After the recent changes at Facebook Platform, Facebook is now sitting in a very thin line between dirty good and delicious evil. Today’s topic is to round up of those thoughts reflecting the current Facebook situation.

1. ‘Act Now, Apologize Later’: Will Users ‘Friend’ Facebook’s Latest Intrusion on Privacy?

Experts at Wharton say that despite vocal opposition, Facebook is increasingly defining the parameters of online privacy through new features and its ever-changing policies. “Facebook’s approach is to ‘act now, apologize later,’” notes Wharton legal studies and business ethics professor Kevin Werbach. “It has repeatedly pushed the envelope on privacy, sometimes clearly going too far.” This time, will the company ultimately face a backlash from users and regulators?
[Read The Story]

2. Facebook Privacy: A Bewildering Tangle of Options [Infographic]

[Link to Infographic]

3. The Price of Facebook Privacy? Start Clicking

And still, some information will no longer remain private because Facebook has also added a feature, called community pages, which automatically links personal data, like hometown or university, to topic pages for that town or university. The only way to disappear from those topic pages is to delete personal data from Facebook.
[Read The Story]

4. How Your Friends Can Expose Your Facebook Data

Given the fast changes that seem to be rolling out more frequently some people have even taken to deleting their profiles.  Between the risk of hacking, like Blippy’s recent exposure of credit cards via Google and Facebook Mobile Web which is usually unstable maintaining one’s Facebook privacy settings
[Read The Story]

5. The Evolution of Facebook Privacy [Interactive chart]

In the beginning, it restricted the visibility of a user’s personal information to just their friends and their “network” (college or school). Over the past couple of years, the default privacy settings for a Facebook user’s personal information have become more and more permissive. They’ve also changed how your personal information is classified several times, sometimes in a manner that has been confusing for their users. This has largely been part of Facebook’s effort to correlate, publish, and monetize their social graph: a massive database of entities and links that covers everything from where you live to the movies you like and the people you trust.
[Link to Interactive Infographic]

6. Facebook’s Gone Rogue – It’s Time for an Open Alternative

Facebook used to be a place to share photos and thoughts with friends and family and maybe play a few stupid games that let you pretend you were a mafia don or a homesteader. It became a very useful way to connect with your friends, long-lost friends and family members. Even if you didn’t really want to keep up with them.
[Read The Story]

7. As Facebook Takes Heat, Could A New Alternative Gain Traction?

Few days before there was a substantial amount of buzz about a new Facebook alternative being developed by four NYU students. Traditionally, such alternatives wouldn’t even have a shot, but due to the increasing pressure against Facebook, the press jumped on the story. The question remains however: would users switch from Facebook to an alternative service where they own and have complete control over their data?
[Read The Story]

8. 6 Alternatives to Facebook

Why? …
If you’re not aware, privacy is a serious issue and concern on Facebook. Though many people unfamiliar with Facebook’s privacy have no idea just how much “their” [actually Facebook's] information is taken advantage of and used, in what many people feel is, against them. It’s hard to blame anyone for not understanding Facebook’s privacy settings or TOS as it changes so frequently it’s difficult to keep up. The problem is Facebook has little to no desire in saving your privacy, but would rather slowly reduce it under everyone’s nose. A social network run by someone with such a history of disregard can be dangerous, so for those of you interested, here are some alternatives.
[Read The Story]

9. Facebook Should Not Have Won, MySpace Blew It

Why did Friendster and MySpace fail where Facebook found phenomenal success? It’s not that the site was better marketed, designed or had fancier code, according to Sean Parker, the former president of Facebook and now managing partner of Founders Fund. “MySpace never would have existed if Friendster had been a properly managed company,” he said.
[Read The Story]

10. The Relationship Between Facebook and Privacy: It’s Really Complicated

The tension between Facebook and its users — and governments, and advocacy groups — over privacy is one of the biggest thorns in the company’s side right now, as it tries to balance the demands of the network (and of advertisers) with the desires of users, and with the law. And all of this is taking place in an environment where the very meaning of what is “private” and what is “public” is being redefined, by Facebook and other online giants such as Google, and even users themselves sometimes can’t decide what information they want to share with the world and what they don’t.
[Read The Story]

These made me think.. did they made you think too?

