Tag: Facebook

Facebook’s New ‘Place Tips’ Feature Gives Location-Based Recommendations

Facebook has introduced a cool new feature to keep things exciting for its massive user base. Recently, the social networking site announced a new tool called Place Tips which will give location-based suggestions to the user posted by friends like Photos, Notes and Status Updates.

The feature designed for the mobile app uses the location of your phone. When you move around with your internet connection on, the Facebook Place Tips will draw on the posts by your friends and will keep them at the top of your homepage. So, when you enter a famous place next time, you will see the posted photos by your friends.

The best part is that it’s optional, and one can disable it anytime by denying Facebook access to your location. The feature is currently in testing mode and is only available for iPhone users as of now.

The company said that however it uses your location to provide information,but doesn’t share it publicly. The company wrote in its official blog post –

Place tips will show you fun, useful and relevant info about the place you’re at.

Nailing down the exact location of a person in a densely packed city is not easy, and Facebook has found out a solution to that problem as well. The company say that it is developing Facebook Bluetooth Beacons (a type of transmitter). These beacons will be deployed at seven places in the New York – Dominique Ansel Bakery, Strand Book Store, The Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien Hotel, Brooklyn Bowl, Pianos, the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, and Veselka. So, when any person using Facebook reaches any of these stores, the company will be able to identify the exact location.

The app works for restaurants as well. If you visit a restaurant, the new tool will eliminate the need of looking at the menu card and will showcase all the popular menu items and upcoming events, along with your friends’ posts. That’s something for which we can consider it a bit useful. Other than that, it will also give building recommendations, making Yelp and Foursquare less functional. It would be interesting to see how users respond to the new initiative.

January 30, 2015
More Than 500 Million Users Access Facebook Only on Mobile Devices

Facebook reported fourth-quarter profits of $701m (£462m), a 34% increase on the same period a year ago. It seems to have taken over the small screen in the last quarter.

What’s interesting is that more than half the billion Facebook users access the site from mobile devices. The company also noted a 13% percent increase in active users since previous months, which means almost 1.39 billion people use Facebook actively every month on an average.

The social media giant isn’t signing up new users the way it once did, but the social network is generating a lot more revenue from each user. Facebook generated $3.59 billion from advertising overall in the fourth quarter of 2014, and 69% of that came from mobile ads rather than their desktop version.

Also, the company has invested a lot of money on R&D, precisely triple the amount the company spent in the previous quarter. That includes several high profile acquisitions such as Instagram, WhatsApp and virtual-reality headset maker Oculus Rift, as well as its own in-house messaging products and video services.

Major part of Facebook research and development is said to focus on mobile ads. Facebook and companies like it have been working hard to figure out how to adjust and make mobile ads that will click better with the audience. Internet users are increasingly flocking from browsing on PCs, where banner ads have long reigned, to using mobile browsers and apps, where traditional online ads haven’t worked as well.

The latest of Facebook’s mobile experiments is a platform called Audience network launched in October that lets brands tap into the social giant’s enormous user data to advertise to Facebook users while they’re in other apps.

January 29, 2015
Facebook’s Oculus Forms a Dedicated In-House Studio for Virtual Reality Movies

The independent cinema fair of 2015, Sundance Film Festival, showcased some top-notch films. The one that left the world awestruck was the first virtual-reality film by Facebook-acquired Oculus. Facebook premiered its first short piece titled ‘Lost’. It is the first of five short animated flicks the company will be making this year.

Oculus has built in-house studio called Story Studio, where the company will be creating virtual reality films and research on the story telling.

By developing content for virtual reality, Oculus aims to attract more filmmakers to invest in the new technology. To start with, the company has tapped the highest talents from both the film industry and video gaming world. Veteran of Pixar Animation Studios and Lucasfilm Ltd., who were responsible for films like Toy Story and Monsters Inc., will be attached to the upcoming five-film project.

The premiered movie Lost is helmed by former Pixar artist Saschka Unseld, who is now the creative director of Story Studios. The film takes the viewers to the middle of the forest where a mechanical creature bounds into the scene. The Chief Executive of Oculus Brendan Iribe described the flick as ‘a real-time version of a Pixar experience that you’re inside of.’

Iribe further added to his statement –

This is really tuning into what a lot of people who are extending 360-degree film into VR cannot do yet. It’s getting into the heart and soul and magic of VR.

