There’s also support for the comically-titled “Auto Awesome” feature, which can create GIF animations from a series of shots, or panoramic images by stitching them together. Auto-backup is used to fire off all your new shots to the cloud.

In addition to the web-based features we saw added last week, there are also various filters and processing tweaks possible, thanks to Google’s acquisition of Snapseed last year.

Elsewhere, there’s extra control over location sharing, with a new Locations section in the app that shows where all your nearby friends are. Obviously that only works if they’ve enabled location-sharing with you; the control is in the settings, if you’re not interested in being found.

The last big change is support for hashtags, which pull in real-time streams of themed content, in addition to automatically tagging your articles just as the web-based Google+ has begun to do. Google says there’s also an easier way to access Hangouts with a shortcut straight to the new app, while the notifications menu has been aesthetically tweaked too.

Google+ may have been treated as something of a joke to begin with, with regular comparisons how popular Facebook has been, but it looks like Google isn’t willing to give up on it. In fact, the social network arguably now makes even more sense when seen in context of things like Google Glass, the two making for the beginnings of an ideal life-logging platform.

Google+ 4.0 for Android will land in in the Google Play store later today.

Facebook recently overhauled their news feed, and Google+ is about to do the same, only about 10 fold. Live on stage they’re sharing a few of many details, and we’re just getting started. Google+ is slowly but surely becoming the center of attention for all of Google’s services. Comments on the Android Play Store and YouTube can be tied to your social account, and Google Games invites all run through Google+.

So what’s about to change? Well, everything. Mainly the stream, design language, and the way we enjoy news. The stream will be new, and unified across all platforms. Phones, tablets, PCs and more. Instead of a never-ending newspaper they’re going to make the new stream all about “design and depth”. The design has a familiar Google card-style layout, and the depth will be important.

While we’re still waiting for all the details, many of which Google doesn’t have time to announce, they’ve confirmed a brand new photo experience and a new Google Hangout. Which for those who don’t know, are Google’s video calls feature. Instead, Hangouts will be Google’s new unified messaging service from what it looks like. You can have messages with one person, or many. You can do standard messages, or video calling and more. We’ll have more on Hangouts soon. Google Hangouts will be cross-platform too.

Photo’s will still auto-upload, but will now save full 8 megapixel images if you’d like. That means when you share a photo on Google+ it’s bigger and better than any other social network. Stay tuned for more details on the all-new and completely improved Google+, which we’ll be seeing online shortly. Google stated it will be rolling out today, and expect a full review of the new features coming up quick.

So far, Facebook uses 16 of 50 new emoticons that were created of a character they call Finch, with the potential to roll out more of them in the future being possible. The character’s creation was spurred by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, a book published by Charles Darwin in the late 1800s, as well as research into user issues. Said Bejar, “This all began we were looking at the kind of issues people were reporting to Facebook. The reports had to do with things Facebook didn’t need to act on, but things people should address – what should happen when you say something that’s upsetting to me or put up a photo I didn’t like?”

The idea is that text alone presents issues when communicating due to its inherent lack of any sort of emotional context. Words alone can be ambiguous, and so users naturally began creating text-based emoticons to express the intention behind the words, such as the ever-popular :) smiley face. While text-based emoticons are better than nothing, they still lack the kind of emotional expression individuals are presented with when holding an in-person conversation, hence the eventual creation of image-based emoticons.

Keltner wasn’t satisfied with your average everyday emoticon, however, stating that he personally felt they were still lacking compared to what they could be. Because of this, Darwin’s work was partly used in the project to create richer, more expressive emoticons that tap into what the person behind the screen is feeling and helping the individual on the other side of the screen understand it better. One example given was sympathy: “It’s an under-appreciated emotion in Western culture. We now know what it looks like and sounds like because of science. They created this dynamic emoticon that when you see it, it’s really powerful.”

Because of this, the Finch emoticons are currently the most scientific set of stickers on Facebook, according to Bejar. He also hinted that perhaps one day audio will be added to the dynamic little character.

SOURCE: Popsci

IMAGE: Matt Jones

Twitter has been in the news a fair bit this last week. On Wednesday, it received praise from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, more commonly called the EFF, which said the company is the best at protecting user data by meeting all six criteria used to look at how well companies handle their users’ info (Verizon and Apple didn’t fair so well, fyi).

We also saw confirmation that a Twitter for Glass app is real from LeWeb founder Loic Le Meur, who sent out a tweet containing an image of himself behind the wheel with the hashtag #throughglass. When asked if he used a Twitter Glass app, he said he did. That followed a day of tweets spotted by various Twitter users containing images sent by an app called Twitter for Glass.

And on Tuesday, Twitter had announced that its advertising program was opening to everyone who wanted to advertise, rather than just the businesses authorized to use it. Now smaller businesses, those less well known, and even individual users can advertise on the microblogging website, with the ads being tailored to specific audiences or displayed to users in general.

[via Twitter]

Despite the outcry of many users and non-profit groups, Facebook had continued to allow the videos of decapitation on its network, saying that they didn’t violate the policy because they weren’t celebrating the act. According to the BBC, referring to one video of a decapitation, Facebook responded in a statement: “While this video is shocking, our approach is designed to preserve people’s rights to describe, depict and comment on the world in which we live.”

While Facebook’s official policy has allowed for them, at least one member of the social network’s Safety Advisory Board had disagreed with allowing decapitation videos to remain, and was vocal about it with the BBC. Shortly after statements he made was published, Facebook backtracked on its stance and said that it will remove all decapitation videos from the network that are reported, and that it will reevalute its policy on them.

Some charities have decried the social network’s lax policy on them, saying that graphic displays of such violence cause psychological harm and must be banned. In recent times, a video has been circulated of two Mexican cartel members being decapitated, and another of a woman being decapitated by a man wearing a mask.

