Facebook reverses on sharing user addresses, phone numbers

On Tuesday, Facebook reversed a change announced on Friday to a permissions dialog box that users see when downloading third-party Facebook apps--a change that potentially makes users' addresses and phone numbers available to app developers.

The tweak was made known to developers of third-party apps Friday night, by way of a post on the Facebook Developer Blog. Basically, when a person starts downloading a third-party Facebook app, a Request for Permission dialog box appears that asks for access to basic information including the downloader's name, profile picture, gender, user ID, list of friends, and more. What's new as of Friday is an additional section that asks for access to the downloader's current address and mobile phone number.

At 2:25 a.m. Tuesday morning, a blog was posted on Facebook's Developer Blog which said:

"Over the weekend, we got some useful feedback that we could make people more clearly aware of when they are granting access to this data. We agree, and we are making changes to help ensure you only share this information when you intend to do so. We’ll be working to launch these updates as soon as possible, and will be temporarily disabling this feature until those changes are ready."

Golden Globes

Facebook film “The Social Network” picked up four GoldenGlobe Awards on Sunday, including Best Film drama, making it a front-runner inHollywood’s Oscar race.

“Social Network” picked up the best director award for David Fincher, best screenplay for writer Aaron Sorkin and best musical score for its music, written by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor.

The film recounts the story of the founding of social networking site Facebook, an international phenomenon with millions of users that started in a college dormitory. Accepting the Golden Globe, producer Scott Rudin called the movie “a metaphor for communication and the way we relate to each other.”

Another winner of some big awards was “The Kids Are All Right,” which featured two lesbian parents whose children search for their sperm donor father. “Kids” also picked up the award for best actress in a film comedy for its star Annette Bening, who portrayed one of the mothers in the film.

British actor Colin Firth was named best actor in a film drama for his portrayal of stuttering King George VI in “The King’s Speech,” while Natalie Portman took home the Golden Globe trophy for best actress in a drama with “Black Swan.” Paul Giamatti won the prize for best actor in a comedy film for his role as a caustic man in “Barney’s Version.”

The Golden Globe Awards, which are given out by the nearly 90 members of the HFPA, are one of the major Hollywood award shows leading to the film industry’s most-prized honors, the Oscars, which are handed out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Many film industry watchers look at the winners of Golden Globes and other honors for clues as to which films, performers, directors and writers might win Oscars. This year, “Social Network” has swept many early honors and added the Golden Globe to its cache of trophies.

In other movie honors, boxing drama “The Fighter” picked up two GoldenGlobes for Christian Bale as supporting actor portraying a drug-addicted fighter and for Melissa Leo as supporting actress playing the mother ofChristian Bale’s character.

“Toy Story 3″ was named best animated movie for what director Lee Unkrich called “”an animated movie that beat with a human heart.” And Denmark’s “In a Better World” was named best foreign language film.

Facebook raises new funding at $50B valuation

Facebook is now worth $50 billion,according to a report in The New York Times that says the company has raised $500 million in new funding from Goldman Sachs and Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies.

Goldman invested $450 million, while DST (which has already invested about $500 million into Facebook) provided the remaining $50 million. Goldman also plans to create a “special purpose vehicle” to pool its clients and invest another $1.5 billion in Facebook without triggering the Securities and Exchange Commission’s 500-shareholder threshold, The Times says. (Companies that break the threshold are required to disclose more information publicly.)

Facebook’s valuation has been climbing steadily on the secondary markets where shares are sold. (The SEC is now investigating those markets.) Early Facebook investor Accel Partners recently sold off some of its shares at a $34 billion valuation.

Facebook is expected to have its initial public offering as soon as 2012, although the company hasn’t said anything specific on the matter. It reportedly brought in $2 billion in revenue in 2010, and chief Mark Zuckerberg has said that the company is barely profitable, because it’s not focused on profits yet.

Last month, the second-hottest social networking company, Twitter, raised $200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation.

by : Anthony Ha

@VentureBeat

How Facebook Eclipsed Google In 2010

Facebook beat out Google as the No. 1 most-visited site in the United States in 2010, according to Internet analytics firm Hitwise.

How was Facebook able to outplay the former Web champion? And can Google make a comeback in 2011 and beyond?
Let's begin by admitting that the Hitwise data doesn't represent the whole truth. For starters, Hitwise only measures unique visitors in the United States. What's more, Hitwise measures sites on a per domain basis: If the analytics firm were to include Google-owned YouTube in its calculations, Google's network of websites would outrank Facebook properties.
Nonetheless, there's a tectonic shift at work here: Facebook, once easily dismissed as the next social networking fad, has seemingly discovered Google's weak spots.
What are they, and can Google regain ground here?