Virtual Reality films are the real-time cinema where you can not only see, but also feel your presence in the space. However, the concept of experiencing 360-degree panoramic view using a gadget that fixes at the head has not reached the masses as of yet. In spite, Samsung and Google have developed products like Galaxy Gear VR headset and Google’s Cardboard VR device, the journey of it to be available mainstream will take some time.

January 27, 2015
Facebook and Instagram Hit by an Outage

Facebook server seems to be having some trouble. At the time of writing, the Facebook page showed the standard error text ‘ “Sorry, something went wrong,” if you tried to open the website. The error was reported in Europe and the United States, stating that both Facebook and Instagram appeared to be down.

Facebook brought up an error message telling users that “something went wrong” and the problem would be fixed as soon as possible. Meanwhile, Instagram – a photo uploading site that is owned by Facebook – went to a blank page on the desktop while the mobile application failed to load new data.

There were also some reports that Tinder, a popular dating app was hit by an outage. Facebook and Instagram are now back online after shutting out users for just under an hour. The reason for the outage is unknown as yet.

January 27, 2015
Facebook Brings Out a ‘Lite’ App For Low-End Android Devices

Facebook launched a handful of standalone apps last year including the newest offerings called Rooms. Facebook’s strategy to monopolize and drive funds from its already established multi-billion user base is quite clear. Now, another app, called Facebook Lite has been launched by the company for emerging markets.

Technically, Facebook Lite is specifically designed for low-end Android devices in emerging markets. The app has been quietly rolled out in a handful of countries such as Asia and Africa over the weekend (Bangladesh, Nepal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Zimbabwe to be precise) where it is being tested with the aim to further expand.

Facebook Lite is only 252k in size and look quite similar to the simplified version of the mobile website launched in 2009. The smaller size will accommodate low-end and dated Android devices and those on 2G/poor quality internet connections.

The app is based on Snaptu, Facebook’s feature phone client, however, it includes some familiar Android features such as push notifications and camera integration, to make the experience a more sophisticated one.

Primary focus of the app will be tapping soaring sales of low-end smartphones in Asia. A stand alone app seems to be a perfect way out and taking advantage of the emerging markets. Apparently, the move has seen fruitful results already. It has already crossed 10,000 downloads, with a 4.6 rating from an initial 693 reviewers.

January 27, 2015
Facebook in Hiring Mode to Boost its Virtual Reality Business

When Facebook acquired Oculus Rift for a price of $2 Billion, we had a feeling it has something big planned for it. Virtual Reality(VR) is a budding market that is growing at a slow and steady pace. Facebook sees huge potential for these devices and is now on a hiring spree to get Oculus Rift up and running in the consumer space.

Oculus can be credit for bringing Virtual Reality back from the dead. Using the increased processing might of this generation chipset has helped these device give an authentic VR experience. The graphics quality has gotten better and there are now multiple headset options in the market that promise an immersive experience. While devices like Gear VR from Samsung are already in the market, Oculus Rift’s consumer version is still in the development stage.

Facebook acquired Oculus last year for a sum of $2 Billion

Facebook has listed 54 jobs on its website that seem to directly focus on it VR division. The jobs listed include managers to oversee logistics, procurement and global supply chain planning. Analysts believe this hints that the company is ready to bring the consumer version in the market.

If you want to test out the Oculus Rift, the company offers a Developers Kit that supports over 188 game titles. Other players in the VR market include Sony with its Project Morpheus, Google with the low-cost headset called the Cardboard project and Avegant Glyph. There are also some start-up projects working on their VR headsets too, like ANTVR.

We hope the wait for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift is coming to an end. It may be only a while before VR would be the way to game because of its immersive advantage.

January 19, 2015
Facebook is Testing a Voice Transcription Feature for its Messenger App

Facebook’s standalone Messenger app is an important part of the company’s offering with 500 million Messenger users sending billions of messages everyday. The company has been focusing a lot on stickers lately, even releasing an app solely dedicated to applying stickers to your photos.

However, now it seems like Facebook is shaking things up. The company is planning to add a new voice transcription feature for its Facebook Messenger. As announced by David Marcus, Head of Facebook’s Messenger team, this feature allows users of the Facebook Messenger app to read transcripts of voice messages instead of listening to them.

So, now when you send or receive a voice clip, you’ll see a text preview of the message. Both sender and receiver can see the text, unless you decide to turn it off.

Unfortunately, most of us won’t see the feature any time soon. Marcus wrote on the Facebook Post :

Today we are starting to roll out a small test that helps people read the voice clips they receive instead of having to play them out loud. Our plan is to test this feature at a tiny scale for now and we’re looking forward to seeing what you think of it before making the experience more widely available.

