Facebook Takes on Twitter with Facebook Lite, Tagging

Facebook is challenging Twitter with Facebook Lite and Tagging to keep friends linked. Facebook Lite was meant for developing countries but is available first in the U.S. and India. An analyst noted that the stripped-down Facebook Lite is easier for mobile users to access. Tagging lets users tell friends what they're up to.

Facebook is going on the offensive against the rising Twitter star with new initiatives aimed at streamlining social networking. Facebook launched Facebook Lite and Tagging on Thursday to make updating simpler and more social.

As its name suggests, Facebook Lite is a lighter version of Facebook. It was designed for people with slower connections. The stripped-down version loads faster.

Facebook Lite is available in the U.S. and India, and the company plans to roll it out in China, Russia and other countries. That makes Facebook's intentions suspect, since most users in the U.S. have good connections.

However, Facebook issued a statement about the U.S. launch: "We decided to roll out Facebook Lite in the U.S. to give users a simple, expedient alternative to facebook.com, and hope that it will fill this need."

Lite Enough for Mobile

Facebook Lite focuses on events, inbox messages, wall messages, video and photos, and, of course, status updates. The difference between Facebook and Facebook Lite is most obvious in applications. You won't find support for applications on the Lite version, which reminds some observers of Facebook's original version.

"Facebook Lite was intended to be something for developing countries and places where high-speed connections were sparse or entirely nonexistent," said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. "However, the company is making it available in the U.S., and thus it now represents a total alternative for people who use or want to use Facebook but don't like all the 'noise' and clutter of the regular site."

Sterling's guess is that most U.S. and Western users won't access Facebook via the Lite version. But he noted that Facebook Lite is easier for mobile users to access with a browser.

Tagging, Tagging Everywhere

Facebook is also offering a new way to tag people and other things Facebook users are connected to in status updates and other posts. Facebook is positioning the amped-up tagging capabilities as a way for its members to let people know who they are and what they are talking about.

"People often update their status to reflect their thoughts and feelings, or to mention things they feel like sharing. Sometimes that includes referencing friends, groups or even events they are attending -- for instance, posting 'Grabbing lunch with Meredith Chin' or 'I'm heading to Starbucks Coffee Company -- anyone want some coffee?'," said Facebook engineer Tom Occhino.

Facebook tagging will soon let users that want to add a friend's name to a status update do so by including the "@" symbol beforehand. As a user types the name of something to reference, a drop-down menu appears to choose from friends and other connections, including groups, events, applications and pages. Occhino said that soon, members will be able to tag friends from applications as well. The "@" symbol will not be displayed in the published status update or post.

"Friends you tag in your status updates will receive a notification and a Wall post linking them to your post. They also will have the option to remove tags of themselves from your posts," Occhino said. "We hope that tagging your status updates and other posts from the publisher will enable you to share in a more meaningful and engaging way, and connect with even more people."

Facebook is rolling out this feature over the course of the next few weeks.

By Jennifer LeClaire

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=68886&full_skip=1

Twitter Adds Location-Sharing

Twitter is joining the location trend by debuting a new feature to make Twitter location-aware: an API that will allow for accurate, tweet-level location data. Twitter users will be able to opt in to sharing locations on a tweet-by-tweet basis. Twitter is addressing security concerns by saying the geolocation services will remain off by default.

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=68531

Be On the Lookout for New Police Tool, aka Twitter

Some departments use Twitter to alert people to traffic disruptions, to explain why police are in a certain neighborhood or to offer crime prevention tips. Others encourage leads on more pressing matters: bomb scares, wildfires, school lockdowns and evacuations. Police are calling the social-networking site a valuable resource.

When Milwaukee police wanted to get word of a murder out quickly, they did it in 113 characters on Twitter.

"Latest homicide in the city is NOT a random act. Male, 33, shot in 1500 block N. 39. More details as we have them," read the recent entry.

