Facebook glitch exposed phone numbers, e-mail addresses of six million users

Facebook recently disclosed a bug found in their “Download Your Information” tool that accidentally exposed some members’ contact information. As a result, approximately six million users may have had their e-mail addresses or phone numbers exposed to another person according to a post on the social network’s security blog.

The post notes that describing the bug can get pretty technical but basically, here’s what happened. In the event that you elected to download a copy of your data using the above mentioned “Download Your Information” tool, there’s a change that the archive may have included the e-mail address or phone number for contacts or people with whom you have some connection.

The information is said to come from other people on Facebook and thus may not be accurate but either way, it was inadvertently included with the contacts of the person using the DYI tool. Facebook said the bug was patched within 24 hours of being reported.

Speaking of, the bug seemingly slipped past Facebook’s technical team and was reported earlier this month through their White Hat program. If you are unfamiliar, Facebook offers security researchers monetary rewards (minimum of $500) in exchange for information about bugs and security holes.

At present, the social network has no evidence that the bug was exploited in a malicious behavior and they have not received any complaints from users that would suggest any wrongdoing. As such, the impact of the bug is expected to be minimal.

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PlayStation 4 is destroying the Xbox One in Amazon customer poll

 

Amazon is running a poll on their Facebook page asking readers which next generation console – Sony’s PlayStation 4 or Microsoft’s Xbox One – they prefer. If you’ve been reading story comments or message boards since E3, the results probably won’t surprise you much.

With more than five days left to vote, the Xbox One has amassed 1,754 votes (as of writing). The PlayStation 4, on the other hand, has 31,689 votes. Yeah, it’s not even remotely close. Sony executives must be feeling pretty happy at this point but at Microsoft, the atmosphere probably isn’t as cheery.

True, we won’t know how all of this pans out for a few more years but right now, the results are pretty telling. That’s because, unlike other polls you may find on fan sites, Amazon is a neutral party with a huge fan base that consists of both Sony and Microsoft homers (as well fans of games in general).

A quick look at Amazon’s Best Sellers list in their video games category solidifies what we are seeing in the poll. As of writing, the launch day edition of the PlayStation 4 is already sold out. Sony’s standard edition console – with a release date of December 31, 2013 – is currently ranked first ahead of the Xbox One.

That said, do you agree with the findings in Amazon’s poll thus far? If you had to choose between the two right now, would you go with Sony’s offering or lean more towards Microsoft?

[Source: TechSpot]

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It's official: Google confirms acquisition of Waze

 

Following weeks of speculation, it would appear that Google has plans to purchase Waze after all, a service that makes use of information from people’s smartphones to develop real-time traffic data. The search giant will reportedly acquire the Israeli-based company for $1.3 billion, providing it with a valuable asset that should help them to keep competitors Apple and Facebook at bay.

This is not the first time a Waze buyout has been proposed. Last May, Forbes wrote that Facebook was interested in purchasing Waze to the tune of $1 billion. Sales talks continued up until just a few weeks ago, where disagreements over the location of the company’s headquarters caused the deal to fold. The big problem was that Waze wanted to stay in Israel, while Facebook insisted on relocating the company to California.

In hopes of appeasing Waze’s CEO, Noam Bardin, Google has promised to keep the corporation in Israel for a minimum of three years. Over this time span, Waze will also remain an independent company and its brand image will stay separate from that of Google.

That being said, analysts speculate that Google will start to integrate Waze’s navigation service into their own product offerings following the 2016 deadline.

So why the sudden interest in Waze? Not only does Google want to add one of the premier navigation services to their fleet, but they want to prevent Facebook from becoming a serious threat.

Ha’aretz, an Israeli news source, added, “Google’s interest in Waze stems principally from its aim of blocking Facebook growth. The search company operates its own navigation service that competes head on with Waze. It has invested heavily in its system, including the ambitious Google Street View database of images and satellite images.”

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Facebook officially announces support for hashtags

Facebook on Wednesday announced official support for hashtags after a successful run on other services like Instagram and Twitter. They’ve become a “vital part of popular culture” and since they’re already used organically on the social network anyway, they decided to make them a true feature.

