Over at the White House Blog, deputy director of outreach Kori Schulman announces that the administration is now officially on Google+, with the White House Google+ page now open. Now, Google+ users can follow updates, participate in discussions and even watch relevant Hangouts, where President Obama will regularly air updates and discussions.

The White House Page promises to echo news from the White House’s official blog, share behind-the-scenes photos and videos, and let readers participate in providing feedback to the government. One thing being highlighted is the Google+ Hangouts feature, which promises relevant discussions among White House officials and policy experts on pressing issues.

During its initial launch, Google+ was limited as an individual-only social network, in which only actual persons were allowed to have accounts. Google then launched Google+ Pages for Businesses and Brands later in the year to support companies and organizations that likewise wanted to have a presence on Google+. Even with a slow uptake at first, Google reports its pages for brands feature to be a success, with companies eager to establish their brand’s presence on the social network. Meanwhile, Google+ itself has gained more than 90 million users as of this month, according to Google CEO Larry Page.

If policy and governance issues are your thing, you can add the White House Google+ page to your circles, and get active in the discussions.

Google CEO Larry Page has just finished with the company’s first earnings call for 2012. Along with announcements on the company’s financial status and performance at the start of the year, Page shared that the search giant’s fledgling social network has soared to heights, with 90 million users so far globally. This is double the figure that Page announced in October and about a third more than the December figure, signalling that the social network is likely to reach its growth tipping point soon.

I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago. By building a meaningful relationship with our users through Google+ we will create amazing experiences across our services.

Google says they’ve been incorporating new features each day, with Google+ including 200 updates in total since its launch in June, including new hangout features, circles in Gmail and Pages for businesses. Additionally, Page shares that Google+ users are active, with over 60% using the service daily to engage with other users, and over 80% connecting on a weekly basis.

Senior VP for social business Vic Gundotra says that Google is still in the early stages of “having deep support for your identity and your relationships” with its Gmail, Android, Chrome, Search, Ads, and YouTube, which means social networking and online identity will play a bigger part in these services in the long term.

With this, Google and Facebook seem to be taking a different stance each on social networking. Facebook wants to integrate information from all possible sources into Facebook user profiles. Meanwhile, Google wants to focus on core services, and is making sure these interface and interconnect better with the Google+ identity. Which will prevail? Google+ currently has about 11% of Facebook’s userbase, but there is potential in tapping into Gmail, YouTube and Search users.

Starting today users will be able to access 60 apps right from their Timeline, but the downside here is that they will have to use the Timeline feature in the first place, and there’s no way of going back to the non-Timeline layout once the upgrade is made.

Depending on how you look at it, your timeline will be enriched, or spammed, with data from these social networking-friendly apps, as long as you’re interesting in such features. In fact, there are already a bunch of apps that can be used, with more to follow as developers are encouraged to submit even more apps for approval in the future.

In the mean time, here’s a list of apps that will be interfering with your Timeline starting today:

Travel
• Gogobot
• Airbnb
• TripAdvisor
• Wipolo
• Where I’ve Been

Food
• Foodspotting
• Cookpad
• Snooth (wine)
• Urbanspoon
• Yummly
• Foodily

Shopping / Fashion
• Pose
• Pinterest
• Polyvore
• Oodle
• Fab.com
• eBay
• Giftrocket
• Payvment
• Livingsocial

Fitness
• MapMyRun
• Runkeeper

Entertainment
• Rotten Tomatoes
• Dailymotion (French video site)
• Cinemur (French video site)
• Metacafe (videos)
• Ford (game)
• Wooga (Bubble Island, Diamond Dash)
• OMGPOP (Draw My Thing)
• Zynga (Words with Friends, Castleville

Giving
• Causes
• Fundrazr
• Artez.com

More
• BranchOut (job search)
• Monster (job search)
• Color (photo and video sharing)
• Courserank (education)
• Grockit (education)
• Foursquare (location)
• Goodreads (books)
• Kobo (books)
• StubHub (ticketing)
• Ticketmaster (ticketing)
• Ticketfly (ticketing)
• ScoreBig (ticketing)
• Appsfire (app discovery)
• Artfinder (art)
• Autotrader (cars)

Anyone interested in Timeline apps?

It may be cool how Spotify lets users listen to tracks by streaming media through the web browser, or synced with a smartphone. But Facebook’s latest feature addition expands this functionality by letting users act as DJs in their own right. With the newly-launched “listen with friends” feature, Facebook users can now listen in on what friends are currently playing.

The feature works with Spotify, Rdio and Mog, and Facebook is reportedly working on adding other streaming music services, as well. With the new service, a music icon will appear beside one’s profile name in the chat sidear when you’re listening. Friends can click the “listen with …” link to listen in to the songs you’re currently playing. When friends listen in, a group chat will open, in which up to 50 friends can discuss while listening to the tracks being played.

This way, the user sharing music can effectively act as a virtual DJ for the group. The service has a few limitations, though, compared with other apps like Turntable.fm. For instance, a group cannot change the “DJ.” If you want to switch roles, then everyone would have to follow another person’s songs. Also, users cannot stop or pause music while being shared.

While it’s not as fun as holding an actual party and playing music out loud, being able to enjoy music in sync with your friends in other places might be the next best thing.

Twitter has announced partnerships with three music-data services, namely The Echo Nest, Gracenote and Rovi, for the distribution of tweets from popular artists. With the new service, Twitter account data, tweets and mentions from of musicians with verified Twitter accounts can now appear on music apps running on iOS, Android and other platforms.

One particular partner, Echo Nest, will use its Rosetta Stone service to retrieve tweets and other data from Twitter, which will then be integrated with apps like Spotify Radio, Nokia, Rdio, MOG, EMI andiHeartRadio. With the service, listeners can receive Twitter updates from artists while they listen to said artists’ songs on their smartphones, tablets or web browsers.

Meanwhile, Gracenote, which provides music data to iTunes, HTC smartphones, Ford SYNC and Sony Bravia TV sets, will likewise be integrating tweets from artists, so that listeners and viewers will also be able to get these updates as they watch shows or listen to music. Twitter plans to let more companies access its API, so that artist tweets can reach a wider audience. Of course, the only limitation here is that artists will need to have a verified account in the first place.

