Facebook has made a number of changes to the behind-the-scenes workings of its developer platform, according to a blog post Monday by engineer Pete Bratach.

For the most part, the updates are geared toward two things: letting users keep tabs on spammy apps, and giving developers and app creators more …

Source [The social]

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Facebook has made a number of changes to the behind-the-scenes workings of its developer platform, according to a blog post Monday by engineer Pete Bratach.

For the most part, the updates are geared toward two things: letting users keep tabs on spammy apps, and giving developers and app creators more insight into the people who are using their products.

This is a much larger deal for the people creating and operating Facebook applications than for average users, but members will notice a few differences. Rather than “adding” applications, Facebook users will “log in” to them and will have an option to “remain logged in.” It’s the social network’s answer to users who want a “try before you buy” option. Once they’ve logged in, they can opt to put the applications in their profiles. They’ll also be able to select from the get-go whether they want the application to send them e-mail notifications.

Even though Facebook states it will likely make users less hesitant to play with applications they aren’t sure they’ll want to keep around, it’s bound to irritate a few developers who will say it makes it tougher for them to “go viral” and get the word out about their applications. Users, however, will likely appreciate the fact that they’ll have fewer unwanted e-mails and undesirable applications cluttering their on the internet lives.

On the flip side, developers get a few new perks. Bratach’s post also announced that Facebook will be releasing new analytics for application owners so that they can know more about who’s installing and using their code. They’ll find out many people have used an app in the past week, how many people have “bookmarked” the app or subscribed to e-mail notifications, and how many times the home (or “canvas”) page for the application has been viewed.

Also down the road for Facebook: open-source code on the platform, and redesigned profile pages. The social network, which started the developer platform craze shortly over a year ago, has to keep both users and developers pleased; its team has a tough rival in OpenSocial, which is backed by the likes of Google, MySpace, and Yahoo.

Fore more visit Source: [webware]

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LONDON (MarketWatch) — Citigroup , WestLB, HBOS JP Morgan Chase & Co. , and UBS , have reported significantly lower borrowing costs for the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, than what another market measure suggests they should be, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. That’s led to Libor acting as if the banking system was in better shape […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net

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AOL will officially support OpenSocial, the developer standard created by Google for social-networking applications. The announcement was hinted at by Google Director of Engineering David Glazer in a speech at the Google I/O conference Wednesday.

The on the web service-turned-media brand will join pretty much each huge player in on the internet media …

Source [The social]

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Yahoo Messenger 9 offers a more elaborate friend list and can display videos and photos in the chat window.

(Credit: Yahoo)

You can’t take it with you, at least when it comes to your social graph.

But with a new beta version of Yahoo Messenger 9 software released Thursday, users have new options for reconstructing networks of friends and contacts they’ve built elsewhere.

The new beta of Yahoo Messenger 9 can help user invite contacts on AOL, Google’s Gmail and Orkut, Microsoft’s Hotmail, MySpace, and other online services to connect through the Yahoo service. Version 9 also includes a special group of all people in your Yahoo address book, helping to connect with contacts users may have stored elsewhere within Yahoo itself.

Also tying more deeply into the rest of Yahoo, the new beta can be used to reflect some other activities within the network–for example, when somebody spotlights a Web site of interest using Yahoo Buzz.

“We’ll add more types of updates in the future,” said product manager Sarah Bacon in a blog posting about the new beta.

Yahoo Messenger 9 is intended for use on Windows XP, in contrast to the more obviously named Yahoo Messenger for Vista. The final version of the Yahoo Messenger 9 is due in the third quarter, Yahoo stated. The Mac equivalent is scheduled to be released by the end of the year.

Also new in the beta is a superior interface for setting status messages–even if you’re away from your IM software, Yahoo stated. And links to games present in Yahoo Messenger 8 has made its way to version 9, so users can play pool, checkers, and others. However, only those with version 8.1 or later can play games with those using the version 9 beta, Yahoo stated.

Yahoo Messenger’s icon, a frighteningly happy face, reflects the fact that people have a whole section of their brains just for processing facial information. Yahoo is tapping into that visual cortex a tiny more directly with the new beta, which uses bigger emoticons.

For further information, check Yahoo’s blog about the new beta or a Messenger 9 beta demo video.

Fore more visit Source: [webware]

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On the web number-crunching firm ComScore announced Wednesday that it has acquired M:Metrics, a mobile usage statistics company, for $44.3 million in cash and a handful of common stock options.

The reason for the buy is pretty obvious: as mobile phones make up a more massive and more massive chunk of digital …

Source [The social]

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The rest of the world might not know about it, but MenuPages, an online compendium of restaurant and take-out menus for eight major U.S. cities, is a pretty large deal in New York. But is it ripe for the picking? A source close to MenuPages told us that the …

Source [The social]

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Countrywide Holders To Vote On BofA Merger June 25 >BAC CFC Last Update: 5/28/2008 4:09:48 PM DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Countrywide Financial Corp. (CFC) will hold a special meeting of stockholders on June 25 to vote on the proposed merger with Bank of America Corp. (BAC). The record date for the special meeting is April 28, according to a filing Wednesday with […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net

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In the eight years that I’ve been a fanatic Netflix subscriber, more than 2,000 bright red mailers containing DVDs have arrived in my mailbox. I’ve ripped off the outer flaps, tossed them in the trash, watched the movies, and mailed them back. Life has been good.

Now Netflix wants to eliminate the mailing part of the process.

With the new $99 Netflix Player, a small black box you position by your Television, Netflix movies are piped directly to your set via your home network.

Like its slicker competitor Apple TV, Netflix Player is controlled from the Television. You simply sit down, choose the motion picture you want to see, and watch instantly. Netflix has offered this service free to its premium subscribers on their personal screens for some time, but this is the first time it’s been available for Television.

There are some drawbacks, most notably the fact that only 10 percent of Netflix’s 100,000-movie collection is available for instant viewing. (For more analysis, see Computer Magazine’s review.)

Still, this is another great example of the steady digitialization of our lives. We pay bills on the web, download our music, share digital photos, and now this. In each case, we might be using a bit more electricity, but we’re saving a good deal of resources: less paper, less plastic, less gasoline burned by the Postal Service.

Don Willmott’s blog posts are provided by LifeWire, a part of The New York Times Company.

For more visit Source:[green.yahoo]

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