In a blog post on the topic, Facebook said hashtags will now be clickable. This will allow users to see a feed of what other people are saying about a particular event or topic. Furthermore, users will now be able to search for a specific hashtag from the search bar, click on hashtags that originate from other services like Instagram and compose posts directly from the hashtag feed and search results.
The social network points out that, like always, users will be able to control the audience for a post, even when using hashtags.

We’re told that hashtags are just the first step in helping people more easily discover what others are talking about with regards to a specific topic or event. They plan to roll out more features in the coming weeks and months such as trending hashtags and deeper insights.

Rumors surfaced back in March that Facebook would be implementing hashtags, a feature that was made famous in 2007. If you aren’t familiar, hashtags are words or phrases that are prefixed with the # symbol and are used to group together all posts about a similar event or topic.

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Facebook sued over IPO

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Facebook to sell 25% more shares

16 May 2012 Last updated at 16:23 GMT Facebook has 900 million users but its income stream is small in comparison to its size Facebook says it will sell 25% more shares than first planned in its flotation in response to strong demand.

The move comes one day after the social networking giant said it would raise the price of the shares by 21% to between $34-$38 a share.

It also comes despite doubts about the profitability of the site, which is largely used for social updates.

Car giant General Motors added to those doubts by saying on Tuesday it would no longer pay to advertise on the site.

However, rival Ford said it would continue its social media strategy. A spokesman said: "You just can't buy your way into Facebook. You need to have a credible presence and be doing innovative things."

Facebook will add about 84 million shares to its initial public share offering (IPO) and will now sell about 421 million shares, up from 337 million, raising $18bn (£11.3bn).

This is still only a small percentage of the entire company, and implies Facebook's full market value is around $100bn, similar to that of internet shopping giant Amazon.

The company makes only around $5 a year per member and has identified mobile devices, phones and tablet computers, as a key area for revenue growth.

But Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights and Strategy, said building that revenue would not be straightforward.

"Mobility is Facebook's biggest challenge in that they don't monetise it currently, but it is where the largest growth is."

He pointed to sites such as Groupon, which offers discounts on goods and services to subscribers, as one potentially profitable sector: "I expect them to target the local deals sector first then tie it in with check-ins.

"I expect them to either buy Groupon and Foursquare, or very quickly build-out these capabilities."

Initial rise?

The extra allotment of shares and the raising of the target price were both moves that were anticipated by analysts.

Mr Moorhead said that despite the increased share allotment and higher price range, he expected the price of shares to rise further initially: "For IPOs like this, they always rise on the first day, dip slightly, then the market readjusts over the next few months."

The actual price of the shares is expected to be revealed on Thursday with open market trading pencilled in to begin on Friday.

If all the shares are sold at the new higher price, the IPO would be the third-largest initial share sale in US history, after the financial giant Visa and General Motors.

The company could add even more shares to the sale as there are more than 60 million additional shares that could be sold to cover excess demand.

The eight-year-old social network has 900 million users worldwide and made a profit of $1bn last year.

The new shareholders will not have much say in how the business is run.

The shares on offer are "A" shares, which carry one vote per share, as is normal.

But the current owners' shares are "B" shares, which carry 10 votes each.

They will control more than 96% of the votes after the public listing, with founder Mark Zuckerberg holding just under 56% of the voting power of the company.

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Facebook focuses on media sharing

22 September 2011 Last updated at 20:39 GMT Spotify is one of the companies to take advantage of Facebook's enthusiasm for media sharing Facebook has outlined plans to encourage users to share more of the media they consume - including music and movies - with friends.

Its founder Mark Zuckerberg also unveiled a dramatic redesign to the website, replacing user profiles with an audio visual timeline of their life.

The updates were revealed at Facebook's annual F8 developer conference.

A wave of new features in recent weeks have been welcomed by some users and caused annoyance to many others.

Facebook's latest changes point to a desire to keep users engaged through new features, in the midst of rapid innovation from social networking rivals.

The site's application platform has been redesigned to allow users to share what they are consuming on streaming music services such as Spotify, and the movie rental site Netflix.

