Facebook is cracking down on free promotion | kills profile boxes
August 31, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
(img src : coastalvectors.com)
Notice the two developments on Facebook in recent past.
Some days ago Facebook killed “Become a Fan” option and forced on us the “Like” alternative.(Ref1)
Before that about a year ago we used to get updates about which friend became a fan of which site or application. This is history now.
They seriously do not want you to use their platform for free marketing. So all those popular branding and viral advertisement option are being killed. It remains to be seen how long it goes before they kill the remaining free promotion options out there.
facebook kills profile boxes
As a most recent development some more of free promotion options are being targeted. See the graphic to the right. Its a snap shot from my own profile.
Facebook is Killing profile boxes. We can no longer showcase what cause we are supporting or what books we are reading. It was kinda free promotion for good causes. But probably Mr Zuckerberg does not care if we want to save the girl child in India or I want to tell my friends what books I am reading or I have recently read.
All they need is to make the advertiser pay. The days of free promotion on social media power house -Facebook, is almost over. The Applications that used to enjoy a viral presence are dying now. Yeah if you can carve out a revenue sharing deal with Facebook then that is probably no problem, like Zynga – the makers of Farmville and MafiaWars.
Of course revenue is important but I don’t think this is a very wonderful way of making money. We have loved facebook as a sharing platform. Now they are killing that spirit. Kind of sad to see this approach.
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this is without doubt the sexiest video ever! :P Facebook Spam Virus
May 15, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
Hey guys… Saturday is about to end and I am on Facebook. Lol the right time to be on FB you would agree with me.
Now the funny thing happened….. one of my friends shared some thing like this on my wall. I deleted it ofcourse and sent a message to the guy. But as I look at my updates my updates I see a lot of people being infected.
I recognized it because this has happened to one of my friends before. I ask you to remove the updates and remove the user (if not your regular contact) because I suspect they infect you when you click the link. You got to remove the updates because anyone who visits your wall might click the link as well. Again.. I am trusting FBs technology that the infection does not spread just by visiting the infected profile.
It is just a shared video.It somehow infects your PC or hacks into your account.Iam not sure which one is the case…in either case it would probably post this vid on friend’s wall.
Ok thats fine but how the hell do I get rid of this?
O yeah.. I have the solution now. Go to your facebook setting->application settings find this app named Winamp and remove it. Change you password as an additional precaution.Then make sure you remove all those posts form your wall and friends walls too.
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Think Twice before you allow that Facebook App
May 13, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
Dear Readers,
This post is for all Facebookers who are concerned about their social security and privacy on world’s most popular Social Network. We know Facebook is not very interested in safeguarding our privacy. You might like my last post about Facebook Privacy fiasco to see the dangers facing you on FB. Some of my friends on Facebook are so concerned that they are planning to leave Facebook for ever. So I planned a series of posts to help my friends and YOU to use facebook safely. This is the first in the series.
Think twice before you allow that stupid facebook app.
Some of us just use facebook for the apps or so it seems. You open their public profiles and see automatic updates from a host of crappy apps. I hate such kind of users. They don’t do much on Facebook so they allow all kind of apps to access information. But they don’t realize that the apps are pulling information about their friends as well. If you are not concerned about yourself ..at least take a moment to think about your friends.
I logged on to facebook today and there were some updates. One of them was this.
Freinds Exposed App - Sick thing
Now see what questions is it discussing? Definitely personal right? This person who choose to use the app is a close friend so I have no issues with it. But imagine I do the same and it pulls up this kind of crap with my clients or relatives. You do not know whom it is targeting..because you authorized it to access friend’s information. When? yeah you might ask that… Note that link at the end of the update…see what they said…its a link bait…they induce you to click the link..then some thing like this comes up.
- Think twice before you allow that damn app next time
If I want to use this app ( I would actually never do it) its fine but I have no right exposing my friends to such kinda stuff. God knows what they are doing with the information they pull out from our profiles. Given that they are discussing things like Virgin – hot- hooking up they could be well be one of those sick companies selling viagra or dating service sites. Or they could simply sell out your information to those who do it.
My request to you all is
to take a moment and think twice before you allow any app.
