like

Facebook has been taking a long look at FriendFeed and likes what it sees.

The social-networking site likes FriendFeed's "Like" button so much that--as widely expected--it added its own button that allows members to apply "Like" labels to messages, photos, and other content. The feature, which appears to be getting a gradual rollout, is tucked in between the "Comment" and "Share" options.

Likening the new feature to how one might rate a restaurant, Leah Pearlman of Facebook describes in a blog posting how the "Like" button works: … Read more

I like b-sides is a new service from the maker of the now-defunct DiggSuggest. The idea is simple: you go to the Web site and upload the metadata from your iTunes library (in an XML file), and the site tells you songs that you might like, based on the bands it knows you do.

I tried this out with a small library of about 4GB and it gave me a good sampling of tracks. All of them come from Amazon's MP3 store, and can be previewed in a small player that sits on the side. There are also links … Read more

Finding friends on Twitter was simple when the service was in its infancy, but today, Twitter is home to millions of users. In fact, 70 percent of the entire Twitter community is composed of people who signed up in 2008 and 5,000 to 10,000 new users sign up each day.

That's why I've compiled a list of some great solutions that have helped me find friends more efficiently than asking for their usernames.

Twitter search

Maybe this is an obvious pick, but using Twitter search to find friends on Twitter actually works quite well. The feature allows users to search for a person by name and based on that information, it will return all the Twitter users who registered under that name.

Overall, Twitter's search tool is really fast, and will find the person you're looking for without much digging. That said, it has one severe limitation: finding people with common names like John Smith will take some time, and it's only useful when searching for a specific person.

Twubble

If you haven't tried Twubble out yet, it's time you give it a spin.

Twubble is simple and requires little to help you find friends. Upon surfing to the site, you're presented with a "Find some friends!" button, which when clicked, analyzes your Twitter account and finds people who you may want to follow. I was skeptical at first, but after clicking the button, the service returned a slew of colleagues and friends that I had no idea were on Twitter. I followed many of them and tried the button again. This time, it returned many of the same people and most of the users that I had already followed were displayed. Twubble realized that, though, and delivered a disclaimer saying it may not work as well the second time around if you follow many people.

Although the same results are returned multiple times, it's the first run-through that matters. If you want to find friends and colleagues quickly, Twubble offers a fine solution for doing just that.

Mr. Tweet

Mr. Tweet is similar to Twubble in that it analyzes your Twitter account to find other people that it thinks you should follow. But what it provides that Twubble doesn't is a host of stats with information about how you may know a particular person and how active they are on Twitter.

If you want, Mr. Tweet will even auto-follow all the people it finds for you, but it requires you to hand over your username and password to the service to do it--a major security issue, if you ask me. Regardless, it works extremely well and returned a nice list of people worth following.

I chose to follow them myself, though. I don't need any help from Mr. Tweet.… Read more

I have a friend. Let's call him "Fred." Fred and I have known each other for 12 years, and I consider Fred to be one of my best friends in the world. We have a lot in common, from political views to our tastes in movies. Fred is a huge fan of Linkin Park. I am anything but. I've made fun of Fred's adoration of the band for many years, but now I'm coming to realize that Fred is not alone.

According to iLike, Fred is in no danger of being alone anytime soon. … Read more

The other day, I got an email from my former assistant, the effervescent Brandy Barber.

Brandy is a rising New York comedienne who has a serious distaste for any woman who talks like Woody Woodpecker. Well, actually, for one woman in particular.

Her email was simple, but not very informative. She wanted to share her iLike playlist with me. (That was it. No 'how are you?' No 'I miss you.') Until now, I have not had an intimate involvement with iLike. If I want to know what other people like I tend to ask them.

Sad, I know.

However, because … Read more

AdMob and reportedly Like.com have managed to go against the grain, landing additional venture funding rounds in sectors that are now under great pressure.

AdMob, which supplies banner advertising to mobile devices, received $15.7 million in a third round of funding led by Sequoia Capital and participation from existing investor Accel Partners, the company said Wednesday.

For AdMob, its funding round is particularly interesting, given it serves the advertising industry, which is currently facing challenging times in the tumultuous economic climate. In addition, its lead investor was Sequoia, which recently issued a dire warning to its portfolio companies … Read more

Hey, indie bands. Does MySpace Music's big focus on the major labels make you sad? iLike wants to hear from you--literally.

The "social music" company, best-known for its add-on apps for Facebook and iTunes, has partnered with music distribution start-up TuneCore so that unsigned artists can market their music through iLike and get royalties when it's streamed there.

TuneCore already lets independent artists sell their music through iTunes, Amazon MP3, and Rhapsody, which has a deal with iLike (and MTV and Yahoo).

It's not surprising that a company such as iLike would choose to make … Read more

There's nothing worse than trying to print a two-page article from the Web and have it print out in a half-inch column across 37 sheets of paper. It happens all the time, and if the site you're on doesn't have a special printer friendly option, your only other method was to use special software, or attempt to save the page as a PDF then print it out later.

A service called PrintWhatYouLike takes all the work out of this, and does you one better by letting you select only the parts of the page you want to … Read more

Facebook's favorite music service, iLike, has officially launched its developer platform. The company first hinted at this several months ago and CNET News reported last week that it was nearing its debut. With the platform, approved developers will be able to access the iLike API and work it into their own sites.

"We've always adopted a strategy of syndication, of going where the consumers are instead of trying to bring them to us," CEO Ali Partovi told CNET News on Tuesday. Indeed, iLike launched first an iTunes plugin and then a Facebook application to spread its … Read more