New Facebook changes to allow users to get more conrol when sharing and to own their own data.

Last week, Facebook unveiled some changes to its site in the hope of making it more accommodating to its millions of users. In a nutshell, the changes are meant to give users more control over the personal information they share on the site with different categories of people. For that purpose, Facebook has come up with the idea of allowing its users to divide their "friends" into different groups that can be public or private and differenciated by the depht of what can be shared with them.
Another issue addressed by the changes, is one that has raised a lot of questions in the past:data control. Critics have long blasted the social network giant over who can access users' data and what they can do with it. Facebook has taken the steps toward satisfying those critics thanks to two new features.
The first "one is a dashboard feature that allows users to keep track of information-sharing settings from third-party apps, such as plug-ins to other websites" according to the Wall Street Journal. Also, the dashboard displays exactly what personal information the apps of users' friends are pulling from them.
The other criticism leveled towards Facebook has always been about its take on data ownership. With the new changes, Facebook appeared to adopt a new attitude towards the issue.
The other new feature allows people to export the information they have entered into Facebook into one compressed zip file. With the information download feature, users become owners of their own data files, and could take them to other services the Wall Street added.

For more, see WSJ.com

Flipboard iPad app is a free and appealing social network news aggregator.

With Apple enjoying tremendous success with the launch of the iPad, users of the tablet are enjoying the natural feel and large screen of the device among others things. But they are not the only ones finding the iPad very accommodating to work with; developers too like the flexibility of the device which allows them to aggregate media and other Web content in a very appealing interface.
In that environment, content aggregators have thrived. One app, Flipboard a new iPad app that aggregates news from social media, is one step ahead the rest when it comes to taking advantage of all the possibilities that the device has to offer. What makes the Flipboard stands alone, is its ability to present the news in a attractive way that replicates a magazine-like feel.
Flipboard has been making waves lately partially because of how well it fits with the iPad's touch interface and how closely it really does resemble an interactive magazine, but also because of the way it collects all of the articles, blog posts, images, and videos that your social network is discussing.
According to AppScout, "Flipboard is a free app, and once you have it installed and you're logged in to your Facebook and Twitter accounts (if you want the app to see them), it will scan your friends' posts and present the links and articles that they've been posting to Facebook or Twitter to you in a magazine-like layout. Your Facebook friends, their shared links, photos, and videos are all arranged in a layout that looks much better than Facebook itself, and the links from the people you follow on Twitter are pre-loaded and the articles displayed in-line."
You don't have to scroll endlessly through pages and pages of content to find the things you're looking for, either: They're all laid out on pages that look like you're reading an actual magazine, and you can move your finger across the iPad display to flip between pages, AppScout says.

For more, see AppScout.com

Kapitall free service makes investing fun and social.

The new financial reform law that just went into effect, brought very deep regulation to the industry. Inspired by the financial crisis from two years ago, the reform has touched on one important underlying aspect of the financial sector: the need to have informed and proactive consumers. It is a common knowledge that when it comes to managing their finances and investing, consumers are not as literate as they should be.
If they were intimidated before by the idea of taking charge of their investing and finances, they should no more after learning of Kapitall a free finances service in beta mode that aims to change all that by educating conumers in an interactive, graphically-pleasing way.
With Kapitall, the focus is on " generating a unique user experience that makes investing a more inviting and engaging activity" according to one of its executives.
And to believe AppScout, Kapitall users "level up" through missions and levels that gradually introduce them to more advanced tools and financial concepts. A host of easy-to-use features are also provided, including companies color-coded by sector, comprehensive watch lists, and a search engine that works with familiar brand names, as well as company names. Perhaps the most useful is the Compar-o-matic, which pops up when multiple companies are dragged and dropped on the comparison tool.
The Kapitall experience is also a social one. Users can either create a new Kappitall account, or use their Facebook account, and can also share information with their Facebook contacts and other Kapitall users. There are also opportunities for users to "battle" with other users and set up competitions with their own time limits and goals, in order to see who can create the best portfolio of investments.
Users also have the choice to use Kapitall purely as a learnAmeritrade ing and research environment with practice portfolios. Thanks to a partnership with TD Ameritrade, users can make actual trades in their real-life portfolio. Users must log in to their TD account to trade, and will be responsible for the associated fees, but all of the other tools that Kapitall provide are free of charge.

For more, see AppScout.com

Facebook launches Facebook Live Video Channel.

Since this past Friday, Facebook has started a new live video channel designed to keep users informed about new product features and events giving them a deeper look into the company.
Called Facebook Live, the new channel will be used primary to showcase Facebook products and how people are using those products according to the New York Times. In addition to product news, the channel would also allow users to interact with Facebook engineers and other employees to get a better sense of what’s happening within the company. The interaction will be through some live chats once or twice a week in the beginning with the company being flexible to have more or less of those chats in the future depending on users' interest.
According to the New YorkTimes, "the Facebook Live app is embeddable and can be added as a tab to any Facebook page. It allows viewers to update their status, chat with each other or ask a question, which is then submitted to the moderator. Videos from past live events will also be archived, so users can refer back to them after they are over.'"

