MySpace's rumored adoption of Facebook Connect could be happening in the near future--as soon as early 2010, Inside Facebook reports.
MySpace and Facebook have historically been rivals, with Facebook having ousted MySpace from their spot as the top social network, but their relations have been of a friendlier nature as of late. It appears as though MySpace has effectively given up on winning the social-networking war and is instead focusing on its already strong entertainment business, which includes the market leader, MySpace Music.
The extent of MySpace's Facebook Connect integration isn't yet known, but it is expected initially to leverage MySpace's media content, like music. This news comes right on the heels of Yahoo announcing a massive Facebook Connect implementation across all of its sites. Facebook and Google are currently battling it out for the Web identity crown. With Yahoo and MySpace out of the race, 2010 should prove to be an interesting year as Facebook and Google both try to carve out pieces of the market.
TweetDeck's new Facebook support.
(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)TweetDeck, the popular Twitter app for the iPhone, was pulled from the Apple App Store on Monday due to a crippling crash bug. An update was quickly resubmitted to Apple and the new version (1.1.1) is now available for download (iTunes Link). The new version includes Facebook integration, video uploading, and support for Twitter trending topics.
The Facebook support in TweetDeck for iPhone works very well, allowing you to add columns from Facebook by either selecting a feed of all your friends or separating them into groups. The feed support is restricted to status updates, so you cannot see when new photos or events are posted, but comments and Likes on status updates are visible. It also allows users to comment or Like a post from the app as well as post a message on someone's wall. Of course, Facebook's own iPhone app is a much more robust offering, but it is nice to have data from Facebook and Twitter centralized in one app.
TweetDeck now also offers video recording and uploading for iPhone 3GS owners. This service is supported by 12seconds, which has an iPhone app of its own. This type of short-form video plays nicely with the overall concept of Twitter and should help to cut down on upload times when posting new updates.
Additional features included in this update are the inclusion of Twitter trending topics, the ability to cross-post updates to Twitter and Facebook, nearby tweets, bit.ly support, and landscape composing. These are all features that make a lot of sense for TweetDeck and were surely highly requested.
A nice video of the new features, put together by the TweetDeck team, is included below.
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Microsoft on Monday released a software development kit for Facebook that allows developers to create Facebook applications for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation. This should expand the reach of Facebook in third-party applications as well as make Silverlight and WPF more viable platforms for developers looking to build social applications.
The SDK comes complete with samples and tools to develop Facebook applications in ASP.NET, Silverlight, WPF, and WinForms. It also features the source code for the API, components, controls, and samples.
There are currently other libraries available that allow Facebook developers to develop with other technologies, such as JavaScript, PHP, ActionScript, and the iPhone. There are a variety of others as well, which can be seen here, but these are the ones that Facebook officially provides support for.
Microsoft, as you may remember, invested $240 million in Facebook back in October 2007. Many called this move more of a strategic play to keep Google and Yahoo from getting a stake in the company. The release of this SDK is a part of Facebook and Microsoft's ongoing partnership.
If you're interested in taking a look, you can download the SDK here.
As we speak, the Foo Fighters are playing a live show on Facebook, live from their own Studio 606, for their fans on the site. The concert is utilizing the same live-stream module we have seen in used in a variety of situations in the past, including CNN's live stream of Barack Obama's inauguration. This is combined with a live video module from Livestream to complete the experience.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)
This is a really cool thing for the band to do for its fans and something I hope we see more of in the future. As the Foo Fighters play, they are keeping an eye on the stream of status updates coming in, sometimes responding to comments and taking song requests.
There is an undeniable trend of live events moving online. The potential audience that can be reached is fairly significant and the costs are low. As shown by the Foo Fighters, a band can just broadcast a live show for their fans, from their own studio. The social element of Facebook, combined with this event, only enhances the experience.
If you want to check out the show, we have embedded the Livestream widget below (while the show lasts).