To date, one app is already running the service, particularly the Discovr Music for iOS (pictured above), which now pulls in tweets from artists, and displays tweets mentioning said artists, whenever their songs are played.

Hacking is at the core of Facebook’s culture, writes mobile engineer David Alves. Hacking lets Facebookers find better ways to solve problems, which might include engineering a better search algorithm, building new features, finding bugs, or even tweaking their own corporate headquarters. Today, the company has launched the registration for its second annual Hacker Cup, and invites programmers from around the world to participate in a five-round problem-solving challenge.

The first three rounds will be held from January 28 through February 11, with the final two rounds commencing March 17. Participants will be judged based on accuracy and speed, and a limited number of entrants will progress from the first round to the fifth. Participants in Round 4 and Round 5 will be invited to Facebook’s new campus in Menlo Park, California, comprising 25 competitors. Prizes at stake are $5,000 for first prize, $2,000 for second, $1,000 for third, and $100 each for 4th through 25th place. Facebook will also shoulder expenses, including visa fees, travel and accommodation for the 25 finalists.

But of course, aside from cash, participants can expect  prestige and accomplishment to be the better incentive for hacking their way through Facebook’s problem sets.

Facebook’s 2011 Hacker Cup was plagued with delays due to massive traffic spikes, although Facebook is likely to be better-prepared this year. Of course, Facebook is likely to end up as the real winner in this Hackathon, as they gain access to some of the world’s top developers who have the knack for developing apps and services that are likely to be a social networking success.

Frank Warren founded PostSecret in January 2005 with the intent of building a community around shared secrets. Originally running a weekly post with 10 secrets each, the site encouraged readers to submit their own secrets anonymously on a postcard, and select user-made artworks were then scanned and posted. PostSecret launched an iPhone application last September, and the app quickly rose to the best-selling list on the App Store. An Android application was also in the works and promised to be released soon.

But PostSecret has had to pull out the app due to abuse. Warren credits it to the success of the app, which ultimately led to its demise.

Like the PostSecret Blog, the App was designed so each secret was absolutely anonymous. Unfortunately, that absolute anonymity made it very challenging to permanently remove determined users with malicious intent.

Volunteers from within the PostSecret community contributed time to help weed out potentially abusive content from among the 2 million or so submissions, which included pornographic, threatening and malicious content. PostSecret says the fact that submissions were anonymous made it easy to abuse the system, although the intent is for secrets to remain unidentifiable from their senders.

This resulted in user complaints. Even the FBI and Apple itself approached Warren about threats made against users. The app creator’s family got threats, and so did the site’s volunteer moderators. The PostSecret site, and the PostSecret Community will continue to run, though, with only the smartphone apps being killed off. Even plans for the Android app release are now cancelled due to these developments.

This is perhaps a rare illustration of how being a top smartphone application can lead to its own demise. It’s likely that the feeling of safety behind anonymity has encouraged some users to abuse the system. As such, is this one good argument for using real names online?

Christmas Eve is usually the busiest day for sending and receiving SMS messages, and most carriers around the world brace up with extra resources. Some have even experienced marked message lags and even difficulty in sending texts. But this year, text messaging has not been as popular as it was in the previous years. Carriers worldwide are experiencing a decline in SMS in the holidays, which some have credited to the rising popularity of social networks like Facebook and Twitter, as well as internet-based messaging services like iMessage.

To illustrate, Finnish carrier Sonera processed 10.9 million SMS in December 24, 2010, but this fell to 8.5 million this Christmas Eve 2011. In Hong Kong, Christmas Day SMS messages have declined 14% compared to Christmas 2010. In Australia, the figure is down 9%. According to analysts cited by Forbes and The New York Times, these are mostly due to text messaging alternatives, such as iMesssage, BlackBerry Messenger and even social networks Facebook and Twitter.

In the U.S., it’s not that bad, since SMS use is still growing. But growth is slowing down, and “SMS erosion” is said to hit carriers like AT&T and Verizon in the coming two years. But with the rise of free or unlimted messaging services, will this matter to consumers? One of the main benefits of SMS is cross-platform and cross-network messaging, but if other services can do the job better (and cheaper), it’s likely that SMS will eventually take a backseat to Internet-based messaging soon. Carriers will need to take heed, because free services might soon eat into their revenues from text messaging, although they’re likely to recoup this by charging more for bandwidth and other Internet-based resources. We earlier noted that free messaging services are likely to eat into carrier revenues, and it looks like this is already happening.

Personally, I didn’t send too many text messages this Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, opting instead to email my greetings (given that I have several colleagues and friends living in different countries). Could this be the same case for other smartphone and mobile users out there?

Facebook earlier ran a private beta of its desktop-bound application meant for exchanging messages between users. While the Windows application was recently leaked, Facebook responded by officially releasing the Messenger for Windows app.

Downloadable via an Akamai content-distribution link, the app gives users access to three main Facebook features: chat, the ticker feed and notifications. With the standalone application, users need not have a web browser open to receive messages and notifications. What some people might find disturbing, though, is that the Facebook ticker also exists in this interface, giving users persistent updates on their friends’ activity.

Facebook has also hinted that it will soon incorporate new features, such as multi-friend chat, video calling, settings editing, and limiting of chat activity right from the standalone Windows application. The release does not include any version number or history, as the app automatically updates itself (much like Google Chrome). It’s likely that Facebook will be pushing updates quietly as needed, so that users won’t have to deal with downloading periodic updates manually.

Facebook Messenger for Windows will require that a user be logged in to their Facebook account, though, which means that even after you close the web browser, your session will continue, so that the social network can deliver updates and messages. The app works only with Windows 7, and there’s no word whether Facebook will support other Windows versions at this time. Check out the source link for the app download.

Paul Allen, who founded Ancestry.com and who unofficially follows and publishes statistics and analysis on Google+, writes that the social network has surpassed the 60 million mark, with now more than 62 million users. Allen’s team has been tracking Google+ growth since July this year, during which the user-base jumped from 10 million in that moth, 20 million in the first week of August, 40 million in October, and then 62 million today.

Google does not publish these statistics officially, and Allen’s team uses an estimation model based on surnames. But what’s interesting with these figures is that almost a quarter of new signups was done during December alone. At this rate of growth — about 625 thousand new signups per day — Google+ is  likely to reach the 200 million mark by August 2012 and about 300 million by end of the year.

