Daily Bits

Facebook to Stop Sending Apps Notifications, Thankfully!

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Although you can always add a friend’s updates on Facebook it’s still annoying whenever that friend used another application which you have not hidden on your profile before. So, you go out and hide it again to remove the noise that has been cluttering app your profile. Starting Monday, you will not have to go through each every one of those applications notifications and hide them. Facebook will stop sending those notifications, finally!

So, how could you then communicate with your friends to tell them about this cool new Facebook apps that you’re currently spending your time on? The Facebook Developers Blog suggested that you use counters instead, set news within the dashboards to share lightweight messages and activate the extended permissions to email users and send richer and more engaging messages.

Facebook is also planning to change how app requests function and how Facebook profiles will be displayed, all to make Facebook a pleasant, less noisy social networking platform.

I would have to commend them for doing this, despite the fact that it might actually turn some users away, especially those who enjoy using all those apps and telling their friends about them.  Who knows, some Facebook users might actually miss those notifications about their friends needing this or that on Mafia Wars. Or notifications about the fact they have no watered their plants on FarmVille, and many other time-wasting activities that they are doing on Facebook.

So, will you be disappointed or happy about this announcement or what?

Facebook Acquires Vague Patent on News Feeds, Questions Abound

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There are ongoing discussions right now among social media experts and analysts over a recent patent that was awarded to Facebook. Many analysts are considering this patent crucial in the social media industry. Why? Because Facebook has just been granted the patent for news feeds.

Yes, you read it right. Facebook now owns the technology for delivering news feeds. The patent was first discoverd by All Facebook which was filed by Facebook sometime in 2006. Just before other social networks started publishing news feeds as part of their social networking features.

While this may seem just another case of patent filing by a major Internet player, the thing is – it is not.  This is Facebook, claiming rights to the news feeds which is making other social networks thrive.

And what’s causing the commotion is the fact that nobody knows how Facebook is going to use this patent. Will Facebook use it to kill of rival social networking sites? Or will it use the patent to defend itself?

Another question is what exactly does Facebook own by getting the patent? Is it the technology that generates  the news feeds? Is it the distribution of news feeds? What are the components of these news feeds? Individidual status updates, uploading of contents?

Facebook has not issued an official announcement regarding this issue.  Mashable has published a statement which they got from Facebook saying:

“The launch of News Feed in 2006 was a pivotal moment in Facebook’s history and changed the way millions of people consumed and discovered information on the site. We’re humbled by the growth and adoption of News Feed over time and pleased with being awarded the patent.”

How far Facebook would bring this patent remains to be seen.

Opera 10.50 Browser for Mac Makes You Want to Forget About Safari

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Alright Mac users, if  you’re tired of using the stock Safari browser on your machine but you don’t feel like using Google Chrome for Mac or Firefox, how about Opera 10.50 for Mac which is now available for download?  This new version of Opera for Mac is said to be using a new Javascript engine and boasts of key features like HTML5 support and multi-touch gestures.

Honestly, I’ve never used the Opera Browser on a laptop or desktop before. The only time I used it was on my old Sony Ericsson P990i mobile phone. But that was a long time ago. For all I know, both the Opera Mini browser for mobile phones and the Opera desktop browser have probably gone through several revisions already.

Anyway, here are the new things that you should expect in the latest iteration of Opera browser for Mac:

  • More stable than the pre-alpha build
  • A whole new polished UI
  • Supports Opera Unite allowing you to download unite apps from the Unite Apps Repository
  • Supports HTML5 tag
  • Supports widgets as stand-alone apps
  • New menu for Developer Tools

Now, why did we say that Opera 10.50 for Mac might make you forget about the Safari browser that comes preloaded in your Mac? Well, blame it on the guys from 9 to 5 Mac who’ve tested the browser and found that it beats Safari in a WebKit Javascript benchmarking test.

You may want to give Opera a try on your Mac, get it from here.

Scribd Rolls Out “Send to Device” Feature

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Mobile devices are really the new norm in cloud storage services. Aside from SugarSync’s latest feature that lets you send files via email attachment, Scribd, also a file management service in the cloud is rolling out almost the same feature. Scribd just launch its “send to device” service that will allow you to make your documents stored on Scribd accessible via smartphones and e-readers.

It’s a pretty clever idea really and very timely especially since both smartphones and e-readers are getting the massive usage lately. So, if you’re a Scribd account holder you can now practically send any Scribd document be it your own or those readily available on the Scribd site to your mobile devices with a click of a button. What’s good about this feature is that you can send practically any file, from MS Word to PDFs and access them on your e-reader or smartphones. The service works for free and for-purchase books and chapters from major publishers.

To use this feature for your own documents, make sure to set these documents to DRM-free status and allow downloads. And if the documents that you are sending out are not supported by your smartphones or e-reader, don’t fret out because Scribd is also planning to roll out a series of new mobile applications for Android and iPhone that will let you read files that you transferred from Scribd.

Sounds good? Actually yes, saves you some bucks if you get the Amazon Kindle or other e-reader just to get your book reading fix  via a mobile and portable device.

Sugarsync Now Lets You Upload Docs as Email Attachments

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Isn’t it funny that even up to now, despite the many advances in cloud computing, file sharing and uploading which can be accessible on various platforms, many people still prefer to share files through email? So to remedy this and offer its customers a convenient way of sharing files, SugarSync, a file syncing solution is offering a subscription service which would only cost you $4.99 a month.

The new SugarSync feature will let you email files to your friends and business contacts easily from any computer terminal and other mobile devices such as your smartphones.  After emailing the file attachment, SugarSync syncs them with your other SugarSync interface.

The new service is being offered as an opt-in feature which will allow you to disable and enable it anytime you want to. Upon signing up for the service, SugarSync will provide you with an email address where you can send your files. This email address are spam-free since it is composed of randomly generated numbers.

If you want to try the feature, you need to enable it from your SugarSync account settings. Once you’ve enabled the feature, the unique email address will be given to you. And to make it easier for you to use that email address, you can instruct SugarSync to send you an email containing the email address so that you can easily add it to your email contacts.

Once you’ve uploaded files, these will be stored in your Magic Briefcase, specifically in a folder labelled “Uploaded by email.”  This folder will be automatically synced to your SugarSync account so that you can access it from anywhere.

We Are Now Posting 50 Million Tweets Daily

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Funny how a short post on the Twitter blog could spark an online discussion that even led to the long-standing Twitter vs. Facebook war.  Yesterday, a post on the Twitter blog announced that we, Twitter users are now sending 50 million tweets into the Twitter-sphere everyday. Now, how’s that for another issues that says Twitter is not growing?

But anyway, yes Twitter has just grown to 50 million tweets a day. Up from 5,000 times a day in 2007, 300,000 in 2008 and 2.5 million in 2009. Right now, it’s at a 50 million per day or 600 tweets per second. If you won’t call that exponential growth, I have no idea what else you can call this phenomenon.

And that doesn’t include spammy tweets. Twitter has removed tweets from accounts that were identified as spam.

Now, the issue that were raised by some analyst is whether Facebook has all the reason to be afraid of Twitter’s growth. Facebook updates were last reported at 60 million per day.  That means that Twitter is fast catching up. But that is in terms of daily updates. When it comes to total number of users and even monthly page views – Twitter is still far inferior to Facebook.

I really think that there is no point of comparison here and we should all try to pause for awhile and rethink how we view Twitter vis-a-vis Facebook. I’m more inclined to think that Twitter compliments Facebook. Facebook is more of a social networking site while Twitter is more of a real-time online communication tool.

But then, who am I to change this predominant mindset, anyway?