Continue reading the main story

Knowing you helped a friend discover something new and they liked your taste in music, and that you now have that in common, is awesome”

End Quote Mark Zuckerberg Facebook founder News sites, including the Guardian and Independent newspapers, are also included in the initial roll out.

Depending on privacy settings, users will be able to see what friends are doing - for example, playing a song - then listen-in themselves.

Mr Zuckerberg said he wanted to create, what he called, "real time serendipity".

"Being able to click on someone's music is a great experience, but knowing you helped a friend discover something new and they liked your taste in music, and that you now have that in common is awesome," he added.

Facebook said that users would only be able to do as much on the site as its media partners allowed in each country, so free music sharing through streaming apps would only work where that service was already available outside Facebook.

New look

Alongside the deeper integration of media content, the restyling of Facebook's profile pages is also likely to prove a hot topic among users.

Rory Cellan-Jones examines how Facebook's announcement affects the social networking war

The most radical departure so far from the site's well known profile format will doubtless prove contentious with its sometimes conservative members.

Identities will now be defined through a densely packed vertical timeline of major life events, made up of photos, videos and other items. The level of detail diminishes the further down a reader scrolls.

Profile pages had previously been limited to basic information along with a stream of every single item posted by a user.

The latest offering is significantly different to those of Facebook's biggest social networking rivals, Google+ and Twitter, and more closely resembles the once-popular site Myspace.

"Facebook is positioning itself as not just your social graph online, but your life online," Forrester Research analyst Sean Corcoran told the Associated Press.

Continue reading the main story

Don't be surprised if Facebook is even more woven into its users' lives by the end of this year, and an even more powerful player in the media.”

End Quote "These changes not only help trump rival Google but will open up new opportunities," he said. "But concerns around privacy and immaturity in how to do these things effectively will make it a slow go."

Facebook stressed that all of its new offerings could be controlled by members using its recently simplified privacy controls.

In particular, it stressed that timeline items could be modified within the new "activity log", allowing users to limit who can view certain events from their past.

The updates are expected to start appearing on users' computers in coming weeks.

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Winklevoss twins in Facebook jibe

14 September 2011 Last updated at 11:33 GMT Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss appear in a TV advert for pistachio nuts

Two brothers who were involved in a long-running legal dispute with Facebook have poked fun at their court battle in an advertisement for nuts.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss sued Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, accusing him of stealing their ideas.

In the ad, one of the twins cracks open a pistachio nut with one hand, and his brother remarks: "That's a good idea."

In a reference to their quarrel with Mr Zuckerburg, the other replies: "Think someone will steal it?"

Both brothers then turn to the camera and ask: "Who'd do that?"

The Winklevoss brothers received a settlement worth $65m (£41m) earlier this year.

They took Mr Zuckerberg to court, alleging that he stole the idea for Facebook after they asked him to set up a network at Harvard University.

Facebook has always rejected the claims but agreed to the settlement to end what it called "rancorous litigation".

The twins attempted to reopen the case early this year, but a US appeals court ruled they could not back out of the deal.

The legal dispute was immortalised in the film The Social Network.

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'Friend-Watch' Facebook app tells you who deletes you

A new Facebook app is called "Friend-Watch," but it may be better dubbed "Unfriend-Watch." It monitors your list of Facebook friends, letting you know about people who delete, block or unblock you. It also lets you know when people change their name and add you as a friend and keeps some stats tied to your friend counts, such as the percent of female vs. male friends.

All of that sounds good for those who really need or want to know that info. But you not only learn who deletes you — your remaining friends will also know when you delete someone, unless you change the default setting in the app, according to TechCrunch:

... the app defaults to automatically posting to your wall when you “unfriend” someone. That may not be something you want to advertise. To change this, you’ll need to head into the app’s Settings section and switch that to “off” by hitting the “Toggle” link. You may want to toggle off the daily summary email.

The app is from Andrew McGrath who also came up with another Facebook app, "Who Isn't My Friend?" which was rejected by the social network (it notified you when someone unfriended you). For "Friend-Watch," McGrath told TechCrunch, he received Facebook's blessing.

