Microsoft’s attempt to find a new home for its Atlas ad-serving business may finally be coming to an end. The company is expected to announce a deal to sell it to Facebook as early as next week, according to multiple people familiar with the plans.

The acquisition price is not known, but is expected to be less than 0 million, based on prior bids for Atlas, which have been in the to million range.

The acquisition would be the surest sign yet that Facebook has designs on becoming an even bigger player in advertising than it currently is now. Facebook is methodically laying the groundwork for an off-Facebook ad network powered by social data, but that’s not the only reason it wants Atlas.

Continue reading at AdAge.com

Advertising Age – Digital

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This is something which made lots of news and attracted the Digital news industry every now and then. The diaspora team did it in a way that if they would have launched there product well in time then certainly they would have gained a lot of traction. The idea of decentralized web as Diaspora claims sounds interesting however it still seems not scalable in terms of an organisational structure.

We already have something called Elgg which is an open source one click install social network which we can say is decentralized as well to a certain extent, every niche can operate their own social hub using elgg and with the help of little knowledge one can easily customize it too. then came Appleseed project which also claimed the same. In the series the last entrant was Diaspora but they made the news which the other two failed.

What Diaspora is ?

In there own words

CHOICE – “Diaspora lets you sort your connections into groups called aspects. Unique to Diaspora, aspects ensure that your photos, stories and jokes are shared only with the people you intend.”

OWNERSHIP – “You own your pictures, and you shouldn’t have to give that up just to share them. You maintain ownership of everything you share on Diaspora, giving you full control over how it’s distributed.”

SIMPLICITY – “Diaspora makes sharing clean and easy – and this goes for privacy too. Inherently private, Diaspora doesn’t make you wade through pages of settings and options just to keep your profile secure.”

Wow , this all sounds cool, now the question is how many out of 500 million people who are already on facebook would be comfortable to switch to a software and fix their own Pods to connect to group of people they know.

Well for me the idea is great but the application is unreal. And also it fails to serve the purpose of connecting the whole world and making it a more social.

What is Project “I Want Facebook Alternate”, this project is an outcome of research of months that have been put into to find the pain areas that users go through while surfing the social web. Right now the social web is growing like wild fire however the problem is that its also growing the risk of data theft along with the increased spamming. Every now or then we get hell lot of fren requests or wall posts that are merely phishing attempts. There is a whole gang that works in this domain and call them selves Ninjas. Well honestly there is no way to fight these ninjas because they are anonymous and they are huge in numbers.

The Facebook alternate project is all about your society which includes you family , your friends, your colleagues and your so called known references. Its a free a network and when we say free its completely Ads free too. Now the question pops up how can it be free and if it is then how would we manage to run the show, well thats simple we are trying to work out economics the other way, rather than working on the traditional user info selling to Advertisers.

For the full post visit : The Facebook Alternate

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What a question, “Who wants a facebook Alternate?”, Ha. I know it sounds funny but there are many who want to have a facebook alternate and yes its true. I have been using facebook since 2006 when i got an invite from a friend of mine who lives in Germany, she shared some of her pics which she uploaded on facebook and my first thought about facebook then was “DULL and BORING” ya, I was on myspace which was much vibrant and lively but then facebook took over with the rice of PR and awesome controversies which got highlighted in all the big media news papers, then all the bloggers started talking about it and rest is the History.

I am an avid user of facebook and use it only for one sake not because it is something which is really great but because it is some place where all my friends are, yes all those friends who were once on myspace or orkut in the past. What does this mean that users have tendencies to switch to whatever they get or whatever that is hip. I believe both are applicable. Out of Total Internet population Globally how many understand technology, i believe only 1% or even that would be a higher figure which i am just estimating but yes i am sure the numbers must be very low. Rest are the ones are those  who just love to follow what others are doing (I Know so many people who are on twitter but I never saw them using it) . People often tend to say that “I Hate This” or “I Hate That”, its a very strong notion though people really dont do much about it, but i realized this and thought of doing it. The best way to retaliate is to do something and then the thought of creating a social web popped up in my mind. a though which was so provoking that i took away my sleep and hit my bank balance badly, but i never cared as i am really a man who loves to attempt once decided hence i came ahead with this.