[via BBC]

A very similar tweet was fired off today by Loic Le Meur, founder of LeWeb, containing an image and the hashtag #throughglass. The image in the picture was taken from behind the wheel while on the road, showing some cars and road, as well as an arm gripping the steering wheel. The position certainly looks correct for Google Glass.

There is one notable difference between his tweet and those that surfaced yesterday – the absence of a flag showing that it was sent by an app called Twitter for Glass, as well as the stock text that was included in yesterday’s tweets, with Le Meur’s featuring the hashtag and nothing else. Regardless, when asked by the folks over at CNET if it was sent via a Twitter Glass app, he said yes.

And so there you have it – although the company hasn’t confirmed or denied its existence, confirmation has been given alongside anecdotal evidence that a Twitter for Glass app is real and running in the wild on several pairs of Google Glass. When Twitter will give the app its official public debut is unknown, but we’ll certainly keep you updated when it happens.

[via CNET]

In the past, the ad program was only accessible to businesses who received a personal invite from Twitter. Now all anyone needs to do is sign-up to be considered. All you need to do is answer a few questions and you’ll be on your way. You can choose to promote your tweets, or you entire account. The pricing system is similar to Google AdWords, where you can set a budget to control how much you spend, and you can place bids to decide how much you want to spend per follower/click.

This new move from Twitter is one of its first steps its taking to achieve its goal of generating $1 billion in ad revenue alone by 2014. Currently, its ad revenue for this year is expected to be a little over half that amount, but with the expansion of its ads program, and its more aggressive move towards mobile, its goal seems more and more realistic. It also helps that there are over 200 million people who are currently using its service and over 400 million tweets being sent out everyday.

Twitter has focused a lot of its efforts into expanding and developing its advertisement platform. Back in February, it released an advertisement API that lets businesses create more targeted ad campaigns. The program saw impressive results, with some businesses seeing a huge increase of new followers on a daily basis. Twitter also improved its keyword-targeted ads so that when a user tweets about a product, like soda, they would see an advertisement for soda quickly after. While increased advertisements may be deterring, Twitter’s ad program becoming available to users and small businesses should do wonders in helping them grow their exposure and their businesses.

[via Twitter]

To start things off, Crowley wants to assure everyone that, despite speculation, Foursquare does have a business model that they’re following, and that they aren’t just doing things as they go. He says that the company is doing well financially and that March was actually its “biggest revenue month so far”. Many people speculated that Foursquare was struggling financially, but according to Crowley, that’s not the case.

He says that the company has been working on merchant tools, which it uses to grab “six-figure” deals with merchants across the nation. When merchants sign deals with Foursquare, Crowley says that Foursquare doesn’t charge them X amount of money based on ad impressions, but instead charges them whenever the service brings customers to their business, making their tools more appealing compared to other services.

Unfortunately, Crowley declined to mention just how well its new merchant tools, or other revenue generating methods, has done for the company. When asked how much total revenue the company was expected to make this year, Crowley told TechCrunch,

“We’re a private company, so we don’t have to disclose our master plans to you, but we’ve set ambitious goals for the year, and we’re very much on target to hit them.”

He continues to say that Foursquare’s 4 original investors are all “back in” with the company, and that the numbers are starting to come together, with monthly users, check-ins, and sign-ups all increasing by up to 10-30% this year. Crowley knows that Foursquare isn’t the “shiny new thing anymore”, but he believes that it is doing better than ever.

[via TechCrunch]

“As part of the Google team … we want to best serve mobile and desktop publishers moving forward” the former Meebo team said in a statement. “Therefore, we have decided to focus our resources on initiatives like the recently launched Google+ Sign-In … and the Google+ plug-ins.”

Those publishers still using the Meebo Bar will see it automatically cease loading after June 6, though cutting the relevant code from a site today will remove it instantly. As for the Meebo Bar Dashboard, complete with analytics, that will be available until June 30 as well as exportable as a .csv file for later reference.

However, any changes made on the Dashboard after the official retirement date will have no effect on the bar. Creation of new Meebo Bars has already been disabled.

Google splashed out an estimated $100m for Meebo in 2012, in what was believed at the time to be a grab for the company’s site-agnostic chat and discussion system. With Meebo installed, users could initiate chat sessions about any site they visited, with a discrete control bar across the bottom of the screen that was independent of the site itself.

How exactly that technology will be baked into Google+ remains to be seen, though Google’s social service has seen text, voice, and video chat functionality built out considerably since it launched.

Of course, the White House isn’t likely to provide the same content you usually see on Tumblr – we’d be surprised to see any cat GIFs, for example – although the announcement does say that “yes, of course there will be GIFs.” We’re eager to see what kind the administration puts up, but that aside, the Tumblr will be used to provide things of a more interesting and informative nature.

Users who keep an eye on the administration’s latest social account will find quotes from President Obama, as well as content that is relevant to the administration and White House, such as videos of notable visits and photographs that feature the president. The announcement also promises “wonky charts,” although it doesn’t specify what kind of charts that includes.

And as with similar announcements it has made in the past, the Administration is inviting public participation, requesting that users let them know how they can improve the White House’s Tumblr, ask questions, and share stories with them. Such a task is possible via the Submission Tool. If Tumblr’s not your thing, you can also check out the administration’s Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts.

[via White House]

Of course, Twitter is no stranger to making announcements on a talk show, having done so with its design refresh on The Today Show in 2012, and now apparently following that trend tomorrow on ABC. There’s no mention – not even a hint – about what this BIG announcement could be, but what comes first to mind is Twitter Music, which is all but official.

On April 12, we saw music.twitter.com come alive, confirming what have been long-standing rumors about the impending service. Several celebrities have been bantering about the service, no doubt generating pre-release buzz to get people aware and excited. Such an announcement would be a strong bet for what Twitter has in store tomorrow.

On the other hand, sources have said that Twitter is in talks with Viacom and NBCUniversal about a partnership for offering video content and advertisements on the microblogging service. According to those sources, one or more deals could be revealed by the middle of next month, and while that’s still a few weeks away, it’s possible we’ll be hearing something along this line tomorrow.