Do not expose your friends privacy.
Stay away form those people who are on facebook just for those apps and games.
Take a moment to set you privacy settings.
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Facebooks Retweet Equivalent | How to Use Facebook Via
January 16, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
We are all familiar with twitter’s RT (retweet) features. Now Facebook has started a similar feature on the lines of Retweet. This is a short post on how this feature works and the advantages it will bring to Facebookers.
Retweet feature that first started on twitter as a practice of preceding any post that you want to re-post to your followers with a RT and @originalusername. Now we have dedicated retweet buttons as it became massively popular. @mentions on Facebook also caught up soon. Now its time for RTs. The main idea behind RTs on twitter of Via on Facebook it so credit the original poster for his contributions. Lets see how they work.
This feature is now available to the public and only works on links for the time being. That is you cannot “via” your friends status updates or shared videos. All You need to do is use the good old share option on a link posted by your friend. Then notice the change marked red.
You can choose to remove the via feature if you like to. (note the remove link) I would strongly suggest you keep it. This would let people know who the original poster is and you won’t be involved with the nasty incidents that follow when you share something that does not match everyone’s taste.
On twitter we have some thing like this.
Enjoy the new feature. I hope this is implemented on status updates as well.
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Why Kal Kya Hoga Facebook app had to die
January 8, 2010 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
There used to be an app on Facebook till yesterday called Kal Kya Hoga. This bull shit application transgressed the line between lite humor and public slandering of unsuspecting Facebook Users. These involved serious privacy violation and defamation that not only affected involved facebookers but their friends and families as well.
I site this instance because it happened to me and I swore I would stamp out this nonsense for ever. I never subscribed for this app – Kal Kya Hoga, but one of my friends did. This application takes in a friends name and throws out some random nonsense that is supposed to happen to the friend in future. I understand this is supposed to be funny but there is a limit to every thing and on this occasion it did cross the limit.
Here is the blotted snapshot of the app. It was a blatant attack on my character and I was in no mood to take it lightly. Not just that, it is an attack on my family as well. Its a different matter that I am not married. It could have soured relations between me and the friend who published the same. Why should I loose a great friend for a sick and sightless software application created by some dung-brain programmer?
Kal Kya Hoga Blasphemy
It could be happening to many more people. I shudder to think what degree of insults these people would be coming up with. This had to stop.
I reported the matter to the company that helped create this app – Phrases, by smsocial.com. Their first response was casual and it seemed they wanted to brush aside this issue. Here is their reply.
Totally dissatisfied I shot back the following.
At the same time I reported the matter to Facebook too. Then it worked. The snake was nailed. Kal Kay Hoga app got what it rightly deserved – the Ban.
I am grateful to the creators of Phrase for the maturity they have shown in addressing social security issues. This will not only cement your reputation as professional developers for social media platforms but mark you as a team of caring individuals too.
A word to fellow Facebookers.
Do take such instances seriously and report them as required. Read once what you are publishing on the social media. If it is not appropriate for your parents, younger siblings or weaker section of society do not publish it. It hurts others and in this process you could loose a valuable friend. I am not sure if you can see it but it actually is a huge loss.
*Disclaimer : There are some people and companies mentioned above. If for any reason you feel this is incursion into your privacy just let me know.
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Adding a Facebook share button and Digg this button with tweetmeme retweet button in wordpress thesis theme
November 5, 2009 by rooturaj
Filed under Programming, Social Media, Technology
I guess the thesis theme is among the most popular wordpress themes among professional bloggers. The best part about the theme is its ability to support custom functions and styles. So virtually everything is possible.
After I tried my hands at Thesis theme for Wordpress I added some plugins. I need not explain to you the merits of social media sharing buttons. The hottest in this section are Twitter, Facebook and Digg. Especially the share buttons with the counter are must haves for any blog. You get the code to add these buttons from the official portals. There are plugins to achieve the same. But it’s hard to get all three of them or two of them next to each other using different plugins. The example is right on this post.
If you need to have some thing like this on your blog, then follow this simple guide. I have put in screenshots to help you in process. We will be tinkering around with the coding. So some hands on experience with PHP and HTML is welcome. Else you can follow the coding exactly as it is and hope for the best.