The transcription is automatic, and will hopefully become a more widely available feature in the future, though that isn’t guaranteed at this point.

January 17, 2015
Facebook Jumps into Business Social Networking With ‘Facebook at Work’

Facebook’s previously rumored enterprise-focused social app, Facebook at Work, has been released for public. The company is launching new iOS and Android apps called “Facebook At Work,” along with a web version accessible via its main website.

The app lets companies create their own social networks amongst their employees that are built to look and act like Facebook itself. The main purpose of the app and web tool is to eliminate the presence of E-mails as the primary communication medium and provide a collaboration tool that lets colleagues communicate with a more familiar interface. However, there are handful of differences between the two social apps.

There are zero advertisements and the company doesn’t track users or hold their data. Facebook says a key feature of the app is Groups, which the company believes could replace email lists that appear never-ending and seem to grow larger with time. Employers can create separate log-ins for employees to use with their Work accounts, or users can link these up with their other profiles to access everything in one place.

Facebook is jumping into this existing market with all of its social media knowledge and attempting to make a smooth transition to a business product. The workplace app puts Facebook head-to-head with the likes of Microsoft’s Yammer, Slack, LinkedIn, Convo, Socialcast, and a huge number of others who are trying to tackle this space.

‘Facebook at Work’ is currently free, while most of the other apps offer tiers of pricing. By making this free, Facebook could potentially drive a lot more users to its wider network. Facebook At Work is now available for download on iOS, and we’ll update with link to the Android version once it’s live, though both are usable via a limited access at present.

January 15, 2015
With More Than 700 Million Users, WhatsApp is Growing Strong

WhatsApp has rapidly grown from a meager messaging app to a formidable force that has made SMS nearly obsolete. The app is available on all the prominent mobile platforms. The app is rapidly gaining a massive user base and a new report by BI Intelligence shows, at present, it is being used by over 700 Million folks.

WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum wrote a Facebook post where he made the announcement of the 700 million strong user base. He also mentioned that the users of WhatsApp send over 30 Billion messages every single day. This clearly shows why the network providers are so infuriated by the free messaging services as these apps are causing a massive dent in their revenues.

In four months since August last year Whatsapp has added 100 Million new users

The rate of growth of WhatsApp is exponential too. Just last August the company had announced that it had gathered 600 Million subscribers. The speed of adoption is similar to its parent company, Facebook, which now hosts the profile of over 1.28 Billion monthly users and which is rapidly growing.

WhatsApp is not just a messaging app anymore. It is being utilized for political, marketing, spreading information and even entrepreneurial collaboration. It will, in the coming future face some challenges from the network providers and vested interests, but if the past and the latest report is any indication, WhatsApp is only going to get stronger.

January 12, 2015
Get an Organised Facebook Page With These 7 Tips And Tricks

Social platform Facebook is widely used by people of all groups. Though, it’s an amazing means to share updates, pictures and more with your friends and family, it sometimes pesters users through advertisements, invitations popping up to play games, posts sharing on your behalf and many more.

Have you ever been in such circumstances where your mum scolded you on Facebook and likes of that post multiplied in minutes with people having a good laugh at it? Well, we all must have come across one or the other issues in the gigantic service, but fret not as the below-listed tips and tricks will keep awkward situations at bay.

1. Remove Facebook Advertisements

Advertisements are the most annoying part of any web page and same is the case with Facebook. Whenever we login to our account, a plethora of ads force us to leave the page. However, you would no longer be frustrated opening up your Facebook account as ‘Cleaner’ will keep your page tidy. Download Facebook Cleaner and avoid ads and updates on your account.

2. Keep parents off Facebook

Many a times it is seen that mums are interested in the activities of their grown-up kids. In spite of your mums’ continuous threats to join Facebook, you can sit back and relax as she would no longer complain. Now show her the pictures of your choice and be at the best of your behaviour. All you need to do is open the desired album, tap settings and copy the link. You can send this album as an email or via ‘Send in Message’ option, as per your liking.

3. Discontinue auto-playing Facebook videos

‘This video is completely ridiculous. Why the hell people update such stuff.’ You must have said similar lines for disgusting videos auto-playing on your Facebook page as you scroll down the recent activities of your friends. Many a times we don’t bother and pause the videos individually, but seldom when we’re in a hurry to sneak onto our account for a few minutes, the videos automatically start playing. Well, this can be avoided by making some slight changes. Click on Settings -> App settings and choose Off on the Video AutoPlay option on the Android phone. iOS users can turn it off by choosing Settings on the phone and then clicking Facebook>Settings>Off under Video Auto-play option.

