Don't Count On Facebook Boosting Your Brainpower Just Yet

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If a high number of Facebook friends gives you a bigger brain, then CEO Mark Zuckerberg, seen here in Sept., must have one massive cortex.

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If a high number of Facebook friends gives you a bigger brain, then CEO Mark Zuckerberg, seen here in Sept., must have one massive cortex.

A lot of people seem to be running wild with the idea that there is a direct, positive link between Facebook and the brain's grey matter.

I want to believe a study that suggested Facebook can enhance the size of key parts of your brain. Really I do.

But Facebook hasn't been proved to build a bigger brain just yet, and having a bigger brain wouldn't necessary mean you're better at making virtual friends either.

The rush to credulity on this proposition may lie in some of the language used to describe the study; PR materials called the findings a "direct link." That tends to make me think cause and effect. But in this study, that hasn't been proved.

 

University College London researchers merely found a correlation, not a direct cause, between the amount of grey matter in college students' brains and the number of friends they had on Facebook.

The students with larger, friend networks happened to have more grey matter seen in brain scans. The researchers have emphasized the association and not causation in a statement and a briefing for reporters.

Lead-author Ryota Kanai and his team looked at regions of the brain that have been known to correspond to social cognition: the amygdala, the right superior temporal sulcus, the left middle temporal gyrus and the entorhinal cortex.

Grey matter, or the brain tissue responsible for processing, is found in these regions corresponding to memory, emotional response, perception, navigation and reading social cues. In other words, the researchers were looking in the places where social cognition occurs.

When they compared the brain scans of 125 healthy university students to the number of online friends and real-life friends they had, those with more friends had more grey matter in the amygdala — a region already known to be larger in people with a larger network of real-world friends. They also saw more grey matter in the other three brain regions of people with a high number of online friends. The results were replicated in 40 more students.

What do others think? "I'm cautiously optimistic about the relationship," Dr. James Fowler, who wasn't involved in the research, tells Shots. Fowler, a professor of medical genetics and political science at University of California, San Diego, investigates brain function and social networking. His research has shown that genes alone don't dictate social behavior.

So what does the University College researchers' work have going for it?:

They're looking in the right place.They did see more grey matter in the brains of people with more virtual friends.Variability in the grey matter occurs across individuals and populations.The brain changes as it matures.More grey matter doesn't necessarily mean better social networking.Further research needs to be done to directly connect the two factors.

"Next they should do a functional study," Fowler says. "What happens when people are actually on Facebook? Is increasing the amount of engagement simultaneously causing our brains to change to make social interaction more enjoyable?"

The findings appeared Wednesday in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

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Users find bugs in Facebook app

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11 October 2011 Last updated at 11:06 GMT The Facebook app works both on the iPhone and the iPad Just hours after Facebook's release of its long-awaited iPad app, users have started reporting minor bugs.

Some said it should have been tested better to ensure it worked properly with peripherals developed for the iPad, such as the iPad dock.

Facebook admitted that there were some bugs, but said that it was not unusual for new products.

The app comes out 18 months after the launch of the first Apple tablet.

Available for free at the Apple app store, the program is actually an upgrade of the existing iPhone app, tweaked to fill the larger iPad screen.

The interface for the application lets users "pinch" the screen to zoom in and out, as well as swipe to flip through photos that fill the entire display, as with a real photo album.

A Facebook spokesperson told BBC News that all products were always "vigorously" tested before launch.

"However, as with all new technology products, occasionally unexpected bugs will surface once people start using products on a mass scale."

The company added that it was "following up on feedback".

'Repeated delays'

iPad owners have been pondering over the lengthy wait for a proper Facebook app ever since the tablet was first launched, back in 2010.

Some users have reported bugs - like the "Send" button not appearing when the iPad is on a dock

Until now, they had a choice of whether to use a tiny iPhone-size screen in the centre of the iPad display; to download one of the apps that supported the social network but was developed by a third party, or to access Facebook through its website.

But the company did not go into any detail about why users had been forced to wait so long.

"We're releasing it now because it's done," said Bret Taylor, the firm's chief technology officer.

It was reported in September that Jeff Verkoeyen, the application's lead developer, wrote in his blog about the app's repeated delays despite it being almost finished several months ago.

Bugs found

But shortly after the app's release, users have started complaining of a number of bugs.

Michael Clawson wrote on Twitter that he was not able to see his pages when clicking on left panel icons.

Another user, journalist Mark Coyle said that the app came "complete with a glaring bug".

"I have an Apple dock/keyboard, and if you put the iPad on the dock then try to comment on a post, the 'Send' button doesn't appear," he said.

"Take it off the dock - it appears. Poor testing by FB."

Twitter user @Cocoanetics wrote: "Facebook App first impression: decoding images on the main thread cause stutter when scrolling, even on iPad 2."

According to Facebook, of the 350 million people who access the social network on their mobile devices every month, about half do so through a web browser and half use applications built on their phone or tablet operating system.

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Facebook 'rape' page is to stay

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By Robin Knowles
Newsbeat reporter Facebook has been criticised for not removing a controversial page which victim support charities say trivialises and jokes about rape.

The group page, called "You know she's playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway", has 194,370 likes on the social networking site.

Victim support groups have called it "disgusting".

Companies that advertise on Facebook have demanded their adverts be removed from the page.

Continue reading the main story

Facebook is a significant social force and it gives quite a worrying picture of how they view women if breastfeeding is considered obscene and rape is not

Orlagh, 22

Orlagh, a 22-year-old student from Belfast who did not want to disclose her full name, saw the page and became concerned.

She said: "This is not just a joke. There are people on there who are advocating rape and there are people on there apparently confessing to rape.

"Facebook is a significant social force and it gives quite a worrying picture of how they view women if breastfeeding is considered obscene and rape is not."

On its terms and conditions Facebook said: "You will not post content that is hateful, threatening, or pornographic; incites violence; or contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence."