Identity Wars
The first area in which Facebook has bested Google is online identity. Remember the days when trying out a new website required entering your name, username, password and other details into a form? Now sites can opt to use your Facebook account for one-click signup, making life easier for both websites and their users.
Facebook was able to make this move because the service was founded around the principle of real names. While this may have slowed Facebook's growth in its early days, the company now owns a massive database of more than 500 million identities, most of them real.
As a result, Facebook is becoming the de facto identity system for the Web. The social optimization service Gigya claims that Facebook accounts for 46% of website logins versus Google's 17%.


Social struggles
Where else is Google behind? How about "social," one of the biggest Web trends of the past five years? Understanding the connections between people is Facebook's core competency, but Google has struggled to compete in the social networking arena.
Google Buzz, widely considered a flop after a highly anticipated launch this year, unsuccessfully tried to turn Gmail contacts into social networking friends. Gmail users, it turned out, didn't need yet another social network, and didn't see their email contacts as synonymous with their real-life friends. That's a major hurdle for all of Google's social efforts: The company doesn't possess a "social graph" of our real-world connections.
More troubling is that social gaming, with such Facebook hits as FarmVille, has become a megatrend over the past few years. Google has few inroads here.
Google is expected to roll out a "social layer" uniting its Web properties in 2011, but the company has played down claims that it will launch a full social network, and expectations are low for Google's next social foray. Google could change its social fortunes through an acquisition, however: The purchase of social messaging service Twitter is the obvious move.


Search Rivalry?
Google is synonymous with search and continued to reign supreme in 2010. Surely this is the one area in which the company can maintain its lead in the coming years.
Google would indeed prove difficult to unseat in search, and yet Facebook may eventually gain a little ground here, too. Not only does Facebook possess a large database of every users' personal preferences, but its increasingly popular "Like" buttons allow members to express interest in particular Web pages.
If the company felt so inclined, Facebook might be able to provide a search engine that delivers highly personalized results. Better still: Facebook may stockpile enough personal information to recommend relevant content without the need for a search box.
Such a move is unlikely to unseat Google overnight, but this means of social discovery could lessen our dependence on search engines in the long haul.


Google's big gains: Mobile, video
Facebook is only "beating" Google if we limit the playing field to the Web. But in the rapidly growing mobile sector, Facebook is a minor player.
While the leading social network is attempting to bring social features to phones, Google owns an entire operating system: Android. What's more, Android is spreading like wildfire and proving to be a real challenger to Apple's iOS. Facebook, meanwhile, doesn't even have an iPad app.
What about watching online video, one of the Web's most popular activities? Yes, Google wins there, too: As the owner of YouTube, the company serves up the vast majority of online video views. In neither mobile nor video does Facebook look to be a threat to Google's position.
Google will always retain the lead, meanwhile, in professional life: From collaborative document creation to enterprise email, it's hard to see Facebook challenging Google's role in the workplace.


An uncertain victory
In 2010, Facebook challenged Google where it is weakest: Online identity and the social Web. Given that "social" is the Web's fastest-growing trend, it's hardly surprising that Facebook has benefited from the rising tide.
And yet Facebook only outranks Google on that very narrow metric: U.S. Web traffic. As mobile operating systems and app stores grow in popularity, is Web traffic really an accurate measurement of an Internet company's success?
and let's not forget that Google still crushes Facebook on the number that really counts: Revenue.


by : Pete Cashmore
@CNN

Person of The Year 2010

 

Time magazine has named Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg Person of the Year.

Zuckerberg’s accomplishments in 2010 are truly outstanding: he cemented Facebook’s status as the biggest social network and one of the hottest Internet companies, surging past 500 million users. He’s one of the world’s youngest billionaires, and recently he pledged to give the majority of his wealth to charity.
“For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot
Zuckerberg is Time’s 2010 Person of the Year,” explains Time.

Not everyone agrees with the choice, however. WikiLeaks founder and owner Julian Assange was also a likely candidate, and many commenters over on Time think his accomplishments are far more important that Zuckerberg’s.