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Pandora, with new Facebook, Twitter, and Gift sharing features.
(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)Pandora on Wednesday announced the arrival of some new sharing features for the service. In the past, you have been able to share Pandora stations, but you were forced to do it via e-mail instead of taking advantage of one of the modern social networks. Now, Pandora is enabling station and song sharing via much more efficient means: Facebook and Twitter.
These features work pretty much exactly how you would think they would. Clicking on the Facebook icon pops out a Facebook window, allowing you to share either the current song or station. The Twitter integration works in much the same way, enabling you to tweet out a link to the current song or station. When you click on the station link that someone has shared, it whisks you away to their Pandora station and lets you listen. However, the song links only go to a landing page that gives you a 30-second preview and an option to create a station based on that song. Oddly, this page does not give the user the "Buy from Amazon/iTunes" option that Pandora's main app features.
In addition, Pandora is bringing more attention to its station-gifting feature. This feature basically allows users to create an entirely new station, pair it with an eCard and send it off to someone. Pandora is essentially trying to create the modern version of the mixtape. This feature has been around for a little while, but it has gained little attention to this point. The more prominent placing in Pandora's music player may change that.
These new sharing features should boost usage of Pandora. Tapping into the previously untouched power of Facebook's social graph and Twitter can only be a good thing. Pandora is just coming off of reaching an agreement on new royalty rates for music this summer and it's working toward its goal of being profitable by the end of the year. They're also facing some stiff competition from companies like Slacker. Pandora still has a long road ahead, but opening up its service to sharing on Facebook and Twitter is definitely a step in the right direction.
This weekend, starting Friday at 10:30 a.m. PDT, Hulu will be live-streaming the Austin City Limits music festival. Hulu will be using its Watch Now application on Facebook, which has a live events box integrated so that users can discuss the concert as they watch.
(Credit:
Hulu)
You can see the schedule of acts on the Facebook application page for the live-stream. Unfortunately, the stream features only a fraction of the acts that are playing the festival. In fact, some of the biggest acts, including Kings of Leon, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dave Matthews Band, and Pearl Jam are missing from the live-stream lineup. Luckily, we still get to check out some great acts like Thievery Corporation, The Decemberists, Ben Harper, and The Dead Weather. There's no real indication of how the selection was made and I'm certainly grateful that we are getting a stream at all, but I can't help but wish that the full compliment of acts would be available for streaming.
We knew that Facebook had bigger plans for vanity URLs/usernames when it opened them up for registration this summer.
The popular bet was that it would create a mention/reply system similar to Twitter's @replies. That was shot down this week when Facebook launched its mentions system, which uses real names. But on Thursday, Facebook started letting users log in with their usernames.
(Credit:
Facebook Blog)
This might not seem like a big deal at first glance since most Web sites use username log-in. But this is a time saver, compared with typing in your full e-mail address every time. I still suspect that we will see our Facebook usernames being used for more things in the future, though it's unclear what those things may be.
Vreebit is an immensely complex social-networking site, launched in beta on Thursday.
After seeing that it has taken Facebook five and a half years to become cash flow-positive, it seems that founders Michael Fleischmann and Chuck Donnelley are trying to create a new revenue model for their social network.
Vreebit includes a wealth of features, including a calendar, tasks, resume, docs and photos, links, discussions, polls, petitions, expert advice (think Yahoo Answers), and the ability to create your own 11-page Web site.
Upon signing up, users are given 100 "VreeBees," which are a virtual currency that can be used to buy actual goods on the site. You can earn more by participating in surveys, referring users, clicking on ads, and providing expert advice.
The VreeMarket offers a ton of things for users to buy with their VreeBees, ranging from books to video games to clothing. Not only can Vreebit post items for sale there, but actual users can post items as well, setting their price in VreeBees. This section of the site could also benefit from partnerships with some outside retailers.
VreeBees can also be used in exchange for services on the site, such as placing an advertisement, getting expert advice, and creating a survey. All of this activity creates an interesting economy on the site designed to motivate users to participate more.