[via Twitter]

As noted by Bloomberg, Williamson’s original work at Apple was working on the original iPhone, having been assigned to the job by Jobs. Further into his long career at Apple, Williamson was switched to the company’s Maps efforts, a change that eventually cost him his job as Apple purged employees and started fresh in light of the many criticisms the mapping service garnered.

As Facebook makes a bigger entrance in the mobile world with the recently-announced Home, it has brought in quite a few software engineers, including another former iPhone manager, Greg Novick. In another big-name hiring, the social network also nabbed Loren Brichter, a software designer who made the first Twitter app for the iPhone. The latter is a rumor stated by two sources.

For now at least, Facebook has declined commenting on the claim and nothing official has been stated. Earlier today, rumor surfaced that the social network is in talks with Apple to bring its Home software to the iPhone, again via sources that spoke with Bloomberg. Others state that the talks were not taking place, however, and many are dubious of the claim due to the closed ecosystem that is iOS.

[via Bloomberg]

The talks with NBCUniversal were said to be about content partnership, and so we assume it is also about displaying video clips in conjunction with advertisements. Such partnerships would bolster what the microblogging service has to offer, and will encourage users to hang around the site longer, using it for more purposes and to connect with more modern content.

As Bloomberg points out, Twitter already has partnerships with ESPN, Turner Broadcasting, and the Weather Channel, and its goal is to populate its service with more news and entertainment video content, according to the sources. The revenue that is generated by the video content will be split by the social network and the video clip’s broadcasting company.

Financial breakdown of how that split will take place wasn’t provided, however. It may not take too long to get more details on the alleged pending partnerships, with the sources saying that at least one of the deals could go through by the middle of May. Twitter and Viacom turned down Bloomberg’s request for a comment on the rumor, while NBCUniversal failed to get back to them.

[via Bloomberg]

Twitter still doesn’t have anything to say on the music app, but the sources say that it will be launched during Coachella, a giant music festival in California. Multiple sources provided the information, none of them named and all said to be familiar with the situation. Considering the timing of the alleged launch and the announcement a few hours ago that Twitter has, indeed, aquired the We Are Hunted music service points to the affirmative.

The Twitter music platform is said to be a standalone app that will be available to both those with and without a Twitter account, although the former will have access to more features. Personalized recommendations will be offered to a user based on the artists they follow, as well as the artists followed by their followers. Songs and artists will be displayed with a grid design with an expanding panel with additional information.

According to sources, the music app will contain four tabs, one being a “Suggested” songs tab of content it thinks you will enjoy, as well as a “#NowPlaying” tab with, as the name suggests, songs being tweeted by followers using that hashtag. The third tab will be “Popular,” containing trending songs, followed by an “Emerging” tab, which will feature the up-and-coming songs and artists. SoundCloud, iTunes, Vevo, and more will be integrated.

[via AllThingsD]

Several counties that have never had Trends before, including Greece, Belgium, Norway, Kenya, Poland, Ukraine, and Portugal, have been added. In addition, more cities in countries that have already been added to the Trends list are included in the expansion, increasing overall coverage. For those just getting acquainted with the feature, Twitter offers a support article on it.

Trends is a feature that allows users to see what other users are conversing about on Twitter, such as a political debate, celebrities, news story, natural event, viral video, and more. These trending items are available for the user’s city and country, as well as globally trending topics. Users can pull up the new cities via the Trends sidebar under “Change.”

The announcement was made on Twitter’s blog by Royce Cheng-Yue, one of the company’s software engineers. This follows a Trends expansion that was rolled out back on December 5, 2012, which brought the feature to a little more than 100 cities, such as Istanul and Guadalajara. Not stopping there or with this update, however, the microblogging site will be making further expansions in the coming months.

[via Twitter]

We Are Hunted is now in the process of shutting down its website, according to the announcement, with the company publishing a public proclamation of gratitude for its users, its investors, and its board members. The service, which launched in 2007 and grew steadily over the years, is now part of the Twitter team, but it is being tight-lipped about what that involves.

Says We Are Hunted about the acquisition, “There’s no question that Twitter and music go well together. Artists turn to Twitter first to connect with fans, and people share and discover new songs and albums every day. We can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on at Twitter.” But, unfortunately, it says that it is not ready to discuss about what it is working on with the microblogging network yet.

Such an announcement lends credence to the rumors that surfaced last month claiming Twitter is working on its own standalone music app that will use the We Are Hunted system and team. Thus far, word has it the app will allow users to stream music via SoundCloud and some other services, displaying Popular and Emerging music, as well as what other users are currently listening to.

[via We Are Hunted]

It’s social, stupid

Home is a launcher and a partial skin, and it takes advantage of the flexibility baked into Android for third-party modification. Unlike iOS and Windows Phone, which have tight controls on UI, Android is set up to allow for different launchers: when you download it, you can choose to have it load just the once, or set it as your default, in which case it’ll show up every time you hit the home button.

Arguably the easiest way to get Facebook Home will be to buy a handset with the launcher preloaded. Initially, that means just one device – the HTC First, which we’ve reviewed in full here – and one US network, AT&T, with the mid-tier First coming in at $100 with a new, two year agreement. Further partnerships with device manufacturers are in the pipeline, including Samsung and Sony among others.

A Facebook Home Program phone won’t be the only way to get hold of the new launcher, however. In fact, those users are more than likely to be the minority; for those with a compatible existing phone, Facebook Home will be available as a free download through the Google Play market. The first crop of supported handsets includes the Samsung Galaxy S III, Galaxy S 4, and Note II, as well as the HTC One X, One X+, and One. Broader support will follow on in time, Facebook says.

Cover Feed

Facebook certainly gets its money’s worth from Cover Feed: the social stream is both the lock screen and the homescreen for your device. At the bottom, in the center, is a single control – your profile photo in a small, circular bubble – which, if dragged, can be pulled across to launch the messenger, open the app launcher, or bring back your last-used app.

