Hey, remember those clever image combinations that particularly festidious Facebook users put in place during the last major overhaul to the social networking site? Well, because of Timeline, all of those are going to be completely messed up. Thankfully, the new enormous “cover” image at the top of the redesigned user pages has ample opportunities for image shenanigans. If you’re keen to try something like you see above, check out the instructions after the break.

Before you start, it’s important to note that the “cover” image is 851 x 314 pixels, and the inset avatar image is 180 x 180, reduced to 125 x 125 pixels. According to Nico, here’s how you can give your new Timeline a splash of something special.

After the download unzip the file and open fb_timeline_template.psd

In the layers folder “personalization” do your personalisation

Then hide the layer “overlay” and create two separate pictures (use the guides or the layers “avatar” and “header” for the sizes of the pictures)

Upload them and choose it as avatar and title picture.

That’s it! You’ll be impressing all your Facebook friends in no time.

(via Dudecraft)

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Back in 2005, it was decided that the Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California needed some sprucing up. It needed a paint job of some sort, but not something bland and corporate. No, something fun, colorful, and interesting. As such, Facebook hired graffiti artist David Choe and commissioned a few stupid dope burners, offering him a choice of payment upon their completion: He could either take a few grand, or some stock. You can probably guess which choice he made.

While The Sun reports that Choe thought Facebook’s concept was “ridiculous and pointless” at the time, Choe apparently felt the urge to gamble a little bit, and it sure has paid off. With the Facebook IPO, he’s expected to suddenly be worth around $200 million. Not bad pay for a single gig, right?

Of course, Choe’s not the only one who’s slated to become a millionaire over night. At least 1,000 Facebook employees are said to hold enough stock to make that happen, and I just bought a bunch of lottery tickets this morning, so who knows? In any event, Choe’s gain in particular is probably the most mind-blowing considering his tangential connection with the whole Facebook machine. He’s lucky he made the right choice; I’m not sure it’s even possible to kick yourself hard enough for passing up a chance like that. Choe hasn’t commented on whether he sold any of his stake, but I like to think he forgot he even had it until the reporters started calling. It just adds to the fantasy. Now, someone find me a penny; I need to start working my way through this stack of scratch-offs.

(Via The Sun, Image via The New York Times)

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Over the last four years or so, Facebook has grown from 50 million users to 845 million, well on their way to hitting the prestigious one billion user mark, something that is projected to happen this summer.

Over at Reuters, Anthony De Rosa has an interesting list capturing some of the more intriguing data points regarding Facebook’s IPO. Evil game company Zynga, creator of FarmVille, accounts for around 12% of Facebook’s revenue, and in 2011, advertising accounted for a staggering 85% of Facebook’s revenue, though when you think about it, a service that offers its most popular features for free making that much revenue from advertising isn’t surprising at all. Another interesting fact is that Mark Zuckerberg owns 28% of Facebook, a number you probably thought was a bit higher, but before the IPO, he owns enough stock to have total veto power, at 56.9%. Check out some other interesting, though not as intriguing tidbits over at Reuters, and if everything goes right with Facebook’s IPO, the world should probably brace itself for an even bigger Facebook.

UPDATE: Check out a video highlighting the red flags of the Facebook IPO below.

(story via The New York Times, Reuters, video via Anthony De Rosa)

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Currently, Matthews’ post is sitting with 1,001,291 replies. Though Matthews’ repetitious two-letter word strategy seems to have been essential in getting the post over the one million mark, she wasn’t alone. About 107 of her Facebook pals joined in, meaning that the average number of posts is around 9,000 per person. Though The Guinness Book of World Records has been contacted, there’s no official word if this is the new record holder. Considering that the previous record was a mere 529,335, however, Matthews seems like a shoe-in.

When asked by local news channel Fox40, Matthews said that she was aiming for the world record simply to make her mark on the world. She’s quoted as saying:

“I’m no spring chicken anymore and I really haven’t done anything phenomenal,” laughed Matthews.

While it’s easy to mock an endeavor like this, it’s not so different than trying to unlock an in-game achievement or trying to beat any given arcade game. So I’m saying good on her for pulling it together, and hopefully setting the bar so high that no one will attempt this again.

(Fox40 via The Next Web)

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We’ve been saying it for roughly ever, but Angry Birds is coming to every platform you can imagine. This time, on Valentine’s Day, your favorite game about birds that commit suicide-murder (oddly backwards) in order to save their children but leave them parentless, will be coming to Facebook.

Rovio honcho Peter Vesterbacka said the launch will be held in Jakarta, a “major Facebook hub.” Even though Angry Birds is on its way to one billion downloads, currently sitting somewhere around 700 million, releasing the game to the Facebook masses opens up a new market currently sitting at 800 million accounts. Surely, a portion of those 800 million accounts have Angry Birds on some other device, be it a phone, PSP, or computer, but another portion probably doesn’t, and Facebook sure is a good way to get anything in front of most people’s eyes.

Rovio will be introducing new power-ups to the game when it releases over Facebook (though they don’t reveal specifics), which one can earn while playing the game, or buy for the microtransaction pricing’s best friend, $0.99. Along with the power-ups, Rovio will also be upgrading Facebook’s Angry Birds to a full screen display and as well as higher quality animation. Perhaps most importantly, the game will include Facebook leaderboards, so fellow Facebook gamers can compete with one another.