4. Restrict apps’ requests and notifications

With advancements in technology, games are no more the same as they used to be. You can now connect to Facebook and can ask your friends for help in case you’re stuck in the middle of some game and a lot more. Usually, these games send notifications to your friends or ask you to join it, which is quite pestering. However, you can easily get rid of the irritating updates by clicking the downward triangle icon. Then in your Setting options; click to customise your blocking options. Then enter the name of the apps you no longer want to get notifications of.

5. Stop apps posting on your behalf

Some of us involve ourselves in Candy Crush or Subway Surfer to beat the boredom, but at the same time we don’t want our boss or teachers get record of our gaming achievements. Many apps insist on posting the recent record break or achievements on the wall, but preventing them is much easier than one would have thought. Go to downward triangle and choose Settings and then Apps. Edit the list of offending apps and set ‘Visibility of app field to ‘Only me’. Your achievements will be updated on the wall but only you will be able to see them.

6. Unfollow People

You may be friends with some people, but you no longer desire to receive or share News Feeds with them. It can be your ex-boyfriend or an irritating friend. Removing them from your friends’ list may hurt them but there’s a way to ignore them without even letting them know.

The easiest way to hide the activities is by going to the status of the unwanted person and choose ‘Unfollow [friend’s name]’. You can also remove a particular uninteresting post from appearing on your page. Also, confine status updates to your close friends by choosing a list in the Friends drop-down option before hitting post.

7. Select Display Pictures Only on Facebook Profile Page

On the left-hand corner of the page, there is a Friends box with tiny pictures of your friends. However, you don’t get in touch with them often and they still appear shamelessly on your page (not your friends, but Facebook is to be blamed for this). But there’s a way you can decide what all friends you want to see on your page. Go to the Edit option on your Friends box and list the names of your friends. The chosen friends will now appear in your Friends box.

January 5, 2015
Facebook Makes Groups More Fun With the New App

Facebook has been a medium to bring together people within India and overseas and now, the online social networking service has taken a step further to team up different groups on a project.

The California-based giant has come up with a new app called ‘Facebook Groups’. This application allows people share information easily and quickly. Although, it is aimed at enterprise collaboration, it can prove useful for student and friends who want to coordinate on assignments. The company stated that the stand alone app will provide a much easier way for Facebook members to access and manage groups from their phones.

The company is not forcing users to migrate to this new app as it did for Messenger. Users can use this new service through the main Facebook site itself. The company has said that it would not sell advertising on the app, at least for now.

The app allows users to create a new group and also discover the already existing groups. The ‘Discover’ tab comes with an added advantage. It gives recommendation based on the user’s page likes history, the groups that their friends follow, and also the city the user belongs to. These groups can also be brought to the home screen for easy access.

The app is available on all iOS and Android devices.

November 22, 2014
Here is What You Should Know About Facebook’s Sneaky Privacy Policy

Social networking giant Facebook is trying to simplify its privacy policy, making it more understandable for the average users with legal jargon. Now, there are a new set of pages called Privacy Basics, which are clickable and laid out with illustrations. Facebook says that the new policy tries to simplify what kind of information Facebook collects and how it uses the data. The new policy is compressed in 2,700 words compared to its old one, which was 9,000 words. In its attempt to simplify things, the new Privacy Basics has introduced three sections: ‘What Others See About You,’ ‘How Others Interact With You’ and ‘What You See.’

There’s also a Facebook page for users where they can submit their comments as what kind of changes they would want to see. Users have until 20th November to post their feedback, after which the finalised version shall be implemented.

Along with that, there’s also a Data Policy page, which is a cause of concern here as the new policy does not take into consideration how much personal data Facebook collects from its users.

For instance, the one paragraph in its Data Policy is worth noting that says, “We share your information with third parties when we believe the sharing is permitted by you, reasonably necessary to offer our services, or when legally required to do so. Even though, users have an option whether they want to share information with third-party apps, they don’t have the option to select what kind of information is shared. As the new Data Policy still clearly mentions that Facebook has the right to use information people share on Facebook to target ads, whether you are logged in or not.

Along with that, Facebook has also allowed businesses to advertise to users based on their specific location. Unlike earlier, when ads were targeted based on the current city mentioned in the profile. The new policy still specifies that they can access user information based on their smartphone’s GPS location. Additionally, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals can also be used to reveal user’s exact location.

