Facebook Says Hello to March by Saying Goodbye to App Notifications

There have been rumors last month that Facebook is going to see some changes in regards to its app notifications. Talks have been made that the app notifications would soon turn into email notifications instead. But with the start of March, developer blog of facebook has made an announcement that as of March 1, 2010 app notifications will be discontinued – no one will be delivering app notifications to your profile anymore and Facebook will no longer support the sending of these app notifications.

This is good news for users who hate being bombarded by these app notifications every time they log in. However, you can not expect these notifications to disappear forever. What is being done is that instead of doing universal notifications these app developers can choose from several methods in order to communicate with its users.

Facebook recommends these app developers to send their notices and announcements to the dashboard of their apps or to send the users email messages – users will have to agree to the email opt ins first of course.

The counters that Facebook points out as an alternative for app notifications are just like the notifications except that they will be specific to each individual app. So this means that if an app is bookmarked in your Facebook page you will get notices from this app. This is called by Facebook as the Applications and Games dashboards.

Facebook also announced that later this year, they plan to change how the profiles and requests function are going to be displayed. They also plan to make some changes on the canvas pages design.

Shake your iPhone to Add a Friend in Facebook

For all iPhone owners out there it is now possible for you to add someone you just met right on the spot as a Facebook friend. All you need is a single bump with the use of the Bump iPhone app.

If you are unfamiliar with this iPhone app, here’s a small refresher. Bump allows you to share contact information with people by simply bumping your iPhone once with another person’s iPhone. You have to take note that the iPhones must touch each other in order for the app to work – you can not just shake your iPhone in the air. After this Bump will then connect the iPhones together and transfer your contact information.

Now, the Bump iPhone app is being updated with the help of social media giant Facebook. All you have to do is link your Facebook account to Bump and if the person you want to swap information with does the same you can now initiate a friend request on the spot. After you have sent it, a prompt would appear on the other person’s iPhone and she or he can either accept or deny your request. It is as simple as that. This has got a lot of iPhone users talking.

Bump’s Facebook integration is considered to be the first iPhone app that is able to initiate and accept friend requests. Jake Mintz, the co-founder of Bump technologies had worked closely with Facebook to make this a possibility. He also boasted that this is just the first of many social media integrations that would be coming to Bump.

Kikin Lets You Add Social Media to Your Web Browsing

Kikin is the newest browser plugin for Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer that adds some rich social media context to your web browsing experience as you search and surf the World Wide Web.

As the pioneer of user-centricity, Kikin is surely putting a change on how people are finding and using the information that they need in the internet.

There are different search engines available these days that are cramming more relevant information to the top of their search results. The thing is that they are getting their data from networks and places that are not consistent. Kikin can add to that lacking consistency.

All you have to do is to choose the sites that you want Kikin to hunt for in your searches when you search for a topic so that you can get them at the top of your results page. Let’s say you prefer to get data from Wikipedia or Bing or Hulu – then these sites would be at the top of your results page. This way you steer clear from web sites that have nothing to do with what you really want.

If you get connected to your Facebook or Twitter account you can see comments that would be related to the topic that you are searching for as well either from your friends or from other public comments in the site. When you view a video clip on YouTube or when you look at a movie on Amazon.com then a Kikin bar will show up at the top of the page that can show you the recent searches for that item and feedback from Facebook, Twitter or other options. You do not have to worry about this bar since you can easily close it as well.

For media searches like music, movies and TV shows, Kikin has a menu that is very easy to navigate and has a nice context. You will find this to be more convenient compared to going through the individual sites.

One more thing that you will love about Kikin is that you are able to share content that you find in your web browsing easily on your Twitter, Facebook or e-mail account.

Facebook Gets Criticized by Experts for New Privacy Options

Facebook, one of the biggest social networking sites has recently launched a new privacy setting tool for their millions of users. It did not take long for privacy and security firms and experts to comment on Facebook’s privacy move and some have advised against using the new privacy setting.

Although Facebook has described the changes as something that would set a new standard when it comes to user control, experts see an underlying goal. This is to make the users share more information which makes Facebook’s search partners – Google and Bing become more valuable.

Frontier Foundation made a comment on the changes and stated that the Facebook privacy transition will only have users share more Facebook info with everyone and this can be a “worrisome development that will likely cause a major shift in privacy level”. They also mentioned that the changes actually limit the amount of user control over personal data.

The security firm Sophos emphasized that readers should read the terms of these changes carefully and said that “If you don’t read carefully you could find that every post you make on Facebook, and your personal information, is visible to everyone in the world who has a computer rather than just your Facebook friends.”

The privacy changes at Facebook were said to set significant issues for those who are unable to review these settings carefully. Millions of users have already been greeted with the new privacy tool and they either have made changes or ignored it and moved on to using the site the way they always have, unaware of the consequences of the changes that they have made.

Trend Micro, another security firm stated that the controversy over these change is a good sign. “I like that there is controversy about these settings. It shows people at least notice that there is something going on.”

For those who are concerned about their privacy and security, it is best that you get to read and understand the privacy guidelines on the site. To be on the safer side, place your private photos, information and connection somewhere else.

Twitter Goes Italian

Twitter recently launched their support for another language – Italian. Considered as the language of romance, around 70 million speaks the language and has entered the Twitterverse’s dictionary.

This development only goes to show that the Twitter translation project is going well and is developing rapidly. Last October, Twitter asked users to help translate the site – something that Facebook has been doing as well. Since then, Twitter was able to launch the Spanish, French and Japanese versions of the site making the Italian version the fifth language to be supported by Twitter.

The popular micro-blogging site was said that they were aiming to complete the “FIGS” (French, Italian, German, Spanish) languages first. So for now, only the German language remains to be accomplished. Considering that Twitter is crowd sourcing most of the work when it comes to translating the site, the rate of their accomplishment has impressed a lot of people.

Twitter spokesperson Jenna Sampson said that “We’re excited because today with the launch of the Italian version of our site becomes even more a platform for global communication. As always, we wish to thank all the translators who have participated in the project and who have shown us their skills.”

Now that Twitter is turning into a more rich and diverse site they now have viewpoints in a global level. This greatly helps the network information to grow continuously in every crevice and nook of the planet. As more events will be shared, there will be a higher level of awareness affecting the millions of users by use of their tweets.

Twitter has cited out some Italian users who are now tweeting in Italian such as the famous Italian singer Laura Pausini and the famous Italian journalist Beppe Severgnini. The launch was made in Italy where a pizza party was held.

If you are interested in using Twitter in Italian, all you have to do is to get in to your settings and select the language Italian from the drop down menu.