Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook has been in the news lately regarding its plans to change its policies. The social network has proposed to end its user voting system and replace that with one that looks at high-quality feedback instead, in addition to other changes. Now two privacy groups have asked the company to stop its proposed changes, saying that it makes user data vulnerable.

The Center for Digital Democracy’s President Jeffrey Chester and the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s President Marc Rotenberg said this in a letter to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. “These proposed changes raise privacy risks for users. We urge you to withdraw the proposed changes.” Facebook originally launched the user-voting system in 2009, but has since stated that it has outgrown the model.

The privacy changes have been a source of concern and raised eyebrows since the social network announced them. Many users have expressed concern, while the European Union regulators sought clarification about the changes last week. The changes will be applied to the social network’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and data policy if implemented.

The current system, says Facebook, results in a barrage of votes that don’t provide any substantial information. “We found that the voting mechanism, which is triggered by a specific number of comments, actually resulted in a system that incentivized the quantity of comments over their quality.” By changing the system, they can introduce a platform where the quality of feedback is given weight over mere voting numbers. This will likewise eliminate copy-and-paste voting.

[via Bloomberg]

Facebook asked by privacy groups to halt policy changes is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Security is a paramount issue surrounding Facebook, with the company regularly tweaking its security settings, sometimes to the chagrin of users. The social network began implementing changes to its infrastructure years ago with the goal in mind of eventually transitioning all users to HTTPS connection. The change is opt-out, and has the potential to cause a tad slow down in speeds.

Facebook began rolling out the transition to HTTPS for users in North America this past week, and will do so for users in the rest of the world soon. The transition was announced in 2011. Said the social network via its Developers blog, “We feel that HTTPS is an essential option to protect the security of Facebook accounts, and since Apps on Facebook are an important part of the site, support for HTTPS in your app is critical to ensure user security.”

HTTPS security has been utilized during the login process, helping keep usernames and passwords safe. Back in January of 2011, the company then began allowing users to opt in to HTTPS browsing, but did so with a warning. “Encrypted pages take longer to load, so you may notice Facebook is slower using HTTPs.”

Users can choose to opt-out of using encrypted browsing once it is implemented if they don’t feel it is necessary, or don’t want to deal with the slightly reduced browsing speeds. You can access the opt-out setting by going into “Account Settings,” then choosing “Settings” on the left-side menu. Click “Edit” next to Secure Browsing and uncheck the box.

[via Tech Crunch]

Facebook speeds to slow a bit during HTTPS transition is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook has announced the addition of hundreds of new gifts users can buy and send to friends on Facebook. The new items are from a variety of retailers who have partnered with the social network, including babyGap and Brookstone. Now the next time a Facebook notification pops up letting you know it’s someone’s birthday, you can send them a gift ASAP from the comfort of your computer.

Retail partners include Fab, Dean & Deluca, L’Occitane, Lindt, ProFlowers, Random House Inc., NARS Cosmetics, Brookstone, and babyGap. In addition, there are also a variety of gift options for the multi-media lover on your friends list. Facebook users can purchase and send subscriptions to online services, including Pandora and Hulu Plus.

According to the Facebook Gifts page, users can simply select a gift, add a message, and send it off after paying for it. The receiving party will get a notification alerting them to the gift. After getting the alert, the friend can then enter their shipping information to receive it, as well as changing some user-selection options, such as flavor or size, depending on the item.

The method seems pretty straight forward and easy for both parties to use. The way the shipping information is setup allows Facebook users to avoid the hassle of trying to get a current shipping address, and helps the person on the receiving end maintain their privacy. For now, the Facebook.com/about/gifts page features a “Coming Soon” tag, as well as an introduction video.

[via Facebook]

Facebook Gifts gains more partners, hundreds of gift options is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

In 2011, Facebook partnered with several organizations and agencies to create the Social Jobs Partnership, which faded the line between jobs and social media. Now, taking the partnership further, the social network has announced the launch of its Social Jobs Partnership app. Users can access more than 1.7 million jobs.

The Partnership includes the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Jobs provided via the Social Jobs app come from the likes of BranchOut, Work4Labs, Jobvite, DirectEmployers Association, and Monster.com. A ticker on the app shows the current number of jobs available, which presently sits at 1,733,231.

Facebook users can find jobs based on a listing’s location, skills required, and industry. The stated purpose of the SJP app is to “tap into the growing trend of talent acquisition through social media.” The potential value of this app can be seen in recent statistics published in a NACE survey that looked at, in part, the relationship between Facebook and job seeking/recruitment.

According to the survey, 50-percent of employers use Facebook in some fashion during the hiring process, with over half of those employers believing that Facebook is becoming an integral part of the process. In addition, a whopping 90-percent of businesses stated that Facebook reduced their need for recruitment-based print advertisements. Finally, 87-percent of recruiters stated that individuals using Facebook for the purposes of getting a job should like the potential employer’s Facebook page, and should engage in social networking.

[via Facebook]

Facebook launches Social Jobs application is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you’ve spent any decent amount of time on Facebook, you’ve no doubt noticed the inefficient means by which people are forced to carry on conversations in the comments section. Namely, if there are more than a handful of comments, users are forced to respond by tagging the user’s name, or using the clunky “@Name” for those not on their friends list. Now Facebook is testing nested comments that will solve this issue, but it’s only available for some users.

Users have requested nested comments – or threaded comments, depending on your vernacular – for a long time. A quick browse through the social network shows many pages titled something like “Facebook needs threaded comments”, with hoards of users lamenting the lack of said feature. Now, however, users in several countries, including Thailand, have access to a “reply” button on individual comments.

By clicking the reply button, users can post a reply to an individual comment, even if its way up in a very long comment thread. The user to whom you replied will then receive a notification that a response was provided to their individual comment, to which they can issue another response, for a total of two nested comment layers – two layers of comments off the main comment thread.

A Facebook spokesperson offered this statement to Venture Beat. “We are testing a new way to add comments to a post on Facebook. With this test you will be able to reply to another comment as well as the original post. This is just a small test at this stage.” Presumably, the feature will be rolled out to other countries in the relatively near future, but there’s no word on when that might happen.

[via Venture Beat]

Facebook testing nested comments, makes conversations easier is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.