The elements of this site that participate in the VreeBee economy seem to make sense, if the site can gain enough users. They are pretty unique and will drive more use of the service. However, other aspects of the site may greatly benefit from hook-ins with third-party services.
For example, instead of having to fill out your calendar on Vreebit (which doesn't sound overly appealing) the service could pull from Google Calendar for its content. And even though it is competing with Facebook, I think that Vreebit could benefit from using Facebook Connect, which can speed up account setup, automatically bringing in contact information and user data, as well as maintaining the same log-in.
Although Vreebit might be a bit crowded with not-so-enticing features, and users will likely be a bit wary of being rewarded specifically for clicking on ads (this will surely sink its ad rates through the floor), its virtual-currency model may have some potential.
With the addition of hook-ins for some third-party services, Vreebit may have a chance at becoming a viable social network, but for the moment, some users might be scared away by the amount of site features and the amount of time it takes to set up a new account--not to mention the fact that there's not much incentive to join a social network unless your friends are already there.
(Credit:
Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)
Friend Lists has long been an underused feature in Facebook. The feature allows users to split their friends up into different groups, choosing different privacy settings for each one. It is clear now that Facebook has bigger plans for the feature and it's getting serious about trying to persuade people to use it. Recently, Facebook automatically created Friend Lists for its users in an effort to help them filter and better consume their Live Stream. Now, Facebook has redesigned their Chat feature in order to take advantage of Friend Lists. Users can now organize their previously unwieldy Chat lists into groups, defined by their Friend Lists.
Upon loading up Chat for the first time since this change, Facebook users are prompted to say which Friend Lists they want to add to Chat. Users can segment these friends into sublists for Chat, and everyone else gets dumped into a generic "Other Friends" list. This alone is going to be enough for a lot of users to put these previously uncategorized friends into a List. While there apparently wasn't enough motivation for users to group their friends before, now that they are grouping them for the purposes of a clean Chat list, the rest of the functionality of Friend Lists throughout the site is unlocked. Suddenly users can now filter by these Lists that they have taken the time to create, send Inbox messages to whole lists, and create customized privacy settings. I have no doubt that Facebook has more plans for Friend Lists as well.
Not only does this new grouping by Friend Lists give users a cleaner view of their online friends, but users can also toggle whether they appear offline or online for a certain group. This is yet another feature that is going to provoke people to start organizing their friends.
Facebook has been doing a lot of work lately, building new functionality into the site. On Friday, the site brought "refresh alerts" to its home page and now it just rolled out this newly enhanced Chat. It looks like the Facebookers are working overtime to try to win back the hearts of some of the users that they angered in their last major redesign.
For the uninitiated or nongamers out there, the Konami Code (UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A) is arguably the most famous cheat code in video games.
It has been used in countless games and has references in multiple forms of pop culture. Lately, some sites have taken to using the code to trigger amusing events on the page. Recently, ESPN used the code to spawn unicorns and rainbows all over its pages.
Now, Facebook has dropped the code into its site. When entering the Konami code, followed by Enter, a lens flare is generated every time the user scrolls or clicks something on the page.
UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A ENTER: The Facebook lens flare in action.
(Credit: Facebook)This Easter egg is becoming more and more common, and a site has even popped up to track the sites using it. (You will have to enter the Konami Code to see it, of course.) ESPN has since taken its Easter egg down, but those that remain include Facebook, Digg, Google Reader, and our very own GameSpot.
It's nice to see Easter eggs making a resurgence since they have been largely frowned upon by the tech industry in recent years, with Microsoft formally banning them from its software in 2002.
To try out the code for yourself on Facebook, load up a page on the site, hit UP UP DOWN DOWN LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT B A ENTER on the keyboard, scroll around and enjoy. Instructions on how to activate other Konami Code Easter eggs around the Web can be found at Konami Code Sites.
