The Brilliant "Don't Be Evil" Bookmarklet
Kudos to Facebook (with some help from Twitter and MySpace) for having the balls to do this. It’s a bookmarklet that replaces Google’s new “People and Pages” area, the hardcoded social search area, and the search completion drop-down, with organic results.
In other words, it makes the new Google behave more like the old Google.
There has been a lot of back and forth in recent weeks over Google’s new Search+ functionality — about how “fair” it is, and whether or not it should lead to antitrust inquiries. But the bottom line is this:
Search+ makes Google worse. It replaces relevancy with Google’s own agenda to pump up Google+.
I say kudos to Facebook because while this isn’t an official app they created, they let their key product manager, Blake Ross, work on it and deploy it knowing full well that everyone would immediately tie it to Facebook. That in turn will put some heat back on Facebook, which itself is far from fully open with regard to data — and is gearing up to IPO.
But again, the key issue here is that what Google is doing with Search+ is making Google worse. This bookmarklet illustrates that in a very effective way.
John Battelle and Danny Sullivan have more on this, as do others. And be sure to watch the Focus On The User walk-through video, narrated by Ross himself.
A news Web site goes Facebook-only
The publishers of all-volunteer local news blog Rockville Central made an unusual leap in March: They bagged their traditional Web site and instead moved their operation entirely to Facebook. The Post’s Ian Shapira chronicled their decision and what it could mean to the media industry. Though the blog has a relatively small reach, their gambit poses a question for the broader media industry. Are journalism outlets taking best advantage of Facebook? Will the role of social networking sites continue to grow when it comes to content aggregation and distribution?
Shapira’s account of the decision is here. And below, Rockville Central’s publishers explain how the maintenance and mechanics of their work has changed since they went all Facebook, all the time.
“Rockville Central: Day to day maintenance”
By Cindy Cotte Griffiths and Brad Rourke
Since we shifted from being a standalone Web site to being all-Facebook, we still have many of the same basic chores to perform to keep content running, but we go about them in a slightly different way.
One change with using Facebook is that things we used to schedule ahead of time now need to be done at publishing time. So, instead of Brad scheduling the week’s “POTD’s” (Picture Of The Day) and letting them publish on their own, on Sunday afternoon Brad will gather the week’s photos and write a Note for each one, saving it as a draft. Then, around 6 each morning, Brad will take that day’s POTD Note and publish it. (Our rules for POTD: The photos must be taken fairly recently, within the Rockville city limits.)
Facebook Users Who Are Under Age Raise Concerns
The fake ID has gone digital, and spread to elementary school.
Across the nation, millions of young people are lying about their ages so they can create accounts on popular sites like Facebook and Myspace. These sites require users to be 13 or older, to avoid federal regulations that apply to sites with younger members. But to children, that rule is a minor obstacle that stands between them and what everybody else is doing.
Parents regularly go along with the age inflation, giving permission and helping children set up accounts. They often see it as a minor fib that is necessary to let their children participate in the digital world.
» via The New York Times
It’s an interesting perspective to call it the new fake digital ID. And definitely a concern.
PS: If you ever need a temporary login for the New York Times, check here.
via: world-shaker
