Digsby Updates Facebook

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by Jeff Hester

Digsby, the multi-network IM and social media tool has been updated with tighter Facebook integration and added support for MySpace IM. This is good, but the really great news is that dotSyntax has also removed the confusion mess of crapware nags from their installer.

The new installer now gives you an option to install the ‘Digsby Toolbar’ and asks if you want to contribute unused CPU cycles to sponsored research. While all of the adware/sponsor programs used in the old Digsby installer were optional, the new installer makes opting out easier and more obvious — a real plus considering that most users don’t really read the fine print during installation.

Digsby Updates Facebook

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• Digsby improves Facebook support, goes on crapware diet (downloadsquad.com)

Facebook introduces @mentions

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by John Burke

Facebook has been pretty busy today releasing new features on the popular social networking website. In addition to launching Facebook Lite, a stripped down version of the social networking site, the company also announced a new way to connect your content to friends.
Status updates have always been one of the most popular and most used features of Facebook andtoday's introduction of "friend tagging" in updates is sure to make the it even more popular. Much like Twitter's @reply feature, tagging in Facebook status updates work by adding an @ symbol in front of the name of your friend or family member. Facebook recognizes this and will show you a list of your friends, making finding the right person quick and easy.
A plus to Facebook's version of this feature, is while the @ symbol makes including friends easy, it won't actually be displayed. You'll also soon be able to tag friends in applications as well. Friends you tag in your status updates will get a notification and a wall post linking them to your update. They can also remove the tag if they don't want to be linked.
Like most new Facebook features, most users won't see this right away as they take time rolling out the feature to their millions of users.

Facebook introduces @mentions

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The Truth: What’s Really Going On With Apple, Google, AT&T And The FCC

by Michael Arrington 

Apple has responded to the FCC’s request for information around its rejection of various Google and third party iPhone applications for the iPhone.

In short, Apple denies that they rejected the Google Voice application, but they go into great detail about how the Google Voice application hurts “the iPhone’s distinctive user experience.” All of those statements are either untrue, or misleading, or both.

The first part of Apple’s argument, that they never rejected the application, is “a total lie,” according to many sources with knowledge of the Google Voice application process.

The second part of Apple’s argument, that the Google Voice application hurts the iPhone’s distinctive user experience, is seriously misleading. I know this because I’ve become intimately familiar with the Google Voice service and applications over the last few months. See here, here, here and here, for example. I haven’t used the Google Voice app for the iPhone specifically, because it never launched. But I have been briefed by the Google team on two separate occasions on how the app would work over the last couple of months. Also, I’ve demo’d the Blackberry version of the app, and now use the Android version of the app.

Here’s the key language from Apple’s letter, with my comments:

The Truth: What’s Really Going On With Apple, Google, AT&T And The FCC

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Facebook | The Future of News Will Be Social

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by Arianna Huffington

Despite all the current hand-wringing about the dire state of newspapers, we are actually in the midst of a Golden Age for news consumers. We can surf the net, use search engines, access the best stories from around the world, and interact by commenting and forming communities.
The days of publishing pooh-bahs dictating to us what's important and what's not are over. We now can get the news we want, when we want it, how we want it and where we want it.
The Web has given us control over the news we consume. Now the explosive growth of online social networking is fundamentally changing our relationship with news as well. It's no longer something we passively take in. We now engage with news, react to news and share news.
News has become an important element of community—something around which we gather, connect and converse. We all are part of the evolution of a story now—expanding it with comments and links to relevant information, adding facts and differing points of view.

Facebook | The Future of News Will Be Social

Facebook pages can tweet

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by Mark Andrews

Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. Facebook has produced an app that will automatically send Facebook Page updates to Twitter, allowing businesses, organizations, bands — anyone with a Facebook Page — to have posts automatically generate a tweet to their Twitter followers. The details were posted on the Facebook blog by Michael Gummelt — the summer intern who developed this app.

If you administer a Facebook Page, you can set up Twitter updates by visiting http://www.facebook.com/twitter/. You’ll be asked to configure what kinds of new posts will trigger Twitter updates

 

Twitter Blog: Location, Location, Location

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Twitter platform developers have been doing innovative work with location for some time despite having access to only a rudimentary level of API support. Most of the location-based projects we see are built using the simple, account-level location field folks can fill out as part of their profile. Since anything can be written in this field, it's interesting but not very dependable.