But as the signup rate is actually accelerating, Allen points out that it’s more likely Google+ will have 400 million users by end of 2012. Now that’s about half Facebook’s current 800 million user count. But what’s important here is how Google is able to integrate its social network with its other products and services, like Gmail, its Android mobile platform, and even its enterprise-bound Google Apps. It’s no question that the social network is now gaining traction among consumers and even businesses.

Still, there is an issue whether these figures are significant in terms of active users. Sure, Google+ might have 62 million total users, but as most online services go, that may not always reflect the actual number of active users that Google+ has. The 800 million user count that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited at the f8 conference this September is an active user count, which means Facebook may have more than a billion total users.

Still, Google’s own product head for the social network, Bradley Horowitz, has hinted that they will be publishing new figures that will “shock everybody.” We can only wonder what this announcement will be about, but if you’re an avid Google+ user, then this might be exciting.

Have you ever wondered how Facebook makes money? In a post earlier this week, Facebook explains that it plans to launch a sponsored stories system by January, through which businesses can promote their messages. If a user likes the business’ page, stories run by the company’s stories could then be automatically shared with a user’s friends and contacts.

Facebook has also recently launched its Timeline feature worldwide, which converts a user’s profile from a static page into a dynamically-updating page, which contains all relevant updates throughout the life of the account. However, third-party company executives who are privy to Facebook’s dealings with businesses say that Facebook’s new Timeline feature — among other new updates — are “all centered around increasing the value of Facebook to advertisers, to the point where Facebook representatives have been selling the idea that Timeline is actually about re-conceptualizing users around their consumer preferences,” as posted on BetaBeat.

In short, Facebook is essentially selling this contextual data to advertisers. In fact, Timeline is reported to have cleverly concealed the fact that information on a profile is no longer arranged chronologically. While updates are laid out on a monthly and yearly basis, other metrics will influence the ranking and placement of stories, including sponsored ones. For instance, these sponsored stories can appear on friends’ updates as well. Facebook was reported to have highlighted that these premium ads are 90% accurate in terms of targeting. “When people hear about [a brand] from friends, they listen.”

Facebook does earn $100 million a month from advertising, and services are free. But these new features are not likely to sit well with privacy advocates, with one’s preferences, actions and activities being part and parcel of what Facebook sells to its advertisers. Suddenly, “Liking” something on Facebook might constitute a direct endorsement on your part, and you’re not even being paid for it.

There are no private offices or cubicles, writes Facebook’s global director of real estate John Tenanes, of their new office campus in Menlo Park. With Facebook’s roots in a Harvard dorm room, the company wants to stick to its small startup culture, so that it can move fast and innovate, when competitors are struggling with their gigantic corporate organizations.

This can perhaps give use a sneak peek of how Facebook works. Compared with other companies like Apple, which values secrecy and closed doors, Facebook actually values transparency and openness. Here’s what Facebook’s new campus will offer its employees:

• Chalkboard paint on the walls, so that ideas can be scrawled, scribbled and discussed.
• Unfinished look and feel, to remind that “work is never done.”
• Central courtyard with two full-service cafes, two coffee shops, on-site clinics, and fitness center.
• Hundreds of conference rooms and “cozies” for discussing projects. Conference rooms have glass walls for transparency, though.
• Micro-kitchens for snacks or meals.

But perhaps another important highlight is how Facebook is focusing on being green with their new office campus. The company plans to pursue LEED Gold Certification for its use of sustainable building practices. Facebook has recycled all the doors in the campus, and is discouraging staff from bringing individual cars. Instead, employees are encouraged to use bikes, free shuttles and a social ride sharing service, Zimride. Almost half of Facebook employees use these programs as an alternative to single car sharing. The campus also offers recycling and composting facilities.

Facebook is growing fast, and may never actually return to its startup roots, in fact. With a rumored IPO coming in 2012, and an estimated value of $100 billion, they’re probably the biggest “small” company ever.

Facebook’s mobile application for the Android platform launched in 2009, a year after the company launched its iPhone app. Since then, development on the Android app has lagged behind its iOS counterpart. Facebook for iOS users have also been historically higher than those on other platforms. But this week, Facebook users running devices on the Android platform have surpassed those on iOS in terms of daily active users at 58.3 million vis-a-vis Apple’s 57.4 million users per day, according to figures from AppData.

In terms of monthly figures, Apple still gets the lead, with 99.1 million Facebook app users on iOS, compared with Android’s 85.4 million. However, according to TechCrunch, it’s the daily value that’s more important, since it shows how sticky an app is, or the return-rate of users. Facebook’s Android app has a stickiness rate of 68.2% compared with the iOS app’s 57.9%. Facebook’s developers are likely to devote resources on a platform that has the bigger audience share, and so we might expect the Android app to get more features moving forward.

Still, there may be some factors that will help qualify these figures. For one, Facebook recently launched a new Android app with support for Timeline and new features (the latest iOS version has also launched, as of today). Also, iPad users might still be using third-party apps or the Facebook mobile web version, given the lack of new features in the official iPad application.

For reference, the official iPad Facebook app gets 5.5 million daily active users. Facebook for BlackBerry gets 29.9 million users, while the Windows Phone 7 app gets only 360,000 daily active users, as per AppData‘s figures. Does this mean Android smartphone and tablet users are becoming more social? Or is the development platform for Android now becoming more ideal than that of iOS.

Facebook has earlier announced its public release of Timeline, which has since been in beta test for developers. Timeline essentially revamps the user interface for viewing profiles. Instead of a static page, profiles now comprise a single, scrolling page with a history of (almost) everything that a user has done throughout the lifetime of one’s Facebook account.

Facebook earlier updated its web and mobile interfaces for better support for Timeline, which requires some tweaks, given the limited screen real estate that smartphones and tablet computers offer. The social network also released an updated Android app with Timeline support, and now it’s the iOS app’s turn to get an update.

Facebook for iOS 4.1 includes the following updates:

• Access to the mobile timeline interface from iPhone and iPod Touch if an account already has timeline enabled. Facebook says iPad support is not yet available, although this is “coming soon.”
• Access to friend lists, subscribers and subscriptions.
• Bug fixes and performance improvements.