To read the full story : http://facebookalternate.com

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Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes, and Dustin Moskovitz, founders of the Facebook.com phenomenon, saw an existing product in need of improvement and expansion.

We all know about the mighty facebook, and the rise of “Alexander the Great” , or rather i should replace Facebook with “Mark Zuck”. Alexander the great was an awesome warrior who was on a spree to win the entire world and be the greatest emperor of all times, but in vain it did not happen, so shall we say that similar fate would be awarded to Mark Zuck also.

THE FACEBOOK STORY Today Mark Zuckerberg (facebook) has changed the fate of Internet and so called social media, Today every blogger is writing about it and the hype has gone beyond reaches of any one. Facebook which was started in a small Dorm room of Harvard has taken over the web if not completely then a major part of it. Facebook was not the original concept it was first stolen from Winklevoss twins who were mark’s seniors and also the founders of “Harward Connection”, they got there compensation for the same , which was a whooping amount of $65 millions, awesome money which they might have not dreamt of earning with true potential of “Connect U” but then who cares, we have facebook and they have a claim over it.

This is really ironical that Mark Zuck is a celebrity today but is a cheater at the same time and this is public , Globally all the big media players covered the Trial and settelment between Zuck and Winkelvoss and then came The Social Network movie which did the final damage, today even public knows about this. Its was hard for me to figure out at the end of the movie to determine that who was the good guy or who was the bad guy in the movie, The sympathy was with “Eduardo Saverin” who was a great friend and also the founder member of facebook along with Zuckerberg but was Ducked by him, he was a classic example of back stabbing and the second from Mark Zuck in the tale so far.

Facebook was not a genuine idea anyways as the friendster and Myspace was already there and teens were flocking them so this means the ideation was original but the idea was not. In a same fashion that Colt was the one one who invented Gun but then came engineers who excelled the idea and game us AK-47 , Eduardo Saverin was a great guy according to me and according the script displayed in The Social Network”, he was a true friend, as when the idea of facebook popped up in Mark Zuck’s mind he was the first one whom he discussed the idea with and being a true friend Saverin agreed to the greatness of the idea, well at the age of 19 it was a tough decision to fund any friend’s idea with ones father’s money but Saverin did the same , He was the first ever investor and partner with 30% stake in Facebook however there was no writer clause for the same , but according to me only a true friend can agree to pay you such amount ($18000) without having a plan for revenues, it went ahead for few months and facebook started growing within the campus and then Mark met Sean Parker (Napster.com Fame) and the story changed completely.

Its great to be ambitious and we all are equally ambitions but is it fair to stab someone who is your best friend and someone who gave you wings to fly, imagine if Saverin would have said no to Zuck when he narrated the whole idea he would have never gone ahead with it as Mark was not financially stable to bear the costs on his own and getting the finances only on an idea was truly a herculean task those days, or another fate would have been That Zuck would have gone ahead with Winkelvoss brothers to create Connect U and probably today identified as one of the partners in it. Ha!!! It all sounds weird but this is true, Now imagine if Mark Zuck, Eduardo Saverin and Winkelvoss all were from Dubai (UAE) then the situation would have been like this, keeping the law system of Dubai in mind “an eye for an eye” then after losing the law suit to Winkelvoss, Mark would have been asked to create an equal big idea and give it back to Winkelvoss , isn’t it funny but that should have been the real justice. What is bigger the idea part or the execution part now opens a new debate in my mind, and believe me it’s quite difficult to answer this question.

What do you think about this ?

Now lets Peep what a bit into the major characters of “The Facebook Story” :

Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zuckerberg ( CEO Facebook.com )

• He started facebook on feb 4th, 2004 with his two room mates Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes.
• Eduardo Saverin was his fast friend and also CFO of Thefacebook.com and had 30% stake in the company.
• Facebook Got its first funding from paypal founder Peter Thiel.
• Mark Zuckerberg is the most eligible bachelor on the planet earth today.
• Today Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest Richest In the World with highest net worth of more than $2 Billion.

