Facebook adds the inevitable "groups" feature

Facebook has announced the inevitable addition of "groups", whereby users can sort their friends into different groups, so only certain comments/statuses/photos etc. are available to certain groups.

Mark Zuckerberg summarises the problem:
"There are some things you are comfortable saying to all your friends at once but a lot of things you only want to share with your close co-workers or your family and there just hasn't been a great way to do that until now."

This blog has discussed the social problems created by Facebook in the past. In the real world we automatically filter what we say and share with different friends, family, colleagues - so it makes sense that Facebook would include that feature, to further replicate the way we interact in the real world and avoid a variety of social faux pas.


Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/oct/07/facebook-groups

BBC News article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11486427

Wave is dead (long live wave)

Google have just announced that Google Wave is being put to bed. Although touted as the future of the web and with a large push from Google, it never really picked up. (A little like Google Buzz)

However I believe this is more to do with Google trying to do to much in one leap. I think that a lot of the features of Wave will slowly be integrated into Google Mail and we'll see email / chat / online communication move towards what was being presented in Google Wave, just at a slower more drip-fed pace, so users can get used to the changes.
Just because Wave wasn't successful it doesn't mean that similar sites and features won't be successful in the future. I just think they will be carefully integrated into an evironment the user is familiar with, such as Google Mail and Facebook.

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/2010/aug/05/google-wave

Bebo moves on

AOL has sold Bebo to Criterion Capital Partners for a rumoured $10m or less. Criterion have described the site as "attractive media platform".

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jun/17/aol-confirms-bebo-sale
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/cf6e4258-7a08-11df-9871-00144feabdc0.html

Uniques or loyal returners?

Thanks to our little Paul monkey for this link. It's an interesting article about the thoughts of Matt Kelly - and The Mirror project that he oversaw. It discusses whether we are looking at the right metrics for sites. Are we too obsessed with unique hits on a site and should be looking to build a regular returning fan base?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/oct/01/daily-mirror-digital-media

Murdoch makes you pay

Rupert Murdoch has said that he will introduce payment for content on all News Corp sites. This includes: foxnews, Times Online, The Sun, News Of The World, New York Post and Wall Street Journal (which already charges for content).

Murdoch wants to distinguish the journalism on the News Corp sites. By ensuring it is of a high-quality, he thinks that people will be willing to pay for the better sites. It is unsure of exactly how the payment scheme will work. This could be by subscription, or micropayments per article or both.

I'm unsure of whether this will ever be completely successful, especially when there are free sites such as the BBC News in the UK, but many sites are looking to subscriptions at the moment. See Spotify in Europe and Hulu in the US.


Read more:
http://www.marketingvox.com/murdoch-empire-to-charge-for-online-content-next-year-044800/

What other people have to say about it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/charging-content-sunday-times-website

Guardian FAQs:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/06/charging-online-content-murdoch-faqs

Government Guidelines on Twitter

Whitehall has released a 20 page document on government use of Twitter. It's all seems like sensible advice, if a little lengthy. Precautions are taken to avoid government gaffs, and the use of a proper tone with Twitter is mentioned, which I think is key to successful tweets.


The 20 page document:
http://blogs.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/digitalengagement/

Guardian article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jul/27/twitter-socialnetworking

Spotify iPhone App is finally here (almost)

Spotify have released a video of their iPhone app. Apparently a few reporters have been able to see the app in action as well. It will be available to all Spotify Premium users for free.
The key to the app is the that you will be able to play songs offline, so you can use the app at home, on the train and even on the underground with no connection.

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/07/27/spotify-for-iphone/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/jul/27/spotify-digital-media


EDIT:
A more in-depth review:
http://sharemyplaylists.com/spotify-iphone-app-in-depth-review/

Bing launched

Microsoft's new search engine bing has been launched. Now I didn't like live.com (now redirects to bing) but I've had a play with bing and it's actually a decent search engine. They've got a lot of ground to make up, but Microsoft might actually have something worthwhile here. Now they've just got to convince people of it and probably pull something out of the bag in the next year or two - to give people a reason to use them over google.

Read more: (Make sure you read the acronym note at the end. LOL)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jun/01/searchengines-microsoft

MS Ba-da-BING

Microsoft is launching it's new search engine: Bing.com
It can't be any worse than Live Search - which is awful. Competing with Google is always going to be a challenge. As I've blogged about recently Wolfram-Alpha is taking on the search giant, but with a different slant on searching.
Bing will try to be intelligent about searches, by using the current date, time etc. to make your search results more relevant. It will also provide related search results and search terms.

It's explained well with examples here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/may/28/microsoft-bing

EDIT
More information here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/28/microsoft-search-bing-google

EDIT 2
And more about how it works:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/may/29/microsoft-bing-search-engine

Is adding the third dimension worth it?

This journalist on the Guardian website reckons that the new spat of 3D films isn't anything big and isn't going to be here to stay, and that cheaper technology is far more important.

I'm inclined to agree. I saw UP in 3D the other day and it being in 3D added nothing to the film what-so-ever. (Excellent film by the way.) Coraline (Which is a beautiful film.) made much better use of 3D, but I still think it would have been a great film without 3D.

Read more:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2009/may/28/up

Google View hits the UK Streets

Google has finally launched the UK version of Street View. You can now virtually walk around streets in certain cities in England. A massive imposition on our privacy, or pretty cool?


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/19/google-street-view-uk

Nice video on BBC News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7951873.stm

See for yourself:
http://maps.google.co.uk/streetview