Articles about Facebook

It's extremely irritating. You change your Facebook status and immediately notice that you've made a stupid spelling mistake. This could come as a result of a slip of the finger, or your phone's autocorrect might be to blame. You could, of course, simply delete the status update and recreate it without errors. But what about if you've already managed to amass dozens of comments that you don’t want to lose?

Now there's no need to fret because Facebook has made it possible to make edits to statuses. At least this is the case if you're using the Android app or the website -- iOS app users will have to wait a little longer for an update. This is great news! No more stupid typos! No more statuses that sound like they were written by someone with their eyes closed after an evening of heavy drinking! Or is it such great news?

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Facebook wants to show you more relevant ads. Advertisements are the price we pay for free online content and services, and there are no signs of it vanishing any time soon. Even though this is something internet users have accepted for some time, there are often complaints about the unsuitability of ads. Far fewer people have a problem with seeing adverts for products and services they might genuinely be interested in than those that have no relevance to their lives.

In a blog post Engineering Manager for News Feed Ads, Hong Ge explains that Facebook would like to ensure that the ads that make it into your timeline are more relevant. If you're anything like me, you've probably built up something of a mental filter for "pointless" ads, and maybe even those that might be of interest, but Facebook is keen that you see more ads and that you respond to them positively.

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Big news came from Apple and Microsoft this week. Microsoft seemingly had a change of heart; having previously said that Windows 8.1 RTM would not be made available before its official launch date, the company announced that it would be released to people with TechNet and MSDN subscriptions.

The same group of people also gained access to the pre-release version of Skype. Microsoft was clearly in a very giving mood this week as the company also announced that it was giving free copies of Office 365 to non-profit organizations.

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A new feature is rolling to Facebook mobile, a feature that has been designed to provide "an easier way to watch video". "How could a video possibly be made easier to watch?", you may well ask. "All it takes is a quick tap to start playback!" The new feature will play videos as soon as you see them in your news feed -- no need for a tap.

Videos start playing silently and if you're not interested in watching you can just keep scrolling by. But if a video does take your fancy, how do you think you view it with sound and in full screen mode? That's right… you tap on it. Just like you do at the moment. The feature is not yet available to everyone, but if you don’t see it in your account on your mobile handset, you can check out a video of what it looks like in action.

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Social Fixer is a browser extension available for Chrome, Firefox and others. It exists to make Facebook a more pleasurable experience, by ironing out annoyances and adding extra features. In theory this means Facebook users are happier and therefore use the site more -- everyone's a winner. The tool is free and over the course of four years its developer, Matt Kruse, built up a following of hundreds of thousands of users. Now Facebook has wiped that out.

The Social Fixer tool still exists and still offers the same options as it did before, but it no longer has a Facebook presence. Back on 2 September the Social Fixer Facebook Page (which is still inaccessible) was "unpublished" by Facebook. The reason specified was that the page had been flagged up for spam -- this is something Matt vehemently denies ever engaging in.

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Facebook is making it easier for news outlets such as BskyB, CNN and NBC to integrate conversations from the social network into their broadcasts. Using the Public Feed API, broadcasters are now able to display a real-time feed of posts that contain a specific word. Considering that, according to Facebook's own figures, last week's kick-off of the new NFL season resulted in over 20 million likes, comments and shares, that's a lot of data to be dealing with.

There is also the new Keyword Insights API which can be used to determine how many posts mentioned a particular term in a specified timeframe. But the API goes further than this, also making it possible to filter results -- allegedly anonymously -- based on gender, age and location. At the moment both of these APIs are only being made available to a limited number of partners, but the list is certain to grow over time.

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Looking at the biggest stories on BetaNews from August, 25 - 31, 2013. For the second week running, Microsoft managed to steal many of the headlines. After going gold, RTM, or however Microsoft now wants to refer to it, Windows 8.1 was released to OEMs. Depsite reaching this important milestone, developers were… irked, shall we say, to learn that they will not be able to get their hands on the completed code until it is released in October. At least that would be the case had the bits not leaked online very quickly. It was a Chinese version that was made available for unofficial download first, but an English version wasn't far behind.