Facebook is actually the most popular app on the iTunes App Store to date. Given Facebook’s recent update of its Android app, it’s likely that these two versions were developed and built at the same time, but the iOS version had to wait a bit longer due to Apple’s more stringent process for app submissions and updates.

Version 4.1 is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch running iOS 4.0 or higher. The app currently supports 12 languages apart from English: Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. iPad users who wish to access Timeline won’t have the feature available from the App, but can still access Timeline functionality via the Facebook mobile web interface.

Facebook announced its Timeline feature earlier this year, with focus on making sure that a user’s relevant profile updates are reflected in one’s timeline. The timeline interface shows updates arranged in reverse-chronological order, from the current time up to the time one’s Facebook account was created.

Users are given control over which items appear on one’s timeline, though, so that the public — and friends — don’t necessarily see each update. Timeline was earlier criticized for being able to display even supposedly hidden details, such as information on who unfriended your account, and when, so with selective information, at least users get some say on what is seen in one’s Timeline.

Facebook says that a user gets seven days to review everything that appears on one’s timeline after upgrading to this new profile interface. All stories and photos will still remain the same, although the profile interface will be replaced by the Timeline as standard. Users also get a choice of which stories to feature or hide. The timeline also makes it convenient for users to see all one’s activities with the Activity Log.

Advanced Facebook users will probably have updated to Timeline using a Facebook Developer hack, although everyone can now easily upgrade by visiting www.facebook.com/about/timeline, and clicking “Get Timeline.” The feature will also be available on the Facebook Android app and through the Facebook mobile web interface.

Facebook Pages are meant for businesses, organizations, groups and other non-individual entities to have an online presence on the social networks. However, given that these are meant to be places where like-minded individuals converge, pages have been limited to public conversations via comments or wall posts. Soon, Facebook will implement page-to-person messaging such that administrators or owners of a page can directly message individuals on the social network.

The Private Message for Pages feature will be ideal for businesses that wish to get in touch with customers on Facebook without posting the messages in public, which companies with a social network presence will find useful. Facebook actually had a “send update” feature before, which lets Page administrators send private messages to users who Like the page, but has since been deprecated. The new Private Messages for Pages will work whether a user Likes a Page or not, though. Likewise, sending a private message will not generate a story on a user’s News Feed, which means any dealings between a page and a person will not be disclosed to other contacts or the public.

The feature is currently on preview, though, and not all Page administrators will be able to send private messages to users at this point. Likewise, the feature may not appear on all posts, but will only be available to a few select pages.

Consider that about 500,000 videos on YouTube say “no copyright infringement intended,” and that about 650,000 have a copyright disclaimer citing fair use. Andy Baio cites at Waxy.org that most of these videos are likely to be infringing on copyright holders’ music and video content. Still, users are blatantly uploading anyway, thinking that a disclaimer will be enough to ward off copyright claims. Even singing song covers without proper attribution (or licensing) is said to be piracy. Google often intervenes by removing copyrighted audio from videos, or taking down videos altogether, as automatically detected and edited through ContentID.

YouTube, however, wants to make it easier for users to upload their content, even though it might sometimes violate copyright. By acquiring RightsFlow, Google says the complex issues of licensing and royalty payment can be resolved with this technology. The company plans to “more rapidly and efficiently license music on YouTube.” It’s not clear whether Google plans to charge users, or pay copyright holders through ad revenue, but their RightsFlow acquisition likely means that users can soon legally incorporate music into videos without having to worry about licensing.

Google has already paid hundreds of millions out-of-pocket in settlement for copyright holders whose music is used in YouTube user-uploaded video. Google has actually launched a YouTube Copyright School, which aims to educate users about how to deal with copyrighted content. But the effort has proved to be in vain, so far, with users still continuing to upload what constitutes pirated content. With RightsFlow, YouTube hopes to compensate songwriters, bands, labels and artists properly, while not necessarily being too restrictive with user-uploaded videos.

Zite launched March 2011 with the aim of bringing quality content to the reader based on interests, context, and friend preferences. As such, Zite rose in prominence among iPad users alongside other socially-curated magazine apps like Flipboard, HeyStaks, Pulse and the like. But as similar apps for smartphones emerge, Zite is also launching a version for the iPhone.

Zite’s iPhone interface is similar to that on the iPad. A user will simply select among a selection of categories, and Zite will then learn from your preferences as you consume content. Zite’s CEO Mark Johnson says the service has thousands of classifiers used in determining user preferences. Articles are likewise broken down by classification, such as humor, politics, technology, satire, and the like.

Existing Zite users on the iPad can sign up with their old profile. Zite says they plan to support other platforms by 2012, which might include Android smartphones and tablets. Meanwhile, other socially-curated apps are also trying to make it big in both the smartphone and tablet market, with Flipboard recently launching an iPhone app, and Google launching a new service called Currents. Moreover, Pulse has announced reaching the 10 million user mark. Read It Later says it has 4 million. Twitter has also launched a Discovery feature for sharing content with friends.

Facebook has earlier launched the Subscribe feature, which lets users follow updates from other Facebook accounts without necessarily adding those users as friends. The system works like Twitter’s “follow” or adding Google+ users to one’s circles, in that it does not have to mean mutual followership.

For instance, the image below shows 10.2 million or so following updates from Mark Zuckerberg through the Subscribe button.

Facebook previously also launched a subscribe feature for its Comments Box plugin for website, which let users subscribe updates from existing comment-posters. This time, the Subscribe Button is now available for websites.

The plugin gives any site the ability to have one’s authors or contributors added to readers’ subscription lists. One click and the author’s public posts will be likewise shared on the subscriber’s news feed. This subscription can also be re-subscribed and shared from within Facebook, which promises to give interesting updates better traction through sharing and viral distribution.

The subscribe plugin works through several ways: XFBML, html5-compliant markup or an iframe, which gives webmasters the flexibility to add, layout and design the button as they please. Currently, the subscribe button for websites is supported on sites like Newsweek, Forbes, AllThingsD, Mashable, TechCrunch, Time, and the like.

With the subscribe button, a reader will not necessarily be “friends” with the person or profile subscribed to, which can help clarify privacy concerns with social networking. Rather, subscribing to updates is like following a user on Twitter. You can follow that person’s update without necessarily giving the user access to your own information.