Orlagh and many victim support charities argue that this group breaches these rules.

They have started a petition calling for the page to be removed.

Find out how Facebook decides what to ban

Advertisers' concerns

When first contacted by the BBC in August, Facebook refused to remove the page saying the site wanted to allow freedom of expression.

"It is very important to point out that what one person finds offensive another can find entertaining, just as telling a rude joke won't get you thrown out of your local pub, it won't get you thrown off Facebook," a statement said.

Facebook has previously barred pictures from breastfeeding mothers

Some of the big companies that pay Facebook to advertise on the social networking site have asked for their adverts to be removed from the group.

Sony, American Express and BlackBerry have had their demands answered and in the last few days all advertising has been removed on the group.

Despite this pressure Facebook has maintained its position.

A further statement said: "Groups or pages that express an opinion on a state, institution, or set of beliefs - even if that opinion is outrageous or offensive to some - do not by themselves violate our policies.

"These online discussions are a reflection of those happening offline, where conversations happen freely in people's homes, in cafes and on the telephone."

It said that more than 800 million people around the world used Facebook as a place to discuss and share things that are important to them.

It states these can be about controversial topics but does not mean they violate its policies.

On the site many users defend the page.

Tinamarie Smith agrees with Facebook and said it was about freedom of speech.

She said: "This group has nothing to do with rape its only a bit of fun if u don't like it then don't read it... I'm not saying rape is a good thing its very bad but when ur stressing someone about a joke then u really need to get a life."

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Drive-by Download Attack on Facebook Used Malicious Ads

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Antivirus vendor Trend Micro has recently detected a drive-by download attack on Facebook that used malicious advertisements to infect users with malware.

"We encountered an infection chain, wherein the user is led from a page within Facebook to a couple of ad sites, and then finally to a page that hosts exploits," the company's security researchers warned Tuesday. "When we traced the connection between the ad sites and Facebook, we found that the ad providers were affiliated with a certain Facebook application. We checked on the said app, and found that it is indeed, ad-supported."

"Malvertising" attacks are usually the result of lax background screening practices on behalf of advertising networks or ad sale teams. Attackers usually impersonate legitimate advertisers in order to get their ads approved and later swap them with malicious code.

A lot of popular websites and big ad networks have fallen victim to such attacks over the years. Facebook also dealt with this form of abuse in the past, but in those cases the ads were used to display fake security alerts that led to scareware.

However, malvertisements that bundle drive-by download exploits for vulnerabilities in popular browser plug-ins, or even the browser itself, are much more dangerous since they don't require any user interaction.

In this case, users were directed to a page that loaded Java and ActiveX exploits, but while the attacked ActiveX vulnerability was patched in 2006, the Java ones were more recent, dating from 2010.

Facebook is usually plagued by other types of attacks. Trend Micro's research identified the three most common threats on Facebook: "likejacking," where users are tricked into posting a status update for a page they didn't actually intend to give a "like" to, rogue applications, and spam campaigns.

Unfortunately, the design of Facebook's platform, where thousands of third-party app developers can work with whichever advertisers they wish, favors malvertising. There's not much Facebook can do about it, so the task of fending off such attacks ultimately falls with the users.

Statistics collected this year by security companies from live drive-by download toolkit installations show that Java exploits have the highest success rate, exceeding those of PDF or Flash exploits.

This is mainly because users do a poor job of updating the software, a lot of them not even knowing what Java is or that it's installed on their systems. In fact, since there's little Java content on the Web anymore, some security experts recommend that users should disable the plug-in from their browser if they don't remember ever using it.

Keeping all software programs up to date, especially those that are accessible from the Web, is critically important for staying secure on the Internet. So is using an antivirus program capable of scanning Web traffic and detecting exploits.

Power users can resort to more advanced methods of protection such as the NoScript Firefox extension, which thanks to its opt-in approach to third-party scripts, blocks the majority of drive-by downloads, including those executed through malvertising.

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TECHNOLOGY, Facebook Faces Complaints Over Data Retention Practices

Facebook's data retention practices are under investigation by Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner following a series of complaints filed by a European group critical of the social networking site.
A total of 22 complaints have been filed with the Data Protection Commissioner by Europe v. Facebook, a group that claims the company is at odds with European privacy laws governing how companies manage personal data.
Facebook has sought to deflect criticism over its data handling practices, maintaining that it complies with data protection laws around the world.
The complaints concern a range of issues, such as how Facebook deals with deleted posts and contacts, or Facebook's privacy policy, which the group claims is unclear. The group said it filed the complaints in Ireland because Facebook's user agreement says that users outsde the U.S. and Canada are entering into an agreement with Facebook Ireland, which is also the company's European headquarters.
Many of the issues brought up by Europe v. Facebook came about after members of the group asked Facebook for personal data stored on them by the site. Facebook is required under European law to respond to such requests. The group published redacted data obtained by some of its supporters to show what kind information Facebook stores. The group's website contains instructions for how people can request the data Facebook stores about them.
The Data Protection Commissioner's office was already planning to audit Facebook before the complaints were filed, but the process has now been accelerated, said Ciara O'Sullivan, spokeswoman for the office.
The Data Protection Commissioner will undertake an investigation of the complaints and also an audit of Facebook, which will involve visiting the company's facilities in Dublin and "looking more generally at how they process personal data," O'Sullivan said. The audit will begin next month.
The commissioner is not obligated to make the findings public, but due to the size of the investigation and scrutiny of Facebook, O'Sullivan said she expects some findings to be publicly released by the end of the year.
Facebook said in a statement on Friday that it has regular contact with the Data Protection Commissioner, and "we look forward to demonstrating our commitment to the appropriate handling of user data as part of this routine audit."
The company did briefly address in its statement some of the issues in the complaints. People who requested their Facebook data found that information they thought they had deleted was still present in the file.
Facebook said that "this is mostly likely due to the user removing a post from a specific place on Facebook rather than deleting it, or because we needed to retain information for a limited period for an investigation. We're continuing to work on ways to make this process as seamless as possible."
The company also addressed a claim that photo tags are applied without a person's consent. In August, Facebook changed the tagging feature so that people can choose to approve a tag before the photo shows up in their own profile. Users can also adjust their privacy settings to turn off "Tag Suggestions," a feature that uses facial recognition to help a user's Facebook friends to automatically identify and tag the user in their photos.
But data protection officials in Germany do not believe that feature that complies with the law. Hamburg's Data Protection Agency (DPA) contends that Facebook should obtain users' consent before their biometric data, used to enable the tagging feature, is stored.
The DPA has been regular contact with Facebook on the issue over the last couple of months, said Johannes Caspar, head of the agency, on Friday. Facebook is supposed to come back with a solution that is satisfactory for the DPA by Oct. 15, he said.
"There are a lot of detailed questions that are not solved at this point," Caspar said. "For me, it's disappointing to see how long we have to discuss these things."