Milwaukee's department is one of a growing number of police and fire agencies turning to social networking Web sites such as Twitter, which lets users send text-message "tweets" to a mass audience in 140 characters or less. The tweets can be read on the Web or on mobile phones within seconds.

Some departments use Twitter to alert people to traffic disruptions, to explain why police are in a certain neighborhood or to offer crime prevention tips. Others encourage leads on more pressing matters: bomb scares, wildfires, school lockdowns and evacuations.

People signed up to automatically receive every tweet from one source are known as "followers," and by that measure, public-safety Twitter pages are nowhere near the most popular. Cyclist Lance Armstrong and actress Demi Moore each have more than 500,000 followers. Milwaukee police have about 900.

But even non-followers can see the updates too, and Milwaukee police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz, one of two Twitterers in the department, says the site is a valuable resource.

"We are trying to reach people in the places they are already going for information," she said.

One risk of Twitter is that anyone can go on the site and claim to be the cops. In March, the Texas attorney general's office shut down a phony Twitter account called "Austin PD," which had about 450 followers and used the official city seal.

The culprit has not been arrested, so his or her intent is not yet known. Mainly the tweets were in a joking vein, such as "Warming up my radar gun for SXSW," a reference to Austin's South By Southwest music conference.

But the potential for more dangerous misinformation worries Craig Mitnick, founder of Nixle LLC, which offers what it calls a secure "municipal wire" that public agencies can use instead of Twitter to broadcast updates.

Web sites like Twitter or Facebook are "meant for social purposes and not for trusted information," Mitnick said. "It's a bombshell waiting to explode."

Schwartz pointed out that anyone concerned about the validity of the Milwaukee police posts on Twitter can call the department, and she said most of its posts direct readers back to the police Web site as well.

By Carrie Antlfinger

http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=65918

YouTube Upgrade Includes Sharing Videos with Twitter

YouTube users can now share videos on Twitter feeds, along with choices for Facebook, MySpace, Digg and Hi5. Earlier, YouTube owner Google integrated Twitter with Google Friend Connect, and it has introduced new features for Google Reader. YouTube also enhanced support for mobile browsers, and YouTube EDU provides education content.

The ability to share Twitter feeds is among the latest batch of changes unveiled this week at YouTube, which Alexa, a Web traffic analyzer, ranks as the world's third most popular Web property after Yahoo and Google.

Given that so many people are on Twitter these days, YouTube said it has added Twitter to the share options so users can easily send a video into their Twitter streams. Other YouTube video-sharing options include Facebook, MySpace, Digg and Hi5.

When users click to share with Twitter, a pop-up window opens that routes users to their twitter accounts and formulates a Tweet telling recipients to "check out this video," with the title and URL added to the message.

"This was a big internal request, but we know many of you asked for it, too," YouTube's development team said. "We don't currently shorten the video URL automatically, but hope to get to it down the road."

By Mark Long
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=65602

The 6 Technologies That Shaped 2008

From high-definition streaming to tiny gadgets, 2008 saw technology continue its steady transformation toward the small, cheap and on-demand. Our resident gadget guru takes a look at the six developments that shaped 2008.

1. Netflix Rocks Internet Movie Streaming
A year ago, we would have guessed that Apple would become the dominant player in the nascent business of streaming Internet-delivered TV shows and movies to TV with its Apple TV. We would have been wrong. Over the past year, Netflix's "Watch It Now" feature evolved from a little-used part of its Web site to a killer app that is causing some people to cancel their cable. The secret to the success of Netflix's streaming movie service: widespread integration into TV-connected devices that are either inexpensive (such as the $100 Roku Netflix Player) or already in people's homes (such as the Xbox 360). Even better: The company is rapidly ramping up its high-definition and first-run offerings, including first-run TV shows just a day after they first air. Unlike Apple, which charges a few bucks for every TV show or movie, Netflix's streaming is completely free to Netflix subscribers. And unlike Hulu (another sleeper success this year), Netflix streaming is advertisement-free.

