Facebook! Stop! MY EYES! MY BRAIN! IT HURTS!

If you've logged onto Facebook in the last 24 hours, you'll likely know what I'm getting at. A new-look Facebook has just been launched and it's...well...a bit busy. Prior to tonight's f8 Facebook conference, Zuckerberg and co have rolled out a slew of new features, including a real-time "ticker" of all your friends' and pages' updates, and a "Top Stories" section that brings what the network assumes are your most pressing interests to the fore.

Oh, and there are bigger pictures in your news feed now too. But no one ever complains about anything being prettified, do they?

The "Ticker" and "Top Stories" are sparking a wave of protest across the net, with backlash being focussed in the comments section of the update post on the Facebook blog.

The main issue seems to be the "Twitterfication" of Facebook. It's almost information overload, with the constantly ticking list of new stories in the top chugging away at an incessant rate.

It reminds me of a book I've been reading recently called "The Shallows" by Nicholas Carr. In it he describes how the web is causing actual physical changes in the make up of our brains, affecting our attention spans and the way we store memories. Facebook's new-look would surely get a tear down by Carr; there are now so many distractions and pieces of information vying for our attention in one single page that there is only time for surface connections to the content being offered up to us, before a few seconds later a new item is luring us away once more.

My other personal issue with the new-look Facebook is the "Top Stories" section. I appreciate the idea; it takes the "information overload" I mentioned earlier and tries to curate it. The problem is, it reminds me once more of how much information Facebook are keeping on me and my interests, and the way they turn my personal whims into 1s and 0s of code, second guessing my own personal tastes in an attempt to cage me inside their network.

No dice, Facebook, I'm a human, I'm fluid and my tastes are constantly evolving, at a rate your processes currently can't keep up with. Sure, you may assume based on my clicking habits that I'm only interested in Star Wars, tech and Xbox. But I've got a sudden urge to read up on some new corn farming techniques, and your new system of curation doesn't cater for that.

So ner.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to give up on Facebook. Far from it, it's still the most important digital meeting spot on the web, and the best forum through which to share my thoughts and funny finds amongst my pals. There have been changes in the past that I didn't like, and I'm sure now I've grown not only to accept them, but probably to like them too.

In terms of the web, familiarity breeds contentment, not contempt. Give it a few weeks and all will be forgiven, I'm sure.

Or at least it always turned out to be when there was no alternative. The tidy Google+ network, which until now hasn't really grabbed my attention, suddenly looks quite a bit more appealing. Why? Because it now looks closer to the old Facebook than the new Facebook does. Which is a very strange, and potentially troublesome position for Zuckerbeg's empire to find themselves in.

Facebook and music streaming service Spotify are expected to announce a partnership through the social network at this week's f8 conference, following the news that Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek is to be a key speaker at the event.

Ek will be part of "The future of digital music" panel at the event where the Facebook team usually reveal coming innovations and features for the world's largest social network.

This year's f8 is set to focus on content and entertainment, with Zuckerberg's empire speaking about how movies, music, magazines, newspapers and TV shows will be brought to the network in the future.

Facebook integration would round off a strong year for Spotify, who've seen a steady rise in Premium subscription sales and the long-awaited launch of the service in the USA. Ek's presence highly suggests that Spotify will become one of the lead music content partnerts for Facebook.

Facebook Music with Spotify seems almost a certainty.

Via: TechCrunch

Here's a pretty mad statistic; according to photo sharing site 1000memories.com, Facebook now host 4% of all the photographs ever taken. EVER.

That equates to an estimated 140 billion photos of the 3.5 trillion thought to have been taken since Joseph Nicéphore Niépce first introduced the image capturing device in 1826. Incredibly, 70 billion of those photos were uploaded this year alone, showing just how quickly the rise of smartphones and ever-more-affordable digital cameras are increasing our photo-sharing habits.

As shown by the infographic above, Facebook's online photo collection, though not entirely public, completely overshadows the likes of Instagram and Flickr, and is a massive 10,000 times larger than the Library of Congress collection.

With 750 million+ active Facebook users, many of those uploading hundreds of photos on a regular basis, the collection is set to grow exponentially in the coming years.