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TECHNOLOGY, What's In Your Facebook File? More Than You Think

Pop quiz: What do Facebook and the FBI have in common? They’re both keeping files on you – only Facebook’s is probably a lot more extensive.
No, this is not paranoia. Thanks to European privacy laws, Facebook friends across the pond can request their complete Facebook logs -- the same files Facebook would send to law enforcement agencies pursuant to a court order.
As Forbes blogger Kashmir Hill reports, the Europe vs. Facebook site has posted a handful of redacted copies of Facebook dossiers. The file for one user who’s been an active member since 2007 runs to 780 printed pages – and hers isn’t the largest one.

Meet Your Secret Facebook Dossier
What’s in that file? More than you might think. Aside from the usual stuff people can glean from your public account, your Facebook file lists your credit card numbers, if you’ve provided any, and a whole lot more.
As they say on TV cop shows, anything contained within your Facebook file may be used against you in a court of law – as well as by divorce attorneys, people who are suing you, or private investigators just looking for dirt.
Here’s some of the information your Facebook file can reveal, as well as how it might be used.
Whom you’ve been avoiding. The document lists every friend request and how you responded – including people you’ve quietly turned away. So my mother isn’t good enough to be in your friends list, eh?
Whom you’ve been poking. The file lists every person you’ve poked and when you poked them, as well as who’s poked you back. It seems you’ve been having a nice little pokefest with your best friend’s spouse; what other kinds of poking have you two been up to?
Where you were last summer. Your dossier notes every time you’ve logged into Facebook and the IP address you used, as well as any check-ins you made. The IP address alone can give you a general idea of someone’s location; matched up with information from an ISP account, it can get pretty exact. So you said you were in Seattle on the dates in question, but you logged into Facebook six times from Los Angeles; would you care to explain that to the jury, Mr. Simpson?
What you were really doing. The file records every Facebook event you’ve been invited to, and how you RSVP’d. It’s not proof you actually attended an event you said “yes” to, but it’s enough to raise suspicion. So you claimed to be in Des Moines on a business trip last February, but you RSVP’d to that Swinging Singles Weekend in Cancun. I’ll just have my divorce attorney draw up the papers…
Whom you’ve been chatting up. Chat and message logs, including content, are also part of the files – including messages you’ve deleted. Hope you haven’t been having naughty sex chat with someone who isn’t your significant other, because Facebook never forgets.

You may have deleted that message, but Facebook hasn't.
Other info in the file: The unique ID of every computer you’ve used to log on, the apps you’ve installed, alternate names you use, groups you belong to, photos you’ve uploaded, political and religious views, and much more. So even if you’ve made this stuff private online, it’s there in your file for any one with a court order (or who's expert at pretexting) to read.
To request your Facebook file you have to provide a scan of a government-issued ID, as well as your mailing address, phone number, the email address you use to log on to Facebook, your correct birthdate (it has to match the one on your Facebook account – so no more lying about your age), and the law under which you are requesting the data. That last one is going to be tough for US members, since there are no laws requiring companies like Facebook disclose this information to ordinary citizens. (Though there should be one, and I bet eventually there will be.)
I made my request citing the US Constitution. In about 40 days I’ll find out if it worked. If it did, I should receive a CD with my Facebook dossier on it contained in a PDF file.
[UPDATE: Guess not. Just got a robo-email saying Facebook won't comply with my request, "as this form is only applicable in certain jurisdictions." Now I really do want a law like the EU has.]
If you just want to archive your Facebook activity, you can do that from your Accounts page. But it won’t contain any of those juicy nuggets that the cops, PIs, and divorce attorneys crave.
Got a question about social media? TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan may have the answer (and if not, he’ll make something up). Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blog eSarcasm or follow him on Twitter:

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TECHNOLOGY, New Facebook Features: 4 Privacy Concerns

With Facebook's new Timelines and Open Graph apps, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has advanced his vision of a world that loves to share. Profile pages will soon summarize your life's history, and apps are now able to feed a steady stream of activity to friends and followers automatically.
Of course, these changes raise red flags for Facebook users who prefer to stay more private. Here are four new privacy concerns that stem from the social networking giant's new features:
Every Friend Sees the Whole Timeline
Facebook Timelines are supposed to tell the story of your life, which is great for people you know and trust. But Facebook users have a tendency to befriend people they just met and--without setting up elaborate filters to control who sees what--those new acquaintances can easily access your life story as well.
Ideal Solution: Facebook should create a "limited Timeline" option, so users can restrict access for people they don't entirely trust.
More Friend Details for Everyone
Your friend list is public on Facebook. That's just the way it is. But because your Timeline displays this information by year, and in some cases by month, someone who doesn't know you can easily see when you became friends with other users. This may seem alarming for users who want to share as little information as possible with strangers.
Ideal Solution: Facebook should let users show the old profiles to the public, or let them make friend lists private.
You Must Share It All
With Facebook's Open Graph, apps may now automatically share your activity to other users. Once you've allowed this, there's no way to prevent sharing individual items, like the song you're embarrassed to listen to or the bar you didn't want to be seen at. It's all or nothing now.
Ideal Solution: Apps should create simple on-off switches for sharing, so users can go dark.
The Big Picture
It's unsettling to think about the broader concept Facebook has in mind for Open Graph apps. Facebook has given app developers the tools make all our online activity a matter of public record. As more apps participate, users will have more opportunities to abandon privacy and share everything with their friends or with the world.
Using the Internet out in the open may become the new normal, as everyone feels the pressure to share. For this, there's no easy solution.
Follow Jared on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ for even more tech news and commentary.

