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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 A ssembly) 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 Face book while the hearing was going on. Several opposition congressmen were actual ly micro-blogging on Facebook! Imagine that, hahaha! I took some screen shots f or your viewing pleasure. Check out what some of our congressmen said in Facebo ok after the break. CONGRESSMAN TEDDY CASINO One of my personal favorite comments during the evening. A lot of people left c omments on this and it was nice to see that Congressman Casino was replying to some of them. Talk about real time interaction. Note my comment in the print sc reen. Heh. CONGRESSMAN RUFFY BIAZON Congressman Biazon was very active on Facebook during the proceedings. He was a ctually like a reporter the entire time. It's kinda sad that he wasn't given th e opportunity to speak during the plenary but at least he was able to voice out what was in his mind through Facebook. CONGRESSMAN ERIN TANADA I was able to hear Congressman Tanada deliver his objection speech. It was very articulate and hard-hitting. He wasn't able to update during the actual procee dings but he was able to make posts before and after. While it's not Plurk or Twitter, these Congressmen actually micro-blogged throu gh the status update feature of Facebook. I'm sure that it's only a matter of t ime before their staff teaches them how to actually microblog through their mob ile. Maybe we'll see more consistent updates then. Social Media is a very powerful communications tool, and I wouldn't be surprise d to see more politicians start using this channel not just for the 2010 campai gn, but also for governance. I talked about this in length during my interview with Cheche Lazaro (Media In Focus). So, interested to hear what your congressmen have to say online? Add them up on Facebook. :) Carlo Ople is the main author of New Media Philippines, a blog that aims to help Filipinos maximize and realize the potential of New Media. Apart from bei ng a blogger, Carlo also serves as a Marketing Manager for one of the leading o nline gaming companies in the Philippines. He is also a freelance digital marke ting consultant and has worked with various politicians and business owners exp and their reach and influence through the use of social media.

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 th e 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 ou t our group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

Okay, I'm not that addicted to Facebook to join the virtual mob against moves t o 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 twe ets declare: Facebook bac ks 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 polic y. In a blog, Facebook fou nder Mark Zuckerberg explains:

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are n ow. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control thei r information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understa nd. 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 th em right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the n ext few weeks. In the meantime, we've changed the terms back to what existed be fore the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was t he recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

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

Agence France-Presse SAN FRANCISCOâCompete.com has crowned Facebook th e most popular social networking website, saying it racked-up nearly 1.2 billio n visits in January. The Internet-tracking firm released social-networking website rankings that sho w MySpace slipped to second place during the course of the past year while micr o-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 comm ent viewable Wednesday at a chat forum at the US firm's website. "Facebook has evolved much better and always has something new to of fer. I donât get Twitter though, I donât think people care to read live updates on what percentage of my burger Iâve eaten." The number of visitors to social-networking websites and the amount of time the y dwell there are considered key indicators of how well Internet services are d oing. Facebook and Twitter have registered increases in both categories while visits and time spent at MySpace have stagnated or slid during the course of the past year, according to Compete. "MySpace is still the clear number two player in the big categories, but its tr ends in some key areas aren't quite so dominating," Andy Kazeniac of Compete wr ote in an online posting discussing the rankings. "At least in those areas, they could be looking up at more than Facebook soon." Flixster, Linkedin, and Tagged were ranked fourth through sixth places respecti vely, each gaining in popularity from January of 2008.

By Anna Valmero INQUIRER.net SOCIAL networking sites continue to evolve and now shape up for a new career: i n the political arena. At Facebookâs News Feed menu, you can identify friends w ho are attending the inauguration of U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama online . In the study "Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship" by Da nah 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 starte d in 1995. Today, social networking sites abound boasting different features, such as mult imedia sharing, links, messaging and micro-blogging. Previously, social networking sites linked up long-lost friends and even strangers, allowing them to interact via personal messages, blogs, file an d link sharing applications, and comment posts. In addition to building online communities, social networking sites have evolved to become tools for product o r self promotion, business, knowledge sharing, news and now, politics. Looking back at the turnout of people on the Internet during Obamaâs inaugurati on, millions have trooped to the Internet to witness this historic event in American history, as they expressed hope, se tup pages for Oba ma on Facebook and kept themselves updated through Twitter. To follow Obama, bloggers worldwide, such as U.S.-based Filipino Rheynz, has po sted a slew of articles at the blogging site Reyna Elena.com on how to view the inauguration as it happened. It has been a refreshing perspective that through social networking sites, peop le can again come together and share their feelings about a historic moment, In ternet-style. What do you think will be the next role of social networking sites? Do you thin k it can cause more "change"?