Facebook believes this subscription mechanism can help promote traffic and increase viewership for third-party sites, as well as promote active information sharing and curation among Facebook friends.

Twitter just switched to a new design a few months back. While the “new twitter” had been available for some time now, it’s only recently that Twitter forced all accounts to switch to the new design, which incorporated more dynamic web elements. Some found the new layout to be slower than the original plain-jane Twitter interface. Now, Twitter is doing yet another redesign, although this one is a more radical change from a user experience point of view.

Twitter is inviting everyone to “fly,” and with this they mean their new interface, which features five icons for directly accessing the features that users access the most: Home, Connect, Discover, Me, and Tweet.

The Twitter web interface is now laid out differently, with the sidebar moved from the right to left. The sidebar now features information that changes by context. Here are some highlights:

• Unified experience. Twitter will have the same basic layout on the Web and on mobile devices, like the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android devices, and more. Even TweetDeck will be redesigned to conform to these standards.
• Embeded information and media. Tweets will now expand to show replies and retweets. Tweets will also show embedded photos and videos. This will take out the need to open a new tab or window, or to navigate away just to read the conversation.
• Connections. The new @connect tab will let users get in touch with other Twitter users more easily. The tab also enables users to track interactions and see how one’s account is mentioned, followed or listed.
• Discovery. The new Discover tag makes it easier to see current trends. These are curated by Twitter based on popularity, location, language, and even on connections with other Twitter users.
• New profile screen. Twitter now displays users’ interests more prominently, which will help encourage connections.

Twitter will be rolling out the redesigned web version in the next few weeks, although the mobile web version is already reflecting the new changes, as well as the Twitter clients for Android and iPhone. Interested users can follow the #letsfly hashtag to monitor updates.

Facebook has announced a new version of its mobile app for the Android platform. And while the previous versions were not as fast, pretty and functional as Facebook’s apps for the iPhone, the new Android app release will be “two times faster than previous Android apps.”

Among the new features of the updated Facebook app are the following:

• Improved photos and albums. Photos load twice faster than older versions. The new app will also make it easier to share photos, view comments and edit captions from the mobile interface itself.
• Message and notifications area. The new app will mirror the iOS and HTML5 version’s look and feel, with a notifications bar on top, which gives easy access to friend updates, messages and the menu.
• The menu. The new Android app gets a new slide-out menu accessible from the top-corner. iOS users will be familiar with this menu, and so will mobile users who access Facebook through mobile web.

With the update, users will no longer have to switch back and forth between the news, messaging and notifications screen and the main screen, as with current Facebook for Android versions. The new app actually looks like the Facebook for iPad application, including the “Nearby” option (previously called Places).

The new app is not yet available from Android Market, though, and Facebook says it will be available for download “soon.”

Basically, the MagnetU is a small device, roughly the same size as the iPod Nano. You’ll be able to clip that device to your sleeve or necklace or what have you, and it will tie into an app you’ll download for it onto your smartphone. Once you’ve downloaded the app, it will then interface with your phone’s GPS systems to not only update your locations, but also find others with similar interests (who also own a MagnetU) and thus give you a whole new sort of proximity-based social network of real people to talk to who happen to both enjoy the same things you do and own the same devices that you do.

Now, as to where to get one of these things? They’ll be coming to what’s described as, oddly, select cities and select college campuses, and will sell for $23.97 each. And a limited distribution schedule sounds like a terrible idea in the face of a device that requires wide, wide use and acceptance in order to be of much value to those who do buy it. After all, if only a few dozen of these get sold, even if you happen to live in one of those “select cities” or on one of those “select college campuses”, then what good would it do if you never actually meet anyone who’s wearing a MagnetU?

So what do you guys think here? Figure you’d be willing to shell out $23.97 for a device that’s, at this stage, basically a social lottery drawing to help you meet people with similar interests? Or do you not much like the thought of a device that keeps track of everywhere you go to introduce you to other people who go to the same places? No matter what your thoughts, we always love hearing from you, so head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!

If you’re an engineer with an interest in social applications, then you might want to shake the dust off your old resume. Facebook is hiring, and will reportedly add thousands of new employees to its current roster of about 3,000 staff. COO Sheryl Sandberg, speaking at an event in New York, said the company will be gearing up on efforts to build engineering centers in New York and Seattle, as well as its home base at Palo Alto, California. “We’re going to grow as quickly as we can in New York,” she said.

The company currently has about 100 staff in its New York office, although these are mostly in the marketing and recruiting departments, according to the company’s VP for engineering Mike Schroepfer. The upcoming New York office will likely house the company’s chat and messaging team, and Facebook will have to look for bigger office space in the city.

The New York office’s new boss, Serkan Piantino, says it will not be a satellite office, but a “core part of our engineering stack.”

Facebook currently has about 800 million active users worldwide, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been sending feelers to employees, investors and the media that the company will be issuing an IPO to raise $10 billion in capital for expansion. The company would then be valued at about $100 billion once the IPO pushes through.

Google has recently unveiled a new feature on Google+ that lets users connect with other people via Hangouts even without an existing Google+ account. Initially available to users with Hangouts with Extras, the service currently supports free calling to Canada and US telephone numbers.

Adding participants to a Hangout by telephone is fairly straightforward:

• Click the invite link to add participants.
• Select the Phone tab (below the “Chat or Email” link)
• Input the telephone number and click Call Now.

Google says calls to US and Canada numbers will be free through 2012, and international calls from Hangouts might also be added in the future, but no pricing scheme is yet decided. Users with Google Voice may place international calls, which will be charged at Google Voice rates. It can be recalled that Google introduced free calling to US and Canada numbers in late 2010 through Google Talk and promised free calling through 2011. It seems Google is extending this free service for another year.

Getting people connected to a Hangout via telephone is a good way to add participants even when they’re mobile, or if they don’t have a decent Internet connection for a video-chat. Of course, with the addition of telephone numbers, we suppose the new service might be an easy way to make prank calls, but that’s just us.