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TECHNOLOGY, How to Restore Your Facebook Email Notification Settings

Facebook had a busy few weeks. It rolled out a new privacy suite and friends list feature, it redesigned the News Feed and announced new profiles. In the middle of those changes, Facebook also started testing a new feature that overrides all your original email notification settings.
Facebook seems to have had good intentions with this feature. It's acknowledged before that it believes email is a thing of the past, and the new feature does significantly reduce how much email it sends you. Instead of emailing you as your original preferences indicated, Facebook will send you an email once a week with a summary of what happened.
While this feature might be a attractive to some, it does pose a problem: Not only does Facebook automatically opt you in, you no longer immediately know when you have a new friend request, when someone sends you a message, comments on your posts or posts something to your wall.
This could be a concern if you've opened up your profile to Subscriptions, which I've found several problems with, as you will likely want to know who posts what to your wall, when it happens.
New friend requests and new messages are indicated at the top of your Facebook page with a small number, but it's easy to overlook them. If you want to reset your email preferences to your original settings, here's what to do.
[Want more tips, tricks and analysis on Facebook? Check out CIO.com's Facebook Bible.]
First, click the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your Facebook homepage and select Account Settings. Click Notifications on the left-side menu and uncheck the box at the top below Email Frequency.
Below that, you'll see a list of your notifications from today, and past notifications from the week before. Following that section is "All Notifications," where your original notification settings should be saved. Click the Edit button next to each section to view which emails you will receive and tweak them if necessary.


Facebook has added significantly more notification options--and,it appears, has opted you in to all of them. If you do choose to restore your original settings and opt out of the summary emails, be sure to adjust every setting under each group to ensure you're only receiving emails that are important to you.

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TECHNOLOGY, Facebook and Spotify Drop the Other Shoe

Recently, Facebook announced a new music service that incorporates streaming music services with such partners as Spotify, Rhapsody, Mog, Rdio, iHeartRadio, and Slacker. The idea is that when Facebook members listen to music from one of these services, they can elect to share a constantly updating playlist of tracks they’re playing. Those “friends” who have access to the same music service can then also play this music simply by clicking on a link to the track.
I commented on what this might mean in "Facebook and the Future of Music". One vital piece of information missing at the time was that, in at least one case we now know of, Facebook membership is a requirement to belong to the service. That service is Spotify.
According to a Spotify representative: “New accounts require Facebook to log in and this is a worldwide initiative. To us, this is all about creating an amazing new world of music discovery. To make this as good and simple as it possibly can be, we’ve integrated Spotify login with Facebook login. By adopting Facebook’s login, we’ve created a simple and seamless social experience. Once a user is logged in they can control what to share to each of their networks from the preferences menu in Spotify.”
I’ve checked in with some of the other music services, and both Mog and Rhapsody tell me that while they’re participating in Facebook’s music service, they are not exclusive to it. You can have a Mog or Rhapsody account without also having a Facebook account. Each of these services additionally offer its own social networking service.
Putting aside the issue of whether this really is about “creating an amazing new world of music discovery” or the more likely matter of Spotify increasing its revenue thanks to better placement and a piece of the action, it very definitely puts Facebook in an important place in the music business. It’s now a significant music distributor and in the position to make demands of music companies as well as promote particular labels, artists, and publishers to millions of Facebook users.
Yes, I have Facebook issues
I’m not a fan of Facebook—I dropped my Facebook account more than a year ago thanks to what I considered the company’s pernicious privacy policies. So you’re forgiven for swallowing a grain of salt prior to believing, like me, that this isn’t a particularly good thing.
There’s a succinct phrase floating around the Internet that goes, “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” This is how Google, Facebook, and other such services operate. You’re offered these services not because of the philanthropic tendencies of these companies but rather because you have something of value that they want—your personal information. This information gets churned with the information of countless other individuals and sold to advertisers, who use it to find ways to more efficiently market their stuff. This includes targeting individuals for particular products.
In order for this scheme to work, these forces must collect as much information about you as possible. And, in the case of Facebook, this means making it difficult for you to prevent that information from being shared. Time and again the company changes its policy settings—sometimes without your knowledge—so that more of your information is made available. If you’re aware of these changes you can attempt to change them back to more restrictive settings, but it’s not often easy to do that, as the settings are designed to be confusing. Additionally, most people either aren’t savvy enough to understand the implications of their inaction or are too busy to bother.
The company has made a habit of stepping too far over the privacy line, backing off when enough voices are raised, waiting for things to cool down, and then testing the waters again. These are not the acts of a company that values privacy but rather one that continues to push the limits of what its users and the law will allow.
Given this, do I really trust Facebook to be Simon Pure in regard to promoting music? Of course not. Nor does this do much for my faith in Spotify.
But it does make me think that Apple now has a significant opportunity.
Where Apple fits
As I said in last week’s piece, Apple has shown no signs of wanting to get into the subscription music business. The $25-a-year iTunes Match music service will allow you to wirelessly download music you own that can be found at the iTunes Store as well as upload music that isn’t in the iTunes Store, but there’s no option for streaming or downloading music you don’t own, as you can with Spotify, Rhapsody, Napster, Rdio, and Mog.
Suppose this streaming thing catches on—that Facebook demonstrates that people do like to swap playlists and immediately play and collect music recommended by their friends. How could Apple respond?
First, it could offer such a service without demanding your Internet life and soul in exchange. Rather than forcing you into a Web browser to listen to music streams, it could provide streams through iTunes, Apple TVs, and iOS devices. If you like the social experience, Apple could keep the name Ping, scrap the original service that went by that name, and make it an effective and enjoyable way to share music with your friends. Video streaming is also an option. And, like Facebook, it could launch the service and make it available to the millions of people who already have a relationship with the company in the form of an Apple ID.
But why trust Apple more than Facebook or Google or any other company? Of course there’s always the chance that Apple will go more heavily into the advertising business than its initial iAds foray so never say never but, unlike Facebook, advertising isn’t Apple’s reason for being. The company is doing quite well selling us tangible objects and apps—”real” things rather than enticements. This gives me hope.
I’m on record saying that I find music subscription a terrific way to listen to scads of music and I suspect that as people are exposed to it—from whatever service—they too will find the value in it. Once we’re over the hump of believing it’s sinful to “rent” music, I pray Apple’s there to provide a workable and trustworthy alternative to the Facebook trap. In the meantime, I’m dropping Spotify; sticking with Rhapsody, Napster, Mog, and Rdio; and keeping my fingers crossed that Apple has plans along these lines.

