Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Green On Facebook


Facebook  unveiled "Green on Facebook," a page dedicated to spreading environmental awareness and other "green" news, and in tandem announced its participation in the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a nonprofit coalition of large technology companies and trade groups designed to solving the problems of environmental degradation and energy consumption. It's organized by the Information Technology Industry Council.

 
Facebook is the latest digital giant to join the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a nonprofit launched in 2008 that brings together leaders in the information technology industry to work on environmental and energy consumption issues. The social network joins Intel, Verizon, Sony, Cisco, AMD, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard in the campaign, which works on sustainable best practices for large technology companies.

So why did Facebook join? "Our ongoing philosophy has been to improve the efficiency of our infrastructure and we continue to invest tremendous resources to improve our own operations," says Jonathan Heiliger, Vice President of Technical Operations at Facebook, in a statement. "By creating and sharing innovative technology solutions, we hope to help raise the visibility of the importance of environmental sustainability across all industries."

And let's not forget that Facebook needs to save face--the network came under fire this year for relying on coal power at its new Pineville, Oregon data center.

That's not to say Facebook isn't making some genuine attempts at sprucing up its environmental practices. As part of its DESC announcement, the company launched the "Green on Facebook" page, which highlights the company's "efforts to be a green and sustainable global citizen." So far, that includes Facebook's data center energy saving techniques, as well as environmental initiatives from a number of other companies. At the very least, the page might actually get large numbers of Facebook users (nearly 10,000 people have "liked" the page so far) excited about dry environmental topics--such as data center management.   Source: Fastcompany



Green Business Network: Connect, Market, and Grow

Share

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Zynga Moves FarmVille From Facebook to iPhone to iPad

FarmVille, the real-time farming simulation game, is coming to the iPad. Think watching grass grow is a bore? Think again. The blockbuster Facebook app has engrossed more than 60 million fans around the globe and has become a popular iPhone app too. The move to the iPad marks a first for developer Zynga, which will earn estimated revenues of more than $500 million this year.

What's significant isn't so much the release of FarmVille for iPad owners, but the rapid expansion of Zynga to new platforms. In a space once dominated by mammoth corporations such as Activision and EA, Zynga's massive success demonstrates that indie houses are becoming the most robust players in the app market. Only last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lauded Zynga for its efforts as an "underdog" fighting established gaming companies.

What's more, Zynga illustrates the potential of cross-platform development. The company's apps are simple--basic graphics and gameplay that takes advantage of social media--but the scalability is endless. FarmVille started as a Facebook app before heading to the iPhone and now iPad. We should expect Zynga's full roster to join it soon--Mafia Wars, anyone?--and eventually make to Android and other platforms.

In the past, games took forever to port, with users having to wait months before popular games headed to the Xbox or PS3 or PC. In the app world, however, scale is not an issue of time.

All right, now I must get back to tending my crops. On the iPad.  Courtesy of  Fastcompany

Green Business Network: Connect, Market, and Grow

Share

Thursday, July 15, 2010

10 Cool Facebook Status Tips and Tricks

As an advanced Facebook user I didn't even know about all these Cool Facebook Status Tips and Tricks, so I thought I would share them with you.

With Facebook’s ever-changing layout, and the fact that other social sites are encroaching on its real-time update strangle-hold, it’s easy to forget that there are some pretty nifty tricks you can pull using your humble Facebook status.

Mashable.com pulled together 10 great how-to tips that will help you get the most out of your status update, from official features to apps, Easter eggs, jokes and more.

Perfect for newer Facebook (Facebook) users, or anyone who is looking for a refresher, read on.............

1. HOW TO: Add a Dislike Option to Your Status Update
“Like” buttons are everywhere on Facebook, and they’re everywhere on the web. But what if you want to update your status or share something that your friends can “dislike?” We know, your friends can choose to “comment” on your post, but where’s the fun in that? The clever Status Magic Facebook app can add a dislike button to any status updates posted via the app. And if you wanted to really mix it up you can actually customize the second emotion to anything, such as “love,” “hate,” “disagree” or even “LOLs.”

2. HOW TO: Hide Status Updates From Certain People Using Facebook’s general privacy settings (find these by hitting “account” on the top right of a Facebook page) you can select whether everyone, just friends or friends of friends can see your status updates. However, there is a way to narrow those options down even further. You can select specific friend lists to see your status (relevant for work, special interest groups, etc.) or even individual people by name, which is useful for anyone organizing a surprise party. To take advantage of these options, click the padlock icon just below your “what’s on your mind” box on your wall and a drop down menu should appear. Selecting “customize” will bring up more options such as “make this visible to” and “hide from” with the option to make your selection a default.

