourself. What many users of those social networks do not realize is that their writings can have consequences in the real world. A young women got only recently fired from here job at a British marketing company because she mentioned on her Facebook profile that her job was boring. She did not mention the name of the company in the posting but it was enough for the company to react on the message.

Consequences do not have to be job related though, think about using dating sites will in a relationship, posting untrue comments about people in bulletin boards or simply participating in the occasional flame war on a favorite forum. Those things usually do not backfire but if they do it can quickly become ugly for the offender. Many Internet users still think that the Internet is a lawfree environment where they can post anything they want without fearing consequences in real life. The realization that this is not the case usually comes when it is to late to change the cause of action.

The reaction of the company that fired the employee for the Facebook comment was a harsh one. Many would have probably asked the employee to remove the offending comment and most employees would probably comply immediately. It does serve as a prime example though as to what can happen if you are not careful about your online postings.

Some countries go even further than this. They make the website owners responsible for the content on their websites. This leads to some ridiculous situations where not only the poster but also the website owner face consequences for the data that has been posted on the website. Users should be aware that their online postings might come back at them at some time in the future in a non pleasant way no matter where they live or post.

Which leads to the question: Are you cautious about what you post online? Do you have any rules or guidelines that you follow? As a company, what would be your stance? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: comments, facebook, legal, legal consequences, online, online writing, posting online, social networking

ping.fm: Update all your social networks at once

Joe — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:00:17 +0000

Sites like Twitter have scores of competitors and it is possible that for someone to effectively socially network, they will have to use sites other than their preferred one. It is obviously quite a chore to have to update Twitter, Facebook, Pownce etc separately.

Commenter reactive pointed out ping.fm, a website which in fact I use. ping.fm allows you to update one site, through a variety of means, which will then pass those updates on to 32 other websites.

ping.fm amazingly allows updates to be textual or graphical (you can set ping.fm to upload images to Flickr etc.). The ability to send videos is going to be launched soon.

The site will ‘ping’ most major social networking sites updates: Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, Facebook, MySpace, del.icio.us and Jaiku. Smaller ones like Kwippy are also supported.

Updates can be sent through instant messaging (GTalk, MSN, Yahoo! or AIM), unlike Twitter at the moment, from iGoogle, Facebook, an iPhone, WAP or SpinVox (a service which allows a voice to be converted to text on a phone). This is in addition to email (and therefore MMS, and on some carriers SMS) and the web.

With ping.fm it’s just as quick to update all your social networks as it is one. It is only one way however, and other peoples’ updates will not be received using it. Another similar service, which is a little more complex is imified.

Tags: facebook, microblogging, ping.fm, pownce, social networking, social networks, twitter, web 2.0

Digsby Build 32 Released

Martin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:21:35 +0000

The Digsby development team is hard at work in the last months to optimize and improve the instant messaging, email and Social networking client. Joshua covered the last Digsby release which already saw a computer memory reduction of 50%. The new Digsby release was announced today in the official Digsby blog.

The major changes in this release are again memory optimizations claiming memory reduction by up to 75%. The default Digsby client is using a little bit more than 10 Megabytes of computer memory which is 5 Megabyte less than the last version according to Joshua’s screenshots of the last release.

Other notable changes include more than 3000 code revisions since the last release, performance increases, connectivity improvements, LinkedIn support and full newsfeeds.

RAM Usage: We optimized from the ground up and fixed memory leaks to lower RAM usage by almost 75%. This has been the number one complaint since our launch and we are proud to introduce this massive improvement.
Performance: User interface elements draw twice as fast for better performance. We have made changes to the architecture that will improve GUI responsiveness and CPU utilization across the board.
Connectivity: Every IM protocol automatically tries multiple connection methods and ports to improve the odds of getting through restrictive firewalls and proxy servers.
LinkedIn: Digsby now supports LinkedIn in addition to the other social networks. Functionality includes a full newsfeed, alerts when new messages arrive, and the ability to set status right from Digsby.
Bug Fixes: We have fixed hundreds of bugs, making Digsby more stable than ever. There have been almost 3,000 revisions in our codebase since the last release so there are too many fixes to list in our changelog.

Tags: digsby, digsby im, email client, instant messenger, linkedin, social networking, social networks, windows software

Boxee

Martin — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:57:33 +0000

The following article is a guest post by Uk’s finest Joe Anderson. You can pay him a visit at his own tech blog Webby’s World.

Boxee is XBMC-based media centre software currently in private alpha, currently only available for OS X Leopard(Intel Macs only) and Linux, although a Windows release is in development.