Facebook users will soon be able to update their Twitter feeds directly from their Facebook profile pages.

The cross-posting feature was revealed in Facebook's September 2011 update of its Subscribe for Public Figures document. Underneath the heading "Can I update my Twitter followers from Facebook?" was this response:

Link your profile or Page to your Twitter account. Once you link your accounts, your Twitter account will be updated every time you post a public update to Facebook. Note: Only posts whose privacy you set to Public using your inline controls are eligible for this.

An important move then, and one that shows a sign of mutual respect between the two social networks. Twitter, in the grand scheme of things, isn't a threat to the core audience of Facebook, who don't necessarily need #hashtags and real time trends to get on with their lives online. However, the move shows that Zuckerberg's gang except that there's a substantial amount of their users that now need a Twit tipple just as desperately as they do their Facebook fix.

It's surely to be as beneficial to the users as it is both networks, especially Facebook who will no longer see so many users jumping over the online fence into the Twitter garden, further making everything social available under one roof from the House of Zuckerberg.

It'll be interesting to see if Google make a similar move with Plus in the near future.

That late night trek down to the fridge for a midnight feast just got a web 2.0 update. Introducing the social networking inspired Fridgebook magnets from gadget gurus Thumbs Up.

Billed as an "analogue" alternative to a well known scocial network, it features dry-wipe status updates and a zero% chance of account hacking.

According to the chuckle-filled press release, the Fridgebook magnets' features include:

- Easy to use wipe-clean white board pen

- Compatible with most fridges

Yours to buy from mid-September for £19.99, click here for stockist information.

This year's FA Cup footie tournament is to kick off with a live Facebook stream of the preliminary round face-off beween Ascot United and Wembley F.C this Friday.

A first for both Facebook and the FA, the live stream has been put together in association with sponsors Budweiser, who have built a Facebook app page to host the stream.

"As a long-standing supporter of football globally, Budweiser is committed to bringing the world's most prestigious knockout competition closer to the fans," said Iain Newell, Marketing Director, Budweiser UK.

"What better way to demonstrate this than by broadcasting the very first kick to a global audience via Facebook. This is the first time a FA Cup tournament fixture has been broadcast live on the social network, which is great news for football fans and clubs alike."

The match kicks off at 7.45pm on Friday 19th August at Ascot United's Racecourse Ground. Live coverage from Facebook can be caught from 7.30pm the same day over at the Budweiser UK Facebook page (www.facebook.com/BudweiserUK).

Note however that as the page will also feature advertising of Budweiser beers, it will only be accessible to Facebook users of legal drinking age.

Google are testing the casual gaming waters with their Google+ network today, and Facebook don't like it. In response to the announcement of Google Games, Facebook have revealed an overhaul to their games platform to make it ever-more enticing.

Facebook will now allow games developers to use much more of a browser window to display their games with, and, in some cases, the full screen. Full screen titles will include CityVille, Zoo World, Monster World, and Mystery Manor.

A side chat panel will also be introduced, which will relay game information from your pals in a news-ticker feed style. You know, the riveting stuff like your pal's new barn being raised in Farmville.

You'll also be able to bookmark your favourite apps or games, making them quickly accessible from your News Feed.

Via: blog.Facebook.com

iPhone owners may be holding thier breath for the launch of iOS 5 and with it the iMessage instant messaging service, but Facebook have pipped them to the post with their own IM service, Facebook Messenger.

An Android and iOS app, it works similarly to BlackBerry's BBM service, a Wi-Fi or 3G messaging service that lets you chat on the go to your Facebook pals, as well as offering location info, archived messages and the ability to group message not ony Facebook pals but mobile contacts too.

"When you're on the go, coordinating a bunch of people can be tricky, especially if plans change at the last minute," said Lucy Zhang, Beluga co-founder and Facebook engineer.

"With Messenger, you can quickly start a group conversation and message everyone at once. If you choose to add your location, the people you're messaging with can easily find each other on the map. You can also attach photos, so everyone else can see and comment on what you're looking at."

