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Bet On HTML 5 Kept Facebook from Entering Mobile Market Early

I was reading an article on BBC about Facebook’s future and came upon the reason why the social network got into the mobile market so late. BBC has the answer from Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg:

 

Mixed reviews for Facebook Home

Facebook Home - BBC

Facebook's Home app for Android phones has been downloaded more than 500,000 times from the Google Play store since its release on 4 April. But it has received mixed reviews from users, with an average rating of 2.2 out of five stars.

 

The joke may be on Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerber - CNN

Douglas Rushkoff says Facebook's new app just increases disorientation and isn't getting rave reviews from users... And when I looked up Facebook Home online to try to find out just what it was, the first search results that came up were from users sharing how to disable it. This way, consumers can buy the discounted phones on which Facebook Home ships, and turn them back into a regular Android smartphones, where Facebook is just another app we can use in our own good time.

 

Bits Blog: Facebook Shows Off Its Flavor of Android

Facebook Home - NY Times

Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, is holding a live news conference to show Facebook’s new phone software, designed for Google’s Android’s operating system.

 

Insight: On Facebook, app makers face a treacherous path

Facebook Apps

Last spring, the future for Viddy, a video-sharing Facebook app, seemed as sunny as southern California's skies. Based a block away from Venice Beach, the 30-person startup impressed prospective investors with skyrocketing user growth figures and won funding from them at a $370 million valuation. The tech press hailed it as the "Instagram for video," potentially ripe for a billion-dollar-plus buyout. Justin Bieber wanted to invest — and the pop star eventually did just that.

 

Opaque Instagram ad policy change riles users

Instagram

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service that Facebook bought this year, is the target of a storm of outrage on Twitter and other sites after a change in its user agreement hinted that it might use shared photos in ads.

 

The Race: Build the Instagram of Video

Facebook's $1 billion acquisition of photo-sharing start-up Instagram has shifted the spotlight to the newest phenomena in mobile apps: uploading personal videos from smartphones.

 

After long wait, Facebook releases application for iPad, updates iPhone app

One of the big, enduring questions of the technology world: “When will iPad users get their very own Facebook app?” The answer is —now. Facebook is releasing an updated version of its iPhone application on Monday afternoon, one that’s also designed to fill out the larger screen of the iPad. Like the previous iPhone version, it’s free.

Senh: I don't understand the point of iPad apps for websites. You can access the web from your iPad, and the screen is large enough that you don't have to zoom in and scroll.

 

Facebook changes worry privacy advocates

Users and privacy advocates have expressed concerns about Facebook’s planned redesign, the way the change will affect third-party apps and the network’s general approach to privacy. Third-party apps will be fully integrated into a user’s profile page, with updates about activity on each app. That means that users won’t actively click to share updates from apps — the apps will add that information to a user’s page automatically.

Senh: As long as there's a switch to turn it off, I'm fine.

 

ICQ Returns: Combines IM With Haphazard Twitter and Facebook Integration

In its heyday, ICQ was one of the most popular instant messaging networks. Today, you will probably have a hard time finding your friends on ICQ. Nevertheless, almost two year after the release of ICQ 6, ICQ just released a new version of its IM client. ICQ 7 now integrates updates from Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Flickr and YouTube.

 

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