When the game launches worldwide on Valentine’s Day, try to remember that you have a significant other you need to pay attention to. If you don’t, lucky you, you can play Angry Birds on Facebook all day without any distraction.

(via Penn Olson)

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Announced last year, Facebook’s new Timeline interface is the largest change to its UI since the introduction of the Wall. For months, it was available only to developers and users who opted-in to the new layout. That changed today when Facebook announced that Timeline would begin rolling out over the next few weeks for all users starting today, and is guaranteed to spawn a myriad of “petitions” demanding its removal and a #timelinesucks tag on Twitter. 

One reason that users might be wary of Timeline, besides Facebook’s notorious fear of change, is that the new interface allows easy access to long buried Facebook posts from years ago. Remember those halcyon days of yore? Back when Facebook was wild and free; when you could post anything you wanted because parents, employers, and loved ones couldn’t access the then-fenced-in social network. Are you starting to see how this could be a problem?

Fortunately, once a user’s account morphs into Timeline, they’ll have one week before the new interface is visible to anyone else. With that seven day grace period, users can peruse their old posts, weeding out what would now be embarrassing. Posts can either be deleted, made private, or viewable only to certain groups ala Google+ Circles.

Given that for some users Facebook contains eight years of social interaction, going through all those posts might be more than a bit daunting. Not to worry, as Facebook is rolling out a new Activity Log tool to help. Activity Log, which is not publicly visible, lets you quickly search through all Facebook activity and easily edit your Timeline.

Given Facebook’s history with personal information and dragging users along with drastic change, the useful tools and methodical roll out of Timeline is most welcome. And while some users are sure to be confused, and probably angered, by Timeline, it really is a better way to use Facebook. For the first time, your personal history with the site is easily available, realizing its potential as a digital scrapbook. With Google+ nipping at its heels, Facebook needs this kind of innovation.

Users who just can’t wait for Timeline to come to them can still opt in by clicking here.

(Facebook Blog via TechCrunch)

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Up until now, Facebook has been pretty quietly anti-SOPA. Sure, they’ve been anti-SOPA from the start, but in a very reserved, quietly private way. They wouldn’t just up and tell you; you’d have to look into yourself. For instance, they were one of the Internet giants who took out that full page ad, and one of the ones who wrote that letter. They were even one of the companies reportedly considering the nuclear option. Nonetheless, they hadn’t public addressed users, until today.

Today, amidst the blackouts that took down Wikipedia and reddit, and took over Google’s signature Doodle, Mark Zuckerberg made a post on his wall explaining that Facebook is vehemently against SOPA and PIPA for all your standard reasons that people are against SOPA and PIPA. At the time of this writing, the post has 307,569 likes and 60,754 shares. Not bad.

Considering Facebook hasn’t blacked out or displayed any banners by now, it’s unlikely that they will, and considering their rather private opposition in the past, it’s not surprising. Still, at the rate Zuckerberg’s post is being shared and with the number of people who are replacing their Profile pictures with anti-SOPA imagery, it’s quite possible that Facebook is still one of the largest anti-SOPA information platforms without even displaying anything. Of course, it wouldn’t hurt if they did, and there seems to be no reason not to, but at least they are on the right side of the fight and not afraid to admit it.

Zuckerberg says:

The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can’t let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet’s development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.

The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet.

You can read more about our views here: https://www.facebook.com/FacebookDC?sk=app_329139750453932.

(via Facebook)

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Just when you thought the site with the second highest traffic U.S. traffic couldn’t get any bigger, digital marketing agency iCrossing extrapolated some numbers and found that if Facebook continues to grow at the rate it has been, it will hit one billion active users by this summer.

The marketing firm points out that Facebook recently announced it hit 800 million active users, so the social networking site doesn’t have very far to go before it can boast it has as many active users as one-seventh of the world’s population. iCrossing projects that Facebook will hit the monumental number sometime during August of this year.

The report also notes that when looking at the number starting from 2006, Facebook looks like it was growing at an exponential rate, but the more one studies the numbers, the more it looks like Facebook is actually growing in a linear fashion. The firm also points out that Facebook’s growth rate has either slowed or entirely stopped in its early adopting countries, such as the U.S. and the U.K., but the site continues to grow due to becoming available in new markets, like India and Brazil. Compared to the 49% of the United States population that uses Facebook, for instance, only 3% of India’s population has signed up, which certainly leaves a lot of room for growth.

One can only wonder if Facebook will continue down the path of taking over the Internet, or if some new social network will come along and knock it off its throne, as Facebook once did to, um, what was that thing called again?

(via iCrossing)

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If you’re the kind of person who’s always on Facebook, what could possibly be funnier than a shower curtain that looks like a Facebook Page? A lot of things! But still, this Facebook shower curtain even has a little window for you to pose as your profile pic. What better way to celebrate your addiction? It’ll be hilarious to all those people who are in your bathroom with you while you shower! Or the person who asks to awkwardly photograph you in the shower so you can post it to Facebook. It’s an antiquated profile design, but that’s part of the joke, right? Right?!

If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t think $23 (£14.99) is too much for an out-of-date joke that hardly anyone will ever see, you can buy one of these bad boys here. I mean, you might as well by two or three, right? They’ll be funnier if you layer them.

(via Geeks are Sexy)

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That seems to be where the evidence of such consideration begins and ends, however. Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales was pretty vocal about the possibility a few weeks ago, but that discussion has since gone relatively quiet and as far as I can tell, none of the companies listed as members at NetColition have so much as uttered the word “blackout” except perhaps behind closed doors. All of them have been engaged in various statements and petitions expressing their vehement opposition of SOPA, yes, but none of them have threatened or suggested blackout, yet.