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 Barac k Obama's inauguration on the web--wirelessly, that is. What makes this event interesting is I'm getting this supposed "live" stream fr om 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 networkin g website. Now, I can chat with fellow Facebook addicts from the Philippines. One Facebook user says this is going to change how Presidential inaugurations a re 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 thi s live feed. Judging from the comments that are coming in by the minute (or sec onds), 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 b reastfeeding 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 at tracted nearly 85,000 members as of Tuesday and a handful of activists held a r ally outside its California headquarters over the weekend. The organizers of the page, which is hosting a lively debate, receiving more th an 10,000 comments, said they launched their "Official Petition to Facebook" af ter Facebook pulled profile pictures showing women nursing their babies. "The pictures have been reported as 'obscene' and have been removed -- their po sters warned not to repost or fear being kicked off of Facebook," the group's o rganizers said. "We're wondering: what about a baby breastfeeding is obscene? Especi ally in comparison to MANY other pictures posted all over Facebook that really are obscene." Facebook, which has more than 120 million members, said there was no ban on bre astfeeding pictures but it did have a policy on how much of a woman's breast ca n be revealed similar to that of US newspapers and other media outlets. "We agree that breastfeeding is natural and beautiful and weâre very glad to kn ow that it is so important to some mothers to share this experience with others on Facebook," said Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman. "We take no action on the vast majority of breastfeeding photos because they fo llow the siteâs Terms of Use," Schnitt said in a statement. "Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate those Terms and may be removed," he said. "These policies are designed to ensure Facebook remains a safe, secure and trus ted environment for all users, including the many children (over the age of 13) who use the site," Schnitt said. "The photos we act upon are almost exclusively brought to our attention by othe r users who complain," he added. Saturday, the Facebook breastfeeding group staged a virtual protest online, cal led the Mothers International Lactation Campaign, which attracted more than 11, 000 followers. Real-life mothers also held a "nurse-in" outside Facebook's Palo Alto, Californ ia, headquarters the same day, the Palo Alto Daily News reported. The local newspaper said a handful of activists attended the protest, signing s ongs, displaying signs and breastfeeding their children outside Facebook headqu arters.

By Glenn Chapman Agence France-Presse SAN FRANCISCO -- Google and Facebook on Thursday launched rival technology plat forms that can be used to infuse websites with trendy social-networking feature s. A Facebook Connect service that was tested for months with selected partners is now available to anyone interested in transforming static websites into intera ctive 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 so cial to his or her site." Online communities and user-contributed content are core aspects of the evoluti on of life on the Internet and the superstar California companies are evidently jockeying to be the preferred platform for websites. Facebook Connect lets outside website operators tie into the social- networking website so its more than 130 million users can range the Internet fr om profile pages taking friends and data with them. "Our users come to our sites to consume and engage with content around the topi cs they care about most," said Michael Marquez, executive vice president of str ategy and corporate development at CBS Interactive. "We create active communities around this content, and Facebook Connect makes i t easy for our users to share their opinions, ideas and advice with their entir e social network." "We opened Facebook Platform in 2007 to enable hundreds of thousands of develop ers to create meaningful social experiences for users on Facebook.com," said Fa cebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "With today's launch of Facebook Connect, we're extending that power to million s of entrepreneurs and developers, transforming the Web into a more social plac e where Facebook's users can engage in trusted social experiences with their fr iends." Google Friend Connect provides website operators with computer codes that add s ocial-networking features such as creating personal profiles, finding users wit h similar tastes, or interacting online with friends. "Friend Connect's goal is to facilitate an open social Web," Google product man ager Mussie Shore wrote in a blog posting. "This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copy ing and pasting a few snippets of code; no advanced coding or technical backgro und required." Friend Connect lets people log into participating websites using existing Googl e, Yahoo, America Online or OpenID accounts instead of requiring users to set u p new log-in names and passwords. "Friend Connect makes it simple for people to instantly interact with one anoth er on the sites that they already love to visit," Shore wrote. "Additionally, websites that use Friend Connect become OpenSocial containers, c apable of running applications created by the OpenSocial developer community." OpenSocial is a set of computer applications developed by Google, MySpace and o ther Internet firms to serve as a common social-networking platform that breaks down walls between websites. The Facebook platform program is available to developers here.

Alexander Villafania INQUIRER.net "Maligayang pagdating sa Tagalog na Facebook." The extremely popular social networking site Facebook has switched on its Tagal og version catering to the site's growing Filipino user base. The Tagalog version effectively expands Facebook's language options to 34 (seve n are still in beta phase). Most of the services and options in the Tagalog version of Facebook are transla ted into the vernacular, with only a few exceptions. The Home, Inbox and Profil e tabs remain in English and all English messages and posts sent by users' frie nds' 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 Pok es. 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 cu rrently has over 110 million users who are utilizing about 24,000 applications, many of which are developed and contributed by users.