Why Mothers Should Never Be Allowed on Facebook

One of my brother's friends at Penn State sent this to him and he forwarded it to me. It pretty much summarizes why parents shouldn't be allowed on Facebook.

Source: CollegeHumor.com

Facebook Lite launched for developing countries

Facebook has started testing a new, simplified service aimed at countries where internet bandwidth is limited.

The new system, named Facebook Lite, focuses primarily on messaging and user updates and is being seen as part of Facebook's attempts to combat the threat of popular micro-blogging site Twitter.

The stripped-down service is intended to speed up the process of downloading and viewing the social networking site, particularly on mobile phones or in countries with limited broadband internet connections.

A number of Facebook users have been invited to test the new service, which the company said was still in the trial stage and had not been launched worldwide.

In a statement, Facebook said: "We are currently testing a simplified alternative to Facebook.com that loads a specific set of features quickly and efficiently.

"Similar to the Facebook experience you get on your mobile phones, Facebook 'Lite' is a fast-loading, simplified version of Facebook that enables people to make comments, accept Friend requests, write on people's Walls, and look at photos and status updates.

"We are currently testing Facebook Lite in countries where we are seeing lots of new users coming to Facebook for the first time and are looking to start off with a more simple experience."

Facebook told leading technology blog TechCrunch that the service is currently being tested in India, with plans to roll it out first across Russia and China.

The first screen shots of Facebook Lite appear to resemble the Twitter service, with a stream of friends’ status updates dominating the page. Twitter has gained many millions of users, particularly in the US and Europe, with its real-time news and search capabilities.

According to Facebook, a test invitation was sent to a larger number of users by mistake. This sparked a flurry of excitement on the web as people began trying to sign up to the service without success.

A Facebook spokesman said: "We have not opened up access to lite.facebook.com to all users at this time. People who are not part of the test and are trying to access 'Lite' will be directed to Facebook.comas usual."

Earlier this week Facebook, the world's largest social networking site with more than 250 millions registered users, bought FriendFeed, an up-and-coming web service, in a sign that it plans to extend its lead over rivals such as Twitter.

FriendFeed allows users to see what their friends are posting on different social media sites in a single feed. The acquisition is likely to boost Facebook's move into instant, real-time updates.

Source: Times Online

Facebook Finds a Friend in Google Rivalry

The acquisition of startup FriendFeed gives Facebook ammo in a battle not just with Twitter, but Google as well

By Douglas MacMillan

After failing to acquire Twitter last fall, Facebook went shopping for what may be the next best thing.

On Aug. 10, Facebook said it had acquired FriendFeed, the Mountain View (Calif.) social aggregation service founded by Google (GOOG) alumni Bret Taylor and Jim Norris in 2008. The deal, which The Wall Street Journal reported to be valued at nearly $50 million in cash and stock, gives Facebook top talent and advanced technology in an area many see as the next great frontier on the Web: real-time search.

The deal was seen by many as an assault on Twitter, a site that, like FriendFeed, lets users discover what people on the Web are saying about a certain topic at any given time. (Twitter turned down a $500 million offer from Facebook last November.) But experts say the pickup may be geared just as much toward a showdown with the king of Web search and the former employer of Taylor and Norris: Google. "In one fell swoop, Facebook gets to buy up Google's best-known superstars," says technology blogger Robert Scoble.

Pulling in Real-Time Data

FriendFeed's founders and staff of mostly ex-Googlers earned their stripes building Google Talk, Google Maps, Gmail, and other free Web services. When they launched FriendFeed to the public in February 2008, they designed the service to help users organize their online social lives—everything from Twitter updates to pictures posted on Facebook to Netflix rentals—in one place. To help members scour through all this information, the company developed an advanced search engine that pulls in real-time data from many different sites around the Web. It lets users search keywords that only certain friends have mentioned, or only for posts that have been "liked" by a certain number of people on the site.

This search engine may be a big part of what Facebook is after. Currently the social network has a limited search engine, which only retrieves data from certain types of pages within its own site. "They could plug the [FriendFeed] search engine into Facebook and have a huge win," Scoble says. If the site succeeds in building compelling search, more Web users may turn to Facebook for everyday searches, rather than general search engines like Google.

More effective search of current conversations and popular topics could lead to more profits for Facebook, which has taken criticism for focusing more on growth in the number of its users than in generating revenue. "Being able to get a taste of what consumers are doing on 50 different sites can be very powerful," says David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy for digital marketing agency 360i, of FriendFeed's search. By contrast, he says Facebook's search tools have not been as effective for marketers.