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• WebKlipper allows you to annotate any website and share it easily

Each and every day social blogging become more and more popular among the crowd. There are plenty of web 2.0 tools that would assist you to get into social blogging. However it is not always a easy choice to select the appropriate tools for your needs. Before all of that, we need to simplify the meaning of social blogging..

Social blogging is a popular concept developed due to the advances of weblogging, micro-blogging, and social networking. These ever-changing constructions represent the new way of communicating for people who like to express their activities and share their common interests.

 

Source Wikipedia

Choosing the right social blogging tool varies from person to person. Because each individual has their own type of interests. This post is not necessarily directed to micro-blogging. There are tons of posts on twitter and so on.

Each social blogging tools offers various features which enables users to do web scraping and share it amongst their favorite social media platforms. Web Scraping includes features such as re-blogging content or part of a content and media captured from several sources.

Lets get down to the features of some major social blogging tools.

Posterous

Posterous made the simplest possible way to do social blogging. Excellent email to post, web scraping and blogging using the simple yet powerful bookmarklet made it an winner in this crowd. Widely used by beginner bloggers, casual bloggers and social media professionals. Able to collect HTML fragments, youtube videos, photos and even some audios from various websites. The simplicity of Posterous made it a power tool for Social Blogging. It also supports custom domain mapping, multiple contributors, themes, css customization and multiple blogs.

Web Scraping: ★★★★☆ 
Social Sharing: ★★★★☆ 
Hosting: ★★★½☆ 
Easiness: ★★★★½ 
Browser Bookmarklet Integration: ★★★★½ 

Examples: TweetDeck Blog, HolyKaw (AllTop), My Own Posterous.

Tumblr

Tumblr is another powerful and simple way to do social blogging. Features Email to post, web scraping and blogging using the simple yet powerful bookmarklet. Very widely used by designers bloggers, social media professionals. Powerful content creation options using various social networking sites. Able to collect/create HTML fragments, youtube videos and photos from various websites. The minimalistic artsy part of Tumblr made it a power tool for Social Blogging for beginners and designers. It also supports custom domain mapping, a large number of themes, css customization and multiple blogs.

Web Scraping: ★★★★☆ 
Social Sharing: ★★★½☆ 
Hosting: ★★★¾☆ 
Easiness: ★★★★☆ 
Browser Bookmarklet Integration: ★★★★☆ 

Examples: Twitter Media Blog, My Photo Music Tumblr Blog.

Amplify

Amplify is another power tool to do viral social blogging. Features excellent web scraping and blogging using the really powerful bookmarklet. Widely used for collecting content from various social media sites. Able to collect/create HTML fragments, youtube videos and photos from various websites. Powered by WordPress Multi User so it has common WordPress features. It also supports custom domain mapping and sidebar customization.

Web Scraping: ★★★★¾ 
Social Sharing: ★★★★½ 
Hosting: ★★★★☆ 
Easiness: ★★★★☆ 
Browser Bookmarklet Integration: ★★★★½ 
Examples: Vikash Yadav Blog, My Amplify Blog.

Soup.io

Soup.io is another power tool to do social blogging. Features are almost similar to Tumblr. The minimalistic artsy part of it a power tool for Social Blogging curators. Ability to Re-blog and inline content creation using various social networking sites included under the hood. It also supports custom domain mapping, a few themes, css customization and multiple blogs.

Web Scraping: ★★★★½ 
Social Sharing: ★★★☆☆ 
Hosting: ★★★½☆ 
Easiness: ★★★½☆ 
Browser Bookmarklet Integration: ★★★¾☆ 

Examples: Typography Soup, My Soup.io Blog.