For more, see the NewYorkTimes.com

Amazon and Facebook to offer shopping recommendations.

With 500 millions members, it is becoming increasingly difficile to find someone that he or she is not on Facebook. The fact that the social networking site has became such a central hub for so many people, makes it a natural place to turn to for more than just connecting. Now Facebook is trying to use all the wealth of information that it has about its users to be even more relevant.
The recent announcement of a shopping recommendation service in a partnership with between Facebook and Amazon, reinforce that approach.
The service is deigned so that a friend on Facebook looking for a gift for another Facebook friend, can get recommendation from Amazon based on that person profile in the social site. The service will be able to access users' accounts and look at their profiles to get a clue of their favorite movies, music, books and others interests.
It is in testing mode and users can only joint in by opting-in. To do so, they will have to go to Amazon's recommendations page and click on the Sign in and Connect button under "Tap into your Facebook Network." From there, they will connect to their Facebook page after their Amazon credentials are verified.

For more, see cnet.com

Travel booking via smartphones.

With the summer travel season upon us, many people are busy scheduling trips and looking for the best deals. Nowadays, such tasks should not be the walk in the dark it used to be with a travel agent as the middle man.
With several Online tools available, chores like tracking airline schedules, making hotel and car-rental confirmations and restaurant reservation should be more easily manageable.These tools are tailored to be accessed on the go through smartphones.
They are offered by Services like Tripit.com, WorldMate.com and TripCase.com with various degrees of functionality.
One thing shared by all three services is the ability to send users confirmation e-mails to an specific address set-up at the time of registration.
They also "can alerts about flight status and gate changes, and let you book new flights or search for hotel rooms on the fly" according to the Wall Street Journal.
"Some of them do also link up with social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook allowing users to track each others comings and goings" the Wall Street Journal said.

For more, see WSJ.com

Support for Docs.com is now available for Facebook's fan pages.

The collaborative venture between Microsoft and Facebook in the area of Office documents called Docs.com, received a boost last week with the announcement by Microsoft of the availability of support for Facebook fab pages. With the new addition, administrators of Facebook fan pages will be able to disseminate Office docs as a supplement to their existing Web pages, said PC Magazine.

For more, see pcmag.com

Togertherville.com is a social network site suited for kids.

Last Wednesday has seen the launch of a new social network site ( I know, some of you may be saying: "Another social network again?")
But the new kid on the block is a little different in the sense that it is totally dedicated to kids.
The site, Togertheville at Togertheville.com, is designed to teach children 6 through 10 how to interact Online using their real identities and with a close parental participation.
The way that is possible is through the site link with Facebook, allowing parents on the grown-up site, to tag along with effective control over who their children can talk to or be friend with, according to the Wall Street Journal. Also, the site has a lot of restrictions regarding what kids can do or can not. For instance, kids can not type free-form text, only choose between pre-approved sayings. Another safety feature is the inability of kids to send "friends" requests to others kids. To request one, kids will have to go through their potential friends' parents who will review the solicitation before giving an answer.

For more, see WSJ.com

How to opt out of Facebook sharing option.

With the announcement last week by Facebook of the expansion of its "Like" program to other sites, little notice were made of the possible ramifications of such program. The program works by allowing outside participant sites to embed Facebook Like button on their sites. Once embeded, the button will appear on its page of the site and will give Facebook members a chance to click on it when they see something that they like. That seemingly harmless action will have a lot of ramifications since since that one click will essentially broadcast the user action to his or her network through his or her newsfeed. Also, all the names of the user Facebook friends who have already clicked on the button, will be broadcasted alongside.
In conjunction of the new Like program, Facebook has launched a new innovation called Open Graph which is a technology that allows certain sites like Pandora, Yelp, and Docs by Microsoft, to personalize their offerings to users based on the information stored in their personal profiles. That level of personalization is possible because Facebook gives those sites access to those users information. Ant that's where it gets scary for unscrupulous users who unwillingly may be giving away access to their personal information.
As you may have noticed, the opt-in option is by default and users who do not want their information accessed that way, have the means to opt-out.
You can either turn Instant Personalization off entirely at Facebook, or you can opt out at individual websites on a case-by-case basis. The latter is easy; the first time you arrive at a website that uses Instant Personalization, a bar will appear at the top of the page letting you know that’s what’s happening and giving you the option to either accept that or not.
To opt out of the personalization feature altogether, you can do so by going to Facebook home page, access your "Account" and click on "Privacy Settings."

For more, see the Hardfordinformer.com

How to make some photos on Facebook visible to only certain people?