If this were to come to pass, however, it could really shake up and invigorate the entire anti-SOPA movement. I don’t think I have to explain the implications of a day without Google or Twitter or Facebook to any of you. Even a simple click-through splash page without an actual blackout behind it could have drastic effects. Of course, it’s exciting to think about the potential from these Internet behemoths joining in solidarity against a common evil, especially after the loud, yet somewhat ineffective boycott that made GoDaddy change their stance on SOPA. But for the moment, it’s nothing more than wishful thinking. Still, I’m going to sit here and keep wishing for it.

(via CNET)

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Simply type the above code that corresponds to the appropriate rage face into Facebook chat, and the image of the rage face you chose will appear, emoticon-like in its existence. Facebook didn’t suddenly become hip to the Internet and add rage face emoticons (something from which Google Chat would greatly benefit), but the ability to add rage faces to Facebook chat is more of a hack than anything else, and something to which you can add.

Reddit user daychilde explains that these aren’t actually some form of ragemoticon, but that the double bracket and code corresponds to a user profile or page, and when put into Facebook chat, will show the thumbnail of the profile or page that the code links to.

So, all one has to do to make any picture a Facebook chat emoticon, is to simply create a user profile or page that uses the desired picture as the profile picture, then enter the double brackets and corresponding code into Facebook chat. Here’s a tidy list of some more rage face codes:

• Troll face: [[171108522930776]]
• ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME: [[143220739082110]]
• Not bad Obama: [[169919399735055]]
• Me Gusta: [[211782832186415]]
• Mother of God: [[142670085793927]]
• Cereal Guy: [[170815706323196]]
• LOL Face: [[168456309878025]]
• NO Guy: [[167359756658519]]
• Yao Ming: [[218595638164996]]
• Derp: [[224812970902314]]
• Derpina: [[192644604154319]]
• Forever Alone: [[177903015598419]]
• Not Bad: [[NotBaad]]
• Fuck yeah: [[105387672833401]]
• Challenge accepted: [[100002727365206]]
• Okay face: [[100002752520227]]
• Dumb bitch: [[218595638164996]]
• Poker face: [[129627277060203]]
• Okay face: [[224812970902314]]
• Socially awkward penguin: [[98438140742]]
• Rage face: [[FUUUOFFICIAL]]
• Lamp: [[100001256102462]]
• No: [[167359756658519]]
• MOG: [[142670085793927]]
• Feel like a sir: [[168040846586189]]
• Forever alone christmas: [[125038607580286]]

Happy raging.

(via reddit)

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In this wide, wild world of social media, companies are always trying to find a way to get into your treasure trove of personal information. I mean, it must be tantalizing knowing that all that information is sitting out there, but most of it — if you’re smart — is locked down. That’s why companies have been moving towards ad campaigns that use all your Facebook information to do something “really cool!” Orbit Gum, for instance, lets you turn your Facebook information into an abstract gum design on a digital pack of gum! Amazing right! Oh, and only requires that you hand over access to, you know, all your Facebook data! Yeah!

Okay, okay, but how does all of this work? Well, it’s simple really. Go to the Orbit Gum Facebook page and you’ll see some awesome examples of these awesome digital gum packs! See, what they do is take your information and use it to create a unique cyber gum package just for you! Here, they say it better than I do, from the FAQ:

The application uses an algorithm to map your Facebook data to a design. Think of this as an infographic on an Orbit pack. Each user’s design is unique!

Oh boy, they like exclamation points, too! That’s not all though, folks. Orbit is aware that a cyber gum package is kind of lame, so they give you a chance to get a real one! If you can get enough people to vote for you (and create their own designs, of course) you can win $500 dollars and the chance to have your design on real pack of Orbit gum!

The catch? It’s all a ploy to take as much personal data from you as possible and then use it forever! I’ll admit that most of you would expect this, but in this case, it’s worse than normal. You see, by claiming to use your data as seeds for the algorithm that creates the design — something that they probably actually do — they are painstakingly trying to justify taking as much information from you as possible. They need to know your religious views to determine the size of that circle over there. Wait, religious views? What exactly do they want from you? Oh, not much.

Let me draw particular attention to:

• Religious and political views
• Posts with location
• Relationship statuses
• And the kicker, your friends’ profile info!

Alright, but this is all just fuel for the number cruncher, right? They’d never give this out or anything? No. Of course not. Just check the FAQ again:

No, other people will not have access to your data and will only see your completed design, including your first name, last initial, city, and state. You can learn about your own design during the pack generation process and cannot assess the specific data after you have registered your design for the contest.

Oh. Phew. But maybe I better check the full rules. Can’t hurt, right? All emphasis is mine, by the way.

Sponsor and its designees have the right to use any and all Entries, and any and all elements appearing in the Entry for future advertising, marketing, manufacture and/or sale, commercial, promotion and publicity in any manner and in any medium now known or hereafter devised throughout the world in perpetuity without compensation or notice to Entrant

But that must just refer to the graphics and designs, right?