Eduardo Saverin Saverin Eduardo ( CFO thefacebook.com )

• An American of Brazilian descent who is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Facebook.
• Saverin met Mark Zuckerberg during his freshman year and later co-founded Facebook during his sophomore year.
• Saverin drifted away from what was then known as “thefacebook” due to conflict in ideologies with Zuck.
• Saverin sued Zuckerberg and Facebook in April 2005. Saverin won his claim in court to label himself as a co-founder of Facebook along with 5% stake.
• He owns a 5% share of Facebook, worth $2.5 billion USD as of January 4, 2011.

Sean Parker Sean Parker ( Founder Napster.com)

• Sean Parker (born December 3, 1979) is an American internet technology businessman.
• He was a pro software programmer, At 16, he was sentenced to community service for hacking.
• Parker graduated from Oakton High School in Fairfax County, Virginia. He co-founded Napster, a free file-sharing service for music.
• Lawsuits by various industry associations eventually shut down the Napster.
• He became Facebook’s first president receiving 7% of Facebook’s stock.
• In 2006, Parker joined the Founders Fund, a venture capital fund based in San Francisco, as Managing Partner.

Winklevoss Twins Winklevoss Twins ( Founders ConnectU )

• The original idea of College Network was from Winkelvoss twins along with Divya Narendra.
• They named it as “Harvard Connection” which later got a new name as “Connect U”
• Winklevoss twins were Olympic Fame Rowers.
• They approached Mark Zuck to code the entire thing for them.
• The sued Zuck for stealing the idea and setteled the case out of court in 2008 for $65 Million.
• They have again Sued Mark Zuck for the same case however the allegation is The stock Valuation.

So now we have read so much about This Mark Zuck that i am really in dilemma that whose side shall I speak for. What Mark Zuck has done very few has ever achieved , 100s of organisation spent decades to reach a $$$ billion turnover but facebook did this in mere 5 years. People call that the evil will always get punished at the end so lets see what happens to Mark Zuck, if he is an evil guy who cheated on so many then whats his fate in near future.  !! Would love to read your comments !!

Courtesy : ACTIVEINDIAN.COM

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According to the latest security report published by Sophos, spam and phishing attacks have substantially increased, on social networking sites, over the past year. Of the 1000 respondents which were polled, around 82 percent named Facebook as the biggest threat to security. This is a 22 percent increase compared to the survey of last year.

Sophos polls suggest that around 40 percent of the users quizzed, have received malware such as worms via social networking sites. This is nearly 90 percent increase since April 2009.

According to the survey, the proportion of spam has doubled since April 2009. Two third (67 percent) of the users had been spammed through the social networking sites. The incidents of phishing attacks also grew twice in size since April 2009, with 43 percent on the receiving end of phishing attacks.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos said:

The problem of security threats posed by social networks is not limited to only home users. Access to social networking accounts from the workplace, makes the sites a potential vector for attacks against businesses.

Cybercriminals are showing a drastically higher level of interest in social networks than ever before; with Facebook being the site they are targeting the most. The report cites Facebook’s app system to be a major security vulnerability. Facebook allows any user to create an application, with a wide range of powers to interact with data stored on user pages and cross-site messaging systems. These applications, like survey scams, can then be installed and run on any users’ page.

Sophos wants Facebook to employ a “walled garden” approach to address the app problem, similar to what Apple App Store does. Applications in Apple’s App Store require official approval from Apple, before they can be uploaded to the site and shared with other users. Such an initial check prevents fraudulent and scam apps from making their way into the store. If Facebook employs this functionality, a lot of issues could be resolved before they go viral on Facebook.

Graham Cluley also criticized Facebook‘s awkwardly developed features which allow rogue application developers to access users’ private information. “Either Facebook simply doesn’t “get” security and privacy. Or it just don’t care” he said.

According to Cluley, if Facebook will keeping ignoring privacy and security concerns, there will be serious problems.

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After a year of non stop hype stoked by events like the recent50 billion valuation after a 500 million dollar investment fromGoldman Sachs, there will be very few people on the planet who have not heard about Facebook.

Then there’s Zynga, the company that creates social games built on top of the Facebook platform, which has comparatively been flying under the radar apart from in tech circles. Even though Zynga produces popular games like Farmville, Cityville and Mafia Wars, the parent company Zynga has been more focused on generating huge amounts of revenue rather than generating the sort of mainstream press Facebook have been getting.