2. Pocket Gadgets, on the Cheap
Netbooks and pocket camcorders were, undoubtedly, the two biggest consumer electronics breakthroughs of the past year. But these distinct new categories were really results of the same winning formula for 2008: No-frills, portable, cheap electronics. Netbook manufacturers found they could bring prices down well below $400 by exorcising features such as optical drives, large screens and even the latest operating systems. Pocket camcorder makers, such as Pure Digital Technologies, the makers of the best-selling Flip, came to the same conclusion, taking out frills for a bare-bones HD camcorder with its tiny, $230 Flip HD Mino. Consumers were willing to sacrifice top-notch performance to have cheap, portable gadgets. With the recent economic downturn, we would bet the demand for these budget-priced gadgets will only skyrocket.

3. Mobile Applications
Hardware- and feature-wise, cellphones have hit a plateau. The battle of millimeters in a rush to be the thinnest phone is largely a thing of the past, and just about any hardware-based feature we want is now standard. That's why, these days, a smart phone is only as good as its applications. This is the new battleground for mobile technological supremacy, with stores such as the iPhone's App Store and the Android Market leading the charge, and new entries from Palm and (coming in March) Blackberry close behind. Just because a feature wasn't thought of in a boardroom doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. All it takes is a good idea and a standard development kit.

4. 3D Cinema
This past year's Journey to the Center of the Earth may not have been a big hit, but it was significant for a few reasons. First: It was the first "live action" (we use that term loosely for any Brendan Fraser movie) digital 3D movie. And second, even though 3D screens accounted for a small percentage of its showings, they accounted for the majority of Journey's revenue. In other words—where it was showing in 3D, people went to see it. Over the next year, 3D will continue its transition from novelty to Hollywood standard. Some of Hollywood's biggest names, such as Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron are either working on or have already made digital 3D films. The granddaddy of them all, James Cameron's Avatar (his first feature since the monster blockbuster Titanic) is slated for a3D release in late 2009. Just about every industry expert we've spoken to cites this release as the true tipping point for 3D saturation. Cameron has signaled that, at least initially, he wants to release the film only in 3D. So if theater owners want to cash in on what will likely be a huge hit, they're going to need to install more 3D screens.

5. Location-Based Services
Take open mobile-application development, add widespread proliferation of phone-based GPS, and you get the emergence of location-based programs. Programs based on the global positioning of a user spread like crazy this year, particularly for the iPhone, which has dozens of applications that allow users to find businesses that are near their present location. Urbanspoon's iPhone app, for example, connects users with nearby restaurants by using a randomized, roulette-style interface. Of course, the most interesting use of location-based programs is its marriage with social applications. Programs such as Loopt allow you to find friends who are nearby. Down the line, look for the emphasis to shift from finding existing friends who are nearby, to making new friends. Stranded at the airport? Soon you won't think twice about finding a like-minded individual who is also at O'Hare.

6. Microblogging
Twitter may be the most famous tool for microblogging (the abbreviated, one-or-two sentence cousin to regular blogging), but it's no longer the most important. That distinction now belongs to something that is rarely even thought of as a microblog: Facebook. Specifically, Facebook "status" updates. Millions of users update their "status" dozens of times a day, letting the world know how they are feeling, what they are doing and what they are looking to do be doing. And, thanks to Facebook's recent redesign, these updates are broadcast, front on center, to each and every one of a user's friends. Of course, microblogging has been around longer than the past year. What really sent it over the tipping point in the past 12 months was the meteoric rise of mobile applications. Now, users can update their Twitter or Facebook status in seconds, from anywhere and with ease. Instead of being the domain of desktop-bound bloggers, microblogs are now effectively quick broadcasts from the lunch line ("out of sushi again"), the stadium floor ("at AMAZING show!"), or the streets ("anybody around Avenue A wanna grab a drink?").

By Seth Porges

http://www.popularmechanics.com