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TECHNOLOGY, Facebook Timeline: A Narcissist's Dream Come True

I believe it was Orwell who said, "He who controls the past controls the future." Well, now we finally know who "he" is: Mark Zuckerberg.
Last week, the world's youngest billionaire CEO unveiled a dramatic new look for Facebook, ripping up the old interface in favor of something called Timeline.
Timeline is essentially about Facebooking your entire life, from birth unto death, in words, photos, videos, and pointless status updates. It is Facebook's attempt to get you hooked and never let you go, to keep you on Facebook 24/7 except maybe for potty breaks. (Even then, the company wants you to bring it into the toilet on your iPad.) Imagine one of those slideshows they used to present at wedding receptions, depicting the bride and groom from childhood through the blessed event, only this one never ends -- ever.

Facebook product wrangler/Scotch slinger Sam Lessin, one of the key people behind the creation of Timeline, called the old Facebook profile "the single biggest lost opportunity in the history of human story telling" -- skipping right over the unfinished novels of Austin, Melville, Fitzgerald, Capote, and Jacqueline Susann -- but no more, now that Timeline is upon us. (Methinks someone's been spending too much time in the Hyberbolic Chamber.)
Naturally, the social media mafia were drooling all over themselves. This post from Mashable's Ben Parr was possibly the most gag-inducing:

The changes Facebook will roll out ... are designed to enhance the emotional connection its users have to each other through Facebook. These changes will make Facebook a place where nearly everything in your life is enhanced by your social graph. These changes will make it so you know your friends better than you ever thought you could.
On Thursday, developers will be elated, users will be shellshocked and the competition will look ancient. On Thursday, Facebook will be reborn. Prepare yourselves for the evolution of social networking.

But everything wasn't coming up roses and daffodils on the blogosphere.
The geeks at Buzzfeed almost immediately found a privacy flaw (quelle surprise!) that allowed Timeline users to go back and figure out which of their alleged friends had quietly unfriended them. (Facebook has since fixed that bug.)
The exceedingly droll Chris Davies of SlashGear says Timeline is perfect for those self-obsessed narcissists that ooze across the Web like snails after a rainstorm. The rest of us? Not so much.

Look. You're a special person. Really special. And I like you a lot. But I'm not particularly interested in browsing through my own baby photos, nor my partner's, and unsurprisingly that means I'm really falling short when it comes to enthusiasm about seeing yours.

Dan Lyons (the satirist formerly known as Fake Steve Jobs) maxed out his yearly budget for sarcasm with this post:

And all of the rest of the world seems shabby and dull and boring and ancient -- just as Mashable predicted. Google, poor old Google, looks like a**. My brand-new MacBook Air, which only last week gave me joy unlike anything I'd ever felt in my life, now sits on my desk, just a dead, lifeless hunk of brushed aluminum. Everything, in fact, has lost its color. I go outside and stand in the yard and gaze up at the sky and I say, Why? Why, sky? Why do you look like s***? You look just the same as ever, just blue sky and white clouds. Why can't you change the way Facebook changes?

The eSarcasm staff predicts that Timeline will be combined with time travel, allowing Facebook members to dive back into the past to comment on updates before they've even appeared. That one I actually believe.
My take on Timeline? I don't know; Facebook hasn't deigned to open that feature up to me yet. But as Chris Davies notes, even I'm not sure I find my life that fascinating; why would a stranger?
Have you got Facebook Timeline yet and if so, has your life been profoundly changed? Weigh in below or email me: cringe@infoworld.com.
This article, "Facebook Timeline: A narcissist's dream come true," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the crazy twists and turns of the tech industry with Robert X. Cringely's Notes from the Field blog, and subscribe to Cringely's Notes from the Underground newsletter.

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TECHNOLOGY, Anatomy of a Chain Hoax: 'Facebook Charging $9.99 Tomorrow!'

What? Facebook charges? Yes, apparently, Facebook will be charging for access from tomorrow. Are they serious? Yes, it must be true: I read it on my Facebook feed. Please. Let's dissect this unbelievable craziness, in The Long View...
Hey, look what I found in my Facebook feed. Here we go again...

