Application developer RockYou has been sued in Federal Court because of a security breach resulting in exposure of millions of email addresses and other personal information. The plaintiff is seeking class action status. Interestingly, the legal theory is based on a recklessness standard. Lawsuits like this present another good reason for publishers to outsourse functions like user login to providers such as JanRain, Facebook Connect, etc. Staying ahead of hackers is a never ending process. Storing such information can be dangerous. More from the article in MediaPost:

An Indiana resident has sued application developer RockYou for an alleged security breach that exposed 32 million users’ email addresses and passwords and social networking log-ins.

“While some security threats are unavoidable in a rapidly developing technological environment, RockYou recklessly and knowingly failed to take even the most basic steps to protect its users’ [personally
identifiable information],” the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit, brought on behalf of Evansville’s Alan Claridge, alleges that until Dec. 5, RockYou stored users’ information without “hashing, salting or any other common and reasonable method of data protection.”

Claridge is seeking class-action status. The complaint, filed Monday in federal district court in the northern district of California by the law firm KamberEdelson, alleges that RockYou broke its contract with users, was negligent, and also violated various California laws.

Full article from MediaPost

Here is something interesting.  Facebook is considering “virtual currency.”  With a platform similar to PayPal, built into Facebook Connect,  Facebook users apparently will be able to purchase virtual currency and then use it to make transactions through Facebook. This will eliminate the need to use credit cards to purchase virtual gifts.  So basically what this means is that if there is a website that uses Facebook connect, for example the Red Bull website, you can get on the website and purchase a case of Red Bull using your Facebook virtual currency and it will be deducted from your Facebook account.  With just the click of a button you can purchase anything, as long as the site uses Facebook connect, and you will not have to use your credit card, which will save yourself all the unnecessary risks.  Virtual Currency is also expected to bring in an amazing amount of revenue to Facebook. By doing your transactions through Facebook, according to Mashable, you will be saving yourself time and money. Personally, I think it is a fascinating and fabulous idea.

 Here is the link if you would like to learn more: http://mashable.com/2009/03/28/facebook-virtual-currency/

As an early adopter of Linkedin, the most well known professional networking tool, I’ve seen the service grow from obscurity to household name.  When I first tried to get my family and friends to use it and thereby grow my network, no one would  sign up for fear that their email inbox would be full of spam.  But gradually, as more news hit the main stream media, people began to adopt the service.  Flash forward to today where people give you that “are you kidding me?” look if you haven’t signed up yet, and you see how far we’ve come.

Most of the excitement about Linkedin in the early days, before everyone had an account, was about what the service could be.  It was an amazing idea – everyone would link with others they could recommend and would recommend them back, and through 6 degrees of separation, you would have access to a wealth of professional contacts.  A few years later, that all seems obvious, but back then it was a pretty remarkable step forward in using the internet for networking.

But market dominance can lead to apathy.  In many ways Linkedin has been slow to adapt to the different ways users wanted to benefit from the service.  It took a long time for Linkedin to open up it’s groups functionality to everyone (it was originally limited to a select group of users), and it took even longer to allow new groups to be listed in the groups directory (only those that were “grandfathered” in were listed).   Even after the groups directory open up to all, it was only within the past few months that Linkedin opened up its application programming interface (API) to developers to make Linkedin widgets and applications for mobile phones and websites.

This sluggishness in terms of offering new features resulted in a loss of market share to sites like Facebook, Plaxo, and host of smaller sites that filled into various niche spaces.  Professional networking sites now litter the cybermap, from OneWire to Xing, Spoke, PartnerUp and Ryze, though Linkedin is still the largest.

All this speaks to the idea that a company can’t be everything to everyone, and so perhaps Linkedin was right to keep its service relatively unchanging and inflexible.  After all, Facebook is a social networking site, and competing with companies in other spaces might tend to dilute the Linkedin brand.  Still, the proliferation of sites in various niches suggests that some opportunities to offer new features were probably missed.

One of the most interesting sites to capture a niche left by Linkedin is BrazenCareerist.  If there is anything that has been a source of frustration for a young professional, it is that Linkedin is tailored toward more experienced workers.  Recommendations from multiple sources count for a lot, and having a larger network increases prospects of actually finding a job through Linkedin.  BrazeenCareerist aims to capture the market of workers with less experience by creating a forum for conversation, so that site members can showcase their ideas as much as their experience.