Boxee is a social networking orientated media centre, allowing you to make recommendations to friends and allowing your friends to make recommendations to you. In addition, it has several features such as on-the-fly grabbing of subtitles, album art, descriptions and the ability to play streaming media from YouTube, last.fm etc.

It also has an automatic indexer, which can scan both local and networked storage, and an integrated DVD player. Mac users can also utilise their Apple Remote to control Boxee.

Overall, it seems like a pretty complete solution. I do have a few concerns regarding its ease of use. For example, you can’t use your mouse inside the application and you have to change settings inside its interface (there isn’t a nice separate options window, which would in my opinion be much more convenient). The automatic grabbing of descriptions/album art is a bit weak too, for some reason Boxee decided to identify the 1950s classic ‘Det Sjunde inseglet’ as ‘Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs’, despite the fact that is still in production!

Boxee will be a nice media centre should you need one, but the lack of support for TV tuners puts me off using it in my media centre PC. I think it’s definitely an improvement on Front Row, and the social aspect will add another dimension to it but is currently a little useless as very few people use it.

Update: Andrew Kippen responded to that review (Press and Relations Manager)

After reading your article and hearing the comments of a few others this past week, it’s become clear that the lack of mouse support needs to be explained.

boxee brings a TV-like interface to digital media (on a PC or connected-TV). We built boxee to work with a remote (for simplicity) or keyboard (for functionality), and we’ve purposely avoided the mouse. While we’re all accustomed to using a mouse when we’re at the computer, directional keys or buttons make for an experience that translates much better onto the big screen.

Additionally PVR and TV Tuners are definitely on the road map (that was one of the major take-aways from the XBMC developer’s conference we hosted in Amsterdam back in June). We feel like most of the TV shows people watch will be streaming from the Internet soon so live TV and PVRs won’t matter as much in the future. However, we know it’s a large part of current media centers so we’re working to incorporate it into boxee.

Tags: apple remote, Boxee, dvd player, media centre, social networking, xbmc

Kwippy Invites

Martin — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 14:00:43 +0000

While I do have Twitter, Facebook and several other accounts I barely use them and cannot see a real gain for using them extensively. Quite the opposite. Still, I was invited by Joe from Webby’s World to Kwippy which from first looks seems to be some sort of Twitter clone. It is currently in private beta and I would like to give everyone the opportunity to join the beta.

What you need to do is to follow me on Twitter so that I can invite you to Kwippy. Yes, that sounds pretty strange but from what I can tell the only real option to invite other users is to invite the Twitter followers. I’m also not sure if I can repeat that indefinitely or not.

So if you want an invite you need to follow me on Twitter. Use the following link to my profile. I’m not really sure about the differences between Twitter and Kwippy, if anyone is using both services feel free to post a comment to explain things.

The only valid reason for using any of them would be to receive tips from readers that way.

Update: I can also invite by email. Just discovered the option on my profile page. If you prefer that way let me know here in the comments. Below are two screenshots as requested by Dark Kosmos:

My public Kwippy profile for those who already have a Kwippy account and would like to follow me.

Tags: beta, invites, kwippy, social networking, twitter, web 2.0

Don’t Fancy Twitter? Try Jaiku

Cheryl — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:22:51 +0000

I’m not a big user of social networking sites for a very simple reason: I simply don’t have the time. The little time I spend at home can definitely be better utilized than hanging out on Facebook, Myspace, Orkut, etc. Having said that, I know plenty of people who just can’t do without their social networking.

Twitter is one of the new ways of letting people know about your life. Twitter allows you to post mini-blogs, in the form of ‘tweets’ to your profile page on the website. Tweets are then delivered to your friends via website, IM, or SMS.

This kind of social networking has spawned a whole new generation of sites, one of which is Jaiku. Jaiku allows you to create an activity stream or log of your daily activities and share them with your friends. Every time you want to update your log, you send a short message called a jaiku, named for its resemblance to a Japanese haiku.

Jaiku is free to use and you can choose whether you want your stream to be publicly accessible or only be seen by your friends. Posting a jaiku can be done directly though the website or sending a text message from your cell phone. You will need to activate your phone first.

One major difference between Jaiku and Twitter is that Jaiku has a feature called Lifestream, which allows you to use other programs to share your online activities. This means you can share photos using Flickr, music using Last.fm, etc. Another point of interest is that the service was purchased by Google 6 months ago so it’s worthwhile seeing what this turns into.