The two companies are intrinsically linked but who needs who more and could they live without each other?

Facebook Revenues

The big question I have is just how much of Facebook’s revenues are coming from social gaming? Zynga may be the biggest Facebook advertiser and that is not something that they can take lightly. The fact that Facebook doesn’t have to reveal its revenue sources is a good thing for them because if it was a case of Facebook getting 50 or 60% of their total revenues from social gaming that is something that could influence their valuation negatively. I believe social gaming makes up a huge part of Facebook’s revenues although they have made massive strides in other areas to open up parts of their advertising platform to brands and decrease their over dependency on social gaming.

Zynga Helps Skew Facebook’s Numbers

The amount of time that people spend on Facebook every day is a great number to roll out to advertisers, but n.b.- that number is massively skewed by the 100s of millions playing social games for hours on end pushing up those average times.

Similar Investors

The companies have a lot of ties that link them together behind the scenes. Zynga CEO Mark Pincus was a very early investor in Facebook which has probably given him insight into where the company is headed from a strategic level. More importantly, both companies have very significant backing from Digital Sky Partners, the Russian investment firm, which means that they should have a common vision or at the very least a mediator to keep calm heads if things get ugly.

Could Zynga Go It Alone?

There have been a few behind the scenes rows like when Facebook put pressure on Zynga last year to start using its Facebook credit system. Zynga essentially sells virtual currency which costs little or nothing to produce and is nearly all profit. Introducing Facebook credits for its users means Zynga would be paying Facebook a 30% tax for using its platform, which Zynga thinks is unfair. It is however a fair price that is applied evenly across its entire platform and it’s a small price to pay in the long run for tapping into a community of over 600 million users.

Google Gaming Platform?

Things get slightly more complicated when you take into account that Google invested a couple hundred million into Zynga last summer and has plans to set up its own social gaming platform. It makes sense for Google to get into social gaming as a step to combat Facebook but the launch was meant to happen in 2010 and nothing has happened yet. You can expect that it has been pushed out to the middle of 2011 like the rest of Google’s +1 social networking strategies. If Google does enter the market in a serious way it will give Zynga an interesting alternative to Facebook’s platform but it all depends on the social networking capabilities that are built in and that is something that Google has not been good at in the past.

Better The Devil You Know

Facebook could live without Zynga. It would suffer a major blip in revenues if Zynga pulled out tomorrow but somebody else would move in, replicate the games and be willing to pay the percentage on credits. It hurts Zynga to pay such a large portion of its revenues over to Facebook but it’ll never find a better platform for fast growth. There are huge amounts of money involved and greed could see these bedfellows fall out at some stage but I’d imagine because they have similar investors, are both huge unstoppable juggernauts and are both headed for IPO that they’ll continue to live together and enjoy huge success.

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Facebook hit 500 million active users back in July. Last week, rumours were rife that the 600 million mark was surpassed.

Even if this claim proves to be premature, the world’s preeminent social network is certainly close to achieving this amazing milestone. And one hundred million new users in six months is staggering.

Now, if you’re a ‘glass half-full’ kind of person, then you’d perhaps say that almost 10% of the Earth’s population uses Facebook. But I get the distinct impression that Mark Zuckerberg has just a smidgen of the ‘glass half-empty’ syndrome, meaning that over 90% of planet Earth has yet to sign-up for Facebook. Quite the challenge…

So, where have these 6 billion-plus people been hiding? Don’t they know about Facebook? Do they know it’s available in almost seventy languages?

Well, it seems the answer lies in the bigger technological picture: Internet penetration.

Internet penetration vs. Facebook uptake

The US and UK are among Facebook’s highest performing countries, both in terms of penetration and the overall number of users, but they are actually now amongst the slowest growth countries for Facebook, simply because it’s reaching saturation point.

Not surprisingly, the US and UK also have very high Internet penetration, with 77.3% and 82.5% respectively. And in the past decade, the online population of both countries has grown by an average of 192% between them.

