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image thumb34 Facebook Safe? Just Be Watchful And Smart

A safe and controlled Facebook, stop kidding me please and get real. There has been a lot of controversy over time, well every time things have come down to the free Web. All such destinations are nothing but breeding grounds for anything and everyone who can do harm. Sprawling malware that continues to thrive on user carelessness or should I say, their blind trust and that becomes a very small issue when I say it is also the safest haven for predators; molesters, criminals and murderers. I am not lying, there is no way you can tell that the person you have added there is an angel or a devil.

So I often laugh when people talk about Facebook safeguarding them, protecting them from such things/individuals. I don’t mean to be rude here but that’s what anyone would do, it’s not state police, it’s not your secret service that is bent upon singling out such people [put aside malicious apps, etc out of this]. Facebook is a free service and anyone is more than welcome to join this and there is no way it can know who is signing up and what age the person is. In short it believes whatever you tell it and it comes down to its users to take charge of the network, at least their own profiles and people they make connections with.

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image thumb33 Your Information Is Useless For Facebook, Google! DUH!

Safety is Facebook’s top priority. Oh sure, I trust that blindly and would bluntly state that the social network takes the matter too much in its own hands. What exactly made the social network state that? A tweak to the appearance of its privacy settings section. The statement however cannot be fully trusted.

I was attending a session at a University and there the instructor stated: what do you think firms like Google, Microsoft, Facebook can do with your information? It is useless for them. Excuse me? Useless for them? Yet they will fight tooth and nail to eliminate all competition and have everyone putting their information on their site and using them to connect with third party applications. Perhaps he meant they wont use it illegally which is so obvious, but the bulk of data they have about us, legal use alone does them a lot of benefit. I didn’t want to indulge in a discussion that would have taken the session off the track, but I found it ridiculing.

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image thumb32 Update: Apple [Seriously] After Facebook App Developers: Another Developer Gets Warning

We reported earlier about the Facebook Ultimate app being taken off the App Store by Apple because they thought that the app was violating copyrights. Today I got a mail from another developer who faces similar issues – a warning from Apple that the app violates Facebook’s terms. How exactly?

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I thought I was the only one who had ever hated the social network; Facebook. Trust me I have been made fun of hating the social network and even more so now that I blog about it. There is something in me that always says I mustn’t trust it too much and I guess many share the same view, at least Kevin Pollak fears the same, he loves Twitter but to him the F for Facebook instills Fear in him.

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image thumb31 Tip: Basic Precautionary Methods To Stay Safe From Malware On Facebook

When you trust content blindly after spending several hours using them. I am talking about addiction to Facebook apps, the games especially and the latest news comes from Farm Town. Users of the game have been targeted by malware and scam ads.

The scam alerted users that their system is infected with virus and they needed to download anti virus software to protect their systems. Upon clicking the banner ad the users were taken to numerous sites. Users browser directs the browser to a site and downloads a PDF file that infects the systems. The problem is as always the obvious; un aware masses that fall prey to such scams and make it go viral. Users do have all the knowledge on what apps they should use and what games should they play, but aren’t careful enough to watch out for these malicious links.

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image thumb30 Chinese Firm, Tencent Invests In Facebook’s Investor: Russian Digital Sky Technologies

Alright China has some major issues with directly investing into Facebook, perhaps fearing it might have to allow the social network more access to its people. But making an indirect link doesn’t sound that bad and there is always an option. China’s leading Internet firm, Tencent has made a $300 Million investment in Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies. The same DST that has made major investments in Facebook, Zynga [Farmville creator].

The investment will give Tencent a 10.26% share in DST. I am not sure what shares does it translate to for Facebook, in which DST has 3.5 stake. The investment is pretty striking for me, given that only recently I stated that penetrating China, is going to be a major problem for Facebook but firms in the region see the prospects of making investments as it is a definite profit, one thing that wont translate to losses any time in the future. As for Facebook, it just adds more value to the platform, the greater firms get associated to it, the easier it becomes for it to gain penetration into the International market, even in regions where the idea is a bit too difficult.

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image thumb27 Apple Hates Adobe And The Hate Is There To Stay – But I Am With Adobe!

Whenever you are angered or enraged at anything and the War can’t be fought face to face, the best place then is Facebook. Forget support for a good cause and be mean; rally your supporters against the tyranny of one or many, bring it on Facebook Adobe has done that, unofficially.

Given the latest development in the Adobe/Apple saga and Steve Jobs’ harsh words and an iron will to never let Adobe come close to any product of Apple: iPad, iPhone and… the iPad. You heard or should I say read it right – Never. The war from Adobe has come to Facebook and its fans are already cursing Apple for the dictatorial and the anti-competitive methodology it has adopted. Why so? Wouldn’t that actually help Apple get the big grab on in the market if it makes use of the platform? More developers mean more options for its consumers and an even bigger market the only and sadly the major risk involved is that Apple would have had to compromise on its hegemony over its hardware. Obviously that is quite huge sacrifice to make.

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image thumb26 Could Facebook Stories Be Transformed To TV Series?

I am just a bit imaginative at this moment and I bet very soon there will be TV series based on Facebook. Not just one but many, from love to humor, to thrill and murder. I mean lets be realistic and pay attention to the sort of news that we have got used to from the social network on the Web, web here is applied literally and continues to spin itself in our daily lives.

The latest report on this states that a man allegedly assaulted his girlfriend over a Facebook message. I am wandering what exactly that message contained that it lead to an assault and honestly it brings us guys a bad name. The guy to top that had issues with the verdict: a 12 month community order and a need to pay compensation worth 25 Euros and added cost worth 85 Euros. How low of him, but that’s one story I have no details about. What I need to state here is simply the fact that Facebook is a potential candidate for various TV serials and I am already thinking of names and the bucks that can be made off:

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image thumb24 So Much For Dull Farmville  German Game Makers Bring Witcher To Facebook

I guess someone wise wizard, really wise wizard thought that there weren’t enough addictive games on Facebook already. Reports state that Witcher, the popular RPG is coming to the social network. This, stating the obvious would give users one more reason to be addicted and lose money, lose jobs or worse get Facebook blocked at work.

The German gaming firm; Gamigo thought that if people could waste their life playing Farmville, giving them a hard core game that has some action wont be a bad move. The best part, it’s going to be in English, meaning it wont have any barrier targeting the masses. I am not a big fan of social or online games but a bit of a try of Witcher appealed to me, maybe because I had grown up playing Age of Empires and Red Alert, but playing the same on Facebook, I am not sure how impressive it turns out to be.

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Facebook all around and everyone quite desperate in one way or the other to have more ways to keep them glued it was only a matter of time before it got South Park’s attention. The show that has its very own Facebook Fan Page wants its viewers to get off Facebook and watch the show. The episode is meant to be about Facebook itself and does quite a good job making a mockery of the current trend.

The story is fairly simple where Kyle and Cartman start a fan page for Stan, who is not really into it given that he has been befriended by his relatives and grandparents. Stan is sick of it and decides to quit it but he is too caught in the web and the social network just wont let him escape. The only way out however is that he stages a battle with his own profile to win his freedom. Isn’t it obvious? I mean you get to see all these reports how people are caught in the vicious circle of the social network? The latest was the report of a 12 year old kid who ended up being indebted to Farmville and used his mom’s credit card for payments. These are just a few issues and South Park is doing exactly the same.

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