Entrant hereby grants Sponsor and its parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, licensees, designees and legal representatives (“Licensed Entities”) a royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive and fully sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, broadcast, publicly perform, post, create derivative works from, and display any materials incorporated by Entrant into the Entry (if any) or submitted by Entrant (such as personal information, title and/or elements, including but not limited to name(s), biographical materials and all other graphic and/or textual material) (together with the Entry, the “Materials”), and/or any portions or excerpts thereof, in any manner, in whole or in part, in composite or distorted character or form or as otherwise changed, or reproductions thereof, in color or otherwise, an unlimited number of times on a worldwide basis, and to incorporate it into other works, in any form, media or technology now known or later developed, including for editorial, commercial, promotional or marketing purposes (including posting on the Internet) or for any other purpose in any and all media throughout the world, whether now known or hereafter created, in each instance without additional review, notice, compensation, or approval from the entrant or any other party

In short, no. No one else will see any of your data. Unless of course, Orbit Gum shows it to them, something you gave them permission to do.

Now, it’s not like you don’t expect this to happen when you get involved in a promotion like this, and I don’t read Official Rules often, so maybe the whole bit about “technologies that haven’t been invented yet” is standard fare, but this is still kind of offensive. Yeah, you get to see your own Orbit Gum pack, but they own all of your personal information and can use it “throughout the world in perpetuity,” so that’s kind of a big bone you’re throwing them in exchange.

Bottom line is that you should never, ever engage in ad campaigns that require you to hook up your Facebook account because they’re all out for the rights to your personal information. All of them. All the time. Trust me on this one, you’re better off just closing your eyes, scribbling on a piece of paper and calling that an Orbit Gum package.

(h/t Mashable)

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(NM Incite via Huffington Post)

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In response to Rotem Guez launching LikeStore, a website that sells advertisers Facebook Likes for their Facebook pages, Facebook is suing him. LikeStore offers users free content for Liking a company’s page, which happens to be in violation of Facebook’s current Terms of Service, so Facebook decided it was time to shut the service down. Guez is unhappy, as one might expect, and claims that though LikeStore is indeed in violation of the current Terms of Service, many other companies offer the same service. So, Guez did what any rational person would do in response to a lawsuit from Facebook — he legally changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg hoping that the bad publicity of Facebook suing Mark Zuckerberg would deter their legal efforts.

This saga has been going on for quite a while — at least one year — when back in January Guez sued Facebook for not returning his Facebook profile to him for what he felt was no “apparent, legitimate reason,” after Facebook kicked him off the service for selling Likes. In September, Facebook responded with a cease and desist for LikeStore, and just recently toward the beginning of this month, Guez went and legally changed his name to Mark Zuckerberg, and took what seems to be a candid pocket-style video of the process, seen below.

Only a week after that, Facebook threatened the newly-minted Mark Zuckerberg with a lawsuit, and took down a profile page he made using the new name. The battle still seems to be ongoing, but one can only assume Facebook has the leverage, since they’re Facebook, and have a pretty clearly defined Terms of Service, even if you just ignore it and click that you agree.

(via ZDNet)

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At the moment, the ways in which your social media activity will affect your credit score are largely hazy and underutilized. There are, however, a few shining beacons of the terrifying insanity that may be on its way. Lenddo, for instance, is a Hong Kong-based micro-lender that asks for some unusual information: The credentials for your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Yahoo, and Windows Live accounts. Upon handing these over, it seems like Lenddo assimilates them into your Lenddo account proper where your score will benefit or suffer based on how financially stable your Lenddo friends are. If they default, it’s going to affect you negatively. Think about it this way, you’re going to do a much better job at stratifying your friends into socioeconomic groups than Lenddo is.

Oh, there’s another nifty feature too. Check out this text from the Lenddo FAQ:

Just because you get access to credit, does not mean you should borrow. Failure to repay will negatively impact your Lenddo score, as well as the score of your Lenddo friends. Lenddo MAINTAINS THE RIGHT TO NOTIFY YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND COMMUNITY if the borrower fails to repay, however, this is only done after several notifications to the borrower and an attempt to work out a payment plan.

The emphasis is theirs. They mean business. Of course, Lenddo is a bit of an outside case. Hopefully this isn’t the future of banking, but it might be.

You probably won’t have to hand over the keys to all of your social media accounts for a loan any time soon, but you very well may be required, or — ahem — strongly encouraged, to verify your accounts. According to an article on Betabeat, Matt Thomson, VP at Klout, says he’s been approached by the “the who’s who of banking” in regards to Klout’s social media technology. Lenddo CEO Jeff Stewart also reports that he’s been approached by these fellows, regularly. Fortunately for everyone, the Lenddo algorithm is proprietary. For now.

Clearly, some of the powers that be are interested in the opportunity. Equifax, a credit rating company, actually responded to Betabeat’s questioning on the topic, stating that:

“Our corporate development professionals are very aware of the opportunities to enhance our proprietary data and partner with companies who add value to the accuracy of our reporting, which helps our customers make better decisions prior to lending.”

All that being said, it’s time to start thinking about the way you social network, again. In fact, it’s best never to stop thinking about it actually. In a world where the words “share” and “connected” are used so frequently to describe the surrender of private information, it’s easy to get swept away in a feel-good whirlwind of complaining to the whole world that you just lost your job and are about to drink away the pain. I mean, why tell anyone who isn’t able to show up, commiserate, and buy you a few, right?