Overall, I like the site because of the ease of use.  The Facebook Connect feature makes registration very easy.  It was a few clicks and in.  The service integrates with your address books in Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo and others, which makes locating friends simple.

Another nice feature of the site is the ability to network with others with similar interests.  Indeed, this is the main attraction of the site.  There are groups for freelance writers, WordPress bloggers, those who like to cook, fans of Boston, Lost (the tv show) fans, and even “Couch Potatoes.”

The only drawback is the absence of features like professional recommendations and profiles for companies.  That being said, since the site is aimed at “Generation Y” users with less professional experience, it comes very close to accomplishing its goal of creating an alternative professional networking site for that demographic.  It is not as formal perhaps as Linked, but it is certainly more sophisticated than Facebook, which is purely social networking (think people “throwing sheep” at each other).

BrazeenCareerist has a lot of potential to absorb users who’ve been left out of the somewhat inflexible Linkedin model.  The company is adapting to a clear need to serve Gen Y users, and assuming it continues to innovate and build new features, it could become a major contender in the professional networking space.

For more on the site, visit www.BrazenCareerist.com, or read these articles from TechCrunch and Lifehacker.

Greensboo NC

Facebook Greensboro

Greensboro NC Meta Search Directory

I am currently testing http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/faux-facebook-connect/ ( a plugin to allow people to comment via facebook login ). Is this something we would want to allow here?

December 2009 marks the 1 year anniversary of our very favorite Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect was launched on December 4, 2008. Today, Ethan Beard, Director Facebook Developer Network presented a summary of Facebook Connects progress. In a year more than 80,000 websites and devices have implemented Facebook Connect, more than 60 million Facebook Users engage with Facebook connect on external sites and Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have implemented Facebook Connect.

Over the past year Facebook Connect has helped website owners and developers direct traffic towards their site. It is a feature that gives open access to millions of users to share external news, blogs, information etc. on their facebook pages. It also enables users to comment and give feedback on sites. Ethan Beard on the Facebook Developer blog gives an example of the type of services that have used Facebook Connect:

• “Websites: Yahoo!, Huffington Post, YouTube, Bilde.de, MTV, MyVideo.de, Microsoft Live and MSN.com, CNN, Lufthansa, TVGuide.com, NBC.com, Lala, Orbitz, Netflix, Showtime, Yelp, iGoogle, Digg, and MasterCard
• Mobile Applications: Many of the top iPhone apps, including Bejeweled 2, Tap Tap Revenge, USA Today, Scrabble, Rock Band, UrbanSpoon, Doodle Jump, Gowalla, Sportacular, and Movies
• Game Consoles: Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo DSi, Sony PlayStation 3
• Desktop Applications: iTunes, iPhoto, Seesmic, TweetDeck”

Facebook Connect has changed the way we communicate and share information online. Ethan Beard states that the possibilities of Facebook Connect’s growth are endless and this is just the beginning. Ethan Beard was also one of the participants at LeWeb today.

Written for and published on the Amvona Blog

Earth.org has released a new feature: Earth.org travellers can now log onto www.earth.org with their Facebook account. Joining our  Earth.org community has never been so easy.

With one password, one username and one click. Facebook Connect matters. It is changing how we integrate our daily lives with Facebook and throughout the web. For millions of people, Facebook has become their single, most important online identity.

Earth.org now enables every user to take their Facebook identity with them. Earth.org travellers can now create their new account or log onto www.earth.org with absolute convenience – simply by connecting with their Facebook account.

And that is how it works.

• You are new at Earth.org? There is no need to create a new account on Earth.org. Just click on “Login” and you will see the button “Facebook Connect”. Enter your email and password that you use for Facebook and you can start exploring Earth.org.
• You already have an Earth.org account? Log in with your Facebook password and email and we will check your existing account. You can then log in with your Facebook account every time you visit www.earth.org.

Please note: When you log out of Earth.org using Facebook Connect, you will be logged out of Facebook as well. Your privacy settings that are provided on Facebook are retained on Earth.org.

Many thanks to our web application developer Emran Hasan from Bangladesh, who has realised Facebook Connect for Earth.org.

Pete Cashmore has just been crowned the most influential Twitter user. The 24-year-old founder of social media blog Mashable has more than 1.8 million followers on the microblogging site, and is considered a key tastemaker in the technology industry.