Launching today, its rumoured to contain code supporting video chat in the future, so keep an eye on the relevant app download stores to get Facebook Messenger on your device later today.

While you wait, click below for some images of the iOS version.

Anonymous, the hacking collective behind the recent attack on the Syrian Ministry of Defence website and thought to have played a hand in the major PlayStation 3 PSN outage earlier this year, are planning a major attack on Facebook for Novemeber 5th 2011.

The "medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed" claim the group, spreading thier plans via a YouTube video:

Part of the anti-sec movement that aim for complete transparency of personal digital information, they claim that "Facebook 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. Some of these so-called whitehat infosec firms are working for authoritarian governments, such as those of Egypt and Syria."

The date is chosen to coincide with Guy Fawkes Night (or Fireworks Night as it is otherwise known), named after the infamous member of the "Gunpowder Plot" who in 1605 planned to Houses of Parliament and assassinate King James. In the cult graphic novel/movie "V for Vendetta", the anonymous activist V wears a Guy Fawkes mask, which has since become a symbol of both the Anonymous hacking collective and anonymous protest and activism worldwide.

All the Guy Fawkes references don't bode well for Anonymous however; Fawkes met a sticky end at the hands of torturers and was executed after the Gunpowder Plot failed.

Scroll down for the full transcription of the threat.

Operation Facebook

We are anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Expect us

We've already seen two great examples this morning of how social media can be used as a force for good in the wake of the London riots (check here and here), but this one will perhaps re-affirm your faith in the UK public more than any other.

Volunteers, fuelled by the creation of the #riotcleanup Twitter hashtag set up by "artist, writer, photographer and explorer"Dan Thompson, are taking to the streets to help with the clean-up following the destructive events of the past three nights of looting and violence.

Thompson, despite being based in Sussex, has been using the network to organise clear-up teams in the areas hit hardest by the riots. He's even been taking requests from small business owners who need help after attacks, and has been directing help their way.

Describing the response as "phenomenal", Thompson stated that "teams of volunteers have been out since the early hours" and that his teams were "already getting responses back saying that areas are clear."

Celebrities too have been using their position of influence to help in the efforts. Musician Kate Nash was among the first to offer her support for the #riotcleanup, while Sam Duckworth of Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly and actor Simon Pegg have also spread the word.

Dedicated websites and Twitter accounts for the clean up, such as Riot Clean Up, @riotcleanup and the Post riot-clean up Facebook page, have now been created to help organise the movement.

Sanford Wallace, the self proclaimed "King of Spam" is facing as much as forty years worth of jail time following his continued Facebook and email phishing scams.

Hitting over half a million Facebook users between 2008 and 2009, leading to 27 million spam messages, Wallace has now been indicted by a California court on three counts of intentional damage to a protected computer and two counts of criminal contempt.

Three seperate attacks were all it took to gain access to the half-million Facebook accounts Wallace used to send his phising messages around.

If Wallace is found guilty of all charges he also faces as much as $2 million worth of fines in addition to his incarceration. The charges are all the more severe considering Wallace has been found in violation of a court order banning him from Facebook in 2009. Wallace had been accessing the social network under the pseudoymn David Sinful-Saturdays Fredericks.

Wallace was also the brains behind the notorious CyberPromotions junk email ring that sent 30 million-odd emails in the late 1990's.

Facebook's apparent aim to have every single person on the planet a member of their social networking gang takes another excessive step forward today with the nes that you can now pop your unborn children onto the site too.

A new Facebook Family Member status option will allow you to include an "Expected: Child" listing, as well as the baby's name, due date and an ultrasound snap.

The little 'un is then added alongside your family members on your profile, while a notification will be sent to pals letting them offer you congratulations.

It's certainly going to be a touchy subject. Some campaigners have already stated that we should minimise children's web-footprint until they are ready to choose to create and manage on themselves, something an unborn child obviously has no control over. Also, what if the pregnancy were not to go as planned? That could lead to some awkward and potentially painful probing on the site.

Personally, I'm worried about drunkenly leaving my account logged in around my mischevious pals, only to later find I've been Face-hacked into expecting octuplets.