We're gearing up to launch a new feature which makes Twitter truly location-aware. A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice because it will be off by default and the exact location data won't be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information.

Twitter Blog: Location, Location, Location

Tweeting First: The New Way Mainstream Media Breaks News

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by Josh Catone
An interesting thing happened in the past 24 hours or so: two major news stories were broken on Twitter (). By itself, that’s not very remarkable; news breaks on Twitter all the time. But usually, when news first appears on social media channels such as Twitter, it’s the type of broad-reaching story that affects a lot of people on the ground. Things like wildfires, earthquakes, and riots.
The two news stories that broke over Twitter in the past day, however, came from the sports world, and they’re unique because they were broken by mainstream news sources. Over Twitter. Why?
Tweeting First: The New Way Mainstream Media Breaks News

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HOW TO: Take Advantage of FriendFeed's Unique Features

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 by Barb Dybwad

With the ink on the deal still fresh, many are wondering what exactly will come out of the Facebook-FriendFeed acquisition deal. And many who’ve never used FriendFeed before may be wondering what the big deal is: why bother with Yet Another Social Network?

If you’re new to FriendFeed or have perhaps tried it and wandered away, your curiosity might be piqued now. If so, we have a quick power tip for you to help take advantage of its unique features right away.

If you’ve ever used the saved searches feature on Twitter you’re going to immediately understand the power of the equivalent feature on FriendFeed. The great thing about FriendFeed’s saved searches feature, however, is that it’s a lot more customizable.

HOW TO: Take Advantage of FriendFeed's Unique Features

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Project Retweet: The End of RTs as We Know Them?

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by Jennifer Van Grove

Today’s big news is that Twitter () has just announced phase one of Project Retweet, their program to formalize the retweeting movement on Twitter. They’re opening up the flood gates so that developers can tap into the four new APIs and update their applications, or build new ones, in preparation for the official release, which is expected to happen in just a few weeks.

We’re definitely excited to see Twitter embrace the art of retweeting and try to support it. In fact, it reminds us of Twitter’s early days, prior to the official support of mentions. The original version of Twitter did not include a formal way for Twitterers to respond to others’ tweets, so users took it upon themselves to copy a BBS-style reply format and add an @ symbol in front of a username, and replies were born. Twitter eventually caught on to the reply movement, making replies a very real part of the Twitter ecosystem.

Project Retweet: The End of RTs as We Know Them?

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Your Facebook Inbox Could Soon Get Much More Interesting

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by Adam Ostrow
Recently, MySpace () launched a new feature for its millions of users: @myspace.com webmail. While it’s unclear if Facebook plans to follow suit any time soon, some new features the social network is announcing this afternoon could make member inboxes a bit more interesting, by way of third-party applications.
Facebook has introduced two new APIs: Inbox and Notifications. For users, what this means is that developers could soon launch desktop applications that integrate features like checking your messages and receiving app notifications. For example, an app like TweetDeck  () or Seesmic Desktop () could now offer alerts when any of these activities take place on Facebook.
Your Facebook Inbox Could Soon Get Much More Interesting

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Twitter turns to Google for help with malware attacks

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by Ryan Naraine

As it scrambles to cope with a noticeable surge in malware attacks targeting its users, Twitter has found a friend in Google.

The popular micro-blogging service has quietly started using the Google Safe Browsing API to block links to known malicious Web sites.

[ SEE: Guy Kawasaki's Twitter account hijacked, pushes Windows and Mac malware ]

The Safe Browsing API allows client applications to check URLs against Google’s constantly updated blacklists of suspected phishing and malware pages.

Twitter turns to Google for help with malware attacks | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

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TweetDeck updates - Creating an application with thought

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Ed Richardson

TweetDeck, like a few of the other social media enablers (StumbleUpon noticeably) seems to have been going through a spate of updates and releases recently.

They had a big upgrade a few months back that included the Facebook integration, but I've actually found the most recent ones more useful in terms of additional functionality.

The most useful of the recent updates has been the creation of a TweetDeck account system that facilitates the syncing of TweetDeck groups wherever you use the application.

I'm a fan of TweetDeck's groups, they improve the functionality of Twitter as an application for me significantly. Something that I'd like all applications to do, facilitate the existing service offering and improve from that base.