FACEBOOK JUST RELEASED THEIR PRICE GRID FOR MEMBERSHIP. $9.99 PER MONTH FOR GOLD MEMBER SERVICES, $6.99 PER MONTH FOR SILVER MEMBER SERVICES, $3.99 PER MONTH FOR BRONZE MEMBER SERVICES

Yes, it's time (once again) for the "Facebook will start charging" hoax. Oh brother.
And this time, there's bribery involved. Even if you might suspect the message is a hoax, there's a good "just in case" reason to give it the benefit of the doubt:
FREE IF YOU COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE BEFORE MIDNIGHT TONIGHT. WHEN YOU SIGN ON TOMORROW MORNING YOU WILL BE PROMPTED FOR PAYMENT INFO...
Still wonder if it's legit? No problem, we got your back:
IT IS OFFICIAL IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES.
Oh well, if it was ON THE NEWS, that must make it real. After all, everything "on the news" is legit, right? What was that call to action again?
IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU.
Right, yes, OK. But I still kinda wonder if I might look foolish if I fall for it. Perhaps I should just risk being charged $9.99.
PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO
Yikes! OK, OK, copying and pasting as we speak...
Ahem. Still think people wouldn't be so daft to fall for this hoax? Check out this real-time Facebook search page. Scary.
And that déjà vu you're experiencing? Do you remember the rumor in January that Facebook was shutting down because Zuckerberg wanted his life back?

Did you fall for it? Leave a comment below...
Richi Jennings is an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. As well as The Long View, he's also the creator and main author of Computerworld's IT Blogwatch -- for which he has won American Society of Business Publication Editors and Jesse H. Neal awards on behalf of IDG Enterprise. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, you can follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: TLV@richij.com. You can also read Richi's full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

For more enterprise computing news, visit Computerworld. Story copyright © 2011 Computerworld Inc. All rights reserved.

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TECHNOLOGY, In Defense of the New Facebook

Shortly after Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a major overhaul to Facebook at the company's f8 conference last week, some informal surveys and Facebook chatter found many users are not fans of the changes. But are Timeline, media integration, and the introduction of Open Graph apps really that bad?
I personally can't wait for Timeline to roll out on my Facebook account. Mark Zuckerberg said at f8 that the redesign to the user profile section will compile past posts, pictures, and activities to help show "the story of your life." Zuckerberg may be overselling the concept a bit, and it remains to be seen how well the underlying algorithm picks and chooses compelling moments from my past activity, but Timeline is a long-overdue upgrade that will finally make profile pages actually provide a user profile.Timeline (click to enlarge)
Right now, profiles are anchored by a user's wall -- a disorganized stream of consciousness from me, people I know, and people I don't really know. Click the "Info" tab to get a more traditional user profile, based on static information gathered at some point in the past from a single questionnaire. A huge social network like Facebook can do better than that and now it is. Timeline could finally deliver a constantly-updating, algorithm-based profile. Hasn't every Tumblr blogger wished sometimes to automatically update their feed without taking all that time to actually synthesize their thoughts and write?
More Media, More Sharing
I suspect that Facebook's efforts at integrating media services like Spotify and Netflix into the network won't go down exactly as intended. I don't expect to spend much time simultaneously watching or listening to something with my Facebook friends. Perhaps that will happen in the youngest demographics, but I'm more excited about the prospect of Facebook as the ultimate discovery engine for music and other media. This is why social is supposed to be so exciting, right? The capability to tap in to your network to recommend new tunes and TV shows is something all media services try to integrate. Few have succeeded because they lack the critical mass of users that Facebook has.
The promise of other Open Graph apps only expands this universe of opportunities to collaborate, discover, and share. Need a jogging partner on short notice, or a recipe recommendation from a friend whose tastes you trust? Soon it could all be within reach in one place.
Creepy Factor?
But isn't all this a little bit scary? What about privacy? Do I really want the world to know how many times I listened to Pit Bull and Nicki Minaj last week?

Yes, Facebook continues to cultivate an ever-increasing creepy factor. I don't like Mark Zuckerberg's apparent disdain for the very concept of privacy. This is why the backlash seen in the past week is good. It helps keep Facebook and Zuckerberg in check by raising important concerns, boosting the public's awareness of possible issues, and pressuring Facebook to include all sorts of opt-out and privacy controls.
As PCWorld's Jared Newman points out, this is just the latest in a string of backlashes against changes to Facebook that shove us into sharing more of ourselves on the social network. There was a freak-out when the feed of friends' status updates and activities first debuted, and now it's the heart of the network. Facebook is going to keep pushing us to be more public, and we should keep pushing back, but so far the benefits have outweighed the costs for most users. These new changes are a particularly strong shove, but I don't think we've neared the point of being pushed off a cliff just yet.

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TECHNOLOGY, Spotify Music Service Opens to All; Gains Facebook Streaming