If you have some pictures on Facebook that you would like to make visible only to a limited number of people, fortunately, there is a way to do just that. The place to start, would be the privacy settings on the site.
From there, these are the steps to follow according to the New York Times:
1-Go to the Photos section on your profile page and click the "See All" link to bring up a list of all your photo albums;
2-Click the "Album Privacy" link and go to the album you wish to restrict;
3-Select "Customize" from the drop-down menu;
4-Click the button for "Some Friends" and type the names of friends with whom you'd like to share these particular pictures.
Another way to do it is by choosing to display a limited version of your profile page to certain people.
Here are the steps to achieve that still according to the New York Times:
1-Click the "Privacy " link at the top of your profile page to get to the settings for adding select information to the limited version of your Facebook profile;
2-Once the limited profile is defined, click on the Friends link; viewership
3-Click on the Limited Profile on the right side of the screen to add the names of friends whom you want to see the censured version of your online profile.
All these features and many more privacy features like a new one called "Friends of Friends", are explained in details in the Facebook blog.


For more, see NYTimes.com

TuneWiki is a free fun music app that gives a peak at what is popular around.

TuneWiki’s chief charm is the ability to scroll lyrics karaoke-style as a song plays, whether the music is coming from your phone’s built-in payer or from an internet radio station. No more excuse for singing “’Scuse me while I kiss this guy,” during “Purple Haze.” The lyrics are added wiki-style by users, so you might spot some howlers.
Beyond that, the app lets you look at what other users are listening to around the world, or to see what the most popular songs are with Tunewiki listeners. You can see what people near you are listening to, or, on the Android version, you can see where other people in the world are listening to the same song you are at that moment. Songs can be purchased through the site, forwarded to friends, and (except on the Blackberry) you can post what you are listening to on Twitter and Facebook.
There are still bugs to work out and developers are still adding features. They promise that within weeks you will be able to set up a network to see what your friends are listening .

For more, see NYTimes.com

Organazing tools for multiple social networks accounts.

The proliferation of social network platforms make it harder and harder to keep up with all of them if you have to navigate back and forth and open different screens. Fortunately, there are some solutions available for the most social of us.
Those solutions come in the form of desktop applications like Skimmer, offered by fallon.com/skimmer.
According to the Wall Street Journal, this free download lets you keep up with several social network sites at the same time. After registering with the service, users can log on to their Blogger, Facebook, Twitter,YouTube or Flickr accounts from a single screen and see all their contacts' updates clearly marked by a distinct icon; "F" for Facebook, "T" for Twitter etc.
Another free application is Tweetdeck available at Tweetdeck.com/beta, which "aggregates Twitter and Facebook updates in one customizable screen and allow you to see which Facebook friend is online, and chat with them," according to the Wall Street Journal.
Following multiple people on Twitter can be a challenge but thanks to tools like seesmic desktop application, the process can become less chaotic. With this application, people that you follow are divided into groups organized in columns on your screen, like one each for co-workers, friends,customers etc.
The same application can also be used to track friends and contacts on Facebook; it is available at desktop.seesmic.com.

For more, see WSJ.com

Facebook new privacy settings.

Faced with growing criticisms, Facebook is testing means that will give back users, more control over their data. To achieve that, Facebook is focusing on simplifying its privacy settings which count 4o different options spread over six pages.
The simplified privacy settings being tested right now among a limited number of users, consist mainly of "new controls that will allow members to specify which groups or individuals are able to see each text update, photo or video they post on the site" according to the New York Times.
Ultimately, the changes are meant to make people feel more comfortable in sharing data, knowing that they have control over who can and who can not see it. As for a general release of the new settings, no date yet has been set.

For more, see Businessweek.com

D-Link DIR-685, a multi-function router, backup hard drive.

In the market for a home wireless router or a backup hard drive or both, D-Link has a new gadget that combines those two functions and much more. That new gadget called the D-Link DIR -685, combines a wireless router, a home backup hard drive, and a digital picture frame.

It is equipped with the latest WI-FI(802.11n) signal which can turn an entire house into a WI-FI hot spot and come with all the conceivable home router's features like Application Rules, individual Web site blocking, a sophisticated firewall, network access list, etc. The D-Link DIR -685 has a very distinctive feature in its 3.2 inch color display screen which beside showing the router's settings, can also display some preset Internet information like Twitter posts, photos from Facebook or Flickr accounts, stocks, sports scores etc.With all these features and many more that the D-Link DIR- 685 has to offer, comes the most frustrating part: the device's user guide which comes in PDF form, does not contains a lot of information; one option in figuring it out, is to visit D-Link Web site.

In any case, if you are ready for a wireless router with a lot of potentials but unfortunately with no less irritation, the D-Link DIR-685 is an solid option. The price is also compelling: it retails for $300.

For more, see NYTimes.com

Microsoft's Xbox 360 to broaden its appeal to non gamers.

Microsoft announced on Monday its plan to position its Xbox 360 game console beyond die hard video game players, to serve as a pass way to social networking sites, television shows or movies for the average consumer.
According to the New York Times, Microsoft is forging new relationships with social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter as well as satellite television provider Sky of Britain.
"Facebook users would be able to access their profiles and share photos on their television through the Xbox Live network and that Twitter devotees would also be able to post and read messages through the service" said the Times. With the Sky deal, Xbox Live users in Britain will be able to watch live television, including professional soccer, over an Internet version of the Sky service still according to the New York Times.

For more, see NYTimes.com