دوست

احتمالا این موضوعی که می خواهم مطرح کنم برای عده ای غیر قابل قبول است: لازم میدانم در ابتدا حساب استثنائات که عمدتا  مشمول اتفاقات خوب زندگی شده اند,را از این متن جدا می کنم.این جاا صحبت از یک جریان غالب است:
موضوع هم موضوع دوستی ها و روابط عاشقانه در جامعه ای است که من شناختم:  که اگر بخواهم تشبیه مناسبی به کار ببرم ،شکلاتی فا سد با زرورقی شیک است.ابزاری مناسب برای فریب انسان های ساده دلی که همچنان از دیدگاه افلاطونی برای تفسیر رفتارها ی قاطبه جامعه امروزی استفاده می کنند.شخصا از تنهایی بیشتر لذت می برم و انسان اجتماع نیستم، شاید دیده ها و تجربیات خود ویا دوستان همدل و مورد وثوقم در شکل گیری این گرایش درونی نقش داشته است. نمی دانم چه عنصر انسانی دراین به اصطلاح دوستی قابل کشف است:چه پارامتری که انسان را به کمال نزدیکتر می کند در این ترکیب ناجور رمانتیسیسم کور و هیجانات فروخفته وجود دارد؟ گشت وگذار در رستوران های درجه یک ،سواری مجانی گرفتن از تو،بهره گرفتن از نام ،شخصیت و معلومات تو در هنگام لزوم، استفاده از امکانات مادی تو وقتی در رفاه هستی...و البته در جامعه ای که دریوزگی نسبت به شایستگی منتج به کامیابی بیشتر می گردد،انتظار دیگری نمیشود داشت...طبیعی است که در هر کجا،از خیابان و محیط مجازی گرفته تا کلاس های دانشگاه!، انسان های خود باخته ای را ببینی که کاسه ای در دست،گدایی می کنند:گدایی محبت،گدایی عشق... آیا بوی تعفن از همین پوسته ی خوش رنگ استشمام نمی شود؟
اگر وارد این چرخه ی معیوب  کامجویی لجنی شدی باید خود را برای نیمه ی دوم و محتوم این بازی آماده نمایی.قطعا تصور این که امروز به هسته ی دور انداختنی میوه ی خوش طعم دیروز تبدیل شده ای دلپذیر نیست...ولی آیا انتظار یک عمر موج سواری را داشتی؟آیا می شود از یک رابطه ی بنا شده بر نیازهای مادی و اقناع هیجانات زودگذرانتظار بیشتری داشت؟ وقتی می رسد که احساس می کنی از هر 100 جمله ات یک جمله هم ارزش ورود به ساحت اندیشه ی دوست را نمی یابد!اگر دغدغه هایت کمی دورتر از بستر خاکی اجازه ی فرود بخواهند ،هیچ گاه این اجازه را نمی یابند و صادقانه بگویم اصلا روءیت نمشوند. اگر روزی مشکلی پیدا کنی که عرضه ی لذت به رفقا را با وقفه مواجه کند ،می توانی خروج حتمی خود، خارج از صحنه ی نمایش  را پیش بینی کنی...با آغوش باز بپذیر و مهر اختتام را بر این تجربه بزن که هر چه پیشتر می روی  حس پوچی و افسردگی بیشتری را در شریان هایت جاری می کند..برعکس آن چه با روءیا پردازی در ذهنت پرداختی 

دینامیک حاکم بر این روابط دیگر هیچ رغبتی رادر من بر نمی انگیزد.شور وشعوری را، که از خواندن اثر یک نویسنده مورد علاقه در وجودم هستی می یابد ،بیشتر می پسندم.دوست دارم سخن و اندیشه ای که به زندگیم وارد می کنم همسو با تکامل شخصیتی و فکریم باشد.نه این که خود را با دوستی های دروغین فریب دهم و به دانسته ها و شعور خود دهن کجی کنم.  این دوستانی که درخوشی ها گوی سبقت را در نزدیکی به تو از یکدیگر می ربایند،اما در سختی ها ناپدید می شوند.حقیقت آن است که دیگر تحمل این همه ابتذال برایم سخت است ، حس می کنم گاهی چه ساده انسان به شعور خودش توهین می کند. چه ساده به آرزو های مترقی خود پشت می کند.آینده ی خود را فدای احساسات ناپایدار امروز می کند.شخصا ترجیح می دهم در سکوت و آرامش به علائق راستین زندگیم بپردازم .با حلقه ی کوچک دوست داشتنی خودم سعی کنم این ایام سخت را پشت سر بگذارم تا بعد.../پدرام.

Top Ten Brains of The Digital Future: Prospect Debate

Two billion people online; half a billion on Facebook; the launch of the iPad, the explosion of digital publishing, the relentless expansion of mobile phone networks through the developing world—2010 has seen astonishing landmarks in the ongoing evolution of digital culture.

Next year will see even more—and an ever-more furious debate surrounding everything from net neutrality to copyright laws, digital business strategies, virtual property rights, the censorship of interactive media and the status of the increasingly complex identities the world’s citizens are building online.
Who are the great minds helping to create the culture of the internet and the world’s powerful digital media? Prospect’s January 2011 list will feature a" pick of the world’s digital thinkers"—the ones to watch if you want to understand the big ideas shaping the 21st century through technology.
There's an open debate for the audience :who you think ought to make the cut.I think it's a wise idea by Prospect magazine .I ought to think deeply in order to join the enthralling debate.
@prospectmagazine.co.ok
pic : Who will emerge as the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? " by : Joi Ito