geekosystem

This is just a rumor at this point, but GigaOM is reporting that AT&T will be dropping the HTC First due to poor sales. The First was introduced in conjunction with Facebook Home -- which I tried and hated -- and it turns out I wasn't alone. The First had disappointing numbers and was discounted to 99 cents last week, but the word on the street is that AT&T will discontinue it completely.

Updates to Facebook, as I'm sure we've all heard from our friends again and again, are just the worst. The constant overhaul of little to big features makes it difficult to count on anything at all lasting. What's worse than a Facebook update, though? Why, a Facebook update in real life, according to sketch comedy group Extremely Decent.

Late last Wednesday night I unfriended everyone on my Facebook account to see what life on the Social Network would be like without being social. I've used Facebook exclusively through interactions with Pages for a full week now, and it's cut out all the things I didn't like about Facebook, but it turns out that it's cut out a few of the things I did like about Facebook as well. Let's look at some of the drawbacks.

Thursday night I unfriended everyone on Facebook. The reaction this got has been fascinating to me. Some readers have been very supportive, while others questioned why anyone would do what I've done. By unfriending everyone on Facebook, have I unfriended them in life? My wife brought up a related point: Are we still married now that our relationship status doesn't reflect it?

Last night I had 369 Facebook friends, and today I have zero. I thought about quitting Facebook a few weeks ago, but realized that Facebook itself wasn't the problem. The problem was my friends. Yesterday I realized that I didn't even have to quit Facebook. I just had to quit my friends, so last night I went through and unfriended them one by one. This is what I think about it so far.

Meeting glasses with a hearty "Cheers!" is a time-honored and proven way to win friends and influence people, so of course Facebook was going to get their unsavory digital mitts on it at some point. It appears that time has come, as Budweiser has introduced the Buddy Cup -- a beer cup with an embedded chip that turns real world drinking buddies into Facebook friends every time you clink glasses. Because there is nowhere left to hide from the Internet, that's why.

Has Facebook peaked? New data from independent analysis firm SocialBakers seems to suggest that might be the case. According to SocialBakers, Facebook's usership is down by six million people in the U.S. from where they were a month ago. Numbers are down in other key markets like the U.K. as well. Could this be the first sign that Facebook is going the way of the dinosaurs? Or worse -- Myspace?

In case you have a blog on Blogger, not that I'm saying you should, Google's rolled out a new feature where you can active Google+ comments on your Blogger blog. These work in much the same way as Facebook's commenting system does on third-party sites, so it's clear that Google's starting to eye that part of the market with a little more interest.

Friday was launch day for Facebook Home, but thankfully only for a few devices. If you have a Galaxy S III, S4, HTC One, One X, or One X+ you can install Home through Google Play. I have a Galaxy S III so I gave Home a test drive over the weekend. My first impressions weren't great, and after a few frustrating days of grunting at my phone like a caveman I can't take it anymore. I'm uninstalling Home, and in case you need it, here's how.

I had a working cell phone once. In the before time. In the long, long ago. That's all over now. It's Facebook Home launch day for those "lucky" enough to have one of the few handsets it's rolling out for today. I have a Galaxy S III while the other chumps here at Geekosystem have iPhones, so I took one for the team and installed Facebook Home. Like the Borg, my phone has been assimilated and turned into something dark, twisted, and evil. That might be a slight overstatement, but it is quite bad. Who knew I could ever miss Touch Whiz?

Get ready to hear everyone complain. Facebook appears to be slowly rolling out a new feature that lets you attach specific actions to your status updates. The feature lets you select from a very limited list of things to include in your update. I saw the above notice yesterday afternoon, and posted a screenshot to the Geekosystem Facebook page. Some readers have reported seeing the new feature as early as last week, and other are reporting that this new feature is "stupid".

During today's presentation by Facebook that unveiled Facebook Home and the HTC First, Mark Zuckerberg and friends seemed pretty proud of themselves that Home runs on an unaltered or "unforked" version of Android. It came up a few times in the presentation, and I laughed every time, because the way Zuckerberg says "forked" made it sound like he was swearing. Despite the multiple mentions to Home's ability to run on Android unaltered, HTC has confirmed that the First is running a modified version of Android to better optimize for Facebook Home. Fork.

The speculation is over, and the Facebook Phone is finally a real thing. Rather, it's a few things, and they were all just announced at Facebook's live event. The focus of the event was a new version of Facebook's Android software called "Facebook Home" which will be available to download April 12th. Facebook, HTC, and AT&T also announced the HTC First, which will be the first phone built around Facebook Home. Let's take a look at what Home is all about.

Could this afternoon really bring a conclusion to the years of whispers, rumors, and speculation about a Facebook phone? It certainly looks that way. All signs point to an HTC phone that devotes much of its homescreen to keeping up with the Joneses, as well as all of your other Facebook friends. It also appears that hardware like the phone's camera could be directly linked to a user's Facebook page. If you're tired of pressing multiple buttons to upload a photo to Facebook or let your friends know where you're eating dinner, this could very well be the phone for you. Keep reading to learn more about what we think we know about the phone so far and watch the live stream with us starting at 12:50 PM EST.

For as much as people seem to like Mad Men, they generally dislike advertising. That's unfortunate, because it's everywhere, especially on the Internet. Sites rely on ads to keep the lights on without having to charge their users. It's not a perfect system, but it's less jarring when those ads are for things that actually interest us. To that end, Reddit is now letting users upvote and downvote its ads.