Daily Bits

Social Networks

Facebook Updates its Safety Center

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Facebook wants to tell the world that it is really serious about your safety as it strives to create an online environment where everyone can connect with anybody, share updates and stuff without getting bothered by possible phising, malware and privacy attacks. To reiterate its vow in protecting user privacy, Facebook just launched a completely redesigned Safety Center.

The Facebook Safety Center offers new safety resources for parents, educators, teens and members of the law enforcement community. Facebook has also created a cleaner and more navigable interfaces that would help you find answers to questions relating to your safety as you use Facebook.

It also contains multimedia contents culled from Facebook itself as well as from independent organizations which specializes in online safety and security. You can find safety-related content organized by audience type and by topics including “Addressing Personal Safety” and “Responding to Objectionable Content.” If you’re a parent you can easily find the “Safety for Parents” section where you’ll get advice from Facebook’s partners such as the Safety Advisory Board.

The Facebook Safety Advisory Board includes members such as the Childnet International, Common Sense Media, Connect Safely, The Family Online Safety Institute and WiredSafety.

And while you’re checking out the new Facebook Safety Center page, you might also want to read on other important Facebook rules, policies and guidelines. It’s located just below the page and include information on – Facebook Privacy FAQ, Privacy Policy, Guide to Privacy on Facebook and other relevant Facebook official documents.

Twitter Acquires Tweetie iPhone App

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For quite some time now, despite being one of the top social media service, Twitter has not been so active in the mobile scene.  There are third-party iPhone apps available on various mobile platforms, but none has been coming from Twitter itself.

So after releasing the public beta version of the Twitter for BlackBerry app, Twitter’s next target to fulfill its quest of establishing a mobile presence is the iPhone. Twitter has just acquired Tweetie iPhone app  from AteBits. Tweetie will be renamed as the Twitter for iPhone.

Tweetie is one of  the most popular and widely used Twitter app for iPhone. What’s good about this acquisition and interesting as well is that Twitter plans to release Twitter for iPhone as a free app on the Apps Store. Currently, Tweetie is priced $2.99. So, we should also expect that Twitter for iPhone will be available as an ad-supported app.

Loren Brichter, Tweetie’s owner and developer will become part of the Twitter mobile team. In addition, once the Twitter for iPhone is released, an iPad application will also be released.

Will this spike up Twitter’s clout establishing itself at par with Facebook? Only time can tell. Will you be getting Twitter for iPhone once it gets out? Or are you sticking with your current third-party Twitter app?

Farmville Player Spent £900 Using His Savings and Mother’s Credit Card

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I saw this news covered by a local news program yesterday but at first I didn’t give it much thought since I was waiting the the news program’s coverage of the iPad. Then I saw this new hitting the Techmeme’s headline right now and decided to give it a run.

After reading what happened to the 12-year old kid who spent £900 buying Farmville virtual goods, I could not help but sigh and felt relief that it didn’t happen to me. Two of my teen-age kids are into Farmville as well. But they don’t have access to my credit card.

So, the story goes that the kid spent around $900 to purchase Farmville goods using her mother’s credit card and his own savings. The credit card was used by the kid without her mother’s knowledge. All in the name of putting up the “coolest” farm in Facebook.

Zynga, the game developer refused to refund the amount since the kid lives in her mother’s house.  While the credit card company would only refund if the mother will report his son to the police and give him a police record. Now, what kind of mother would do that to her own son?

So, now. The son’s Farmville account was cancelled. The mother and the kid lost quite a sum of money. And Zynga earns. What a crappy system, right?

The kid and his mother should have read TechCrunch’s series on game monetization schemes of Zynga. This could have been prevented from happening.

Lessons learned?  You know that already.

Mayorship is a Serious Business, Says Foursquare

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One of the major reasons why you would probably use Foursquare are the cool mayorship titles that you get to earn once you’ve checked on a particular location for several times. You earn the mayorship title and you get to share the information with your Foursquare friends. This mayorship title must be so coveted that some Foursquare users are gaming the system – that is checking in on place even if they have not visited the place at all.

