Facebook Updates “Friend” Section

facebook friend update screen shot

When Facebook first launched in February 2004, there were three important things that you could do on the site. You could create a profile with your picture and information, view other people’s profiles, and add people as friends. The site also featured ugly dotted borders and strangely aligned labels. Back then, the site was only available at Harvard, so “friends” was really something more like “friends currently attending Harvard.”

Pretty soon, more schools were added. So “friends” became “friends at some colleges.” Later, we added support for alumni email addresses and high schools, so “friends” became “friends that have something to do with some kind of school.” After we had those up and running, we bought a bunch more servers, opened Facebook up to the world, and learned that buying servers is easier than finding a nice place to keep them what we refer to as, “not-on-fire.”

Today Facebook lets us connect and communicate with people that we are connected to in all kinds of ways — friends from school, family members, long-lost high school sweethearts of yesteryear, and weird people. They’re all here.

This all begs the question… what does being friends with someone on Facebook mean today? We pondered this for a while, played some Bogglific, lathered, rinsed, repeated, and then decided that there just wasn’t any single right answer. Read More »

The Most Important (and Fastest) Growing Facebok Group Ever Created

U.S. soldiers

In the past when I’ve covered the extreme growth of a Facebook Group it’s usually dedicated to trivial subjects, like fake presidential candidates or girls flaunting their drunkenness online. The egotistical and mind-numbingly dumb groups that have made news recently have caused me to lose sight of what a positive tool for social change the Facebook group system can be.

“Most Important Facebook Group Ever! Thanking our Troops!!” allows each Facebook member to send a personalized message to a soldier abroad. Their message is printed on a card, mailed and distributed, making this a great way to thank the people serving our country. Read More »

Do People Check Their Facebook Invites Anymore?

manvite

That’s the question I asked myself two weeks ago when I threw a little jammer at Black Bear in Hoboken, NJ. By party time over 85% still hadn’t confirmed or denied their Facebook invite, which is annoying as sh*t when dealing with bar management who ask every five minutes what kind of numbers you expect. Are my friends total douchebags or is the system to blame?

There are three solutions to this problem:

#1 Mark Zuckerberg should start reworking his Facebook invite system - not gonna happen.

#2 We should all be curious and confirm/deny all invites - also not gonna happen.

#3 We should all switch to Manvite.com when it’s party time.

I vote for #3, and here’s why: Manvite allows you to send email invitations for various types of “man style” events like beer drinking, a night of lap dances, watching football, weekend Vegas trips, golf, Bachelor parties, wing eating, paintball and many more.

Manvite.com is an effective way to break out of using “Facebook Invites,” and for that reason alone it’s worth taking a look at. Even if you don’t decide to use the system, the seemingly-endless list of generic man events will make you proud to be brawny.

Does Mark Zuckerberg Deserve the Backlash After Beacon’s Bust?

mark zuckerberg facebook

Facebook’s Beacon Ad Platform wasn’t a monumental hit - right away.

But, like in the past, media critics and snappy Facebook users were quick to jump on Zuckerberg like starving wolves after a controversial new innovation to his website.

Why did this happen?

Are critics in a frenzy due to a lack of worthy tech news stories that pop? Are some angry that they weren’t the brainchild of the ultimate billion-dollar social network?

Are students bitter because their little club is expanding? Are they turning into their grandparents by ignoring what is on the horizon, reaching back to the glory days? “When Facebook was simple all it had were my interests and a headshot. I miss those days when it didn’t have all the shiny doo-dad applications and we walked 15 miles to campus uphill in the snow.” Who knows?

Maybe the Beacon really was a flop.

What ever the reason for the hate, if we look at Zuckerberg’s track record we see that he shouldn’t be frightened by the recent backlash regarding his “Beacon Ad Platform.” Immediate backlash has happened with every new Facebook innovation since its inception.

Just take a look… Read More »

Facebook Music is Coming!

facebook-music

As reported earlier this year, Facebook has been rumored to announce an online music service to compete with iTunes and MySpace in the near future.

This just in: the “Facebook Music” platform will serve as the social networking giants first step into the music space.

The new platform is set to be announced at ad:tech in New York City next week. Leading up to this announcement Facebook has been holding top-secret meetings with high-level representatives at each of the four major music labels.

Here’s how it works: Read More »

Successful Straight Out of the Gate

Success“The corporate ladder has been the primary career path for generations of businessmen. Each of them unfairly queued behind a less-deserving man, climbing the rungs of someone else’s company while bearing business cards highlighted by someone else’s name and vision. Climbing this ladder takes a long time and odds are poor you’ll even reach the top. For some men this is OK; it’s a life.”

“For others, queuing on another man’s ladder is no life at all. So they wager big, but not on a raise or a promotion; they bet on themselves and strike out on their own. Five such entrepreneurial gamblers follow, all of whom hit the jackpot before the age of 30.”

Chad Hurley
Primary achievement: Co-founded the video-sharing website YouTube.
Achieved success at: 29

“A fine arts graduate, Hurley landed a job at PayPal when the company purchased a logo he came up with (and are still using as their official logo). While working there, he became friends with PayPal engineers Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. One night in January of 2005, they wondered if there might be an easier way to share videos online than the methods available at the time. By the end of the calendar year, that “easier wayâ€? had a name: YouTube.”

“A year later, in October 2006, the friends sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion; Hurley’s share of the sale amounted to well over $300 million. Today he serves as the company’s CEO.”
Read More »