Since setting up Mashable in 2005, while working as a web technology consultant, Cashmore has divided his time between his home town of Aberdeen and the bright lights of Silicon Valley. He’s been in Scotland since October, and won’t return to the US until January, relying on his team of 15 full-time bloggers and 50 regular contributors to help him keep on top of the key stories.

“Social media is becoming the web, and social media is becoming the media,” he says. “It’s been a nice area to be covering these last few years, and we’ve been able to grow as a blog alongside it. There’s very little on the web that hasn’t had this social element built in to it. It’s integrated in to every site you use now.”

Things have come a long way since 2006 and 2007, he says, when companies scrambled to build their own platforms to leverage web users’ appetite for user-generated content, social interaction and sharing.

“You were just left with lots of sites that asked you to join their new social network, meaning people had to keep creating new profiles, creating new networks. It wasn’t ideal,” he recalls.

He says services such as Facebook Connect – which allows web users to take their Facebook identity with them when they sign up to new sites – has made the whole process “incredibly simple” for those companies trying to build social features in to their web presence.

“That kind of thing has been key. We’re now in a really good period for integrating social features in to the website.”

He cites the huge success enjoyed by Twitter over the last two years as a case in point, but says their recent real-time search deals with Google and Microsoft came at a crucial moment.

“It did look a bit hairy for Twitter this year,” says Cashmore. “They’ve had this flat period over the last few months. Twitter just isn’t good at user retention. But the Google deal has come along, and I think that is pretty much their salvation.

“It’s given them a revenue stream of what is rumoured to be millions of dollars a month. And it gives them a traffic ‘hosepipe’ that means every time you search for something that’s very ‘now’ on Google, you’re getting results from Twitter. Google’s real-time search is essentially Twitter.”

The halo effect of Twitter’s success has been felt across the blogosphere, he says. “It’s changed the attitude of the readership on blogs. Before Twitter, blogs had a bit of an engagement issue; people didn’t really get comments, readers were consuming things in a more passive way, reading an article and then clicking off to another site.

“One thing that Twitter – and Facebook too, to a degree – have managed is to increase engagement. That’s made blogs like ours much more ’sticky’ – there’s more activity going on, more comments, and people are becoming used to having feedback.”

But Cashmore senses that there may be trouble brewing. The endless debate about how best to balance web users’ desire for privacy against the growing demand for personalised search and location-sensitive social interaction, will be causing lots of companies plenty of headaches in 2010.

“It’s going to be a mess next year. As a society, we’re really pushing towards the inevitable of making more and more information available on the web,” he says. “You can’t put that information back in the bottle once it’s out there. The internet just prefers information to be free.

“Some good things will come out of that, some benefits from people being ’searchable’. It will bring opportunities for connecting and networking and finding other people like you. But you’re going to lose a certain amount of control [over personal information] along the way.”

Cashmore envisages a growing demand for location-based services and “real-time everything” next year. “Location is definitely going to be the next wave,” he predicts. “Especially now there’s GPS and the full web on so many phones.”

While 2009 may have been dominated by Facebook and Twitter, he thinks some smaller social media platforms could enjoy big success in 2010. Among his top picks are Square, the mobile payment start-up founded by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, which lets people take physical payments from credit cards on their mobile phone. “There’s a lot lined up to make that a success,” says Cashmore, referring in part to the $10 million raised by the company in its first round of funding.

He also thinks FourSquare, which combines location awareness with social gaming, could be the next must-use social tool. “I think it will be big next year, especially after South by Southwest [a digital and interactive festival in Texas]. It should see a huge pickup at the gathering of the geeks.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/social-media/6835125/The-man-behind-Mashable.html

Real Facebook applications Company

Social Networks – Why Facebook is the best?

Social Media is the new “in” thing in internet marketing and SMO (social media optimization) is fast growing its roots in internet marketing. Social media is the fastest and most effective way of sharing information, promoting products and increasing potential clientele. The main reason for the success of social media or for that regard social networks is that people tend to believe more on “word of mouth” i.e. real time feedback on products and services rather than traditional advertisements.

There are literally thousands of social networks all aiming to provide its users a platform to connect, share and socialize with other individuals. Facebook however goes a step further than this. The multi-oriented platform presents its users with a wide range of features through which they can not only connect and share but also promote their business and run campaigns for their products!

Facebook is the leading social network at the moment with a user base of over 350 million! The numbers itself speak for the success and popularity of the social networking giants.