(Betabeat via PCWorld)

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The website Once Upon imagines a simpler time; a slower, more civilized age best viewed in Netscape Navigator 4.3 on a CRT monitor at 8 kB/s. In short, it imagines how current pillars of the Intnernet — Google+, Facebook, and YouTube — would look and function if they were made in 1997. The brainchild of Olia Lialina and  Dragan Espenschied, the site brings back the square dialog boxes and tables you hoped you’d never see again. It even claims to run at super-slow dialup speeds. The experience is so real, you can practically hear the modem screech.

(Once Upon via TNW)

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Internet behemoths like Facebook and Google are starting to get miffed about the increasing trend of browser apps that are effectively stealing their adspace out from under them by giving their own ads a priority spot. Adception, if you will. It seems that the prime culprits are applications from the Sambreel suite, namely PageRage and Buzzdock. Ostensibly, the purpose of these applications is to do stuff like make your Facebook page look pretty by slathering it with hearts, stars, and horseshoes or whatever. You know. Important stuff. As it turns out, however, a big part of the plan may involve pushing ads.

Big surprise, right? “Oh no, the adwarey adware I downloaded is pushing ads! How unexpected!” The real issue is that they aren’t adding ads, they’re replacing the originals, or at least sliding them down the page. That’s a big deal. Advertisers pay big money for those high traffic spots and now they aren’t getting them. Facebook and Google and such get a lot of their money from selling that adspace, and they aren’t getting any revenue from the app ads. It’s not good for anybody, except Sambreel, which is raking in the dough. It’s also worth pointing out that a lot of ad complaints Google and Facebook get is about this stuff, not official ads.

They aren’t just advertising weird Russian stuff either, Sambreel applications push some big name companies with their questionably acquired adspace. Companies like Gap, American Express and AT&T. Facebook has sent cease and desist letters to Sambreel about the subject, which is where we get into the other half of this thing: Sambreel doesn’t think it’s doing anything wrong.

Company spokespeople insist that their software just allows users to “view the Web the way they want the Web to be viewed.” They also aren’t fond of the term adware. ”It is a nasty term to call us adware. The term we prefer is ad-supported software,” Sambreel’s chief financial officer Kai Hankinson told the Wall Street Journal. Yeah! Ad-supported software! Also known as adware! Wait.

Facebook is bracing to take legal action, but it’s a bit of a grey area, so there’s no telling how it will actually play out. Sambreel is quick to point out that they’ve done nothing wrong, as you might expect they’d say. After all, they argue users agree to terms of service that prepare them for the ads, and if they don’t want them, they can buy an ad-free version (yeah right) or uninstall the software. The legal grounds this is all based on largely depends on whether or not consumers are confused by what they are agreeing to when they use this software. In essence, it’s hardly different from Adblock, it’s just its twin from Bizarro world. The companies whose ads are being pushed largely claim ignorance. Due to the weird matrix of third party companies that broker adspace, it can be hard to tell where some of the ads are going.

It’s unclear how it’ll all play out, but chances are what Sambreel is doing is legal. Facebook and Google could try and block the apps, but it’s an annoying chore and leads to a software update arms race. Perhaps the best solution is just getting the truth out there. I’m going to do my part right now: Ad-supported browser addons are just awful. They look awful, they perform awfully, and they help you do things that are awful. No amount of hearts and glitter is worth the indignity of using an ad-supported browser addon. Tell your friends.

(via Wall Street Journal)

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Vigilant readers will recall how this weekend we wrote about a rumor claiming that social networking juggernaut Facebook had purchased the Austin based check-in service Gowalla. Well, now those rumors have been confirmed, and Gowalla’s founder has said that the service will begin shutting down next month.

Yesterday, Gowalla founder Josh Williams wrote on his blog that he and other members of the Gowalla team would transition to new jobs at Facebook. Williams writes:

About two months ago, my co-founder Scott [Raymond] and I attended F8. We were blown away by Facebook’s new developments. A few weeks later Facebook called, and it became clear that the way for our team to have the biggest impact was to work together. So we’re excited to announce that we’ll be making the journey to California to join Facebook!

Facebook has confirmed that Williams and others would be taking jobs with the company, though they have not said in what area they would be working. We previously reported that it was rumored the Gowalla team would take new jobs working on Facebook’s Timeline features, though that is still speculation. Neither side has revealed how much the deal cost Facebook. Interestingly, Facebook has said that it will not be taking any of the technology Gowalla developed, nor will it be picking up any of Gowalla’s user information.

That information is likely quite precious to some Gowalla users, as it represented a running list of places they’d visited. Additionally, Gowalla boasted a complex achievement system which rewarded users for checking in and completing lists of check-ins called “trips.” The service also used to feature a virtual item swapping system, which was discontinued prior to Facebook purchase.

However, Williams promises in his blog post that Gowalla will be creating a tool to export all their user data — checkins, badges, items, the works.

With the sale now confirmed, the future of Gowalla has also been revealed. According to Williams, the service will wind down starting at the end of January. Though he does not give a firm date, the service will likely shut down not long after.

So long, Gowalla. It was a fun ride.

(Gowalla via Macworld, image via Gowalla)

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Though apparently launched on the same day as Foursquare, Gowalla set itself apart with a system for picking up and dropping virtual items at check-in locations, brightly illustrated icons for special locations, and “trips” comprised of multiple check-in locations in addition to leader boards and badges. Despite these unique services, Gowalla struggled to gain an audience. Earlier this year, Gowalla attempted to reinvent itself as a travel guide service and abandoned many of the game-like aspects it debuted with.