Meemi.com

Meemi is a different type of social blogging platform developed originally at Italy. They provide a different approach to content posting and discovery. It might not be so easy to understand at the first glance, but it definitely worth the time spent.

Web Scraping: ★★★☆☆ 
Social Sharing: ★★★☆☆ 
Hosting: ★★★½☆ 
Easiness: ★★★½☆ 
Browser Bookmarklet Integration: ★★☆☆☆ 

Example: My Meemi Blog

This is based on my thoughts and experience. As you might notice I’ve just dropped out Yahoo Meme from this list. Do you know another one which is supposed to be in this list? Which one would you choose from these and Why? Please do share your thoughts in the comments.

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There are times when you really like to comment on pieces of information from a web site. Usually what we do is copy and paste certain part of that website and email that to our friends or share with others. Having said that; it doesn’t solve all the issues of missing images and formatting problems. Then there came WebKlipper. Personally I found it the most easiest way of sharing interesting parts of websites. Lets take a look inside shall we..

What is WebKlipper?

• WebKlipper is a highlighting tool for webpages. You can highlight sections of webpages on the internet. Your highlights gets saved with WebKlipper and you get a permanent URL to the same webpage. Once someone visits that URL, he/she gets to see you highlighted sections on the page.
• You can modify your highlights any point in time. Once you do so, visors of your URL will start seeing your latest version of the modified webpage. What’s cools is that you can add comments on the page too. You can position the comment wherever you wish on the page. These get saved too; which means visors to your URL will get to see your comments on the page. Like highlights, you can modify the positioning and contents of your comments anytime.
• Other than highlighting and commenting you can also extract content from any webpage using WebKlipper. This means that you can literally pull out anything from any webpage using WebKlipper. Once you do so, WebKlipper will generate a unique URL for the extracted content. You can share this URL with your friends. Once they visit the URL, they just get to see what you have extracted (minus all the clutter in the original webpage)

Now that’s something! I know about Posterous (In somewhat extent) and Amplify almost does the similar things but WebKlipper goes into another level of annotating a website itself.

What Made the Difference?

• Able to share the clipped/commented website or extracted contents of the website with unique URL and
• Notify the readers about the changes on clipped comments or websites

A sample annotated page:

WebKlipper Sample with Bar

The Basics of WebKlipper:

1. Get the extentions for your Browser or Enter the URL of the site you want to clip/comment/extract .. from WebKlipper site!
2. Go to a website you want to clip a comment or extract and use the browser WebKlipper toolbar. Alternatively there will be a toolbar if you go to a site using WebKlipper website.
3. Choose appropriate operations from the blue bar at the bottom of your screen
4. You can easily check and change all your clips from MyKlips panel

WebKlipper has widgets which you can easily integrate on your blog or web site.

Getting started with WebKlipper is very simple and it doesn’t even require an account! Here is a Sample page where you can see a comment with WebKlipper. I would recommend you to try it out!

What I would Like to See in WebKlipper:

• Involve the social science..
• Automatic posting with Posterous, amplify, facebook, twitter and even ping.fm
• I couldn’t make the comments dialog change position with Chrome … maybe a system glitch?

Don’t forget to add your thoughts in the comments!

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Chrome Operating System Video

Read more about this post at GadgetHeat.com

Chrome Operating System Video

Today the big G (that’s google to you and me) released a video of the much hyped Google Operating System. Don’t get your hopes up though, the video itself is very ’sketchy’, literally. The video is a walk through of what the chrome OS will be all about when it’s released sometime next year.

Check the Chrome Operating System Video below. For some reason it looks like they disabled embedding so you will have to hop over to You-Tube to get the full effect.