Now contrast this with the BRIC countries. Brazil only has 37.8% Internet penetration, but its growth over the past decade has seen a 1,418% rise. Russia’s Internet penetration is only slightly more at 42.8%, which represents a growth of 1,825% since 2000. And check this – less than 7% of India is hooked up to the World Wide Web, but that is still a growth of 1,825% in the last ten years. Finally, just under a third of China is now online, which means its Internet populace has grown by 1,766% since the turn of the century.

Looking at Facebook’s growth figures over the past six months, the Chinese people are doing a stellar job of defying attempts to restrict access to the website, and users have grown by 90%, which makes it Facebook’s fastest growing country…on paper, at least. Similarly, Brazil and Russia have seen Facebook’s uptake increase by over 50%, whilst the Indian market has grown by over 40%.

But with Facebook penetration in all the BRIC countries still lingering well below the 5% mark, there’s clearly room for Facebook to grow significantly, in some of the world’s most populated countries.

Internet access is on the rise

High-speed Internet access is increasing all the time, across Asia and many other developing regions, which is why 2011 could well be the year Facebook hits the magic billion-users mark. That’s how social networks work: the more people that join, the faster they grow.

That is, of course, until saturation point is reached. But as we can see, Facebook is still far from saturation in many parts of the world, even in places where it IS the number one social network, such as India.

For social networks to work, everyone has to use the same platform, which is one of the main reasons Facebook will continue to grow into the stratosphere.

With social networks, once a growth-spurt starts it keeps going because it is rather difficult, not to mention impractical, for anyone to shout ‘right, everyone, let’s move over to this other social network, spread ourselves out a bit.’ Sure, you can cite Bebo and Myspace as examples of social networking sites falling from grace, but Facebook is past the point of no return…it’s too big to stop now.

Retention is key to any social network’s longevity, and the more Facebook grows, the less likely it is to lose people. So can Facebook get 400 million more users by the end of 2011? Don’t hold me to it, but I’ll say…probably.

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Walls are filling up with false claims that Facebook will delete inactive acccounts in two weeks to free up space on the network.

These posts tend to have poor spelling and punctuation, and we’ve reproduced one of them verbatim for you here:

This in from facebook..There are many complaints that Facebook has become unacceptably slow.The report shows that Facebook has a number of inactive members. They want us to re-post this message to see who are active and who are not If you don’t post this message within 2…weeks……you will be removed in order to get more space. Post this on your wall to show that youare active in the facebook page!!

Those of us who follow Facebook’s doings more closely than the average person know that the social network is constantly expanding its technology infrastructure to accommodate growth. Most likely, spokespeople for the social network will make a formal statement about this particular hoax and we can all move on.

How do you suppose this particular rumor originated, and why are so many Facebook users willing to believe it?

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The first so-called Facebook phone, developed by INQ, just got Bluetooth certification, clearing the way for a debut in stores soon and reigniting chatter about the much-awaited device.

The Inquirer is calling the device the INQ Cloud Touch smartphone, but that sounds rather stuffy compared to the verbiage on the phone company’s website, which calls this Android-based cellular “the world’s first social mobile.” This gizmo may have either a full keyboard or a touchscreen that includes Swype.

The INQ phone is hitting stores before the other device also rumored to be a “Facebook phone,” in development by AT&T. Both of the phones will have Facebook shortcuts on the home screen — notice the use of the plural here, contrasting with the singular link you might move to your home screen on other smartphones available today.

Apparently, Facebook is “built right into the heart of the INQ¹,” to use the company’s rhetoric. This means:

Facebook friends show up in the INQ¹ contacts list. Messages, pokes and requests drop in the phone’s inbox. Keep up with every conversation, wherever you are.  Keep track of your Facebook friends: see their latest photo and status, or message, post or poke them all directly from the phone’s contacts list. Staying connected never felt easier. INQ¹ sends photos from your camera straight to Facebook. Receive a call from a Facebook friend and the INQ¹ displays their latest Facebook profile picture. So if your friends have a new look, you’ll know before you speak to them.

INQ’s site suggests one might soon be able to advance order the social phone in nine different countries, without clarifying exactly when the devices will go live. Alas, the U.S. doesn’t even show up on the list of markets that get the smartphones first, so we’ll have to wait for the opportunity to try one of them out.

Are you curious to try either of the so-called “Facebook phones?” Would you consider upgrading to the device once it becomes available?

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