TechNama

Facebook has finally unveiled their super lite version titled “Facebook Lite“. Everyone has been awaiting its arrival and the site is now finally made public. I personally gave it a try and found it super fast and very lite for users who love sites with simple interface and easy to open with even slow internet connections. The Facebook Lite has made few changes in the traditional version to make it super light. According to Artuji:

“The news feed only includes a simple top toolbar and buttons for posting status updates and media uploads”

According to a Facebook Live, another dedicated blog for facebook:

There’s also no feed filters included in this more simple version. While I’m not sure about how this new version appears on mobile devices, there are numerous features which are absent from this new version. One interesting aspect of the Lite version of the homepage is that Facebook opted to display “People You May Know” over friends’ birthdays. While it doesn’t appear that Facebook will be promoting this new service domestically for now, it’s available for anybody that wants to use it.

The New Facebook Lite has got a very positive feedback from the users who gave it a try.  However, Artuji has raised a very well point that even though it is making the users happy with this super lite version of Facebook, the app developers are not happy at all as Facebook Lite don’t display any apps. The users switch over to the new version means loss of potential target base for  apps developers. According to Artuji:

A few days after its launch, many users are giving it positive reviews. The removal of third-party applications and the inclusion of only a handful of Facebook’s own applications made using the social network less complicated.

Those who are only there to take a quick look or is not really into apps but more into “socializing” finds the lite version more friendly. However, Facebook app developers seem to be not too happy about this.

When users fully transfer to Facebook Lite as their preferred platform, they could potentially lose the big income they’ve been enjoying since.

Do give it a try and let us know

Lady Shelley Sawers, the wife of Sir John Sawers, the new head of British spy agency MI6 exposed personal life of her husband on face book. According to reports in the Mail and numerous other media outlets, the fair lady may not have been quite aware that Facebook can be seen by a rather large number of people if you don’t specify that you want to keep your information vaguely private.

Lady Sawers saw fit to wander onto the site and reveal where their London apartment is located and where their children are. This might not appear to be the wisest course of social action if your children happen to be the offspring of the head of an international spying network.

Lady Sawers even posted 19 happy pictures of the family’s last vacation. These pictures seemed to have spurred the her enthusiasm for uploading, as, the following day, she furnished 26 more, including shots of Sir John in his swimming attire. She apparently displayed several pictures of Sir John hanging with some actors, even one thespian who performed in that apogee of popular English culture, the TV series “Footballers’ Wives.”

According to the reports, Lady Sawers’ Facebook account had no privacy protection. All those in the highly open “London” network could espy the head spy in his swimming cozzie. Moreover, Sir John, who by tradition will be code-named “C,” received notes of congratulations on his wife’s Facebook page. One note, for example: “Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Sir Uncle “C” by nephews in the know!”

When the Mail contacted the British Foreign Office to alert them to the socially networked revelations, everything was sharpishly effaced without a trace.

Source : Cnet

Facebook is launching support for OpenID which means new users will be able to register and log into Facebook, using an OpenID identity provided by third-party web services such as GMail or Wordpress etc. This move by Facebook may be considered as a respect for interoperability and a good win for OpenID that is now being recognized as a STANDARD by giants.

OpenID is a distributed authentication system that allows users to use a single login to be used with multiple Web services. So you have one credential and you can log on to many sites, that means convenience for users. This OpenID method was originally developed for LiveJournal way back in 2005. Now it is supported by a growing number of large companies, including Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Yahoo.

Facebook announced couple of days ago that it will become an OpenID “relying” party enabling users to register for Facebook using their authentication credentials from compatible third-party services. Would this means an increase in signups and more sticky userbase or people will continue saying GOODBYE Facebook and HELLO TWITTER?

Jinni.com is the latest Website aiming to attract communities, in this case movie lovers to their portal by providing them all that there is about movies. It consists of a search engine like behavior, but also acts as a social networking platform – friends with like minded movie watchers,  watch your favourite movies, and get recommendations based on your likings via a unique Movie Genome Project.

