Archive for: facebook
Last week isoHunt updated its indexing code and performed a thorough re-crawl of the indexed sites, resulting in an increase from 1.65 million to 3.49 million torrents. This week the team tackled another problem, namely, how to find the right torrent more effectively.
isoHunt’s founder Gary Fung mentioned that they made several changes to the search algorithms resulting in a superior quality of the search results. The changes should make it easier for the site’s users to find what they are looking for.
Aside from the improved results, the team also added option to narrow down the results to a specific source, Gary explained on Facebook.
isoHunt is currently the third largest torrent site ranked by the number of daily users.
To be honest, I was utterly shocked when I heard the news. For months, Twitter and Facebook have been battling it out. Both have acknowledged the other as their main rival. Apps, schemes, plans and plots have come about but none have broken the stalemate between then. Now, Facebook are taking the stance of “well, if you can’t beat them, join them.” They’re launching a new app that will combine Twitter and Facebook.
Here is what they said on their blog:
“If you manage a Facebook Page, you now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and you also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them.
If you have multiple Pages, you will have the option to link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts. This new feature will only link Facebook Pages to Twitter, not your individual profile. It will soon be available at http://www.facebook.com/twitter”
By coming out with this app, FaceBook are saying “yeah, we couldn’t beat twitter in a straight fight.” However, in my opinion this is great news. Undoubtedly, the two would have spent millions of dollars on plans to take down the other. Well if this app makes the market big enough for the both of them; even if only for six months then we could see some serious advancement in both of their services very soon.
I really love Twitter. I tweet at least once or twice an hour from my phone when watching a movie, playing my xBox, out with friends our just about doing anything you can imagine; including writing for Crenk. I’d hate to see Twitter slip down that slope that few seem to be able to get back up. Kind of like MySpace is right now.
FaceBook’s new iPhone app may be just the thing that pushes it too. Over the past few months FaceBook have tried to match Twitter on all fronts. While FaceBook still markets itself as a social network they have become more twitterish and this is reflected in their new app.
You can have status updates similar to those on the new Windows Live Messenger. You can also blog and surf through your pages more easily. Furthermore, the app incorporates the ‘Pages’ idea which is to coax people to join FaceBook because of the celebrities on there – much like Twitter did…Hmmm.
This app is also really integrated with the iPhone’s call and text features. If you want to call or send a message to a friend you can do so right from your friends list on the FaceBook app rather than closing it and dialling from the phone’s interface.
As an app I think it’s really good but it’s obvious that Facebook are now trying to play Twitter’s game when it comes to status updates, celebrities, micro-blogging and the portability that comes with streamlined apps.
Different surveys have been carried out over the past number of years about how many of us actually like our jobs. The average of these surveys tells us that around 60% of us hate our jobs. It could be the hours, the pay, the conditions, the work or in this case – THE BOSS!
It’s well-known that social networking sites and blogs have cost people their jobs because they said bad things about the company and they were discovered by chance on the web. That’s got to sting. But how about this girl who actually added her new boss on FaceBook and then decided she would virtually tear him to shreds?
Needless to say, she lost her job and perhaps rightfully so – I mean, how stupid do you have to be to do that? She might as well have sent him the link.
I’d imagine there either from the UK or the Republic of Ireland as these are the only two countries that use P45 forms when jobs get terminated.
Here what the post and the bosses reply said. (Obviously their names have been removed).
Only around 15% of all the Twitter users are less than 25 years old, who would know? An official report from Morgan Stanley says that teenagers just don’t use Twitter.
You won’t be surprised if I tell you that people under 25 years are the main Internet users, only this group of people takes the 25% of all population; but they also just represent 16% of all Twitter.
And which age group takes the majority on Twitter? 25-54 years old, they take up to 64% of the Twitter population (me included of course). 20% for people over 55 years and 16% for those under 25. Yeap, you read it right, 20% of Twitter users are over 55 years.
If you start thinking about it (and when I say “thinking” I mean checking your list of followers and following) you would probably notice that you have a bunch of friends, a selected group of celebrities (yes, I know, we all have @aplusk), and would probably see a large number of marketers, companies, brands, channels, journalists or even PR guys. And that’s not exactly the main focus of teens these days.
It doesn’t feel like the teen wave didn’t appear just yet in Twitter? Can we expect a new teen market for Twitter as it was for Facebook?
The United States Marine Corps (USMC) are currently deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, fighting day in day out against insurgency and terrorism under the constant threat of IEDs and enemy Kalashnikov or RPG fire. They bravely soldier on throughout.
However, when it comes to Web 2.0 they’re left quivering in their combat boots. The USMC has just announced that it is placing a network wide ban on Web 2.0 sites such as Twitter, MySpace and FaceBook in an effort to make their systems more secure.
They say that these sites are easily hacked and used by hackers and scammers and indeed those against US operations to post links to malicious sites in the hope a marine on R&R or a USMC staff member might click on them.
This would expose the soft underbelly of the USMC’s network and would lead to disaster. Here is what the USMC order read :
- “These internet sites in general are a proven haven for malicious actors and content and are particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries…”
- “The very nature of SNS [social network sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts OPSEC [operational security], COMSEC [communications security], [and] personnel… at an elevated risk of compromise.”
Donating to charity or even volunteering can be tough. You either don’t have the time, the cash or simply don’t want to. However, most of us will want to help a good cause in some way or another. Intel, Facebook, and Grid Republic have teamed up to allow Facebook users to do exactly that with their new app ‘Progress Thru Processors’.
