Group items tagged

"How does a unknown dating site, with the absurd intention of destroying Facebook, launch with 250,000 member profiles on the first day? Simple. .. an approach taken by two provocateurs who launched LovelyFaces.com this week, with profiles - names, locations and photos - scraped from publicly accessible Facebook pages."

Is scraping data off Facebook art or does this raise privacy issues? Interesting.

This post on Naked Security looks at the Harmless Prank scam which takes facebook users to a survey and then spreads the link. The YouTube movie at the end of the post explains how to remove the post and clean up your Facebook account.

"You can't swing a stick in social media without hitting something on Facebook. Same goes for education. You can't talk about how technology is revolutionizing education without mentioning Facebook. It's a simple service to figure out but what about once you become a regular user? If you're a teacher, you would be well served by spending 3 minutes to read through this must-have guide. (We timed it out and it's a bit under 3 minutes. It's almost summertime, you can spare it for us!)"

"Facebook has quietly expanded the availability of technology to automatically identify people in photos, renewing concerns about the privacy practices of the world's top social networking service."

The wife of an Australian security expert has been targeted by another security expert in a Facebook privacy vulnerability test demonstrated at a security conference in Queensland. The privacy vulnerability, which can affect all Facebook users if a hacker has enough time, allows for privacy-protected photos to be accessed without being the user's "friend".

"Facebook users are showing off some serious creativity by taking advantage of the new profile page photo layout."

This is an interesting breakdown of the 2010 stats related to Facebook vs Twitter.

"What would world be like without Facebook?"

Stephen Heppell provides these eminently sensible guidelines for teachers wanting to use Facebook in conjunction with students.

"Smokescreen is a cutting-edge game about life online. We all use Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and MSN to keep up with our mates - and we've all heard the stories about parties on Facebook being mobbed, or people getting stalked on MSN. The question is, what would you do if it happened to you? Over 13 missions, Smokescreen follows the story of Max Winston and Cal Godfrey, two mates who've set up an exclusive social network called White Smoke. After Cal's involved in a car accident and falls into a coma, White Smoke becomes huge - and starts attracting huge problems. Each mission sees you explore the world of White Smoke, and find out who you can trust - and who you can't."

I was sent this video today. Here's a case in point that Google, Facebook and other organisations are tailoring the web. Eli Pariser of the progressive organization MoveOn says the Internet is hiding things from us, and we don't even know it.

Google+ does not have a quick way sharing your posts to Twitter and Facebook, this extension will add a link "Send to …" to each post. Once clicked, it will bring up an internal dialog asking you where to share your post.

"Last week my wife and I told our 13-year-old daughter she could join Facebook. Within a few hours she had accumulated 171 friends, and I felt a little as if I had passed my child a pipe of crystal meth. I don't mean to be a spoilsport, and I don't think I'm a Luddite. I edit a newspaper that has embraced new media with creative, prizewinning gusto. I get that the Web reaches and engages a vast, global audience, that it invites participation and facilitates - up to a point - newsgathering. But before we succumb to digital idolatry, we should consider that innovation often comes at a price. And sometimes I wonder if the price is a piece of ourselves. "

"Do you know who started social media? It wasn't Mark Zuckerberg. Heck, it was way before the Facebook era. It started, more or less, with CompuServe and Arpanet back in 1969. A couple years later, the first-ever email was sent. Imagine a time when we didn't have email and you had to actually chat with people on the phone or (gasp!) in person? It was a crazy time, to be sure."

Web giants like Google and Amazon are notoriously secretive about what goes on inside the worldwide network of data centers that serve up their sweeping collection of web services. They call it a security measure, but clearly, they also see these facilities as some sort of competitive advantage their online rivals mustn't lay eyes on.