Digital Signals: TweetDeck updates - Creating an application with thought

Digsby Passes 1 Million Users

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by Jeff Hester

Today dotSyntax announced that their popular multi-network desktop application Digsby has surpassed a major milestone: 1 million users. The desktop client integrates instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter, text messaging and email into a single desktop client, making it an attractive choice for people connected to multiple networks and social media sites.

Digsby Passes 1 Million Users | BigBlueBall

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Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable

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"Twitter is a social network used by millions of people, and thousands more are signing up every day to send short messages to groups of friends. But where's the user manual for Twitter? Where do new Twitter users go to learn about Tweeting, retweets, hashtags and customizing your Twitter profile? Where do you go if you want to know all about building a community on Twitter, or using Twitter for business? How can you find advanced tools for using Twitter on your phone or your desktop? To answer all these questions and more, we've assembled The Twitter Guide Book, a complete collection of resources for mastering Twitter. Happy Tweeting!"

- Pete Cashmore, @Mashable

Twitter Guide Book – How To, Tips and Instructions by Mashable

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How FriendFeed Could Become the Ultimate Social Media Tracking Service

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Written by Marshall Kirkpatrick / July 2, 2009 2:25 PM

FriendFeed, the multi-network activity aggregator co-founded by Gmail creator Paul Buchheit, announced today that it has entered the crowded field of real time search. FriendFeed was already the best way to learn what early adopter social media users were saying about any topic across blogs, Twitter, delicious and other diverse social media sites. If FriendFeed wants to step it up to the next level and challenge business-class conversation trackers, we believe there are four steps the company needs to take.

We think that would make a whole lot of sense. In fact we think that if real time search were turned into a business tool it could challenge social media monitoring services like Radian6, Scout Labs and Sysomos. Here's what we think needs to happen in order for that to become a possibility.

How FriendFeed Could Become the Ultimate Social Media Tracking Service

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The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online

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By Kevin Kelly

Bill Gates once derided open source advocates with the worst epithet a capitalist can muster. These folks, he said, were a "new modern-day sort of communists," a malevolent force bent on destroying the monopolistic incentive that helps support the American dream. Gates was wrong: Open source zealots are more likely to be libertarians than commie pinkos. Yet there is some truth to his allegation. The frantic global rush to connect everyone to everyone, all the time, is quietly giving rise to a revised version of socialism.

The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online

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30 Twitter Tools For Managing Followers

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To manage your followers or friends on twitter is not an easy task. To be successful on twitter you have to analyze different things. You should know how active your followers are, do they retweet your tweets, do they update regularly and you should know those whom you are following are following you.

30 Twitter Tools For Managing Followers | Tools | PelFusion.com

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MashDeck Launches: The Mashable Twitter Desktop App!

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June 25th, 2009 | by Pete Cashmore

If you’re a Twitter power user, or thinking of becoming one, you’ve likely read our head to head reviews of the best Twitter applications.

But what’s the best application to make the jump from Twitter beginner to a speed-Tweeting power user? And how can experienced users keep their news reading and friends’ updates separate?

MashDeck Launches: The Mashable Twitter Desktop App!

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25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts

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by Jennifer Van Grove

It may seem like an impossible task to keep up with all the Twitter apps that have come to market as of late. Even though you have plenty of directories to help with the process, we noticed that it’s still difficult to ascertain which apps support multiple accounts.

As more and more people are using Twitter () for personal and professional reasons, the demand for a Twitter client to match those multifaceted needs is rising. Here are several options to help you tweet now or later from different accounts on your desktop, via the Web, and while on the run. We’ve also included a few browser add-ons and business-specific clients to help you find the right application to suit your Twittering needs.

25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts

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How Facebook is Gunning for Google (And Killing SEO)

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by Mike Wasylik

This weekend, my mother-in-law asked me to enter a life of crime.

Not in the real world, of course - she’d like the father of her grandkids to remain jail-free. No, instead she invited me to play that Mafia game that’s so popular on Facebook.

Not interested in the game, I politely declined. But when my mother-in-law, who has just joined Facebook, becomes part of an online trend, that’s a sure sign that it’s hitting critical mass in the population at large.

Facebook is quickly becoming the immovable object that will soon butt heads with Google’s irresistible force.

How Facebook is Gunning for Google (And Killing SEO) | Copyblogger

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