The bulk of the screen, though, is devoted to your Facebook friends. It’s an edge-to-edge view of their latest status updates, photos, links, and Open Graph entries, cycling through the recent content with a splash of mild animation to keep things visually pleasing. Individual photos pan across the screen, behind the status text, name, date it was posted, and location, while there are also small buttons in the lower left corner for immediately liking the post or reading/adding comments.

Double-tapping a status update “Likes” it, while single-tapping opens the comments. Small text in the lower right shows how many likes and comments there are, together with a preview of who made them. Alternatively you can long-press on the photo, and it will zoom so that you can see the whole picture in one go.

It certainly looks impressive, as long as you have some photo-addicted friends. On the flip side, Facebook adjusts the resolution and number of new photos you see depending on whether you’re using a mobile data or WiFi connection, to try to avoid hammering through your data allowance (you can also choose whether you want to see low, medium, or high image quality). Cover Feed is basically defined by who you’re friends with and how exciting their lives are; if they post text-only status updates, all you’ll see is an enlargement of their profile photo in the background.

Notifications

It also pays to have quite a few friends – though if you’re considering a Facebook Home phone or even just the launcher, perhaps that’s a given – since Home is quite an insular place. Too few and your Cover Feed will be relatively empty; on the flip side, however, with no way to filter out which groups of people feed the timeline, there’s a frustrating lack of control over what you see day to day. This is particularly the case with notifications: on the HTC First, you get alerts for all apps and services, but if you’re using Home on an existing handset, only Facebook notifications come through.

Either way, notifications bubble in as simple grey bars, with profile photos if they’re of new status updates, messages, or Facebook check-ins, or app icons – such as email, phone or Instagram – if they’re from elsewhere on your handset. You can tap them to open them, or swipe them away off the screen; long-pressing on one notification allows you to lasso multiple notifications and dismiss them simultaneously.

If you’ve got rid of them, though, you can call them back using the standard Android Jelly Bean notification bar, though it’s hidden by default. A tap at the top of the Cover Feed screen makes it briefly visible – complete with the usual clock, network signal, battery status, and any notification icons – and then dragging it down opens it completely.

Again, as with Cover Feed, it all works well in the context of Facebook. Using Home on a device other than the First, however, hides a lot of Android’s other glitz and features, not least any support for homescreen widgets. In fact, they’re completely absent from Home.

Chat Heads and Messenger

Passively consuming photos and links isn’t the only aspect of Facebook Home: instant messaging is also heavily integrated into not only the launch, but the Android system as a whole. New messages pop up as circular bubbles showing either the user’s profile photo or, in the case of group messages, a collage of those photos. By default, they bubble into view in the upper right corner, clustering across the screen as they stack up, but each can be dragged around (or, with a long-press and a lasso gesture, multiple Chat Heads can be grabbed) and either pushed to other areas of the screen or dismissed altogether.

That’s important, as Chat Heads permeate all through the OS, appearing on top of whatever app you’re using – Facebook or otherwise. It soon becomes second nature to snatch one up with your thumb and either open it or flick it away; however, you can also flick it to the side of the screen, where – after a little bounce – it will cling.

Tap to open it, and you get the usual Facebook messenger window on top of whatever you were looking at before, whether that be the Cover Feed homescreen, the Android browser, a game, or something else. You can also call up a Chat Head yourself, by long-pressing a person in the regular messenger list, and choosing to pop them out as a bubble.

Chat Heads works well, though again there’s a walled garden effect that will frustrate anybody who isn’t entirely committed to Facebook for their messaging needs. The latest iteration of the Facebook messenger app pulls in SMS text messages, but it doesn’t support Google Talk or other IM systems, and so the overall usefulness of Chat Heads is diluted.

App Launcher (and everything else)

Facebook Home may be all about Facebook, but the social company does at least recognize that Android users are likely to want to access other apps. For that, there’s the app launcher, a quick-launch hub from which you can jump to your most commonly used software.

Drag the profile picture on the homescreen up, and the app launcher pane loads, a 4×4 grid of shortcuts that can be dragged and reorganized at will. Above it, there are buttons to post a new Facebook status message, a photo, or to check-in at your current location. Multiple pages of apps are supported, and you can drag new icons in by swiping to the left to open up the full app drawer and then bring them over to the main launcher pane.

The app drawer also has a Google search bar at the top of the screen, but that’s the only widget-style action you’ll get. There’s no support for any native Android or third-party widgets, and no way of accessing the regular Android homescreen, since Facebook Home replaces it completely. You do still get Google Now access, however, with a long-press on the home button calling it up; a double-tap opens the Android app switcher.

Wrap-Up

On the one hand, you can see the argument for Facebook Home. The social network is hugely popular, and there’s no shortage of people who check in on the latest updates multiple times a day. It’s become a way for old school friends to rediscover each other, family members to share the latest events in their lives, and for colleagues to collaborate more casually with services like messenger.

Nonetheless, in its first iteration, Facebook Home doesn’t quite hit the spot. It feels like it should have been a beta; indeed, Facebook was keen to point out at its launch event that it’s definitely a work-in-progress. The problem is, Facebook hasn’t taken baby steps: it wants to be your new Android homescreen, and anything from third-parties is basically lost or hidden in the process.

Factor in things like the complete lack of support for widgets and the inability to tailor who gets included in Cover Feed, and Facebook Home stumbles out of the gate. As a result, it’s difficult to recommend it to anybody other than those solely committed to Facebook (and even those most fervent users of the site were mixed when we showed them Facebook Home and explained what it offered), and if you’re also a Twitter user, or a Google+ user, or rely on other messaging apps like WhatsApp, LINE, or others, for every advantage Facebook Home provides, there’s a compromise to be made elsewhere.