Beefing Up Search Tools

Buying FriendFeed opens the possibility of more refined search, though Facebook has not commented on what aspects of the site will be integrated into its own. "We haven't had the opportunity to have an in-depth, thoughtful dialogue on what to do over the long term," says Facebook spokesman Larry Yu.

Another reminder that Facebook wants to beef up its search tools came the same day the FriendFeed deal was announced. A new tool will let users search the last 30 days of information posted by their friends. It will also let users search postings even by nonfriends, assuming those people have opted to make their material public.

In recent months, Facebook has introduced a number of features aimed at getting users to share more publicly, and the FriendFeed acquisition shows the company is committed to that goal, says Forrester Research (FORR) analyst Jeremiah Owyang. "FriendFeed is public and Facebook is not. We should expect Facebook to continue this trend to make users public," he says. More public sharing would mean more data that's searchable, which marketers would also appreciate.

While a battle with Google looms, Facebook's acquisition has created a more immediate concern for the company: keeping existing users of FriendFeed from defecting to other sites. No plans to shut down the site have been announced, but many users are nervous. "If Facebook does take FriendFeed down, chances are I'll migrate with many of the other social media and programming pundits to a similar service," says programmer Christopher Charabaruk. "Or if there isn't one, I'll probably help start one."

Douglas MacMillan is a staff writer for BusinessWeek in New York.

Source: Business Week

Facebook in challenge to Google

Facebook has turned up the heat on Google by purchasing content-sharing service FriendFeed, say industry watchers.

Many expected Google or even Twitter to buy the company, which has been praised for its "real-time" search engine.

This type of search is valuable because it lets you know what is happening right now on any given subject.

"Google look out, Facebook knows the real money is in real-time search," said respected blogger Robert Scoble.

"Google is the king of regular search. FriendFeed is the king of real-time search. This makes the coming battle over this issue much more interesting," Mr Scoble told the BBC.

Back in May, Google founder Larry Page admitted that the search giant had fallen behind other services like that of Twitter, which boasts nearly 45 million users worldwide.

"People really want to do stuff real time and I think they (Twitter) have done a great job.

"We've done a relatively poor job of doing things that work on a per second basis," Mr Page said at the time.

'Warning shot'

Many in Silicon Valley agree that this deal has changed the game.

"Facebook was unable to acquire Twitter so this is the next best option," said Ben Parr, associate editor of Mashable, a news blog covering social media.

"FriendFeed is well known for having some powerful and intelligent technology that allows users to aggregate everything they do online and do it all in real time.

"With this acquisition, Facebook is gunning directly not only at Twitter, but at Google. This is a warning shot to those two companies," Mr Parr told BBC News.

Mr Scoble noted that FriendFeed's real-time search could stretch back 18 months compared to a few days for Twitter.

Silicon Valley commentators have long regarded FriendFeed as an inspiration for many of Facebook's features.

These include the ability for users to import activities from third parties services like YouTube and Flickr to letting users comment or say they "like" something in another user's feed.

"FriendFeed has in effect been the R&D (research & development) department for Facebook for some time now," said Mr Scoble, who is one of the service's most popular users with nearly 46,000 subscribers.

"They have the best community technology out there and Facebook should continue to use them to try out new features and test them out before transferring them over to Facebook."

The deal

The purchase caught many in Silicon Valley by surprise, even though the two companies had been talking on and off for the past two years.

"This is an 11th hour deal," admitted FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor.

ndustry commentators had expected Google to make a bid for the company, especially given the fact that its founders all used to work there.

"FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request" is how Mr Taylor described the buyout, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to how Facebook users ask one another to become part of their friend network.

He continued in a similar vein in his blog post.

"As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle.

"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."

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was equally complimentary.

"Since I first tried FriendFeed, I've admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information.

"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."

As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and the company's four founders will be given senior roles on the social networking site's engineering and product teams.

FriendFeed will continue as it is for the moment independently.

"Eventually, one way or another, it's hard to see FriendFeed as it stands now, continuing on," said MG Siegler of Silicon Valley news site Tech Crunch.

"Facebook will begin to take up too much of the FriendFeeders' time, and it will languish. It's sad, but that's the web. Not every service can flourish. There simply aren't enough users with enough time to use all of them."

Source: BBC News