Social networks are difficult to monetize, which is evident with how big networks like Facebook and Twitter have held off on doing ads and sponsorships to prevent having their sites look too commercialized. But these are gradually incorporating ads and sponsorships, although in a subtle manner. For instance, Twitter introduced the concept of promoted tweets and promoted accounts some time back. But the system was not automated. Businesses had to talk to a Twitter employee to set up their ads.

Starting this November, Twitter has launched a self-serve option for acquiring promoted tweets and getting a promoted account status. This way, advertisers can self-publish their ads without the need for other human intervention. Currently open in beta to a select group of advertisers, Twitter promises to open the service to the public soon.

This is an important step in continuing to grow Twitter’s business. Our Promoted Products can help small and medium-sized businesses build their audience on Twitter and better engage with the people they want to reach.

But what’s the relevance of having a self-serve ad platform for Twitter? For businesses and organizations that want to promote their brand, Twitter makes it easier to sponsor the site. For Twitter, the company can more easily tap into a big market of small- and medium-scale entrepreneurs who will no longer need to talk to ad sales staff in order to advertise.

For ordinary Twitter users, though, this might not be that be significant, given that sponsored tweets and accounts are usually put up on the Twitter interface as unobtrusive links. But if the self-serve ad option results in an influx of ads, then this could change.

The Bravia firmware upgrade provides a whole lot of extra features, providing integration with both Facebook and Twitter so you can talk about all your favorite shows while you’re watching, as well as support for YouTube HD, and if you happen to have a laptop that isn’t a Sony Vaio, you’ll also get some new command functions so that you can use your laptop in conjunction with your Bravia television. You’ll be able to install this one either by USB or through your television’s internet connection.

While the Facebook update is said to be rather standard, the Twitter integration is significantly more interesting, offering up a ticker at the bottom of the screen that runs tweets across the bottom of the screen, in realtime, so that you can be sitting and watching an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, have Frank do something homicidally stupid, and then actually see a tweet at the bottom of the screen saying “Oh, Frank, will you never learn?” There’s great potential in such a development for clever use and banal misuse, but such is the case with many advancements.

And considering that Sony was recently saying it was looking to get more of its programming out on the web, well, this does make some sense. Sony’s Bravias are putting up a lot more internet-themed options, and this ties in nicely with more web-based programming. It looks like they’re out to make a complete internet platform, with the Bravia as centerpiece. And that means a whole new way of doing business as far as home theater goes.

So what do you guys think here? Like the added infusion of internet functions on the Bravias? Anyone out there get the firmware update? No matter what you guys think out there, we always like hearing from you, so head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!

When Google+ was launched, Google maintained that the service was meant for individuals, and not brands. But a few weeks back, Google launched Google+ Pages for brands and businesses, and organizations have been signing up to be part of the social network. President Barack Obama is now one of these “brands,” with his Obama for America now having a page on the social network. Google+ head of community partnerships Steve Grove earlier welcomed Obama to the network, adding to the legitimacy of the page. The page has also been verified by Google, so it’s the real thing.

Compared with other social networking efforts, however, Obama’s campaign on Google+ has yet to gain traction. Obama’s Facebook page has 24 million followers. His Twitter account has 11 million followers. The Google+ page still has about 3,100 followers as of this writing. Whether it will grow significantly will depend on how heavily the page will be marketed, noting that most companies that have Google+ pages are not so active in promoting their presence on the social network.

But does Barack Obama actually post on social networking sites himself? The president admitted that he has not always been the one posting updates, although he does the occassional Facebook post and Twitter tweet — signed as “BO” when he personally does the writeup. No similar announcement has been made as to whether Obama will do Google+ posts, although it’s likely that the same format will be used.

Meanwhile, the White House has not officially launched a Google+ page, although it maintains official accounts on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, where the authorities’ media moguls post updates every now and then.

Facebook is currently running a private beta of its desktop-bound messenger for a few, select users. The desktop client provides access to Chat and Ticker straight from Windows via a taskbar-bound app. Facebook wants to gauge interest and usefulness of the app, which provides easy access to friends and their activities even without keeping a browser window open.

Facebook earlier released a standalone Messenger application for various mobile platforms, including Android, BlackBerry and iOS, which gave access to Facebook chats and messages without the need to launch the full-fledged mobile Facebook client.

Random participants to the desktop messenger are being notified via a prompt on their Facebook home pages. There is no public download link for the Windows app, which is only compatible with Windows 7, and there’s no word on how long Facebook intends to keep the app in beta. But what’s clear at this point is that a desktop app for a user’s real-time information such as chats and ticker activities are the most useful when kept running in a dedicated window or application, which is not dependent on having the Facebook website running in a browser window or tab.

Facebook has not made Messenger for other platforms available, although a release for the Mac and possibly other platforms is likely to be underway if the Facebook Messenger for Windows 7 gains enough traction among Facebook users.

Facebook is developing a smartphone that will hopefully be able to drive a stake into its competitors’ hearts. The project, codenamed “Buffy,” after the TV series’ vampire slayer, is essentially an Android device, although Facebook is heavily tweaking the operating system and interface to integrate its own services.

Facebook also wants to build heavily on its own application platform and marketplace, and is pushing for better HTML5 integration, so that developers can create apps for the Facebook phone, according to sources cited by All Things D.

Facebook has reportedly partnered with HTC after also considering another potential partner, Samsung. The Buffy project won’t be releasing smartphones anytime soon, though, as Facebook’s mobile roadmap for this particular project is said to involve 12 to 18 months of development. But Facebook is not taking mobile lightly. With 350 million active mobile Facebook users, the company wants better control over the user experience and app platform, given that one of its biggest social network competitors, Google+, is being deeply integrated into Google’s own Android mobile operating system.

Facebook has declined to directly comment on the matter, although a spokesperson said that Facebook wants to bring the social network to as many mobile users as possible.

Our mobile strategy is simple: We think every mobile device is better if it is deeply social. We’re working across the entire mobile industry; with operators, hardware manufacturers, OS providers, and application developers to bring powerful social experiences to more people around the world.

Meanwhile, HTC has developed Facebook-centric mobile phones before, such as the HTC Chacha, which has a dedicated button for sharing content on Facebook. However, Buffy will be different, in that the integration is much deeper — such as giving access to social activities and social connections in the mobile interface itself.

Smartphone image with Facebook logo is for reference only.