Facebook clarified that users can continue to access the social network on their handsets the same way they currently do – there’s no need to use Home if you don’t want it. If you do choose to use the service, you can likewise ditch it any time you want, turning it off under “Settings” or removing it from the lockscreen. This way, users can try it out, but aren’t obligated to keep it.

As far as what information Home gathers, Facebook says that it collects data on how users use the service, such as what apps the user places in the Home launcher. It also pulls information about how the app is interacted with, such as commenting and liking. On pre-installed devices, Home will display notifications and Facebook collects certain information from the notification, with the exception of its content. This data is stored for 90 days, after which point indentifying information is removed.

Another big question is whether Home gathers data about other applications and how they are used. The answer is “no.” In the example given, Facebook would get data about an app that is launched using the app launcher, but it would not receive any information about how that app is used. Likewise, location information is used the same way the regular Facebook app uses it, and location services can be disabled by the user. For more information, you can check out the Data Use Policy.

[via Facebook]

The webpage is both comical and a very interesting look into the mind of a teenage Mark Zuckerberg, who was at the time promoting his Vader Fader tool and introduced himself as Slim Shady: “Hi, my name is…Slim Shady. No, really, my name is Slim Shady. Just kidding, my name is Mark.” On the Angelfire page, he invited comments via the AOL email address “Themarke51@aol.com”.

The Angelfire site is full of Java applets, and contains several pages, including one dedicated to Vader Fader, a pong game, Magnetic Poetry, a base converter, something he calls the CyberMonkey, inviting users to test the “famous monkey problem” and email him asap if they “spot a soliloquy of Hamlet”. While all of this, presented in a fairly clean manner above a solid gray background, is interesting, it is his page on “The Web” that catches the most attention.

Says young Zuckerberg on his page “The Web,”: “As of now, the web is pretty small. Hopefully, it will grow into a larger web.” And speaking of the applet, “If your name is already on The Web because someone else has chosen to be linked to you, then you may choose two additional people to be linked with.” He has certainly come a long way since that small applet, and has connected far, far more people.

Of course, there’s no guarantee this is Zuckerberg’s Angelfire site, but all signs point to the affirmative.

[via Hacker News]

During the first day of Instagram’s launch on Android, over 1 million users downloaded the app. By the end of the week, the app was downloaded over 5 million times. Instagram says that its expansion onto the Android platform has made the service more “global” than ever. It listed several events worldwide that were covered by Android users, including Brazil’s Cirio de Nazare festival, the 85th birthday of Thailand’s King Bhumibol, and the severe thunderstorms throughout Malaysia.

The high number of Android users isn’t too surprising, since the OS has such a huge marketshare, and there is a huge selection of low-end to high-end Android smartphones available everywhere. It looks like Android and iOS will only be competing with each other for the higher user base, seeing as Instagram doesn’t have any official plans to release its app on Blackberry 10 or Windows Phone 8.

If it only took Android 1 year to attract around 50 million Instagram users, it’ll be very interesting to see how far its user base will increase on its second anniversary. Instagram plans on bringing many more updates and filters to both iOS and Android devices in the near future, so that you’re able to choose from more options to customize and modify your images. Philip McAllister, an engineer at Instagram, states “We’re working hard to make the app fast and easy to use, and we’re dedicated to always bringing you the best Instagram experience as possible.”

[via Android Community]

The announcement was made by Google’s Jon Emerson on his Google+ page. The feature is available to anyone with a Google account, and goes towards the free 5GB of storage space provided. Those who reach their 5GB limit can either free up space by deleting some of the images, or can purchase more individual storage space from Google.

A full-size image is considered any image that is larger than 2,048 pixels; any images under that size are stored for free and don’t count against the 5GB limit. In order to upload full-size images, users must visit their Google G+ Settings and manually check the box next to “Upload my photos at full size.” When uploading images, users will see how much storage space has been used.

In case you’re wondering whether you can easily sort through your images and find the full-size ones that are counting against your 5GB limit, you’re not the only one. The question has already been posed, and Emerson stated that there isn’t a feature that allows you to see a list of just the full-size images, meaning you’ll need to manually sort through them and look at the resolution to locate the ones using up your free storage space.

[via Google+]

The new Card types are App, Product, and Gallery, each of which is mostly self-explanatory. The App Card type provides app information, such as its name and icon, description, and some other relevant data, including its price. The information is provided via the App Store or Play Store, and all that is required of developers is their ID. Similar to this is the Product Card type, which shows a product’s image, description, and a maximum of two fields that can be customized with other details, such as pricing.

Finally, there’s the Gallery Card type, which is used when there’s more than one image available, making that obvious by including more than one image in the card and providing a notification that there’s a gallery to be seen, rather than just one or a couple images. These expand on the photo, summary, and video Cards, and are said to provide a foundation for future cards.

According to the announcement, there is already a substantial lineup of partners that will take advantage of the cards, including Etsy, Jawbone, Angry Birds, SoundCloud, Vine, Foursquare, and more. In addition to the cards, Twitter has also unveiled deep-linking for mobile apps, which you can see in the image above. Enabling this can help drive app downloads.

[via Twitter]

The button was first discovered by Mashable’s Alex Fitzpatrick. The button appears to be rolling out to a small test group, and it’s still up in the air about whether or not this button will be rolled out to the rest of Facebook’s users. It allows users to update their status no matter which page they’re on. So if you’re on your friend’s Facebook page, and you just thought of something you want to send to the entirety of your Facebook friends list, you can just click the button to update your status.

Many people are speculating that Facebook is borrowing its features from Twitter. The button looks awfully similar to Twitter’s “Compose a tweet” button, especially with the pop-up button over a faded background. Facebook also renamed its “subscribers” to “followers”, and is planning on implementing a hashtag feature in its service soon, a feature that was popularized by Twitter.

Alongside the upcoming addition of the “post-a-status” button, Facebook has also added an update to Facebook Events. Event planners, as well as event attendees, will now be able to see the weather conditions for their upcoming events. Facebook is also rolling out a new feature to Facebook Pages that organizes comments in more simple, threaded conversations. Facebook has been constantly testing out new features this month, so it’ll be interesting what else will pop out in the next few days.