Some honest Foursquare members knew about this and have asked Foursquare to resolve the issue.  The folks at Foursquare admitted that validating every user check-ins is quite a tricky task. But still, they’ve managed to come up with work-arounds to ensure that all check-ins made by Foursquare membes are legit.

Recently Foursquare started utilizing the GPS features of most mobile phones to track whether the check-in made by a user is legitimate.  For users with phones that have no GPS, Foursquare says that they are using a different trick, although it was not mentioned what that trick is.

While there maybe some other ways by which the current system, GPS might still be tricked, what’s important here is the fact the Foursquare is very clear that awarding of badges and mayorship titles are done as truthfully and efficiently possible. After all, Foursquare’s main purpose is to let you share places you’ve visited with your friends. I really couldn’t understand why you want to attain mayorship of a particular place even if you’ve never been to that place. And you get to tell your friends about it? That’s pretty weird, right?

In short, Foursquare is a serious social networking service so us, being Foursquare members should take it upon ourselves to use it truthfully.

MySpace Hosts Casting Calls for Glee

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Glee Open Casting Call Video with Matthew Morrison

Glee Auditions | MySpace Video

I’m not really a fan of the hit musical Glee, but if you are and you’ve dreamt of becoming part of the cast of this show, you might be interested to know that auditions for the next season of Glee has just started.

And guess what? You don’t have to go all the way  to the Fox studio to audition. You can show the producers and casting crew of  Glee that you’ve got the talent to make it to the next cast of Glee  via the MySpace Glee audition site. Yes, MySpace? You still remember that social networking site, do you?

If  you are up for the challenge, here’s how you can audition for the next season of Glee:

  • If you’re an amateur or professional performer between the ages of 16 and 26, submit an audition video at www.myspace.com/gleeauditions, explaining why you want to be on “GLEE” and demonstrating your stellar singing ability to the sounds of one of 10 “GLEE” hits via MySpace Karaoke. You can also opt to upload your own pre-recorded video.
  • Audition videos must be limited to five minutes in length (intro one minute and song up to 4 minutes) and one submission per person.
  • Whether auditioning or not, viewers can share videos, post comments and rate favorites with gold stars in real-time.
  • Visit the official “GLEE” Auditions MySpace page for more information, song list and additional rules.

Want me to enumerate the list of songs that you can use for your audition? Well, you probably know that more than I do. If you’ve made it this part of the article means that you’re a big fan and you’re interested with this gig. So, have fun!

LinkedIn Releases Mobile App for BlackBerry Devices

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LinkedIn expands it services further with the release of  its new mobile applications for all BlackBerry  devices including Tour, Curve and Bold models running OS v4.3 or later. The new LinkedIn for BlackBerry is a handy application that will be most useful for looking up professionals worldwide, in real-time.

The LinkedIn for BlackBerry gives you a full, rich feature set designed to bring the most useful features of LinkedIn to your BlackBerry devices. It has six modules:

  • Network Updates – for viewing and sharing crucial business intelligence and updates.
  • Search – for searching across 60 million global professionals, and get the answer back in seconds through a  unified search across both your direct connections and the entire LinkedIn network.
  • Connections – for getting  quick access to any of your connections to get their up-to-date profile information, and the ability to send them a message immediately.
  • Invitations – for accepting outstanding invitations immediately.
  • Messages – for integrated access to BBM and LinkedIn messages.
  • Reconnect – for bringing suggestions for new connections.

Of course, it’s major purpose is for quickly viewing LinkedIn profiles right on your BlackBerry devices, anytime, anywhere.  In the business setting, you can get an upper hand during board meetings  if you know some personal details about the people you will be negotiating with, prior to the meeting proper.

LinkedIn for BlackBerry is available now as a free download here. It will soon be available in the BlackBerryApp World as well.