Facebook’s automatic and seamless sharing is actually ruining the concept of sharing, according to Robert Scoble. He explains that the new feature will automatically share whatever actions a user is doing, which includes content read on third-party websites. These, in turn, appear on friend’s activity tickers — that love-it or hate-it feature that has caused outcry among Facebook users.

A Facebook representative has said that soon at least 60 applications will use Facebook’s frictionless sharing feature, which means that your Facebook profile will automatically share actions like taking photos of food on FoodSpotting or keeping track of exercise sessions with Runkeeper. This also includes music you’re listening to on Spotify. If you’re fond of reading news on Yahoo!, then all items you read will instantly be shared with your Facebook friends. This is the same with the Washington Post. The moment you click the link to an article, it is then shared.

Most users might not find this interesting, until you inadvertently click to read or listen to an item you’d rather not share with your friends, family and co-workers. TechCrunch‘s Josh Constine calls for a reverse form of curation, in which users will now be encourged to “unshare” rather than share items. Users will have to be selective with what they read for fear that their online activity will be tracked and broadcast to social network contacts.

For app developers and content providers, there will be a need to be more responsible with seamless sharing. Most publishers, like NewsCorp, are not giving users the ability to opt-out of instant sharing, so that its The Daily app on mobile devices will automatically share items you read. This is usually done to maximize the viral value of the click and the share.

The short-term solution here, perhaps, is to keep logged out of Facebook, or maybe even keeping your wall and posts restricted for private viewing. But as more and more devices become connected, including smartphones and tablets, this might prove to be difficult. Marshall Kirkpatrick gives some advice on how to deactivate instant sharing on a per-app basis on Read Write Web.

For now, the advice to Facebook users would be to be careful with what you click.

Sony’s PlayStation Home social gaming network is adding a new dimension to online entertainment. Sony has just announced that it will be releasing hundreds of movie titles for viewing via Crackle on all LOOT Entertainment on Demand (EOD) screens starting this week. With the service, users can watch movies and TV shows with as many as 60 other users in social viewing mode, or as many as 11 friends in invitation-only private viewing mode.

LOOT EOD screens can be found in the LOOT EOD Theater, Sunset Yacht and Hollywood Hills House, and will start offering movies like Resident Evil, Final Fantasy: Advent Children, A Few Good Men, and the like.

Sony has also announced that by December, live audio streams from RadioIO and live video streams via UStream will also be available, further bolstering the network’s position as a provider of on-demand and live multimedia content. Access will require membership to PlayStation Home, which is free, and of course a PlayStation 3.

These efforts by Sony are likely in response to a new Microsoft’s Xbox 360 feature that lets groups view Netflix content together. Movies and TV shows will be delivered through Crackle, and will feature a simplified, custom interface meant for choosing movies and content through the gamepad. Crackle is ad-supported, and also lets users communicate with each other in real-time using voice and text chat, which further enhances the social viewing experience.

Popcorn and soda are not included, and are sold separately!

PayPal has partnered with Facebook to make social payments easier this holiday season. This can be done through an app called Send Money, which does just what it’s called: send money. Facebook users can use the application to send an e-card along with money or just send money without a greeting. The process is simple. Select a card, choose a Facebook friend to send it to, and input an amount.

This can be useful for people with a lot of friends across the country or across the globe, and don’t have the time to wrap, pack and send each and everyone a gift. This new app can also be useful to groups of friends who are planning to run a party, and need a way to collect funds.

Transfers are a peer-to-peer payment, and so PayPal will not charge a per-transaction fee like it does with merchant payments. The app has certain limits, though. If the money comes from a bank account or from PayPal balance, the transaction is free. Charging through your credit card might incur a nominal free, though.

PayPal representatives point out that 500 million e-cards are sent every year, and the company has decided to add value (actual value, mind you) to these e-cards. Maybe people will stop ignoring e-cards now that these come with money. This is the online equivalent of sending a holiday or birthday card with a check or a few dollar bills enclosed. It may not be as thoughtful as sending a well-selected present, but given fickle-minded consumers these days, getting cash toward that next mobile gadget, app or console game purchase might be best.

A report released by SEO company BrightEdge says that 61 out of the world’s top 100 brands now have their own Google+ Page. This allows their brand, product, company, business or organization to have a profile on the fledgling social network, which also lets fans follow their statuses online. Google+ Pages also let businesses share content through Circles, launch video Hangouts and even chat with fans.

However, BrightEdge says businesses on Google+ have not earned enough fans yet, with many Pages only having a dozen +1′s or so. In comparison, top brands usually get millions of fans on their Facebook pages. TechCrunch cites that collectively, all 100 top brands only got 148,000 Google+ +1 votes, compared to 300 million Facebook fans for the same brands.

Companies might not be highlighting their involvement with Google+ adequately. Only 13% of these brands link to their Google+ Pages from their own website, while 53% link to their Facebook pages. But businesses might want to take note: Google+ pages are ranking well on Google searches, which means companies had better give Google+ more attention if search traffic is a good driver of eyeballs and revenues.

In the Google vs. Facebook game, numbers are often crucial in determining who’s better and who’s lagging behind. Still, Google+ Pages is only a few weeks old (Google launched the social network limited to individuals in its first few months). In contrast, Facebook has allowed non-individual fan pages for years now. Will Google+ eventually enjoy a bigger role in companies’ social media strategies?

Market research firm Lot 42 has found out from a survey among 550 adults that about 33% have broken up with their partners using online communication or messaging. In particular, these breakups have occurred over Facebook, text and email. 40% of the respondents say that if given a chance, they will probably break up with their mate using Facebook, SMS or email. This underscores the popularity of social networking even in relationships that are supposed to be private and personal.

Moreover, the trend seems to lean toward the negative, as 52% of respondents say they change their relationship status to “single” after a breakup, while only 38% change their status when they get together with someone. The research has also determined that almost half of all couples communicate primarily by Facebook messaging.

Looking on the bright side, 64% of respondents said they will post loving and romantic messages on their significant other’s Facebook wall. Meanwhile, online dating sites seem to be on the decline, with only 23% saying they have signed up for online dating. Majority of the surveyed adults say they can “find plenty of dating on major sites like Facebook,” and think social network users don’t “lie about who they are online.”