[via Mashable]

eMarketer expects that Twitter’s ad revenue will be around $582.8 million this year, with $308.9 million of that revenue coming from mobile ads. That figure will leap all the way to $1 billion next year. In 2015, that number will jump up 33% to $1.33 billion, with an expected 60% coming from mobile advertisements. Twitter, like Facebook, sees the significant revenue mobile devices can bring to its service.

Twitter’s targeted marketing and its improved reach are appealing more and more to advertisers. It had also recently launched an advertisement API that allows marketers to develop more effective marketing tools, and that allows advertisers to shell out more relevant ads to a better targeted group of users. Tests with the API showed a significant boost in user engagement as well as an increase in brand followers.

$1 billion in revenue doesn’t seem too far off, especially since the company has just officially announced that is has 200 million users who tweet out an average 400 million tweets per day. Twitter is also getting ready to launch its own standalone music app that should draw more users to its service. The service will stream music through SoundCloud and will provide users a more personalized music experience. The service browses for music artists through the user’s “following” list, and will also have a list of emerging, popular, and trending songs available for the user. The service will be available for users without Twitter accounts as well, however, they have to sign up for the social network if they want to experience personalized music.

[via eMarketer]

The campus will be span across 22-acres of land. It will be designed by Frank Gehry, a renowned architect known for his work on the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and his work on the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, California. However, unlike the flashy designs Gehry made for both the Guggenheim and Walt Disney Concert Hall, the design of the Facebook campus will be much more low-key.

Gehry’s creative partner, Craig Webb, stated, “They felt some of those things were too flashy and not in keep with the kind of culture of Facebook, so they asked us to make it more anonymous.” Surprisingly, Gehry was comfortable with designing a more low-key building. Facebook’s new campus will follow an eco-friendly design. It will have a rooftop garden, be hidden by the landscape, feature a park-like entrance accessible by the public, and will have an underground tunnel that connects it to Facebook’s other campus.

Webb stated, “Our intent is that it almost becomes like a hillside.” Many of the city council members were enthusiastic about the campus’s new design. One of the members, Kirsten Keith, stated that it’s very lucky for Menlo Park to have a building designed by Frank Gehry. Another member, Rich Cline, stated that he was impressed that Facebook’s rooftop park will also have oak trees. Construction for the campus is expected to start right away, and upon completion, the campus be able to accommodate up to 3,400 Facebook staff members.

[via Mercury News]

According to someone “familiar with Twitter’s plan,” the micro-blogging platform has struck a deal with Vevo so that the latter company’s content will be offered via the social network’s music app. Specifically, Vevo’s music videos will be offered, with these videos more likely than not being – at least for now – the only way content from big-name artists/labels will be available freely via the music app.

If you’re out of the loop, Twitter’s music app will be designed to offer up personalized music recommendations based on various things, such as which artists they follow, and perhaps less ideally, also the artists followed by the user’s followers. The music app can be used regardless of whether one has a Twitter account, although using the service with an account will return better results.

In addition to Vevo content, word also has it that SoundCloud audio will be available, as well as third-party content via iTunes. There will be a total of four tabs with the service, one called “Suggested” with recommendations, one called “#NowPlaying” with songs being listened to by followers, one called “Popular” with trends, and one called “Emerging” with those one the rise.

[via AllThingsD]

If the last prospect gets you excited, take heart: some sources have come forward to say a Facebook Phone is on the horizon. The invite is a simple tease – vague title, location, date and time – giving us just enough information to spend the next week guessing. Some sources have surfaced, however, saying that we should expect an operating system.

According to the folks over at TechCrunch, a source who previously advised them to be on the lookout for an April Facebook event has said that Facebook is going to announce an operating system. Specifically, this will be a modified Android operating system that has Facebook functionality woven throughout it, making it a one-stop-shop sort of deal for Facebook loyalists.

And, of course, what is an operating system without some hardware? The sources said that Facebook will likely be pairing its modified Android operating system with an HTC handset, model unknown. Both of those things are rumors at this point, the by-product of unnamed sources, and so don’t take it without a grain of salt. Stay tuned, and we’ll update you next week!

The Next Web reports that on March 2, 2013, Tumblr had around 93 million blogs on its network, so in only 25 days, it managed to gain 7 million blogs. It’s rapid expansion of blogs isn’t surprising, considering how easy to use the service is. Signing up is painless, and sharing posts, pictures, quotes, and more is simple and straight to the point. It’s also very easy to find blogs and people who share the same interests as you.

Tumblr has also made it very easy to blog while you’re on the go. It dedicates a good amount of its resources to make blogging on your mobile device easier. It revamped its iOS app in order to make it more faster and smoother, as well as bring to it more features to make it more efficient. It also boasts a nice Android app, and has even developed an Android tablet app so that your tablet’s screen is fully utilized.

Tumblr is showing no signs of slowing down. It plans on implementing mobile ads in order to fully monetize its service. The mobile ads will not be intrusive, like the pop-up ads you see sometimes on web pages. Instead, they will be shown as regular posts alongside Tumblr’s news feed. Back in November, Tumblr stated that over 170 million users visited the site each month. It’ll be interesting to see what that figure is right now.

[via The Next Web]

The statistics showed that over 250 million people play games on Facebook each month, and that 20% of all Facebook desktop users play games daily on Facebook. In the last month alone, Facebook redirected 263 million clicks to Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play store. Since last year, game installations has increased by 75%. Over 200 games on Facebook now each have over 1 million monthly active users. Over 100 developers generated over $1 million last year. There has been a 24% increase of players who pay to play games on Facebook compared to last year.

Facebook is looking to draw even more players to its gaming platform. It’s launching a series of high-end games that it believes will attract even the hardcore gamers. These new games will feature higher-quality graphics, intensive gameplay, and more riveting storylines. They will be completely different than Facebook’s current offering of games like Farmville and Bejeweled.