Another excerpt from its Privacy Policy which makes everything sound reasonable for Facebook, “We may provide information to service providers that help us bring you the services we offer. For example, we may use third parties to help host our website, send out email updates about Facebook, remove repetitive information from our user lists, process payments, or provide search results or links (including sponsored links). These service providers may have access to your personal information for use”.

In addition, Facebook is also testing a tool that lets users buy directly through its site. This tool gives Facebook information about the transaction, including the credit card number, billing, as well as shipping address.

Gone are the days of the good old Facebook, which was just a place to connect with your friends and loved ones. It’s becoming more of a business model as the networking giant wants its users to make the platform a more powerful tool for advertisers. The current state of the World Wide Web is such that it is intensely driven by the ad targeting technologies. The sad fact is that most of the users will not even read the policy, even if they do and express discontent to the way Facebook collects all their information; they are likely to continue using this new ad-driven business model.

November 17, 2014
Here’s How Facebook Wants to Make Sure You Read Their Privacy Policy

The online social networking giant Facebook has rolled out a privacy policy which is said to be more user-friendly. This rewritten policy being more user-friendly can be judged by the fact that it is summed up in just 2,700 words, rather than 9,000 words used earlier.

With this, a new feature has also been launched and that is Privacy Basics. It is simply an easy-to-use guide through which you can control your visibility to the world. According to a report by Wall Street Journal, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan was quoted saying, “Our goal is to make the information about Facebook as clear as possible. Our hope is that it will not take long for people to read through this and really get it.”

The policy will surely be welcomed by the users as it now informs about what kind of information do the website collects and how you can manage and delete information about yourself. Also, the company shared the fact about how the payment data, credit card data, account authentication information, billing, shipping, and contact information is used.

Meanwhile, users who have gone through this policy can comment on the website. Facebook will finally launch a new policy version next month on the basis of the comments.

November 14, 2014
New Instagram Update Introduces a Much-Needed Tool for Bad Spellers

From now on, Instagram users can finally go back and edit typos in their captions as the company has rolled out a new update for the app. Earlier, Instagram did not allow users to tweak captions after a photo or a video had been posted, which was frustrating as it forced them to either delete and re-write the caption entirely or post it as a new comment.

From now on, to edit a caption, users need to tap the menu button and select Edit. Once the caption is edited, there will be a notification in the comments indicating that the post has been edited successfully.

“This has been one of the top requests that we’ve heard from the community, and we’re excited to finally bring it to you today,” Instagram wrote in a blog post.

In addition, the new update has also changed the recently revamped Explore tab, making it easier to find new accounts to follow. The Explore menu, which pops up popular posts, is now split into two tabs – Photos and People. The Photos tab shows the same posts as the Explore version did with the earlier version of the app. While, the new People tab shows recommendations of new accounts to follow.

The update would prove to be a relief for Instagram users as now you can fix those typos with the latest update for iOS and Android.

November 11, 2014
New Facebook Tool Offers a Quick Silence Option for Annoying Posts

Popular social networks have spent years trying to write a perfect algorithm to suggest who to follow, even if it attenuates our feeds. That’s because News Feed, a self-regulating system that responds to your actions, is largely what you make of it. Facebook has rolled out some tools to help you personalise it even more.

News Feed works on an algorithm rather than just a chronological stream of updates from all your friends and the pages you follow. It’s never been completely clear how to change what you see there. “The goal is to show content that matters and facilitate conversations,” says Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s Product Management Director for News Feed. “We want to give people more control over the News Feed experience. The idea is that if people have the right preferences settings, it’s good for everyone.”

News Feed Settings will now show a list of the top people, pages and groups that you’ve been seeing in your News Feed over the past few weeks. You can choose to sort by People, Pages or Groups posts, or see an overall summary. Unfollow any friend, page or group if you don’t want to see their stories in your News Feed. You can also see who you’ve unfollowed in the past and can choose to re-follow them anytime.

Now, you can decide on from whom you want to see lesser updates, rather than completely unfollowing them. It means, you won’t be inundated with updates from your friends, but you’ll still get major announcement posts, like the arrival of a new baby and so on. Also if you see a story you’re not interested in or don’t want to see, you can tap the arrow in the top right of that story to hide it. So, when you hide a story, you’ll have the option to see less from that person or page.

News Feed Settings are already available on desktop and mobile. The new options for giving feedback about your News Feed is live on the desktop, and it is coming to mobile in the coming weeks.

November 8, 2014