Google Chrome operating system

Space Invaders Autopsy T-Shirt « Cut ‘em up

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Space Invaders Autopsy T-Shirt

Space Invaders is the classic space shoot-em-up but the Space Invaders Autopsy T-Shirt proves that the little invading critters can be equally as popular in the cut-em-up genre.

Designed by Chris Rowson on Threadless, you can bet your bottom dollar that the Space Invaders Autopsy T-Shirt will be a staple garment in many a geeks wardrobe come the summer heat. For , it’s not a bad design and may even score you a few cool-points with other uber-geeks (although maybe not with the laydeez but you never know…).

The Space Invaders Autopsy T-Shirt is available now from Threadless. Don’t forget to wear your Space Invaders watch too for that classic 80’s fanboi look (we jest not).

Space Invaders Autopsy T-Shirt

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LG Chocolate Touch » Fresh from Verizon Wireless

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LG Chocolate Touch

I am sure you must have heard about a special brand of chocolate in town now that wouldn’t help lower your blood pressure due to its anti-oxidizing abilities instead requires a monthly subscription fee, then you definitely know I am referring to LG Chocolate Touch which is fresh from Verizon Wireless.

It possesses boastful qualities such as FM Radio with Presets, Integrated Song ID, Dedicated Side key e.t.c. LG Chocolate Touch definitely worths it

Access to social networking sites such as facebook, Myspace, Twitter e.t.c is possible through the patronage of this chocolate. You may want to try it out.

source

Verizon iPhone » Could Be Launched By Next Year After All

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verizon iPhone

Even though Verizon made adverts squashing the iPhone, You will definitely agree with me that its quite unconceivable for Apple to consider the use of its popular smart phone with Verizon. Anyway, there are reports to the contrary.

It is now confirmed that Apple will be launching its Verizon iPhone by the third quarter of next year (i.e 2010). They are presently working tooth and nail to produce a “worldmode” iPhone which will be compatible with Verizon Wireless.

I can conveniently say that the handset will have a small screen (about 2.8 inches), definitely smaller than the current iPhone’s 3.5 inch screen. Reason for this is still not yet known.

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Easy Piano » Hits The Market Soon

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Easy Piano for Nintendo DS

I have got clues that the DS lite will be a relic of a lost age before long. With the release of Easy Piano which is hitting the market soon.

It has just been announced by Valcon Games that its Piano-Teaching Title is scheduled for release in North America by 2010 and there is the potential that the sales will definitely push DS lite to the back bench.

For Piano Lovers and Music Enthusiasts, Easy Piano might just be what you need to combine fun and learning.

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Creative’s ZEN X-Fi2 Touchscreen » Now Selling

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Creative’s ZEN X-Fi2 Touchscreen

I am pleased to be the first to inform you that Creative’s ZEN X-Fi2 Touchscreen is now on sale at Creative although I wouldn’t expect you to break the bank to purchase one.

Talking about some of its features from 3-inch Liquid Crystal Display to its Integrated FM tuner, Creative’s ZEN X-Fi2 Touchscreen should definitely catch your fancy.

Creative’s ZEN X-Fi2 Touchscreen is available for a sultry price of 9.99 for the 8Gb model, 9.99 can fetch its 16GB model and 9.99 can purchase its 32GB model. What are you waiting for folks?

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Phone-Jack Powered Lamp » Telephone Socket Powered

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led

One will usually expect a lamp to rip power off the mains socket or even USB, but this is not the case for the Phone-Jack Powered lamp that rips power off any abandoned telephone socket.

Now you can conveniently say that there is a use for all abandoned telephone land line sockets in the home. The Phone-Jack Powered lamp has an RJ11 jack end which usurps power from the phone company instead of using electricity.

This question will be probably be asked, Is Phone-Jack Powered lamp legal? Well, I know it needs to be certified for use in the UK before plugging into the phone jack but am not sure it’s the same round the world. The price goes for a cheap sum of .73. Definitely worth it.

led-telephone-powered-table-reading-light-lamp

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