Facebook is pursuing many routes in order to generate as much revenue as possible. Along with creating a more stronger gaming network, the company is also pursuing new marketing methods that may be able to help it generate more than the $4 million a day it already generates from sponsored stories. One of the new methods is targeted ads placed straight into your newsfeed. There will most likely be more changes coming down the line, so stay tuned.

[via Facebook]

Not surprisingly, this change immediately makes one think of MySpace, and thinking about MySpace naturally results in a cringe or two. While Google+ is an entirely different beast, the addition of tiny infinitely-repeating animated squares has been called by more than one user as the “Myspaceification” of Google’s social network.

Some users are happy about the new feature, taking advantage of it to post animated snippets of themselves in various states as an avatar 2.0 kind of deal. Others, however, are expressing displeasure at the change, stating that animated profile pictures are distracting and ugly, and detract from the Google+ experience.

Google has directed users towards a Google search on “How to make a GIF” to encourage users to make their own. If you’re interested, several GIF makers are available online that make the process simple, such as Gickr. What do you say? Are animated GIFs a good move, or does it make things a little too MySpace-ish?

[via Google+]

This new feature rolled out to both the desktop and the mobile version of Facebook. Users will be able to see the highest and lowest predicted temperatures of the day, so that they can dress accordingly. This will be perfect for outdoor events, so you’ll know in advance whether or not you’ll need to bring an umbrella, a jacket, or if you should just avoid the event altogether. The app also helps event planners know if they need to relocate or reschedule the event.

This new feature is all part of Facebook’s new renovation. It wants to make all of the information you need available from its social network. Along with the addition of weather forecasts, Facebook is set to roll out a new newsfeed to all of its users. The revamed newsfeed is much more cleaner and appealing. It expands even more on organization, and it is more integrated with certain apps.

Facebook has made a lot of changes in the past month to its service. In the near future, the service may also be implementing hashtags. The hashtags will be used in conjunction with trends and events. It will operate almost exactly like it does on Twitter. Users can click on the hashtag to see various statuses and events centered around the topic. We should be seeing Facebook’s revamped newsfeed, hashtags, and several other changes coming to Facebook within the next few weeks.

Of course, you can still sign in with your Facebook account if you want. Zynga will keep your games’ progress as well as your Zynga friends list in its database. While Zynga wants to distance itself from Facebook, it doesn’t want to burn that bridge entirely. It relies on Facebook for a huge chunk of its traffic, even though it already has a dedicated fan base of over 3 million people.

Along with removing the Facebook login requirement, Zynga plans on implementing a feature next week that will allow players to find fellow gamers through their Gmail or Yahoo contacts list. Zynga will also be implementing its own payment system for its games, instead of relying on Facebook for its transactions. Before, people would be able to purchase premium content on Zynga through Facebook, however Facebook would take a 30% cut from all transactions.

Facebook isn’t too happy about the change, however both companies knew that this move was inevitable. For people who still connect to Zynga via their Facebook accounts, they will only be find fellow gamers that they have previously interacted with. They will no longer be able to see if one of their Facebook friends has just started playing a Zynga game. This change will most definitely hurt Zynga’s transition, but is no way a deal breaker for the game developer.

[via Zynga]

Instead of ranting about overt political motivations or other such common tweets that appear on hacked accounts, the Syrian Electronic Army posted fake weather snippets for various Middle Eastern locations, some with their own between-the-lines statement, while others were just altogether odd, such as the tweet: “Saudi weather station down due to head-on collision with camel.”

Other tweets read: “Chaotic weather forecast for Lebanon as the government decides to distance itself from the Milky Way.” and “Tsunami alert for Haifa: Residents are advised to return to Poland.” According to the BBC, this same group, which shortens its name to SEA, has in the past proclaimed support across digital mediums for the Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

In the announcement, the media company stated that a phishing email had been sent to some BBC email addresses. The email contained a link that would help the responsible party gain “password details,” but the email has not been tied to the attack at this time. The BBC issued an apology to its Twitter followers, saying that it “strongly condemns” such actions.

[via BBC]
Image via Sophos

While there are several options for taking screenshots using either the rather primitive PrntScrn button or a third-party screenshot tool, Hangouts Capture is an integrated solution designed specifically for use with the service. Because of this, it has been tailored to make taking snapshots simple during a Hangout, and also offers features you won’t find in other tools.

Taking snapshots involves only a single click, so users won’t have to worry about the perfect moment ending before they get a chance to take a screencap. Once a snapshot is taken, it is saved as a picture into an album that is shared with the other individuals in the Hangout, which can then be viewed as part of your Google+ photo albums, or by pulling up the Hangout post.

Those paranoid about having images taken of them without their knowledge, however, have no reason to fear. If you’re part of a Hangout, you will receive a notification when the Capture app is pulled up or if it is already active when you join a Hangout. Likewise, you’ll also receive a notification every time someone takes a snapshot. Effects are available that can be added to images, which you can see a sample of in the image above.

[via Google+ (Jeremy Ng)]

You can check out the patent for yourself over at the USPTO website. The abstract details both a method and a system that provides “device-independent point to multipoint communication” able to receive messages from email, web, texting, and more. It then goes on to detail at length the various functions and features of Twitter that make it the update broadcasting service that it is.

Back in April last year, Twitter unveiled the Innovator’s Patent Agreement via its blog, where it details how the company feels on the use of patents and their potential to impact innovation. In the Agreement, which Twitter refers to as the IPA, the company states that it will only use patents in a defensive manner, seeking employee permission for offensive use. The IPA went into effect late last year.

In other Twitter news, we reported yesterday that Twitter’s Jack Dorsey wishes to become mayor of New York City. That will be quite the career change for Dorsey, who currently serves as CEO of Square and Executive Chairman of Twitter. This news came to light during a 60 Minutes interview, where Dorsey said that he is serious but little else about the ambition.