For folks over 18, this seems to be a naive view of social networking. Even if some social networks insist on using one’s real name, it’s not always the case that a person is who he/she is on the social network.  Still, the survey shows that Facebook is becoming more versatile as a means of communicating and reaching out to friends and loved ones — both in a positive and negative way.

Her whole status reads:

I’m not a teacher – I’m a warden for future criminals!

O’Brien admitted to posting this status after one of her students hit her and others stole her money. The status update was only meant for the eyes of her 300 plus friends, but it got forwarded, and somehow reached the eyes of angered parents.

Paterson is a poor, urban community with a high crime rate, and the judge handling the case described O’Brien’s actions as having “demonstrated a complete lack of sensitivity to the world in which her students live.”

To experience something like that from kids who can probably barely even add single digits could be pretty disheartening. But what she posted could be categorized as a disparaging comment that damages the reputation of of an employer, or in this case, a student. As such, she may not protected by the first amendment.

Says Paul Callan, a professor of media law at Seton Hall University,

The case should be a stern warning that both students and teachers should be careful about the dangers of social media postings.

Remember this: even if you keep your posts private, some people might forward your status updates on Facebook, especially when you have hundreds of friends you barely know. This serves as a reminder for all of us of how we should always be careful of what we post on social networking sites even if we think we’re doing so under lock and key.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook will soon reach a deal with the government that will require the site to ask users to opt in first before making any changes to their privacy settings. As a background, the controversy in 2009 arose when Facebook suddenly made profiles and friends lists among others visible to the public regardless if one wanted to or not.

Of course, Facebook should’ve asked for people’s permission from the start, but we’re just glad to know it won’t happen again. Aside from this, Facebook will also be required to submit to privacy audits for the next 20 years. Hopefully, that means we won’t have to worry about extreme privacy issues within the next two decades.

Microsoft’s official Xbox portal is getting an overhaul. And because online gaming is becoming more and more social, the update’s biggest change will involve how users connect with each other online.

The My Xbox section is now going away, and will be replaced by a Social area, which will be a user’s default homepage when logged into Xbox.com. Social comes in Microsof’s new signature Metro user interface, which includes tiled content areas that update as necessary. The Social page includes Friends’ activitites, messages, and quick links to Xbox LIVE contacts.

Another big feature being introduced is Beacons, which let users mark games they want to play with Xbox LIVE friends.  Simply look for a game title you want to play and click the “Set Beacon” button. The Social page will also show recent activity, such as who’s playing which game right now, and recent players.

Zune videos are also now more accessible. Users can find, purchase or download Zune video content straight from the Xbox.com site, which can be viewed from compatible devices, such as the Xbox 360, Windows Phone 7 handset or a Zune media player.

Microsoft says the update will roll out “in the coming days.” Social gaming is on the rise, and even console game makers and developers are now thinking of ways to make the gaming experience more connected and more social, to take advantage of this trend. The latest Xbox.com update reflects the need for better connectivity and convenient access to rich content.

Google is already rolling out +1 functionality to many of its own web services, including Google Search and Google Reader, as part of its new, integrated approach to social recommendations. With this in mind, Google Image Search has also received a minor update, which now includes +1 functionality.

Image search results will now come with a +1 button, which is a way to recommend the image to friends within your Google+ Circles. Images will also come with annotations when friends have +1′d it, or when you have also recommended it via the +1 button.

Aside from annotations on Image search results pages, images that you have +1′d will also appear on your Google+ profile, under the +1′d items. This also serves the purpose of bookmarking favorite images you see from Image search, so that you can easily revisit these photos and images.

Google is heavily promoting the use of +1 as a social recommendation engine. The search giant has recently revamped the Google Reader RSS client, which has discontinued the use of the old way of sharing and liking content, and now uses +1 instead. The same goes for addling +1 buttons to websites as a way of bookmarking and recommending, as well as the new Google+ pages for brands and businesses, which can help businesses get a boost in terms of user buzz.

Since the launch of the Google+ social network, Google has insisted that user accounts should be owned by persons and not business entities or brands. As such, inclusion of brand and corporate pages was a much-anticipated feature, which Google has only recently announced and launched. With the new Google+ Pages, businesses can now have a corporate online presence through Google’s flagship social network, which is the company’s answer to archrival Facebook.

But while Facebook is a bit lax what businesses can and cannot do on their social network, Google’s policies are a bit stricter, in the sense that businesses may not use the service to run competitions, contests and promotions. In particular, brands “may not run contests, sweepstakes, offers, coupons or other such promotions.” Businesses may use the service to promote their contests, although these have to be hosted on a separate website or on an alternative social network. For instance, Google won’t allow running a contest directly on a Google+ page, but brands can use Facebook or Twitter, and link to these contest posts or pages from Google+.

Google says they will remove promo and contest pages, and might even block a business or brand from putting up Google+ Pages if these continue to launch promos and contests on the social network. This certainly limits the potential uses of Google+ for brands, although banning promos and contests might also be a way of keeping the system free of spam and clutter.

Google has always been insistent on a person-based usage of its Google+ service, to the extent of pulling brand- and business-oriented accounts, even if these represented popular entities like Sesame Street. While business users had to be content with using their executives or offical reps as their connection to Google+, now they can do it officially, with Google+ Pages.

Google+ Pages is basically a feature for business, brands, organizations and other entities to run their profile on Google+. Google’s SVP for Engineering Vic Gundotra says this can be advantageous for both individual and business users. Individuals can find their favorite brands and products, and add these to their circles. Users can also join hangouts and discuss with like-minded Google+ users. Meanwhile, for businesses, having a Google+ Page is one way to reach out and be present in the social network.

But that’s not all. Google also promises to include business pages in its native search functionality. Under the so-called Direct Connect, a business’ Google+ pages can accessed quickly and searched from the Google search page. For instance, +Toyota, +Pepsi and +Google will bring you directly to those companies’ profile pages. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Google deprecated the use of the + sign in Google search recently. Whereas the plus previously meant exact inclusion in the search query, it now means a search for that particular business or brand.

Google’s new Google+ features for businesses will soon roll out additional features, such as multiple administrators for Pages, “vanity” Page URLs, and the like. For now, Pages will let the administrator or owner be included in circles, join hangouts and establish hangouts for better interaction.