Via: Mashable

Facebook have banned Nirvana's album artwork for their seminal "Nevermind" album from the social networking site.

According to the site, the picture was removed as it was found in violation of Facebook's terms of use.

In particular, the album cover violated the rule that states: "Facebook does not allow photos that attack an individual or group, or that contain nudity, drug use, violence or other violations of the Terms of Use."

The album artwork was posted on the official Nirvana page as part of preparations for a new 20th Anniversary Deluxe reissue of the classic grunge record.

Hmm...not sure censoring one of the most iconic pieces of album artwork ever produced is going to do much for Facebook's street-cred. Whatever their concerns surrounding nude children, this seems more than a little rash. Has not the "Nevermind" baby's nude pose now fallen into the same artistic space as "David" by Michelangelo in the collective cultural mindset of the masses?

Kurt Cobain would be rolling in his grave.

UPADTE: Facebook have seen sense, and the album cover is now...ahem... in bloom on the Nirvana Facebook page.

It's been a truly sad weekend for news. From the tragic extremist attacks in Norway of Anders Behring Breivik that have left nearly 100 people dead to the sudden, untimely death of jazz superstar Amy Winehouse, many tears have been shed around the world.

As with every major world event however, this weekend's tragedies have not passed without mercenary tactics from opportunistic criminals online. There has reportedly been a massive jump in social networking malware and scam attacks, as the likes of Facebook and Twitter are flooded with fake news sources related to the sad stories.

"The tragic events that occurred at the end of last week with the Norway attacks and the sudden death of the British singer Amy Winehouse has spurred even more unwanted scam activities in cyberspace. Websense Security Labs ThreatSeeker Network has detected scams propagating in Facebook pretending to offer a 'look at footage of Amy Winehouse just moments after her death', and similar," said Elad Sharf of Websense Security Labs.

"The truth is there is no such video footage, however video's are an especially popular lure. The type of scam use here is a 'survey scam' where users are lured to complete a survey and in return promised to be shown an 'exclusive' video or footage. Completion of the surveys merely puts data (and therefore money) in the scammer's pockets and obviously as there is no such footage, users that completed the survey aren't shown the promised video.

"Please be cautious when clicking on breaking news stories. Social networks and search engines are all heavily abused by malware authors. If you want to read more about a story it could be safer to go directly to a trusted news page".

Patrick Runald, Websense Security Labs senios manager added:

"Criminals know how to take advantage of disasters and the hottest news items to get people to click on infected links. Tragedy is just one type of news that the bad guys use to exploit, compromise and infect your computer. Videos are an especially popular lure, we saw the same thing when Osama bin Laden died and during the time Casey Anthony was acquitted.

"During times of crisis or breaking news, your best bet is to stick with the largest news organizations you trust. Avoid the potentially dangerous halls of search engines and social media sites, which are more susceptible to compromise and manipulation".

We've known for some time that an offical Facebook iPad app is in the works, but who'd have guessed that it's been sitting hidden under our very noses in the iPhone app all along?!

An update for the iPhone Facebook app on Sunday has been pulled apart by the TechCrunch team to reveal an early version of the iPad app.

Working mainly from HTML5 coding, regularly used Facebook settings sit in a sidebar, giving access to functions like Events and Photos.

The Photos section is presented much like the native iPad photo gallery (albeit with commenting and sharing features added), while pop-over windows appear for many of the drop-down menus.

Facebook Chat appears in another bar when the tablet is placed horizontally, while Places is re-jigged to offer a large map showing interactions with all your local friends.

Still no official news on the apps release, or even whether it will end up looking anyhting like what we're seeing here, but we'll keep you updated on any further news.

Around 700 million people have Facebook accounts, but only a fraction of that number have smartphones. In an attempt to get even more people sharing and socialising on the move the world's biggest social network today launched Facebook for Every Phone.

Designed to get even the dumbest of phones onto Zuckerberg's money-spinner, it's available on any Java enabled handset by pointing your Java browser to m.facebook.com or d.facebook.com/install.

Fire it up, and it turns the site into a mobile-optimised version not unlike the iOS and Android apps, laying out the News Feed, Inbox, Photos and Messages icons in a gird-like interface.

