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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Facebook's new facelift plays up photos, friends (AP) : Technet

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Facebook's new facelift plays up photos, friends (AP) : Technet

Facebook's new facelift plays up photos, friends (AP)

Posted: 05 Dec 2010 05:26 PM PST

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Sun Dec 5, 8:26 pm ET

NEW YORK – Facebook is redesigning the profile pages of its 500 million-plus users to make it more of a reflection of their real lives and emphasize one of the site's most popular features, photos.

Facebook said in a blog post Sunday the changes are meant to make it easier for users to tell their story — who they are, where they work, their life philosophy and the most important people in their lives. The changes place a bigger emphasis on visuals, from photos to images of users' interests.

A new biography section includes not just who you are and where you live but a set of the most recent photos that your friends have "tagged" you in. Previously users had to click on a tab to see the latest photos on a profile. Users can also feature important friends in their profile, while previously only random selection appeared. And in addition to listing their job, users can now add the projects they worked on. It's all a move toward curating a more complete picture of a person, something that will likely appeal to Facebook's advertisers. The company did not make any changes to its privacy policy as part of the redesign.

Facebook unveiled the changes ahead of an appearance on 60 Minutes by CEO Mark Zuckerberg Sunday evening. Zuckerberg, 26, talked about the profile page redesign, Facebook's hard-working culture of all-night coding sessions, as well as his take on "The Social Network," the movie about Facebook's beginning that doesn't cast him in a very flattering light.

"I think that they got every single T-shirt that they had the Mark Zuckerberg character wearing right. I think I actually own those T-shirts," Zuckerberg told 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl in the interview.

"But I mean, there are hugely basic things that they got wrong, too," he added. "(They) made it seem like my whole motivation for building Facebook was so I could get girls, right? And they completely left out the fact that my girlfriend, I've been dating since before I started Facebook."

Asked about a Facebook IPO, Zuckerberg said "You know, maybe."

"A lot of people who I think build start-ups or companies think that selling the company or going public is this endpoint," he said. "Right, it's like you win when you go public. And that's just not how I see it."

On Facebook, even small changes to users' home pages tend to meet with protests from a small but vocal fraction of users who want things to stay the way they are. In an attempt to pre-empt this, Facebook is rolling out the changes slowly, letting users — for the time being — decide whether they want to display the new profile layout or the old one. The new layout will be available to all users by early next year, the company said.

The latest changes come as Facebook intensifies its competition with online search leader Google Inc. as the primary destination for anyone using the Internet. The changes streamline users profile pages so it's easier to see the things that matter the most, rather than a chronological stream of the latest wall posts, links and photos they posted. Users can also see how their Facebook lives intertwine with their friends by clicking on a "See Friendship" link on the top right hand page of their friends' profiles.

"You can see all the things that you have in common with that person," Zuckerberg said. "And it's just like, it gives you this amazing connection with that person in a way that the current version of the profile that we have today just doesn't do."

India wants BlackBerry access from companies: report (Reuters)

Posted: 05 Dec 2010 11:39 AM PST

– Sun Dec 5, 2:39 pm ET

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The Indian government is talking to companies using Research in Motion's's BlackBerry to gain access to their employees' secure communications when it is deemed necessary, an official told the Wall Street Journal.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai also said reports that BlackBerry could be blocked if the government's security concerns over the device were not met by the end of January were overblown, according to the paper.

January 31 was "more of a target date," Pillai said.

"We're trying to find solutions where everybody's interests are in one sense protected," Pillai said. "It's going to take a little time, because it's a new technology."

The company has already provided a solution for the BlackBerry Messenger chat service that would be in place by the end of January, Pillai said.

India had threatened to shut off RIM's encrypted email and instant messaging services unless it gains access to them, in a campaign driven by fears that unmonitored communication puts the country's security at risk.

RIM says it is confident India's security concerns could be resolved to its and the government's mutual satisfaction.

(Writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Angus MacSwan)

Skitch finally leaves beta with new features, Website (Macworld)

Posted: 05 Dec 2010 10:30 AM PST

David Chartier David Chartier – Sun Dec 5, 1:30 pm ET

Skitch, the unique screenshot tool and sharing service, has finally left its extensive testing period that was giving Gmail some competition for the crown of "longest beta ever." The app received a slew of new features and an interface overhaul for its 1.0 debut, as well as a paid option that unlocks some features and better integration with the Skitch.com Website.

Skitch, for those who haven't used it, is a tool for quickly snapping screenshots or photos with your Mac's iSight camera, adding annotations with drawing and text tools, and sharing your creations on the Web either publicly or with private URLs. You can upload images to Skitch.com, MobileMe iDisk, Flickr, or your own FTP Webhost. It's great for sharing interestingness with friends, odd behavior with tech support, or crafting your latest lolcat masterpiece.

Skitch 1.0 gained a number of new features since its latest beta (released in early November), though some of them can only be unlocked if you pay up for the new paid Skitch Plus plan. If you share an image to Skitch.com, you can now pick what kind of URL to automatically copy to the clipboard: the Skitch.com link, a direct link to the image file, or a forum-friendly embed link. A new template system makes it easy to constrain or crop images to specific dimensions, full Website snapping with Safari lets you capture an entire page no matter how tall it is, and a complete interface overhaul gives Skitch a fresh look with some useful polish and more identifiable icons.