Facebook is loaded with many features which provide social media marketing experts the opportunity of expanding their reach to millions. Some of these features include:

Facebook Applications:

This is the most vital element behind the success of Facebook. Applications on the Facebook platform can do wonders when it comes to monetizing products and establishing brand awareness. Most multi-national organizations get services form professional Facebook application developers who create application for Facebook that are engaging as well as viral.

Facebook Fan Pages:

Facebook Fan Pages are a great way to build your company’s online presence on Facebook. Interacting with clients, customers and Fans becomes a lot more fun with Facebook Fan Pages! Launching a new product? Starting a new service? Keep your fans updated with all the news. Post videos, pictures or just start a poll. The Facebook Fan Page is rich in features and Facebook Fan Page developers create custom looking and interactive fan pages so that it looks like your single page website!

Facebook Adverts:

Facebook Adverts are another quick and effective way of promoting your campaign and drawing users towards your products. The platform offers advertisement banners that can be optimized from regional targeting to age groups. You can select over a range of demographics so that your ad targets your niche audience better.

Facebook Connect:

Facebook Connect is a feature introduced exclusively for websites. With Facebook Connect integrated on your website you can easily communicate with and take advantage of the Facebook platform. Easy to use, Facebook Connect allows users to login to websites with their Facebook credentials therefore enabling them to share things with their Facebook network and posting news feeds and notifications on to their Facebook profile.
Social Media has now become an essential ingredient in all marketing recipes and social networks such as Facebook are providing organizations, online agencies and entrepreneurs with a strong social networking tool.

For more visit: http://www.facebookguru.com

Just set up a profile at Huffington Post and was able to link it to my Facebook and Twitter Accounts effortlessly. Also dropped the twitter widget in my sidebar here at WordPress. There will be more tweaks and tips as this site gets up and running, so keep your eyes peeled as this train rolls down the tracks to awesome town.

Using sites like Facebook and Twitter to sync up with other digital profiles not only makes sharing information faster and easier, it also underlines a key shift in how the end user participates with the internet as a whole. Rather than a sea of faceless anonymity, the internet is becoming a place of known names and faces. It is becoming a marketplace of trusted relationships. Sure, anonymous speech and make-believe profiles are still readily available for people to play and create with. I still have a few online handles with no connection to my real name, age, profession or location. But as the internet matures and netizens (remember that awesome word from web 1.0?) integrate Facebook and Twitter with their other online activities, the Anonymous Web have less value for users, marketers and content producers. After all, wouldn’t you rather have a conversation with a person than shout into a murky, formless void?

By Sebastian Anthony, Download squad

First up, Yahoo rescinds almost its entire social network presence in favor of Facebook Connect. And now, the rumors that MySpace would drop their social focus and aim towards a network based on content and entertainment seem to be playing out: MySpace are linking up with Facebook Connect. There’s a lot of juicy info to be had over on the Inside Facebook article, but it seems like MySpace and Facebook could become very tightly entwined, with Facebook managing your profile and MySpace becoming the content provider — the quizzes, the games, the music, the movie trailers.

It would appear that, except for Google and their Friend Connect, social networks are bowing out from their competition with Facebook. With their recently-announced usage figures and their ever-climbing membership that recently hit 350 million, that’s probably a smart move. This was a war that never really heated up, and ultimately had a very predictable outcome. Facebook rule supreme. Microsoft own a sizable share in Facebook, incidentally.

just finished a press release on Facebook Connect, together with Cat.
Now waiting for @Emran and @Valentin and their technical blessing

Remember the old saying, that there are 7 people in the world who looks identical? I’ve no idea if it’s a myth – the only search I got out of Google was Yahoo’s Answers. (I was too lazy to digg in any deeper)

But whether it is true or not, Coke has smartly used it to satisfy people’s curiosity via Facebook Connect. Coke claims to find another you – using its application, Facial Profiler.

How does it work?

The application first goes through pictures you already have in your Facebook account and let’s you choose 3 pictures that is  symmetrical, with some good lighting and of course, the one that you look the best! *wink

It then tries to connect with your computer webbie (if you have one) or else, you could choose to upload a picture from your desktop.

After some loading, matching and some “pssshhhh” (gassy Coke bottle opening up sounds) you’ll be revealed to your identical match!

So did it work?