If the Facebook acquisition proves true, the story of Gowalla could be quite illustrative of the current state of Internet companies. Though Gowalla was (arguably) better looking than Foursquare and packed numerous new features into its service, it never managed to overtake its primary rival. It’s story could be compared to services like Google+, which despite bringing improvements to an existing model have struggled to turn those improvements into an active user base.

Though the ultimate fate of Gowalla’s services and mobile device apps remains unknown, CNN Money points out that Facebook has a pattern of dismantling acquired startups. This outcome seems especially likely since Facebook’s own location services would surely shine brighter with one less competitor in the field. For those of us with Gowalla accounts, now might be a good time to start picking the spot for your last check-in.

(CNN Money via Techmeme)

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After a specific character limit is reached, which seems to be around 80 or so, the status updates appearing in the Live Ticker will truncate, preventing the inevitable 60,000 character spam that will come with this update. The News Feed, however, truncates the status updates at around 400 characters, so that will be the place to avoid, or depending on how much you like reading status updates, the place to spend the bulk of your Internet time.

If someone really wants the character limit on a status update to exceed 60,000, Facebook suggests simply writing a Note instead of a status update at 63,206 characters, a number chosen for an amusing reason. Facebook engineer Bob Baldwin:

I set the exact limit to something nerdy. Facebook … Face Boo K … hex(FACE) – K … 64206 – 1000 = 63206 :-)”.

The question this character limit increase will pose is whether Facebook users will use the new limit to be productive and post more thought-provoking updates, or if they’ll resort to abusing the new limit and spamming with longer-form inane chatter. My guess: A little from column A, a little from column B.

(All Facebook via Inside Facebook)

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First, Neto idenfitied SecGirl’s manager and created a clone of the account. Same name, similar picture, etc. Next, he sent out friend requests to the friends of SecGirl’s manager’s friends, (you might want to read that twice, carefully) 4 degrees out from SecGirl. He sent out a whopping 432 requests and got 24 confirmations within the hour even though 96% of those 432 people already had the legitimate account of SecGirl’s as a friend.

Next, Neto sent requests to all 436 of the manager’s direct friends, 3 degrees out from SecGirl. In an hour, he managed 14 confirmations. After only seven hours, he managed to get SecGirl to accept a friend request from his fradulent account, conning people into vouching for him.

Big deal, right? Who cares. Everybody is extremely friend-happy anyways, right? Clearly they must be. Well the danger of this is that even if you keep your account locked down from the outside, friends who you don’t actually know (even if you think you do) can get useful information from your page. Useful information for what purpose? Oh, I don’t know, stealing your account.

“How?” you ask? There’s this thing Facebook offers called the 3 Trusted Friends Password Recovery Feauture. I won’t go into the specifics here, but it basically allows anyone to reset both the password and email of someone else’s account if used right wrong in a certain manner. All you need to do to make it work is — wait for it — get the target to accept friend requests from 3 accounts under your control. It’s all coming together now, isn’t it?

Of course, this can all be related back to one central problem with social networking: People who want to have ALL the friends. What makes this all possible is slap-happy friending by people who don’t realize what’s going on. It only takes a few to lend a cloned account enough clout to slip past increasingly discerning users. After enough friending, the only way a target could pick up on the attack is by going down their friends list, having their friends list memorized, or by doing some sort of secret cyber handshake before accepting the request.

Normally, I’d close this out with telling you to be careful or something, which I guess I still will. Be careful. But more importantly, try to convince your friending-happy friends to be more careful as well, because everyone you associate with on Facebook can be used as a weapon against you. I guess the ultimate advice here is try not to be friends with idiots and pay attention to who you’re actually friending if you’re going to be active at all. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a friends list to purge.

(via Ars Technica)

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According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook could be angling for an IPO between April and June of next year. Facebook’s official channels have remained tight-lipped about any such plan, and Zuckerberg has famously seemed cool to the idea. However, WSJ’s “people familiar with the matter” seem to think otherwise. They claim that Facebook has already written its own prospectus, a key first step in becoming a publicly traded company.

Going public does have its downsides, of course. Sure, your company gets lots of money — in Facebook’s case, possibly $10 billion —  but it also means being beholden to investors and making financial information public. Both of these seem likely to rankle the somewhat notoriously independent-minded Zuckerberg.

Another possible downside could be the recent dissatisfaction with new tech companies going public. Groupon and LinkedIn both saw massive IPO valuations which saw equally massive losses once the stock was on the market. With all the talk of a second tech bubble, Facebook could be a knight in shining armor if its IPO went well, perhaps bolstering confidence in other tech companies, or just another middling stock market newcomer.

Should Facebook go public with a $100 billion valuation and successfully raise $10 billion in the process, it would be amongst the largest public offerings in history. From the WSJ:

Only 13 IPOs have ever been completed with a value greater than $10 billion, and just three of those have been for U.S. companies, according to Dealogic, which tracks new securities issues. The only U.S. issuers at that size level have been Visa Inc. at $19.7 billion in 2008; General Motors Co. at $18.1 billion in 2010; and AT&T Wireless Services Inc. at $10.6 billion in 2000.

The WSJ goes on to note that Google’s 2004 IPO valued the company at $23 billion, and it has gone down as the largest U.S. Internet IPO in history.

One thing is certain amidst all this speculation: Facebook is making a lot of money, and people are keen to get a slice of it. If and when that happens will just have to remain the fever dreams of Harvard business students for now.