I have previously pondered the popularity (or otherwise) of the Surface Pro, and this week Derrick stood firmly behind Windows RT positing five reasons it is destined to succeed.

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Just a couple of days ago Facebook was in the headlines after being ordered to pay out $20m for putting user data to work in advertising campaigns. Now the site is proposing a set of changes to the documents that govern the way user data is handled as well as determining who has access to it.

At least some of the suggested changes come as a direct result of the court ruling including re-writing the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. The new document includes a clearer explanation of the fact that in using Facebook users are granting permission for their name, profile picture and content to be used "in connection with ads or commercial content". It is good to see, however, that "when you limit your audience, we’ll respect that choice".

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A US judge rules that Facebook must pay out $20m as the Fraley vs Facebook class action draws to a close. The lawsuit was taken out by users of the social network whose pictures were used without consent in "Sponsored Stories" advertisements. While up to 150 million Facebook members were affected, only approximately 614,000 who filed a claim will receive any money.

It’s hardly a massive windfall. The $20m is to be divided not only between the successful claimants, but also used to pay for lawyers and administrative costs. Users will be paid $15 each -- not even enough to buy half of a share in Facebook.

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Looking at the the biggest stories on BetaNews from August, 18 - 24, 2013. Perhaps the biggest news from the last seven days -- at least in part because it came as such a surprise to most people -- was the announcement that Steve Ballmer intends to resign from Microsoft within the year. The CEO is planning to step down as soon as a suitable replacement is found, but there has been speculation that Ballmer may have been pushed rather than opting to jump.

Getting my hands on a Surface Pro for the first time gave me an opportunity to try out Windows 8 as a touchscreen operating system. Despite loving the Surface in general, I pondered whether the use of the same version of Windows 8 as on desktop machine may have been what's stopping Microsoft’s convertible devices from becoming more popular. At the same time, Brian fell in love with the Lenovo Yoga, citing Windows 8 as one of the computer’s strengths.

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The Internet is thought of as being a global infrastructure that breaks down barriers, blurs physical boundaries and renders distance meaningless. But for two thirds of the world, Internet access is just not available, and this is something that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wants to change.

Working in conjunction with Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung, Internet.org is an initiative that aims to help bring web access to the five billion people who are not yet connected.

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Success on Facebook is as much about the quality of posts as it is about the quantity of posts. Research by Expion into the social network finds that user engagement with brands has declined despite an increase in the number of posts from the top 50 retailers.

The list includes such names as Tiffany & Co, Walmart and Amazon who are responsible for a good deal of the site's ad revenue and the findings go some way to explaining not just why the news feed algorithm has changed, but also why Facebook announced it so publicly.

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It's one of the mysteries of life. It may not quite rank up there with who shot JR or why the word "monosyllabic" has so many syllables, but there can be few Facebook users who have not wondered why particular stories appear where they do in their news feed. Now, Facebook reveals details of the secret algorithm that determines how content is ranked.

According to the social network there are around 1,500 stories waiting for the average user to see upon logging into their Facebook account. Few people have the time to scroll through all of them, with research showing that users manage to work through just over half of the stories. Prioritization is needed and this is where the algorithm comes into play.

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Facebook and the gaming community have a tumultuous relationship. Hardcore gamers look down on the social media giant for offering casual games like Farmville. However, Facebook has proven to be a great way to link gamers together. For instance, I am a big fan of Candy Crush Saga and Words With Friends for Android. Facebook allows me to discover other people also playing those games. In addition, PlayStation 3 can be linked to Facebook to share achievements.

In keeping with this gaming trend, Facebook today announces Mobile Games Publishing. The social media giant describes the service as "...a new pilot program to help small and medium-sized developers take their mobile games global. Through the program, we will work with select game developers and provide promotional support for their games in placements across our mobile apps".

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In an effort to improve the Facebook experience on the tiled smartphone operating system, Microsoft just released a new update for its homebrew beta app which now finally allows Windows Phone 8 users to unfriend and unlike added folks and pages, respectively.

The latest Facebook Beta version (5.0.2.1) also fixes an issue which prevented the notification counts from updating and comes with the common "stability and performance" enhancements. The latest features will likely make their way to the stable Facebook app in a future update, after the obligatory testing is conducted.

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