One billion video views on Facebook

Facebook has hit another milestone--over one billion video views last month. Since launching Facebook Video in June 2007, video views have steadily grown, and now, there are four times as many video views as actual Facebook members.

In a promotional video that Facebook posted on its Career site Wednesday, two engineers, Soleio Cuervo and Chris Putnam, talk about how they conceived of Facebook Video and then built it out at a "Hackathon" in January 2007.

At Hackathon events, Facebook engineers spend one night, all night, working on ideas that have been simmering for the few months prior. The goal is, "to change the 'That would be hot!' sentiment to something real and live on the site," explains a Facebook engineer, Aditya Agarwal, on the Facebook blog.

Malware Targets Facebook and Other Social Sites

Malware is targeting social-networking sites, with Facebook hit the hardest, according to Trend Micro. The Koobface.AZ variant of the WORM_KOOBFACE.AZ steals user information and has appeared on 300 servers and up to 20,000 PCs. Jamz Yaneza of Trend Micro warned that open social-networking apps make it easy for cybercriminals.

Trend Micro, a computer security firm, is warning that social-networking sites are under attack from a new wave of malware, worms and rogue applications. Although a number of the leading social-network sites have been targeted, the problem has hit Facebook hardest.

"We didn't see a lot of these until recently," said Jamz Yaneza, the threat research manager for Trend Micro. "So far, they don't seem to be affecting users that much, although at least one Facebook group has been started by malware victims."

Yaneza said there is particular concern about a new variant of a dangerous worm, WORM_KOOBFACE.AZ. Within a very short period of time, the setup file for Koobface.AZ appeared on more than 300 servers, mostly in Asia, and Trend Micro expects that number to rise quickly. Researchers also estimate that as many as 20,000 PCs are being infected each day.

By Frederick Lane
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