Facebook, the social networking site, whose recent IPO has been oversubscribed is running a test feature and charging is one of the options they are considering. The new feature tested in New Zealand, would make comments more prominent on a user's newsfood. Users were presented with the option to "highlight" their posts for $2 payable through either Paypal or credit card.
Spokeswoman Mia Garlick said: "We're constantly testing new features across the site.
“This particular test is simply to gauge people's interest in this method of sharing with their friends.”
Garlick said they were also trialling a free version of the feature in other areas.
Facebook is currently free to use, and the new option could provide a lucrative revenue stream from their 800million active users.
What do you think of this new feature? Would you use it?
Can't live without Facebook? Need you be concerned about the following news? (courtesy of Daily Chilli.)
An-anti Facebook movement called Operation Facebook, or #OpFacebook, is reportedly planning to kill the social networking site on November 5.
Calling themselves Anonymous, the hackers posted their video message on YouTube, saying: "Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed.
"Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your privacy settings, and deleting your account is impossible. Even if you delete your account, all your information stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time."
Operation Facebook added: "[Facebook] knows more about you than your family. It has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so that they can spy on people from all around the world."
But the real hacker group, Anonymous has denied that it is behind the planned attack.
Source: www.digitalspy.co.uk
Published Aug 12 2011
I read somewhere that vis-a-vis our population, Malaysia has a significant percentage of membership in social media sites like Facebook, My Space and Twitter. Malaysians also make up a sizable number of bloggers. Given the borderless world where technology is concerned, everyone is equally vulnerable to security hiccups anywhere in the world, and equally liable to fall prey to scammers, hackers and the like.
I read about a med student who on March 24 clicked on a Facebook user's link to vote in a competition led to her receiving a message, allegedly from the hacker, saying that he would hack into her Facebook account unless she paid him RM200.
He also threatened that he would create and post fake nude pictures of her on her Facebook account.
She deleted all her pictures in her Facebook and even changed her name and thought it would be the end of it, but he still managed to upload her picture onto her Facebook account and revert it to her real name.
The hacker had given her a mobile phone number and also a bank account number. She managed to trace a photograph of the suspect based on the suspect's mobile phone number and made a police report in Pengkalan Chepa, Kelantan.
MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong, who highlighted the case, said that the department had received nine similar complaints last year and four cases were reported to him this year, including this case.
Unfortunately, nothing in this world is foolproof. We just need to take proper precautions so that we do not expose ourselves to liabilities.
Even President of United States of America Barak Obama has also advised Facebook users to be careful about what they post on their Facebook profiles. Important video to watch. Take a look..
Yesterday, I agonised for over 15 minutes watching that video of a brown poodle being abused by its owner. The video is 15:07-minute long, I believe. The news was all over the papers the past few days and complaints officially lodged with the relevant authorities.
Fingers were pointing at a chef in Malacca (name, shop location and even his mobile phone number were provided) and his ex-wife as being the perpetrators - one did the actual beating, the other did the recording.
Well, whaddayaknow! As it turns out as confirmed by The Star today, it is merely a case of mistaken identity and his business experienced a sudden increase as curious people thronged his shop to catch a glimpse of him. Meanwhile, the dog-abuser is still not known.
I will spare you the agony by not linking the video here but one thing is for sure, I think people like that need professional help, help they can only get at a residential rehab centre where they have expertise for all sorts of rehabilitation treatments.
By the way, the video is posted not by the dog-abuser himself but by the person who found the lost pen-drive with the video in it, with the hope of highlighting this inhumane act.
In an earlier post, What's in a name?! Lots!, I remember we talked about the different unusual names that people have and the attention they bring to their owners.
Know this face? The 19 year-old, from Port Klang, Malaysia, has been bombarded with hundreds of “friend requests” from Icelandic nationals on the social networking site because her name sounds similar to the phrase on the popular Vodafone advertisement.
The commercial, starring popular actor Pétur Jóhann Sigfússon, features a frog who lisps the slang word “Essassu”, which roughly translates to “is it you?”.
It was later discovered that the phrase was similar to the Malaysian woman’s name on Facebook.
She is now an internet sensation and has become the centre of a Facebook group “We want to get Essasa Sue to Iceland!”.
Organisers said it started as a “joke” but now it has almost 1,000 members.
Hundreds of people have since “friended” her on her site over the past few weeks and at last count Miss Sue, whose real name is Essasa Sie Sue Wei, has almost 2700 friends with the number getting higher by the day.
Miss Wei was even interviewed by The Daily Telegraph.
School suspends 29 pupils for insulting teacher on Facebook - A leading London girls' school has suspended 29 pupils for posting malicious comments about a teacher on Facebook.
Since we are on the subject of Internet application, here is something interesting too.
IF you want to help save the planet from carbon carnage, cut your Google searches, scientists say. Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.
I suppose it applies to other search engines too, for that matter.
The past week has seen me getting friendship invites from friends and colleagues on Facebook. Former colleagues whom I have not met for years and a few from overseas too, have suddenly appeared out of the blue which goes to show the viral effect of social media.
These requests raised the very same questions when Twitter came on the scene. Should I join? Do I need to be on it? What purpose would it serve? I am still mulling over the decision.
If or when I join Facebook, I would be among the 150 million people around the world actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day.
Facebook is now in more than 35 different languages and 170 countries and territories. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.
Tell me, are you on Facebook? If so, how do you use it mostly and what feature(s) of Facebook do you find useful or compelling? I am still looking for a good enough reason as to why I would need to join Facebook.