The Skitch.com site also got a lot of attention for the app's release. You can now create multiple image "sets" to group your shots, follow other Skitch users to keep up with the images they share publicly, and mark images as favorites to show your appreciation or easily find them later. The site now has a search box that can sift through just your stuff or the entire Skitch community, and there is lots of new social integration like posting to Facebook and auto-generated "mini-links" for Twitter. You can also change an image's title, description, tags, and set at the Website or from the Skitch app, even after you upload it.

Skitch took almost four years to go 1.0, and now that it has, the company finally shared its pricing model. The Skitch app and many of its snapping, editing, and sharing features are now free, as is usage of the Skitch.com Website. But some key app and Website features—such as automatically copying a custom sharing link to the clipboard, custom watermarks, cropping templates, image quality settings, and some editing tools—require a paid Skitch Plus yearly subscription. Skitch Plus is usually $20 per year, but for a limited time you can get it for $15.

Facebook founder rolls out changes to profile pages (AFP)

Posted: 05 Dec 2010 05:00 PM PST

by Chris Lefkow Chris Lefkow – Sun Dec 5, 8:00 pm ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg unveiled changes to member profile pages on Sunday and said the movie "The Social Network" got "hugely basic" things wrong about the origins of the site.

Zuckerberg, in an interview with the CBS show "60 Minutes, said he turned down an opportunity to sell Facebook to Yahoo! for one billion dollars four years ago and made it clear he is in no hurry to take the company public.

The 26-year-old Facebook chief executive also defended his approach to the privacy of the social network's more than 500 million users, saying "we never sell your information."

"Advertisers who are using the site never get access to your information," he said. "It's against all of our policies for an application to ever share information with advertisers.

"Now, do we get it right all the time? No!" he said. "But it's something that we take really seriously."

The new profile pages highlight recent pictures in which a member has been "tagged" in a bar at the top of the page along with biographical information such as where a member is from, where they went to school, their relationship status and where they work.

"People love photos," Zuckerberg said. "Photos originally weren't that big a part of the idea for Facebook, but we just found that people really like them, so we built out this functionality."

The new profile pages should be available to all of Facebook's users by early next year, Josh Wiseman, a Facebook engineer, said in a blog post.

Facebook members can highlight their most important friends on their new profile, create new groups of friends or share activities and interests such as favorite musicians and sports teams.

Speaking of "The Social Network," Zuckerberg said "we took the whole company to go see the movie" and "I actually thought it was pretty fun.

"It's pretty interesting to see what parts they got right and what parts they got wrong," he said. "I think that they got every single T-shirt that they had the Mark Zuckerberg character wearing right. And they got sandals right and all that.

"But I mean, there are hugely basic things that they got wrong, too," he said. "They made it seem like my whole motivation for building Facebook was so I could get girls."

"60 Minutes" also featured an interview the Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Harvard University classmates who accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea.

The twins reached a reported 65-million-dollar settlement with Facebook but are now claiming they were misled about the value of the company.

"He sabotaged our project; and he betrayed us," Tyler Winklevoss said.

Speaking of the Winklevoss twins, Zuckerberg said "it's hard for me to fully wrap my head around where they're coming from on this.

"You know, early on, they had an idea that was completely separate from Facebook," he said. "It was a dating site for Harvard. And I agreed to help them out with it.

"It wasn't a job, they weren't paying me, I wasn't hired by them or anything like that," he said. "That they would be upset about this all these years later is kind of mindboggling for me."

He said the movie makes "it seem like this whole lawsuit is such a huge part of Facebook's history" but "I've probably spent less than two weeks of my time worried about this lawsuit at all."

Asked if he felt any remorse, Zuckerberg said, "I mean, after all this time, I feel bad that they still feel bad about it."

Zuckerberg said he was offered a billion dollars for Facebook in 2006 by Yahoo! but turned it down.

"I think a lot of people at the time thought we should sell the company," he said. "But you know, I felt really strongly. I think, like, now, people generally think that that was a good decision."

Asked if there would be an initial public offering, Zuckerberg said: "Maybe."

"A lot of people who I think build startups or companies think that selling the company or going public is this endpoint... like you win when you go public. And that's just not how I see it," he said.

Zuckerberg Talks Privacy, "The Social Network" on "60 Minutes" [VIDEO] (Mashable)

Posted: 05 Dec 2010 01:05 PM PST

Christina Warren Christina Warren – Sun Dec 5, 4:05 pm ET

Earlier this evening, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a return appearance on the news program 60 Minutes. Zuckerberg showed off Facebook's new profile pages and talked about the evolution of the platform and company.

Zuckerberg was first interviewed by 60 Minutes in January of 2008. Since that time, the profile of the company -- and its CEO -- have exploded.

Leslie Stahl, who interviewed Zuckerberg in 2008 and for this interview, commented on his more relaxed demeanor, and the fact that he seemed more confident and sure of himself.

In addition to showing off the new profile pages, Zuckerberg was also asked about his thoughts on the film, The Social Network. 60 Minutes played a clip of the movie, in which the fictionalized Zuckerberg retorts, "Is that a question?" against a clip of the real Zuckerberg uttering those same lines on 60 Minutes back in 2008 -- an interesting juxtaposition, to say the least.

You can watch both portions of the segment below.

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