Most popular and accurate Re-Tweet button with count comes from tweetmeme. They have a wordpress plugin for that. I am going to add official Facebook and digg share buttons with share count display to the tweetmeme plugin. In this example I am messing with Thesis wordpress theme. You can do the same to any theme you want. It only changes the code of the plugin so – a theme independent solution.
Browsing to the Tweetmeme.php file in wordpress
I believe you have a self hosted wordpress blog.
>>So navigate to the wp-content folder.
>> >>Find the plugins folder. Enter
>> >> >>Find the TweetMeme folder. Enter
>> >> >> >> locate this file tweetmeme.php
Now we tinker with the code. To do so, download the file to local system and open is with some standard text editor. I am using dreamweaver. Now look for this function in the code ‘tm_generate_button()’. Use the find feature in your text editor (ctrl +f ) to find this function. The code is rather long so might be hard to do it manually.
Editing the code
The red bordered area is where we do the actual change. You will have something different in the original file. Now add this code to the $button variable so that the final code looks like above.
<br><br><script>var fbShare = {size: \’large\’,google_analytics: \’true\’}</script><script src=”http://widgets.fbshare.me/files/fbshare.js”></script>
<br><br>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
digg_url = \”.$url.’\';digg_title = “TITLE”;
</script>
<script src=”http://digg.com/tools/diggthis.js” type=”text/javascript”></script> </div>
Replace the file and enjoy. Download this php file right here if it is too much for you.
You can do your own modifications to suit your purpose. Replace the <br> with spaces to get a horizontal effect. Feel free to comment.
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How to use the @mentions in facebook? Link to your facebook friends in status updates
September 16, 2009 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
I reported about the latest Facebook @mentions on Mashyep yesterday. Once I started using it some of my friends started to inquire how I do it and what good does it do. So now, I am putting it to a little more text so that things become a little clearer to those who are not used to this.
If you are a twitter user you would know what are @mentions. When you put @ before any twitter username it gets replaced by a link to the particular user’s profile. This way it helps spread your network. For example ..
“You should follow @rooturaj for some latest Social Media updates.”
Now any one who is following your updates (friends and connections) will know that this bloke, rooturaj, deals with Social Media. So if they are interested they might add me to their list too. Great isn’t it.
Now that was limited to twitter. But starting from 15th Sep Facebook has rolled out a similar feature. When you @mention your friends in your status updates those who are mentioned get a wall update about your status. That is your status update will appear on their wall. You may also link to Groups and Fan pages on Facebook using the same @ symbols.
All is good, but how to do it?
This again is pretty simple. Use the visual guide below.
Type @ when you need to mention a friend
As you start typing your friend's name facebook gives you a suggestion box to choose form.
Now that you know how to do it, its time to surprise some friends. Enjoy.
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Twitter should provide Tweet Flocks like Facebook List
August 25, 2009 by rooturaj
Filed under Social Media
If you have more than 200 followers on twitter who tweet regularly then I am sure it would be a herculean task for you to keep track of your friends tweets. Assuming every friend posts only 5 tweets a day that a whooping 1000 tweets per day. If you are not virtually living on twitter all the time tracking these status updates would a very difficult. Particularly when you are highly interested in the updates from a close circle of friends or technology experts. You cannot keep expanding the time line for ever to trace those tweets. This is where we need features like the friends list option on FaceBook.
If you are not a FaceBook fan then let me tell you it is a feature where you can choose a smaller group of friends and assign them a name. So next time you want updates of this particular group then selecting the same will hide all other updates form your other friends who do not belong to this group/list. Pretty easy to keep track of things. Easy to separate business relation from family. Easy to separate local friends form international contacts. You could even have a list of “hot babes” and “kool dudes”. Take a look at my Facebook wall below. To the left you can see some lists highlighted with red arrows.
Friend lists on FaceBook
But this is only on Facebook. How much do I wish a similar feature be provided by Twitter!! It would make things a hell more easier to manage. And this is why I say – “Twitter should provide Tweet Flocks like Facebook List“