Online music sharing service Spotify dropped its invite-only status in the United States, opening the doors of the service to everyone.
Music listeners who sign up for the service will receive unlimited access to its library of more than 15 million tunes for six months. After that, the standard limits on a free subscription will kick in: 10 hours of listening per month, and during that period no one song can be listened to more than five times.
Spotify music serviceThe service also has two paid plans. For $4.99, it has no time limits and no advertising. For $9.99, you have the added benefit of being able to download the songs in your online playlists to a mobile device and play them offline.
The free part of the service is by far the most popular. In Europe, for example, where Spotify has some 50 million subscribers, only 1 million subscribe to one of the paid plans.
Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek leaked the news of the move to TechCrunch writer Alexia Tsotsis at the Facebook F8 developer's conference.
Dismantling of the invite-only system will take some time, Ek told Tsotsis, but people can obtain immediate access to the offer by registering for Spotify through Facebook.
Spotify's partnership with Facebook was announced yesterday at F8. Ek, writing in a company blog, explained why Facebook integration was a natural for the service. "We knew that the service had to be free to draw people away from piracy," he wrote. "To do that, we also knew that the service would have to be inherently social. There couldn’t be a better place to do this than Facebook."
What Facebook users will start seeing in their news feeds are Spotify music posts from their friends. Click on the post, and a song will play. Other Spotify Facebook features include a music dashboard and a real-time ticker to see the trending music tastes of your Facebook buddies.
There are some questions, though, about just how integrated Spotify is with Facebook. PCWorld's Mark Sullivan made this observation after viewing a one-on-one demo of Spotify working within Facebook: "When the Facebook guy giving the demo clicked on a song that one of his friends was listening to on Spotify ... the desktop Spotify app popped up to play the music."
"He told me," Sullivan continued, "that there is no 'canvas app' for Spotify, which, he explained, means that there’s no Spotify app that runs entirely inside Facebook, as Farmville [does]. That means you have to have both the Spotify desktop app and Facebook running to achieve the cool music sharing/syncing tricks shown at F8 today."
In his blog post, Ek suggested that bringing Spotify to Facebook could revive the music industry. "Social discovery on Facebook means that we’re bringing people back to paying for music again," he wrote. "And that's how the brilliant artists who create this music can continue creating it for us to enjoy."
We wonder if Ek is aware of the irony in that statement. One of Facebook's founders is Sean Parker, who, with the release of Napster, started the precipitous spiral the music industry is in now. How ironic it would be if a company connected to Parker could be a savior of the industry he helped destabilize.

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TECHNOLOGY, Facebook as Media Hub: Shortcomings, Questions and Worries

Facebook ushered in a whole new phase in its history with the announcement of real-time media sharing Thursday. Most of us have used Facebook primarily as a communication and scrapbooking tool until now, but we may find ourselves consuming and sharing a lot of music and video there in the future.
As Mark Zuckerberg puts it, Facebook users have gotten used to “liking” content they think is cool or interesting, but now they’ll be able to click on that content and actually go listen, watch, read or play it. It’s a huge shift in the way we’ll experience Facebook.
Yesterday, when all this was announced, much of the focus among tech media and analysts was on the face-value appeal, the cool factor of Facebook-as-real-time media-hub. But, naturally, the initial buzz of the new features wears off, and then it’s time to think about shortcomings, flaws, potential problems.
Will It Feel Spammy?
Facebook will now let me see the media my friends are consuming, in real time in the new “ticker” at the right of the page. Fine. But wait, what if I don’t want all my friends on Facebook spamming me (in the ticker) with stuff they’re watching, cooking, or listening to? “Spam” is a hard word, but some of my friends, while I love them, have horrible taste in music and/or videos and/or food, and I’d rather not know what they’re listening to, cooking and watching. So those items in my ticker will feel like spam to me.
A Facebook spokeswoman tells me the only way to keep those “Josh is listening to ‘Cherry Pie’ by Warrant” or “Josh is preparing Tripe L’Orange” messages out of my ticker is to hide Josh’s updates in my newsfeed. But I don't have a problem with Josh’s updates--I want to keep tabs on him--I just don't want to know about his music/movie/foody tastes. He simply isn’t a “taste maker” for me in those areas.
Where’s the App?
While I was getting the one-on-one demo of the music apps in Facebook, I noticed an interesting thing. When the Facebook guy giving the demo clicked on a song that one of his friends was listening to on Spotify (Facebook’s marquee music partner), the desktop Spotify app popped up to play the music. He told me that there is no “canvas app” for Spotify, which, he explained, means that there’s no Spotify app that runs entirely inside Facebook, like Farmville. That means you have to have both the Spotify desktop app and Facebook running to achieve the cool music sharing/syncing tricks shown at f8 today. I hope a real Spotify Facebook app emerges soon.
Timeline Not Searchable
Facebook’s Timeline is supposed to “tell your life story” by choosing and displaying important photos, updates and “likes” from your years of using Facebook. It determines what content is important and not important by the number of “likes” or comments it got when it was posted, a Facebook rep told me.
But Facebook’s algorithm will never be as good as my own judgment and memory when it comes to determining which of my posts are most important--the ones that document some life-changing event or ones that express something uniquely me. I remember these events or posts, but Facebook provides no way for me to search through all the content I’ve stored in Facebook to find them. It’s surprising that something so obvious and basic did not end up in the Timeline feature. Hopefully it will be added in an update later.
If I Build It Will They Come?
But there are ways to control what content is displayed in your timeline. You can remove the content Facebook finds and places in your timeline, or you can affix a “star” to pieces of content the algorithm found that you think are really important. Facebook also provides some cool ways of showing only specific kinds of content--the music you’ve liked or posted about down through the months and years, for example.
But after you do all this work to create the perfect picture of your life on Facebook, Facebook gives you no good way to share that picture with your friends. There’s no share button to invite people to have a look at your “life story.” How did that get left out? The Facebook representative I talked to said the only way of inviting people to look at your timeline is to just post an update saying “Hey y’all come and check out my Timeline.”
Lots of Privacy Questions Remain Fuzzy
Facebook is creating a platform where you can find out about new content of all kinds from your friends, and even experience that content in real time with them. From a user point of view that’s a pretty cool thing, but with Facebook putting itself in the center of it all as intermediary gives it an extraordinary amount of power.

Why? Because every song or movie (or book or news article or game) you like or consume is associated with your Facebook account and carefully logged in your “social graph” on Facebook’s servers. If it were just yours or my musical interests it wouldn’t be a big deal. But Facebook will be learning and recording the tastes and buying habits of huge blocks of users with similar tastes. Even if that information is kept as anonymous, aggregate buckets of data, all kinds of content sellers can learn a lot about what kinds of users buy what, and when and where and why.
And why wouldn’t Facebook share that information with its partners like Spotify? They’ve shared user data with app partners before. What law says that Facebook can’t directly associate your Facebook ID with your "taste" data and sell it to the highest bidder? Is “opting out” of Facebook media apps the only way to prevent this?
What Now?
As for the feature omissions I mentioned above, there’s a good chance Facebook will build them in over time. Meanwhile, the privacy community (privacy groups, educators, lawyers, pundits, etc.) will give the new timeline and media sharing features a good going-over, and squawk loudly about the parts it believes expose sensitive user data. Then Facebook will act contrite and announce that it has corrected one-tenth of the problem, leaving most of the user data in question still exposed. Then Facebook will do it all over again with the next new set of features. Why does Facebook do that? Because that is the Facebook way.

