By Carlo Ople*

(Editor’s note: re-posted from author’s blog http://newmedia.com.ph)

AS most of you probably know by now, the House of Representatives approved HR 1109, more commonly known as the Con Ass (Constituent Assembly) resolution. I’m pretty sure that the Senate will take this up with the Supreme Court to determine if what the House did was in accordance to our constitution. Anyway, I wanted to focus more on what was happening on Facebook while the hearing was going on. Several opposition congressmen were actually micro-blogging on Facebook! Imagine that, hahaha! I took some screen shots for your viewing pleasure. Check out what some of our congressmen said in Facebook after the break. [Read the rest of this entry »]

If you’re a Facebook addict just like me, you’ve probably seen this already:

Over the past few days, we have received a lot of feedback about the new terms we posted two weeks ago. Because of this response, we have decided to return to our previous Terms of Use while we resolve the issues that people have raised. For more information, visit the Facebook Blog.

If you want to share your thoughts on what should be in the new terms, check out our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

Okay, I’m not that addicted to Facebook to join the virtual mob against moves to change the privacy terms of this popular social network. But some of the 175 million subscribers are up in arms, including tech expert Leo Laporte. (One of his more recent tweets declare: Facebook backs down. Put down the pitchforks and call off the rabble. http://bit.ly/zM1gy).

So what’s this fuss all about and why are people against this new privacy policy.

In a blog, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg explains:

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

Actually, you can be part of the writing of this new privacy policy, which Facebook calls the Bills of Rights and Responsibilities. Go check it out.

Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO—Compete.com has crowned Facebook the most popular social networking website, saying it racked-up nearly 1.2 billion visits in January.

The Internet-tracking firm released social-networking website rankings that show MySpace slipped to second place during the course of the past year while micro-blogging service Twitter catapulted to third place from 22nd.

News Corp-owned MySpace saw approximately 810 million visits in January, while Twitter was visited 54.2 million times, according to Compete.

“No surprise here,” a Compete reader using the online name Bauer said in a comment viewable Wednesday at a chat forum at the US firm’s website.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Anna Valmero
INQUIRER.net

SOCIAL networking sites continue to evolve and now shape up for a new career: in the political arena. At Facebook’s News Feed menu, you can identify friends who are attending the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama online.

In the study “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” by Danah M. Boyd and Nicole B. Ellison, one of the first recognizable social network site launched is SixDegrees.com (1997), as well as Classmates.com which started in 1995.

Today, social networking sites abound boasting different features, such as multimedia sharing, links, messaging and micro-blogging.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

As I’m writing this, I’m watching the unfolding of a historic event in American history over the Internet. Thanks to CNN.com and Facebook, I can now watch president-elect Barack Obama’s inauguration on the web–wirelessly, that is.

What makes this event interesting is I’m getting this supposed “live” stream from CNN over my wireless connection of 1.8Mbps. There are slight pauses. But so far, my connection is not giving up on me.

To make things more spicy, I can see people in my Facebook network logged on to this CNN Live streaming video in partnership with the popular social networking website. Now, I can chat with fellow Facebook addicts from the Philippines.

One Facebook user says this is going to change how Presidential inaugurations are covered. And the social network aspect of it is simply brilliant. Score one for CNN and Facebook. Another was wondering how many Filipinos are watching this live feed. Judging from the comments that are coming in by the minute (or seconds), a lot. I also found from fellow Facebook friends that this online video streaming service is different from what you see on cable TV!

By Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON — Facebook is facing an online protest after removing pictures of breastfeeding mothers found to be overly revealing from the pages of members of the social network.

A Facebook group entitled “Hey, Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!” has attracted nearly 85,000 members as of Tuesday and a handful of activists held a rally outside its California headquarters over the weekend.

The organizers of the page, which is hosting a lively debate, receiving more than 10,000 comments, said they launched their “Official Petition to Facebook” after Facebook pulled profile pictures showing women nursing their babies.

“The pictures have been reported as ‘obscene’ and have been removed — their posters warned not to repost or fear being kicked off of Facebook,” the group’s organizers said.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Glenn Chapman
Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO — Google and Facebook on Thursday launched rival technology platforms that can be used to infuse websites with trendy social-networking features.

A Facebook Connect service that was tested for months with selected partners is now available to anyone interested in transforming static websites into interactive communities of users.

Internet colossus Google picked the same day to unveil a beta, or test, version of Friend Connect software aimed at “any webmaster looking to add a dash of social to his or her site.”

Online communities and user-contributed content are core aspects of the evolution of life on the Internet and the superstar California companies are evidently jockeying to be the preferred platform for websites.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net

“Maligayang pagdating sa Tagalog na Facebook.”

The extremely popular social networking site Facebook has switched on its Tagalog version catering to the site’s growing Filipino user base.

The Tagalog version effectively expands Facebook’s language options to 34 (seven are still in beta phase).

Most of the services and options in the Tagalog version of Facebook are translated into the vernacular, with only a few exceptions. The Home, Inbox and Profile tabs remain in English and all English messages and posts sent by users’ friends’ list will not be translated.

Many Filipino uses have already started using the Tagalog version of Facebook, sending messages to other users in Tagalog, as well as posting on Walls and Pokes.

One example: “Ano ginagawa mo ngayon? roughly translates “What are you doing?” — a question posed by Facebook which users can fill in with short messages.

Facebook is also encouraging Filipino users to invite others to use the Tagalog version.

Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networking sites worldwide. It currently has over 110 million users who are utilizing about 24,000 applications, many of which are developed and contributed by users.