(via WSJ)

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Despite Facebook’s success, it’s fair to ask why they would want to tempt fate and launch their own device. The issue is probably control, or rather, the fact that Facebook has almost none.

Take the iPhone. Facebook’s app is hugely popular on the platform, but it has to conform to Apple’s draconian rules to be allowed within the walled garden of iOS. That means that Apple controls how Facebook could make money on the device, and even how features can be integrated with the phone itself. Apple could also, at any time and for any reason, simply kick Facebook out of the app garden. If you need proof of this uneasy existence between the two companies, just look at the saga surrounding the Facebook iPad app.

Google’s handsets, on the other hand, are all about tight integration with their products. If you’re on an Android phone, why would you use Facebook’s currency system, its messaging, or even its social networking when Google has G+, Google Wallet, and GMail built right in? No matter what platform Facebook goes with, they’re going to be treated like a peasant and not a king.

It’s important to note that while Facebook has collaborated with other device makers in the past, resulting in that thoroughly weird “Facebook Button” phone, this would be a device built solely around the social networking service. AllThingsD says that from what they’ve heard, a final product is still 12 to 18 months away.

For inspiration, Facebook may be looking to Amazon’s Kindle. With the launch of that device, Amazon was able to establish itself as a hardware manufacturer, and then expand their niche from simply being a retailer to being a media service. Likewise, Facebook is probably hoping to be going from a timesink, to an actual tool through which users do everything.

Facebook seems to be angling to realize the full potential of its services, all on one device. With no one else’s rules to worry about, Facebook could run wild with its aspirations, and perhaps really shake up the smartphone market — assuming, of course, they don’t do something horrible with all that power. Facebook doesn’t have a great track record with privacy, after all. And it’s worth noting that launching hardware is a very, very difficult thing to do; it’s a very small change to go from “Buffy” to “Buggy.”

(via AllThingsD, TechCrunch, ParisLemon)

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In their ad, the companies say that though they support new tools to take down websites that solely provide copyright infringing activities, they are concerned that the legislation as it stands would greatly harm their ability to do business and would hamper the continued growth of a highly profitable sector of the U.S. economy. Specifically, they voice concern over the elimination of so-called “safe harbours” created by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. This gave protection to companies that acted in good faith to remove infringing content from their services.

(via BoingBoing)

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You might immediately think “Oh, of course, that’s what LinkedIn is for,” but actually, the majority of these lucky job-finders attribute their employment to Myspace Facebook. 78% percent of them, in fact. Myspace Twitter comes in next at 42% and Myspace LinkedIn just behind at 40% even. Obviously, those surveyed were not required to pick one network exclusively.

This is up from last year’s 11% and we can only assume that it’ll go up further as more prospective employees take to the social network “streets” to look for work and more employers start upping their social network hiring presence. In fact, both are starting to happen already. BranchOut, a company devoted to “Career Networking on Facebook” has released some tools to help turn Facebook into an application queue. Additionally, Jobvite, Monster, and Work4 Labs have all introduced mechanisms through which big companies can advertise their openings via everyone’s favorite social media behemoth.

A lot of this is due to the fact that, about a year ago, Facebook made job information on user profiles publicly visible by default, spurring plenty of users to change the field so it didn’t list the McDonald’s job they had 4 years ago in high-school. This made Facebook a bit more of a force to be reckoned with at least from LinkedIn’s perspective, since Facebook’s community is already gigantic and now it’s started encroaching on the whole “job” space.

Whatever the case, if you’re looking for a job, you should probably keep a close eye on your social media networks and maybe even be proactive about looking; it’s not taboo anymore, apparently. And if you’re looking for employees to fill a spot, there’s no shame in Facebooking it. After all, that’s where all the unemployed people are hanging out, right?

(via TechCrunch)

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The exploit is your standard linkspam virus and is baited with your typical “click here to find out about [pop icon]! Blah blah blah!” Apparently, that hasn’t become quite enough of a warning flag for some users who may actually be interested in [pop icon], and so the exploit is doing fairly well for itself. Once the link is clicked, the user’s timeline is filled up with all kinds of lovely pictures of porn and gore, explicit sex and explicit violence. Good times.

Some people are pointing fingers at Anonymous, who supposedly claimed to be planning to take out the social networking giant on Guy Fawkes day. This is almost certainly as misguided as it was last time. While the variety of grotesque images is rather reminiscent of /b/, from which Anonymous spawned, the attack is not Anonymous’ style at all. First of all, it’s not a DDoS attack or an information leak, and second of all, if Anonymous was being mischievous, you can bet that they would be talking about it, loudly.

The more likely explanation is that someone, or some group of people — perhaps people who’ve affiliated with Anonymous at other times — are causing a little bit of chaos to wreak havoc on, and maybe draw some attention to, the insecurity of Facebook from an account sercurity angle as well as a “We are becoming a culture of over-sharing — let me show the logical extreme” angle. I haven’t had the luck (or misfortune) of seeing any of the images myself, but I try to cull my friends list frequently and the exploit seems to be hitting mostly those who play fast and loose with Facebook.

In any event, Facebook is obviously looking into the cause of the images and trying to find a way to make them stop. In the mean time, don’t click any unsolicited links about any pop icon, especially Kim Kardashian, unless you want to spam your friends and loved ones with gore and porn. Then again, if you do want to do that, you probably don’t have that many friends or loved ones to spam.

(via ZDNet)

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What is social energy, you ask?