Apparently I look like this gal below, and Coke says it’s 60% accurate. Maybe it’s my low self-esteem (ahem, suprisingly) but she’s definitely very much prettier than me!

Digital identity war: Facebook Connect integrates with Yahoo, Google Friend Connect with Twitter; http://j.mp/8zUBN1

LONDON  (Source Google)— Doctors in Britain were warned Wednesday not to respond to sexual advances from patients made through social networking sites such as Facebook, as such contacts could breach their ethical duties.

The Medical Defence Union (MDU), which provides legal advice and assistance to medics, said it was aware of several cases where patients propositioned doctors through the sites — and said doctors should stay well clear.

In one case, a female doctor was asked out for a drink by a patient as she left the surgery.

She refused, but the patient continued the requests via Facebook and sent her a bunch of lilies, learning through the site that they were her favourite flowers.

“The pitfalls posed to doctors using social networking sites by inadvertently breaching confidentiality or posting unprofessional content, such as photos, have been well documented,” said Dr. Emma Cuzner, MDU medico-legal adviser.

“But doctors may be less prepared for patients using sites like Facebook to ask them out on a date.”

She added that doctors must keep relationships with patients “on a professional footing”, saying: “This is in line with doctors’ ethical duties not to pursue improper relationships with patients.”

Facebook & iPhone application developers in London UK

I consider this very good news: Yahoo and Facebook have announced plans to integrate Facebook Connect into Yahoo during the first half of next year.

Yahoo’s blog post about the news doesn’t provide a whole lot of detail, but it says that you’ll be able to (A) share Yahoo features such as photos, article comments, ratings, and more via your Facebook activity stream; (B) benefit from “richer experiences” on services such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo News, Yahoo Answers, and Yahoo Sports; and (C) update your status message on Facebook or on various Yahoo services. I’m assuming/hoping that you’ll also be able to log into any Yahoo service with your Facebook credentials, although the post doesn’t explicitly say so.

It’s a pleasant surprise to see a Web player as big as Yahoo turn on Facebook Connect. Even if the decision stems in part from Yahoo’s somewhat fragile condition and resulting willingness to behave in ways that a super-ambitious, Web-dominating monolith would not. (What do you think the chances are that Google will turn on Facebook Connect anytime soon?)

The more time I spend online, the more I realize that I don’t want multiple, fractured collections of friends, family, and acquaintances stored at various destinations around the Web. I want one well-organized, close-to-comprehensive database of people I care about. For a lot of us, that data lives on Facebook. The more places we can get to it, the better. And a Facebook-enabled Yahoo gives me a pretty tantalizing reason to consider using Yahoo services instead of comparable ones from Google, Microsoft, and other Yahoo rivals.

Facebook announced this morning at a briefing in London attended by Brand Republic, in which they covered recent stats, that The Guardian newspaper will be integrating Facebook’s Connect across their site in the near future.

It’s a feature that has has to an extent been left to the blogging community and various web based companies such as Digg but now looks to be adopted by more mainstream media services and companies. (Source: TheNextWeb)

I wrote nearly two months ago to them this (contacting the editor via Twitter),

Let readers comment/sign-in with their OpenID, Facebook, Twitter account. Lower the bar for participation. Encourage honest contribution to political and social issues. I think people will think twice about, how and what they write as comment when their Twitter account or Facebook account is associated with it. It will raise the quality. Make the conversation easier. Simplicity first.

And I want to highlight my philosophical approach to journalism in the age of new tools again. There is nothing like new media or old media, we just got new tools to improve current media dissemination and make democracy better. Each one of us. Being less and less dependent on share- and stakeholder biased media conglomerates.

Update 8:52pm: Dave Winer just highlighted the meaning of technology here too.

The publishers of new video game ‘Prototype’, have released a very clever online experience to help promote the game, using Facebook Connect to create a personal trailer for each user.

After logging into your Facebook account, the site lifts pictures and information from your profile and seamlessly integrates it into the standard trailer. Your name, gender, job details and interests are all featured within the ad, along with your photos, some of which have had the faces ‘erased’, using face recognition.

The experience will inevitably not appeal to everyone, especially those who fear privacy issues. However, personally I think that the jarring experience of seeing one’s personal info embedded in the trailer should really strike a chord with the target market. It’s a shame they didn’t enable your personalised ad to be shareable back on Facebook but, nevertheless, a great example of a brand using the Facebook API effectively to get some cut through.