I’m not going to be using Jaiku anytime soon but that’s just me. What about you? Is Jaiku interesting enough to try? Or do you think these services are just a waste of time. Let me know in the comments.

Tags: Jaiku, mobile blog, social networking, twitter

Finally! Block Applications on Facebook

Cheryl — Thu, 15 May 2008 16:03:39 +0000

I have a lot of friends gushing over popular social networking site Facebook but I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s so great about it. It’s cluttered, difficult to navigate and then, there are the applications. I’ve written about my dislike of Facebook apps earlier and was looking for a way to stop receiving invites for them.

Well, my prayers have been answered somewhat. I can’t stop receiving invites but I can block them so I don’t have ten friends sending me invitations for the same app over and over again. To do this, head over the ‘Requests’ page on your Facebook profile. There, you’ll see a list of all the invitations you received. Under the ‘Accept’ and ‘Ignore’ buttons is a small option that says ‘Block this application‘. Click on it and you’re done.

Considering the sheer number of invitations I’ve received, It will take me forever to block them all. I think a better option is to ignore all invitations from friends who keep sending you rubbish. This way, you cut it off at the source.

Has the Facebook application madness driven you crazy yet? What’s your strategy on dealing with them? Does it want to make you abandon Facebook altogether? Let me know in the comments.

Tags: applications, facebook, friend lists, social networking

Find Personal Information about People

Cheryl — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 09:09:36 +0000

The Internet is a big place with a lot of information. While most of it is helpful, there’s also a lot of rubbish. For example, social networking sites like Facebook can help you find long-lost school friends and keep in touch with them.

Then, there’s Pipl. The site is a search engine. Nothing different about that, you say. Except that you can use the site to search for people. It’s as easy as typing in a first and last name and basic info like state and country of residence. After that, sit back and wait for the results.

The creepy part is that you will actually find very personal information showing up. Depending on the kind of trail your target has left, you can get a list of addresses, telephone numbers, etc. You even come across direct links to profiles on the various social networking sites.

Pipl gathers all the information using sources from the ‘deep web’, which is essentially those parts of the web where web-crawlers from the average search engines like Google and Yahoo do not reach. This includes databases of personal profiles, public records and other people-related documents.

Frankly, I think a site like this is dangerous. Not only can a person be cyber stalked but also he or she can potentially be targeted physically as well. For most folks, Pipl may seem like a joke but there are plenty of unscrupulous individuals just waiting to take advantage of a goldmine like this.

I did not find much information about myself thankfully. But I also do not give out much personal information about myself. Not all people are as cautious though. And in the case of public records, you do not have much choice over what gets displayed.

How much information did you find out about yourself on Pipl? What do you think of these kinds of sites? What are some of the measures you take to protect your privacy online?

Tags: pipl, privacy, profiles, search engine, social networking

Which Facebook Apps do You Think are Worthless?

Cheryl — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:57:59 +0000

I’m not a big social networking person. There are way too many social networks out there like Myspace, Orkut, Hi5, etc. All my friends are on one network or the other and I keep getting a bunch of invites. So, I’ve sort of joined the bandwagon and have profiles in some places. Of course, being the kind of person I am, I hardly visit the pages and can barely deal with the amount of stuff that comes through.

This brings me to today’s post. I have a Facebook profile and I barely use it. Initially, I did not quite figure out what I was supposed to do with it. Then, the application overload started. I received my first ‘app’ invitation from something called Superwall. Not knowing any better, I said yes. After that, it’s just been one invitation after another.

Some Facebook apps are okay. For example, I was using Skreemr to add songs to my profile. However, for every decent app available, there have to be at least 10 worthless ones. The first one that hit me was Superpoke, which goes by the description ‘why poke when you can tickle, hug, pinch, or throw sheep’. Throwing sheep! How come I never thought of such a profound action?

Then there’s Zombies, and it’s spinoffs, Vampires and Werewolves. What do these ‘wonderful’ apps do? Why, bite your friends and turn them into monsters too. And if you fancy yourself a monster-killer, there’s Slayer to do the needful. I don’t see the point in these things. They are simply a waste of time.

The bottom line. I’ve stopped accepting requests for applications to be installed. Some people may have all day to play around on Facebook but I’m not one of them. Truth be told, I’m kind of fed up of everything and I virtually never log in to my profile these days.

Do you have a Facebook profile? Which are the most worthless apps you’ve seen on Facebook? What do you think the site should do to stop people getting tons of invitations for these apps?

Tags: applications, facebook, social networking

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