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Facebook and the Future of Music

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

At Facebook's f8 conference Thursday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed some of the details of the Facebook Music Service, which is tied to its new Timeline feature. Essentially, it will allow you to populate your Facebook timeline with a constantly updating list of the music you're listening to from services such as Spotify, Rhapsody, MOG, Rdio, Slacker, iHeartRadio and others.

Those viewing your wall can then click on a track in your playlist and have it immediately stream to their computer, provided that they're also subscribed to the streaming music service. (The details are hazy on whether this is a service-independent solution. So, for example, if you're subscribed to Spotify and your friend is using Rhapsody, will your friend be able to stream that track from Rhapsody?) We'll learn details as they're revealed. In the meantime, there's the question of what impact this may have on the consumption, delivery, and marketing of music.

With you gonna call?

At one time, radio and, later, MTV, determined what would and wouldn't populate the top of the music charts. As radio's listenership has declined and MTV has become increasingly irrelevant to music fans, very little has risen to take its place. While we may have access to millions of tracks thanks to the iTunes Store, Pandora, and various music subscription services, it's difficult to choose what to listen to. Where do you go for guidance?

For many people, the answer lies in their youth--from your friends. Whether it's going to your pal's house and listening to the hip-hop CD he's just purchased, sharing an earbud with your girlfriend, or getting a text from the kid down the street about the song that closed out Glee, we often rely on people whose taste we trust to tell us what's worth listening to.

The problem is that, up to this point, this scheme hasn't been implemented very well. Streaming music services have added social networking components, but it's been a hard sell because most people don't see the value in "renting" their music, thus making it difficult to find friends who belong to one of these services.

No. 1 with a bullet

What Facebook is proposing is to throw its significant user base at the problem. Instead of asking a friend to go out of their way to view your playlist on a music service's website or follow a link that you've tweeted, emailed, or texted, they can simply visit your wall, take a gander at what you're listening to, and click. If they're not subscribed to a particular service, they'll likely be offered the opportunity to join or take the service for a trial spin. Do that and not only can you listen to the streaming music, but you can open a chat window to talk about it with your friend.

This is, of course, a potentially enormous boon for music streaming services. More than anything that's been tried before, this will tempt a lot of people to try one of these services. If the experience is transparent and the price of entry not too painful, it could significantly shift people's attitudes about "renting" music.

And that could be an interesting challenge for Apple and other services that sell music. If you can have access to virtually anything ever recorded (and you put little thought into what that access costs over time), there's less motivation to own music. Apple's iTunes Match, while cloud-based, doesn't address this issue because it works only with music that you own.

Of course Apple may have plans to get into the subscription game as well. It has the contacts and catalog, it certainly has the means of delivery, and it has control of the most popular portable music players on the planet. Given that, it could trump Facebook's efforts, which, at this early date, look a little clumsy given that they're tied to a browser. But, up to this point, Apple hasn't strayed from its "People want to own their music" stance.

Giving them the business

Facebook isn't doing this out of the desire to see the world become a more musical place. It is undoubtedly going to make money from the music services that push content through Facebook. And the music you listen to and share is yet another data point that Facebook can sell to those entities who pay for this kind of information.

It will have an effect on music marketing as well. Certainly we'll see music labels and other related businesses pour their acts and partners' work into the timelines on their walls. Celebrities and "trusted sources" will also pump their timelines full of music. So while there is a measure of democratization here, we'll want to keep an eye on services that are promoted to tell us what to listen to, just as radio was tasked with this job in past decades. The less bleak side of this tarnished coin is that artists will also have the opportunity to stream their music to fans and friends.

But perhaps the most intriguing angle is that we are now a source to be wooed and pitched. Your voice, among the millions, matters to those who are promoting a particular artist or label. To what lengths is the music industry willing to go to promote and reward "taste makers" who influence large numbers of "friends?"

This is music worth watching.

For more Macintosh computing news, visit Macworld. Story copyright © 2011 Mac Publishing LLC. All rights reserved.

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ShareSafe App Scans Facebook Links for Malware

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

Facebook users worried about the risk of clicking on malicious links while using the social networking service are being offered a new app web that filters friend from foe.

Available as a live beta, ShareSafe from F-Secure uses "patent-pending" technology to scan links users plan to send to friends, or do the same in reverse when links arrive from other sources. Once installed, users simply navigate to the Sharesafe page where links can be pasted for security testing.

The app spreads virally by branding itself next to every scanned link sent out to friends and by asking for permission to recommend itself to a user's Facebook friends directly, which underlines the vendor's motivation for offering it as a free utility.

Cleverly, F-secure also offers points for every scanned link as long as it is also "shared" (i.e the F-Secure brand gets some exposure), which can be redeemed against paid products from the company such as its PC or mobile antivirus software or online backup service. (See also "How to Avoid Malware.").

"People now share via social media more than by any other method. Online criminals and tricksters are exploiting this to make money from spam, scams and malware," said F-Secure security advisor, Sean Sullivan. "ShareSafe is a fun application that also provides a useful service for family and friends, making Facebook a safer place for everyone."

Add-on apps and services that check links sent within social media sites have become a new frontline for security vendors with Symantec offering an identical Facebook scanner earlier this year. Similar issues exist in Twitter, hence BitDefender's recently announced app, Safego for checking out other users on the service.

As ever, making money from such apps and services is nigh impossible; vendors are battling here for mindshare not market share.

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