Attempts to try out the app Tuesday were fruitless, with one person associated with the app saying that Facebook is "currently experiencing API issues ... Friend-Watch will be back online as soon as these issues are resolved, we're sorry for the inconvenience."

If you feel like trying it out, let us know what you think, and what your friends — or maybe, former friends — think as well.

— Via TechCrunch

Related stories:

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

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Facebook No. 3 video site in U.S.

comScore

Facebook is the third-most popular site for watching videos in the U.S., behind premium music video site VEVO at No. 2, and YouTube at No. 1.

The social network already leads as the No. 1 photo site in the United States, but the appetite for video continues to grow: 86 percent of the U.S. Internet audience watched online video in July, according to comScore, which shared the data from its Video Metrix report. The research firm said that 180 million U.S. Internet users watched online videos in July, for "an average of 18.5 hours per viewer."

All told, the "total U.S. Internet audience engaged in a record 6.9 billion viewing sessions." That's a lot of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart clips on YouTube, but also a lot of home video of baby's first steps, wild wedding crashers and the dog really eating the homework on Facebook.

Facebook videos had 51.4 million viewers, comScore said, followed by Microsoft sites (which includes msnbc.com) with 49.5 million and Viacom Digital with 47.3 million.

In June, comScore ranked Facebook as #6 for online video, but the site has been at No. 3 before, last summer. Perhaps there's a summertime swing to Facebook's video audience, with some users having more time to spend on the site (students). Still, there's no question that online video is exploding in general.

"Total viewing sessions reached another all-time high in July at nearly 6.9 billion," with Google sites —which includes YouTube — "crossing the 3 billion mark to account for more than 40 percent of all viewing sessions online," comScore said.

Of those 18.5 hours of online video watched during the month by the "average viewer," Google sites accounted for 5.9 of those hours, followed by Hulu at 3.4 hours.

As for our attention span, it's better than might be expected: the length of the average online video was 5.3 minutes, comScore said, while the "average online video ad" was about 30 seconds. And while that's not long, it's long enough to irritate when you're in a hurry to see a video.

Related stories:

Check out Technolog, Gadgetbox, Digital Life and In-Game on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Suzanne Choney.

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Pre-caffeine tech: Facebook hacks, Etsy awesome!

via BoingBoing.net

Our pre-caffeine roundup is a collection of the hottest, strangest, and most amusing stories of the morning. Here's everything that you need to know before taking that first sip of coffee today: 

Who does Facebook think you like most? This simple bookmarklet can show you!

Meanwhile, Facebook is rolling out the ticker to more users. Expect to see it soon if you haven't seen it yet.

Uh oh! Silicon Valley It Boy Ashton Kutcher may be in big trouble with the feds for neglecting a little thing called "disclosure" during his editing duties at Details.

Google Maps just got even more useful: The search giant added a "weather layer" to Maps that you can use to check out current temperatures and forecasts around the world.

You can now check in to events on Foursquare.

Meanwhile, you can hang out with your Google+ friends on YouTube.

Rumor as it BlackBerry is launching a music service.

Apple's iPhone 3 with retina display won't be available until 2012, according to reports.

Two years after Palm introduced the Pre, the phone and its subsequent tablet are dead ... and there's little hope for the survival of webOS.

Leave it to a psychologist at the University of Essex to discover that the secret sauce in irresistible video games is the characters' personalities — especially those that leave just enough creative space for players to pour themselves into.

Is nothing safe?! Airport charging stations could easily be configured to copy data from your smartphone — or to even install malware on the device.

In closing:  This needle felted rendition of a scene from the NASA Hubble Servicing Mission 4 as part of an Etsy craft competition is awesome.

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.

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How to Create a Custom Facebook IFrame Tab

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How to Hide Content until Someone ‘Likes’ Your Facebook Fan Page

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Nike Women’s Marathon Facebook Design

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Seth Glier Custom Musician Facebook Fan Page and Twitter Design

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How to add a ‘Like’ Button to your Facebook Static FBML Tab

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Social Media Reach Facebook Tab Design

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Uncommon Knowledge Facebook Design

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Growing Bolder Custom Facebook Design

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Sheets Brand Facebook Design

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