Technomaly » social networking

Add Social Media to Gmail with Rapportive

J. Matthew Zoss — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:06:17 +0000

I can’t say that I really notice the Google ads when I’ve got my Gmail inbox open, but if there was another option I’d certainly get rid of them. But wait! Now there’s a better way! Firefox and Chrome plugin Rapportive replaces those ads with the social media contacts of the person you’re emailing, so rather than looking at a bunch of text links for bondage and domination services or sausage factories, you get a nice picture of your friend and some links to their online presence. You obviously need a Gmail account to make this work, but Rapportive doesn’t record your password or other info, so you can set those privacy concerns aside.

I get a lot of business emails in my Gmail account, which often comes from email addresses tied to no social networking accounts, so in those cases Rapportive tends to come up empty. But even a blank space is nicer to look at than a bunch of ugly text links.

Story and Image via Lifehacker

Facebook Iz In Ur Profile, Violatin Ur Privacy

Geoffrey Golden — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 09:11:27 +0000

Facebook CEO Mark Zimmerberg recently went on record as saying that people care less about privacy today. That’s why this anonymous interview with a Facebook employee, which surfaced on The Rumpus recently, is so telling.

In the interview, the employee claims that there was once a master password that allowed Facebook employees to enter anybody’s profile. Now employees can login to profiles with the touch of a button, as long as they provide good reason to the higher ups. (Of course, couldn’t an employee claim a profile has been compromised just to get access to the user’s phone number, or even creepier – the list of their favorite bands?) Also, all private messages are stored in an easy to search database, which employees can peruse. Nice!

Many in the comments section of the article are questioning the credibility of the source. Anonymous sources are hard to trust. I will say this: given the CEO’s apparently lax views on privacy, if you’re worried about whether your private info is in safe hands on Facebook, I’d delete it immediately.

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Facebook Updates Lead To Recapture Of British Prison Escapee

Nex — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:33:27 +0000

After escaping from Hollesley Bay Prison in Suffolk, England, Craig Lynch worried that perhaps his family and friends were having a hard time keeping up with his ongoing flight from the Queen’s iron-fisted justice.

“How will my mum ever know that I had to crawl through a mile and a half of sewage while Morgan Freeman waxed poetic in the background?” Lynch wondered aloud, most likely while kneeling in the mud and raging against the melodramatic soundtrack that seemingly follows him everywhere he goes.

Luckily for Lynch, Facebook came to the rescue. The 28-year-old fugitive began updating his status on the popular social networking site, leading to a number of Facebook users to take interest in Lynch. He has his own Facebook fan page, an anti fan page and (just in case the first fan page is removed by Facebook’s moderators) a backup fan page, all of which sport more than 1,000 followers.

Unwilling to look a gift horse in its poorly plznnc

WIP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/suffolk/8456182.stm

Facebook CEO Says, ‘Privacy Shmivacy’

Geoffrey Golden — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:15:53 +0000

During his talk at the Consumer Electronics Show, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discussed the theme of privacy, as it relates to his company. “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people,” Zuckerberg said. “We view it as our role in the system to constantly be innovating and be updating what our system is to reflect what the current social norms are.” I’m getting dizzy, because that logic is totally circular!

Facebook is a successful business, built on getting people to put information on its website. When more users update their profiles with phone numbers, relationship statuses and pictures of themselves vomiting, there’s more information on Facebook, and therefore Facebook becomes more valuable. I see the above quote as saying, “Facebook has become successful at coaxing private information out of people, so now the social norms of ‘privacy’ have changed. We will continue to innovate in the field of getting more people to give us their formerly private information.”

It’s kind of like a cigarette manufacturer saying the definition of “healthy” has changed, because more people have decided to smoke their cigarettes.

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