This app, which was launched yesterday and is available to all Facebook users will utilize extra processing power from their computers when it is not in use and use that power on a huge network of other donators to run many different programs on central computers in labs and research facilities. The reason why these labs such as Africa@home and Climateprediction.net can’t simply do it themselves is because the amount of power needed to examine protine particles or predict theretical weather simulations is huge and extremely expensive.
The whole operation could not have been done without Grid Republic who had the technology to link up the PCs with extra processing power and use them properly giving each one a small crumb of the huge task, which will hopefully all come together to solve sciences big questions.
“By simply running an application on your computer, which uses very little incremental resources, you can expand computing resources to researchers,” Deborah Conrad, Intel vice president and general manager of corporate marketing, said in a statement.
Intel says that the application will not affect performance and thus will not be noticed by the user. Progress Thru Processors is available to download right here.
Martha Stewart – probably one of the most famous names in the last fifteen years for her less than scrupulous past. The home-decor queen has now made even more waves by calling Facebook “dippy” and saying that she much prefers facebook.
In an interview she commented on how she has grown to dislike Facebook. This is the second major celebrity to do so in just two days – on Saturday Bill Gates admitted to abandoning Facebook.
She said that she like the micro-blogging platform because it’s easier, you can reach more people and it doesn’t take up too much time.
“I just love it so much more than Facebook … First of all, you don’t have to spend any time on it, and, second of all, you reach a lot more people. And I don’t have to ‘befriend’ and do all that other dippy stuff that they do on Facebook.”
She called Twitter the Walmart of the internet – hopefully referring to its success not its large stocking of canned goods which is far from plenty.
Twitter just keeps growing with thousands of celebrities now gathering huge followers.
Crenk on Twitter – here
My Twitter – here
Its official, Facebook, the social network that started out as a noting based at Harvard has now grown to have over 250 million active worldwide members. Astonishing.
The momentous figure was officially announced on the official Facebook blog by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Just a few months ago they celebrated reaching the 200 million mark by launching the non-profit organization Facebook for Good. Now however, they are changing tactics for what should be a huge blowout party –they’re doing nothing except carrying on with their work.
Apparently, they are now trying to make the service more accessible on mobile devices as the growth of Facebook is now largely coming from international countries where people are more likely to access the social network on their mobile devices like the iPhone or Blackberry.
“Today as we celebrate our 250 millionth user, we are also continuing to develop Facebook to serve as many people in the world in the most effective way possible,” Zuckerberg wrote. “This means reaching out to everyone across the world and making products that serve all of you, wherever you are–whether through Facebook Connect, new mobile products and the other things that we are building.”
As we have seen with Twitter, failure to keep the ball rolling can lead to growth rates dropping like a rock. Facebook seem to be doing a good job. The next six months will be a challenge because as a ball gets bigger, its harder to roll.
Here at Crenk we have been making a huge amount of changes with the site in the last week or so. Regular readers will notice that the design has had an upgrade which we hope now is a lot more reader friendly. Additionally, today I wanted to announce that we have a new Facebook group and we have added the new Facebook Fan Box to our sidebar within each individual post. The Facebook fan box and group aims to help our readers follow our articles via Facebook and build more of a community around the site. Here at Crenk we are really trying to provide our readers with what they want, but this is hard without a solid community around the site and a place for everyone to vent their opinions, this is what our Facebook group aims to do.
If you like Crenk and would really like to contribute to our community then please become a fan!
Click here to join!
I’ve just recently started running for fitness and I had my eye on the Nike+ system to pair with my iTouch. Running is something a lot of us fear, perhaps some of you out there MIGHT enjoy it, but far more prefer other methods of exercise. Still, the Nike+ system is the device that is supposed to have revolutionized running as a sport and as a frequent user of this device, I have to say it’s upped my game, and helped me train harder.
This small device, running $30USD for the sensor, and approx. $75USD for the USB bracelet, sends information to your iPod and tracks your progress monitoring information like pace, distance, time, and calories burned. All the while you are able to run to your own music track and when you’re feeling run down, activate your own power song to push you those extra miles.
To add even more functionality to the device you are able to connect your device to your computer (both MAC and PC compatible) and upload your data to the Nike+ website, adding you to the mix of already thousands upon thousands of runners out there at all levels. You can monitor your progress, join challenges, track milestones, and join in a social network of sorts with other runners out there. It’s useful on so many levels, and allows you to buy Nike specific music tracks that they’ve put together for you, training modules that go further than what comes pre-loaded, accessories and gear, and even create a Nike+ animated character for a badge that can be placed on your own site or your Facebook account.
All in all, I highly recommend this device if you’ve not gotten it yet, and you’re running. Even if you don’t like running with music, that’s fine, leave it off, but keep the stats, once you calibrate it, it’s priceless.
While social networks are great at connecting people and bringing them together for various aspects, sometimes a nice site is what you’re looking for. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and such just don’t server your needs, and perhaps you’ve tried the Ning communities to no avail.
For those of you out there that are collectors of various things such as stamps, bottle caps, dolls, coins, or just about anything else, Colnect is for you. This social networks brings togethers collectors from around the world to buy, sell, trade, and share stories and locations with people. This niche specific network is amazingly popular, so if you’re a collector and missing that special, cornerstone piece to your collection, perhaps this network can help you complete your empire!