Gobbling up less mobile data to access, Facebook have managed to convince a handful of carriers across the globe, including the UK's Three network, to offer free access to the site for the next 90 days.

Facebook and Skype have announced a new partnership that will see the pair join forces to bring video chat to the world's largest social network, alongside group chat.

Via a downloadable plug-in, users will be able to video call their Facebook contacts directly from the Facebook website within the browser using Skype's technology.

"Working with Skype underlines our approach with how we are building this stuff. We want to leave these types of apps to those who are best in class in creating these things. This is a big difference from other internet companies who try to do millions of things on their own," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a thinly-veiled swipe at rivals Google and their own chat and video calling services in the wake of the launch of the Google+ social network.

"Social networking is at an inflection point right now. The narrative has always been about connecting people," added Zuckerberg.

"The amount of stuff that is shared today is twice what it was a year ago. That kind of exponential growth is profound. The thing that is growing faster than people on Facebook is the amount of sharing on Facebook."

"If you look at how sharing is growing, then you can plot this out in the future. So, if this is what people are sharing now then what apps do we have to create to encompass this in the next few years."

A massive boost for Skype in particular, they now have a direct link to the 700 million+ Facebook users.

It's already been a busy couple of months for the video-calling experts. Microsoft reached an agreement with Skype barely two months ago in which they bought the service in a deal worth reportedly over $5 billion.

Facebook are upping their defenses in the social networking fight after this week's launch of the Google+ network. Not only does Zuckerberg's gang have "something awesome" to reveal tomorrow, but they're now actively working to hamstring the growth of the Google+ network by disabling a Chrome browser extension that makes it far easier to import Facebook friend info into the search giant's new network.

The extension in question is the Facebook Friend Exporter which collates all of your pals' information as stored on Facebook and converting it into a file which makes it easy to invite them to and track them down on Google+. However, Facebook are now shifting the data harvested by the extension in an effort to effectively break it.

It's a move that the extension's developer Mohamed Mansour understandably disagrees with. He's been quoted as stating that: "Get *your* data contact out of Facebook, whether they want you to or not. You gave them your friends and allowed them to store that data, and you have right to take it back out! Facebook doesn't own my friends."

It's an interesting argument; who really does own your friends? Facebook obviously doesn't physically own your friends, but it can lay claim to the data posted about them. This data is incredibly lucrative, and keeping it away from the likes of Google+ is key to the network's continued success.

Facebook does offer their own friend data exporting tool, but is formatted in such an unwieldy way as to make it all-but-useless.

Facebook are said to be planning to "launch something awesome" next week in the mobile space, which can only truly mean one thing; the first official Facebook app for Apple's iPad looks to be just over the horizon.

Though there's no official line on what's to be revealed, it's not too difficult to figure out. Facebook recently revealed that an iPad app had been in the works for over a year, and with Zuckerberg telling collected journalists that Facebook's Seattle office (where the company work on mobile developments) have something very interesting to reveal it's a pretty safe bet on it being the iPad app.

Facebook are also said to be developing a new photo-sharing application for the iPhone.

Despite their massive desktop web presence, Facebook's mobile offerings to date have been a little lacklustre, lacking much of the functionality of their browser-based sibling. With Google's recently revealed Google+ network offering a seamless mobile and desktop experience, it looks as though Zuckerberg's team now realise they have to up their game.

Via: Reuters

Just as one hacking collective calls time on its operations, another hacking upstart lands himself a job at Facebook.

George "GeoHot" Hotz, famed for his PS3 and iPhone hacks, and the subsequent court cases that followed his exploits, is reported to have foundabove-board employment at the world's largest social network.

Hotz is said to have been offered other hacking challenges and job opportunities, but has decided to keep a low profile as he "doesn't want that much attention" and is getting on at Facebook rather well.

Hotz has apparently held an undisclosed post at Facebook since May, revealing his position to pals on June 17th.

The world may have lost a (pretty poor) rapper, but Facebook seem to have bagged themselves a decent programmer.

Via: Tech Unwrapped