About Jinni:

Jinni’s social search-and-recommendation engine uses Movie Genome, a big, ongoing project with the Jinni community to describe video more complexly. Using proprietary technology, a Jinni search takes you inside plot elements, atmosphere, and more – for search that reflects how we think and talk about movies. 

Jinni isn’t a social network, it’s an internet application designed to fit how people relate to movies and TV. And since conversation is part of that, we’ve created tools to meet people with shared tastes, compare preferences, and review and rank titles.

The Movie Genome Project:

The Jinni team is working on the Movie Genome project

an ambitious, ongoing project with the Jinni community to map more aspects of movies, shows, and semi-professional videos than ever before – so that all different viewers can match their personal tastes and moods, and find what they really want to watch next. The Movie Genome powers the search, recommendations, Taste Types and more

The movie genome project would be covered in a seperate blog, so this was just an overview.

Jinni Beta :

At the moment the beta version of the website is launched, you can get registered and start using it with out any hassels.

Jinni Website (beta Version)

Final Word:

Its a great new idea, and the Genome project does look very ambitious. We certainly feel its a very good news for film goers and movie watchers. All the best to Jinni Team and definetly a website to look forward to in future.

Lately, Microsoft has released a new version of Facebook for its Windows Mobile platform, giving an easy access to WinMO users for Facebook to access friends’ feed, photos, sstatus updates and photo/video uploading

The newer version 1.0.0.7p is now available with bug fixes. You can download the new version here, but make sure you uninstall the old application first and remove the facebook.vol and fbmail.vol from your root directly before you install the new version.

China is a world in itself and so are the Chinese cyber world. While rest of the world generally sticks to Facebook, Orkut and MySpace etc, Chinese have their own Social Networking Websites. According to a study carried out by CR-Nielsen from 1st December till 28th December, 2008, the following Social Networking Sites are the top 10 best social networking sites in China:

1. 51.com

User Stats: 14 million unique visit per week
51.com (hereinafter referred to 51), established in August 2005, is the largest social network service provider in China. 51 is jointly invested by Sequoia Capital, SIG Asia Investments (SAI), Giant Interactive, Intel Capital, Redpoint Ventures and other renowned international enterprises and venture funds.

51 is committed to offer its users stable services to store their personal data such as photo and blogs, and to provide facilities to let them easily communicate to each other. As of June 2008, 51 has over 120 million register users, among them 31.5 million login at least once a month. These users generate about 350 million page view per day, upload over 10 million photos and write over 3 million blogs per day.

Website of 51.com

2. Xiaonei.com

User Stats: 9.5 million unique visits per week

(literally “on-campus network” in Chinese) is a social networking site with the look and feel of Facebook except that it is in Simplified Chinese. According to BeijingReview.com, as of November 2007, Xiaonei was “China’s largest online community website among universities” with more than 8.8 million active users and an estimated 15 million users who have registered their real names.
Xiaonei.com is also considered to be the most powerful student social network service in Mainland China, especially among university students.

Website of Xiaonei.com

3. Chinaren.com

User Stats: 7 million unique visits per week

Sohu.com owns Chinaren as it is one of its brands operating as Social Networking site. Sohu.com Inc. is China’s premier online brand and indispensable to the daily life of millions of Chinese, providing a network of web properties and community based/web 2.0 products which offer the vast Sohu user community a broad array of choices regarding information, entertainment and communication. Sohu has built one of the most comprehensive matrices of Chinese language web properties and proprietary search engines, consisting of seven leading web properties.

Website of Chinaren.com

4. Kaixin001.com

User Stats: 3.5 million

Kaixin (Chinese aka “Happy Net”) is a social networking website launched in April, 2008. The startup has grown to more than 8 million active users in China in less than 5 months. They are rumored to have raised their first round of capital. In 2009, Kaixin001 ranks the 13th most popular website in China according to Alexa Internet.

Website of Kaixin001

5. Myspace.cn

User Stats: 2 million

MySpace is a social networking website with an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music, and videos for teenagers and adults internationally. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media. MySpace Cn is owned by MySpace.

Website of MySpace

6. 5460.net

User Stats: 1 million

One more Social Networking Site in the long list of such sites serving Chinese.