[via The Verge]

One of the changes include increasing the size of pins. This will help users see “more of what you love”. Pinterest has also made it so that when you’re browsing through pins, and find yourself buried deep into your search, you can hit the “back” button on your browser and it will land you all the way back to where you were before you started browsing. Sometimes you get lost in what your doing, and Pinterest understands.

Another major change is the amount of information you see when you click on a pin. Not only will you see a larger, more close-up shot of a pin, you will also see pins on the same board as the original image, as well as more pins from the website the original pin came from. You will also be able to see what other pins the user has pinned on their boards, a feature that will make its way to mobile devices soon. This will allow you to spend more times discovering the things you like.

Overall, the user experience for Pinterest will see a great, new change after this. The site has also stated that they have “rebuilt their foundation”, so Pinterest should be much more stable and reliable. Pinterest encourages users who have any feedback to leave a message on their blog post. You should be updated to the new design shortly, and once you do, you can resume craving that ridiculously delicious-looking cupcake while that motivational workout pin makes you feel guilty.

[via Pinterest]

Burke and Kraut surveyed about 3,000 Facebook users. They were asked about their stress levels, support from friends/family, and about any major event that had happened in their life. The survey was repeated every month for 3 months, and in that time period, about 169 of the users lost their jobs. After observing the behavior of the 3,000 users, Burke and Kraut were able to discover some common patterns in behavior.

Their studies showed that people who talked to other people who they have a strong tie with, like a friend or family member, were 33.2% more likely to find a job within 3 months, and were twice as likely to find a new job compared to the average user. Those who talked to people who they have weak ties with, like a friend’s roommate, or a friend’s family member, were only 6.5% likely to find a new job within 3 months, and were less than half as likely to find a new job compared to the average user.

Facebook’s study showed that original theories provided by Sociologists were incorrect. Sociologists believed that by talking to “Weak Ties”, you’ll be more likely to find a new job, because those are people who you have nothing in common with. They work at different companies, think differently, and have a network of people you don’t know. They believed that your “Strong Ties” tend to be in the same network of people as you, think similarly as you, and have similar tendencies.

Facebook’s study also showed that Strong Ties are great supporters. They can offer you advice, ease your worries, and do you favors. However, if you have recently lost your job, talking to Strong Ties may actually be detrimental to you. The study showed that users who talked to their friends after losing a job would actually see an increase in their stress levels. Burke says that this is because Strong Ties usually push users to a quicker recovery, offer unhelpful advice, and unintentionally threaten users with their success. So the takeaway from all of this is to use your Strong Ties to find you a new job, and stay away from them if you’ve recently become unemployed.

[via Facebook]

MessageMe has become so successful in such a short amount of time that even Facebook has become threatened by it. In order to quell its growth, Facebook blocked MessageMe from accessing its social graph. Now users are unable to find their friends through Facebook’s network, causing a setback to the rapidly growing messaging app. This move by Facebook has been speculated to have happened for three reasons.

First, it’s speculated that Facebook cut off MessageMe’s access to its social graph because MessageMe poses a serious threat to Facebook’s own Messenger service. Facebook has been trying to make Messenger the top app for messaging. It has offered incentives, like adding free VoIP calling, and offering free/discounted data for the messaging app in select countries. The second reason is that Facebook believes MessageMe copies Messenger’s core functionality, which violates Facebook’s platform policy. The third reason is that MessageMe doesn’t offer any reciprocal benefits to Facebook. Facebook wants MessageMe to allow users to share information back to it.

Being cut off from Facebook is a big setback, however MessageMe has enough support from LOLapps and its current users to be able to thrive on its own. MessageMe also isn’t the only app to have been given the axe by Facebook. Many apps, like Twitter’s Vine, have also been cut off by Facebook, but they still went on to experience great success. MessageMe’s users aren’t too worried about the apps future, and they’re sure it will continue to thrive. Arjun Sethi, co-founder of the app, has stated that there will be more details on the issue on Tuesday.

[via TechCrunch]

The information comes from individuals who are said to be familiar with the matter, according to the Wall Street Journal. The hashtag feature, once incorporated, will allow events and trends to be aggregated together by their shared topic, with users being able to click on the hashtag to see a list of statuses with the same marker.

While the hashtag is a staple of and most commonly associated with Twitter, it isn’t exclusive to that service, and can be found in use across the web, including on Facebook’s own Instagram, which makes it easier for photos to be sorted and discovered. As it currently stands, Facebook users can already tag certain things via “@.”

This comes at a time when Facebook is making some big changes and is competing against Twitter in a spectrum of areas, not the least of which is getting more advertisement dollars flowing its way. Recently, the social network updated its search engine, stated that public statuses will be searchable, and has pushed users to post more content publicly rather than with just their friends. Says the sources, this feature won’t roll out for awhile, so don’t expect to see it with the updated news feed.

[via Wall Street Journal]

The app will stream music via SoundCloud. It will feature 4 tabs. The “Suggested” tab recommends you songs based on the musical artists you follow. The “#NowPlaying” tab lists links to songs tweeted by your followers who tweet using the #NowPlaying hashtag. The “Popular” tab lists the songs that are currently trending on the music app, and the “Emerging” tab lists a bunch of up-and-coming artists featured on We Are Hunted.

The app will display artists and songs in a grid design. Clicking on an artist’s panel will cause it to expand displaying a short bio on the artist, as well as links to songs the artist has on SoundCloud, or on iTunes. Users can tap the play button to begin streaming music from the artist. Users will also be able to follow artists directly from Twitter’s “Twitter Music” page.

iOS users are said to have first dibs on the Twitter Music service, just like Twitter’s video sharing app, Vine. The Twitter Music service is speculated to be released to iOS devices by the end of this month. Twitter hopes that by integrating music into its network, it can attract more new users to its service. It will, however, have a hard time prying users away from popular music services like Pandora and Spotify.

[via CNET]