Social energy is what you need to manage all of the events in your life. Whether it is work, school, sports or just getting through the daily routine, Facedrink provides you with a boost of energy to manage it all.

So, regular energy. But Facebook-branded. I’m not entirely sure how it was allowed to make a product so closely resembling Facebook, but that is probably because Facebook hasn’t caught up to it yet. Also, naming your possibly-real-possibly-not energy drink after something that sounds like a new subsection of fetish videos? Come on, man. Head on over to Facedrink’s website, which has a URL that sure makes the product seem fake even though someone will take your money on Amazon for it.

(via Geekologie)

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Concerned about privacy implications? Well, you probably shouldn’t be. All the privacy options that are available with Facebook and such still apply, so if your account is locked down properly, you won’t see any of your particularly embarrassing drunken rants showing up in Google searches until one of your so-called “friends” decides to submit one to all the popular comedy websites as revenge for a similar, but unrelated tirade directed at him that he thought was completely uncalled for, but that he totally had coming. Not that that’s ever happened to me. Definitely not. (But really though, it hasn’t.)

The comments that’ll be showing up in Google searches are largely ones in public forums, so there’s really no breach of privacy here unless you’re a total troll and Google is blowing up your spot. There is, however, a minor breach of privacy somewhere else. If your privacy settings are all locked down tight, but you make a comment to Steve, who hasn’t updated his privacy settings since senior year of high school, your comment may become searchable, so watch your step.

All in all, this is something you totally should have seen coming, so hopefully you’re ready. You’ve had a couple of years to come to terms with the fact that things on the Internet are rarely private. I hope you’ve adjusted.

(via PCWorld)

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Facebook users have started to get more and more concerned about the privacy of their personal data recently. Non-Facebook users might start getting worried as well. A recently filed complaint from Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner alleges that Facebook purposely uses covert methods to coax Facebook users into handing over information about their non-member friends and then hoards that information, creating dossiers on non-users.

The complaint alleges that mechanisms like syncing phone books and email contact lists, sending invitations, and even search queries are being used by Facebook to not only collect and store information about non-members, but to con members into handing it over frequently and in quantity. As “proof” the complain points out that often, non-users will get invitations listing people whom they know in real life. This kind of information, the complaint suggests, could be being used for less than legal purposes.

Facebook, of course, categorically denies these claims. Facebook Spokesman Andrew Noyes had the following to say to Fox News:

“The allegations are false. We enable you to send emails to your friends, inviting them to join Facebook. We keep the invitee’s email address and name to let you know when they join the service. This practice is common among almost all services that involve invitations — from document sharing to event planning. The assertion that Facebook is doing some sort of nefarious profiling is simply wrong.”

Facebook also denies that any information about non-members is being used to target ads or anything of that sort.

Of course, the issue here is that, regardless of what Facebook may be doing, there is already a precedent that says that this kind of non-confirmed data collection is okay, for the moment: Other sites do that exact thing. WhitePages.com, for instance, has countless people in their search, very few of which gave any sort of consent. You can probably find yourself there. The logic from this angle would be that yes, you are entitled to your privacy, but you have to opt-in to it.

There’s also the issue that this complaint comes from Ireland. Ireland and Europe at large generally have stricter privacy laws. We here in the States (the lion’s share of you, I assume) may not be entitled to the same sorts of protection. At least, we may not have a government that would so rabidly defend privacy. Whatever the case, privacy in the digital age is changing and changing fast. Something is going to give soon. Either social networking sites are going to get seriously slammed with privacy litigation and lose, or our modern day concept of what constitutes private will slowly evolve.

You can read the actual complaint here. I recommend it. It’s short and not as hard to read as you might expect.

(via Fox News)

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It’s a simple fact that there are two different groups of people on Facebook. Some of them are Facebook friends only with people they know in real life and some of them are Facebook friends with everybody they have ever seen and have hundreds upon hundreds of “friends” whose names they wouldn’t be able to place a day or two after confirming the friend request. Clearly, these are two different types of people, but how different are they? According to a study by researchers at University College London, number of Facebook friends correllates with the density of grey matter in the brain.

Now, before we get ahead of ourselves, it’s important to remember that this doesn’t necessarily suggest that social networking changes the brain; it could also indicate that brain structure affects social networking behavior. Still, it’s interesting to find that this connection is ingrained at a level much deeper than personality, a hardware level.

In addition to comparing the brain scans of the 165 volunteers against their Facebook friend count, Professor Geraint Rees, leader of the study, also asked volunteers about their number of real friends. The results were that in three places (the superior temporal sulcus, middle temporal gyrus, and entorhinal cortex), grey matter density correlated with Facebook friends, but not with real life friends. It only correlated with both in one place (amygdala).

What’s interesting is that the superior temporal sulcus and the middle temporal gyrus have been associated with picking up on social cues and reading facial expressions while the entorhinal cortex has been linked to face and name memory. Again, no telling if Facebook is exercising the social interaction parts of the brain or just calling out to people who have those strengths already, but it’s interesting to note that it generally doesn’t seem to carry over to the real world.

This is all well and good, but the real question is whether or not Facebook has the power to actually change brain structure, something this study can’t help us figure out. Rees has said that he’s been considering further studies that will track the brain structure of participants over time, which could shed some light on the subject. Whether or not social networks are actively altering our brains, I’m sure no one is going to stop using them. It should be interesting to see what the first generation of kids raised on the things will be like. Hopefully not broken.

(via The Guardian)

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