Website of 5460

7. Wangyou.com

User Stats: 1 million

WangYou Media is a leading youth-oriented SNS site in China with over 11 million subscribers. The company focuses on promoting user-generated content (UGC) — a process of creating, sharing, organizing and distributing all forms of digital amateur materials, including personal journals, photo albums, radio talk shows, home movies, flash animation, cartoons and more. WangYou Media is funded by Charles River Ventures and Transcosmos.

Website of WangYou

8. Ipart.cn

User Stats: 1 million

Another fast growing social networking site in China
Website of Ipart

9. 360quan.com

User Stats: 900k

The Israel-based Koolanoo Group owns 360Quan. It also owns Koolanoo.com – the first social network for young Jewish professionals. The Koolanoo Group maintains offices in Tel AVIV and Beijing. 360Quan was started in 2003.

Website of 360quan

10.Cyworld.com.cn

User Stats: 800k

Cyworld is a social networking website launched on Sep 1, 1999. Cyworld is a South Korean web community site operated by SK Communications, a subsidiary of SK Telecom. Literally translated, “Cy” could mean “cyber”, but is also a play on the Korean word for relationship, so it could also mean “relationship.” Cyworld, much like an virtual space in the internet, which users can decorate their “home” and invite friends.

Website of CyWorld

In addition, Tencent’s SNS website Q-zone, which says over 200 million users login its website every month, is not included in the top ten SNS websites in China. The CR-Nielsen team thinks that the scope for Social Networking Sites is growing in China but the US based sites are still not able to fully get into the competition because of the language and cultural differences as well as the system limits and other regulations.

Microsoft was getting cold feat in the social networking arena but it seems they are finally trying to make their presence felt with their new web application Microsoft Vine. Microsoft Vine (not Wine) has launched its beta version in Seattle to test the robustness of their new product.

Microsoft Vine is more like an enhanced and highly localized version of twitter with message and alert system mainly targeted at emergency situations. MS Vine offers a dashboard that helps you keep yourself updated about your locality or any other area of your choice.

On its Map, you will get pointers sharing with you latest news and media information about that specific area. You can also get updates about your Vine contacts in the area through the Vine unique alert system, messaging or through Facebook and Twitter updates.

With MS Vine, you can also create your own groups of friends, family, class mates and of your teams. You can send and receive quick alerts to them through MS Vine. Not only this, you can also share reports with them from your area that you just came across. For example, a major Cyclone is moving towards your way and you saw came to know about it, you can send a quick alert to all your friends. As soon as they read it, you can then send them a detail report to compliment your initial alert. The Dashboard of all your contacts will keep getting updated with the information shared between any group. You can also share your current location and check out your friends current location on the maps.

The Microsoft has made this application for inclusive social network, where you can communicate through all other social networks as well as through your cellphone, fixed line phone and even your special need devices. The purpose of Microsoft is to extent the service to anyone with any means of communication.

Now whats next when this product is finally out in the public after its beta testing? Microsoft has itself answered this question in Microsoft Factsheet,

Over time, the network will provide advanced capabilities to help individuals, communities and organizations work together to fundamentally improve quality of life and be better prepared for any disaster. Grounded in the tools people use today, Microsoft is working to deliver a new generation of software and services that will enable society to self-organize effectively toward a broad range of goals. We call this concept “societal networking.”

The system requirements for MS Vine beta are following:

• Operating system: Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (32-bit edition only), Windows Vista (32-bit or 64-bit editions)
• Processor: 1 GHz or higher Memory: 1 GB of RAM or higher for Windows Vista, 512 MB for Windows XP.
• Hard disk space: 100 MB for Vine and 500 MB for the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.5 with Service Pack 1
• Resolution: Minimum 1024×768
• Internet connection: Broadband Internet access is required (provided separately); charges may apply
• Browser: Internet Explorer 6 or later, Firefox 3.0 or later
• Graphics or video card: A graphic card with Microsoft DirectX 9 and 128 MB of graphic memory is recommended

In the end, the product is expected to be Free of Charge.

Click below to View:

Product Demo for MS Vine

Microsoft Factsheet for MS Vine

Microsoft Vine Official Website