3. HOW TO: Pre-Schedule Status Updates
While SocialOomph, Sendible and HootSuite (HootSuite) offer the same kind of service, the simplest way to schedule Facebook status updates is by using the easy, free Later Bro service. Just sign in with Facebook Connect, select your time zone, type in what it is you’d like to say, set the calendar and clock to when you’d like to say it, and presto!

4. HOW TO: Tag People in Your Status Updates
This was quite a big deal when it was announced this past September, but from the amount of searches on the topic “how can I make someone’s name go blue in a Facebook status?” it seems it’s not universally known. To mention someone in a status update just type “@” (a la Twitter (Twitter)) in the status bar and start typing their name as it appears on Facebook. An auto-generated list will then come up with people in your social circle whose name starts with the letters you’ve typed. The feature also works with pages, brands, events and companies. Hit the name you want, complete the update, click share and the name will become a hyperlink (you won’t see the @ symbol) and will appear in blue text.

5. HOW TO: Add Symbols to Your Facebook Status
Although there are plenty of emoticons that work with Facebook Chat, typing “:)” into Facebook’s status bar will not magically transform into a smiley yellow face. In fact, the only symbol you can create in a Facebook status update through the shortcut keys is a ♥, by typing “<3." While this won't bother many Facebook users, others more used to punctuating their missives can copy and paste web-happy, universal symbols into the box, as you can see in the screengrab above. PC users can also access some symbols by hitting “alt” + various number combinations (on a numerical keypad). So, while smileys are yet to hit Facebook statuses, you can annoy or amuse your buddies with symbols right now.

6. HOW TO: Turn Your Status Updates Into a Word Cloud 
There’s a really fun way to visualize anyone’s status updates (even an entire country’s) as a word cloud. The Status Analyzer 3D app will look at what it is you’ve been chatting about lately and generate a list, and then a pretty, colorful, animated cloud as pictured above. You can share the results with others on the social networking site by posting it to your friends’ walls or by adding it to your profile.

7. HOW TO: Have Fun With Facebook’s Humorous Language Options
While you can always change your setting into more sensible alternative languages, the site offers a couple of fun linguistic Easter eggs. You can chose to have Facebook display upside down English, or, for anyone feeling a little salty, in “pirate.” Pirate essentially turns your status into your “plank,” your attachments into “loot” and instead of “share” it offers the option to “blabber t’ yer mates.” Sadly, anything you type in the status bar won’t be upside down, or pirate-y. But with the use of some external sites you can achieve the same effect. TypeUpsideDown.com and UpsideDownText.com are just two examples of sites that can flip your text, while the Talk Like a Pirate Day site can help you with your pirate translations.

8. HOW TO: See Status Updates From Around the World
If you want to get a glimpse of the thoughts of Facebook users from around the world’s, head over to OpenBook. Created by three San Fran web developers with a serious privacy message in mind, the site aggregates the status updates of everyone whose privacy levels are set to “everyone.” You can narrow your searchable results down by gender and keywords to find out what people are saying about a certain topic. Or you can just browse the recent searches.

9. HOW TO: See Your Status Update Stats
Have you ever wondered how many times you have updated your status on Facebook? The Facebook app Status Statistics, can tell you this and more. The app analyzes your updates and gives you a tidy list of how many you’ve written, the average word count and how many times a day you post. In addition, it generates a graph that shows you what time of day or what days of the week you normally update. Old statuses are also searchable via the app, so you can find that witty retort you made back in November 2009 without having to scroll back through your history.

10. HOW TO: Play a Trick On Your Friends in Your Status Update

We have a funny one to end on — a way to play an amusing trick on your Facebook buddies. This clever link “http://facebook.com/profile.php?=73322363″ looks like it could be a URL for anyone’s Facebook profile, actually takes anyone logged into Facebook to their own profile page. If you try it out, be sure to remove the link preview that Facebook auto-ads. Have fun, and don’t be too mean
   Source Mashable




Professional Hosting from Just Host

Share

Friday, July 2, 2010

E-dentity Disorder, How many do you have? Watch Video

 How many times have you heard a horror story of how debaucherous Facebook photos have ended the chances of a job candidate?

Most of us have numerous online personalities, from multiple email usernames and messenger logins, to private Twitter feeds and social network profiles. It seems every online tool calls for different behavior. Speaking recently at our Most Creative People in Business event, Soraya Darabi, product lead at Drop.io and #53 on our list, called this syndrome "multiple e-dentity disorder."

"I'm very different on Twitter than on Facebook," Darabi told audiences. "I have a professional self on LinkedIn, and a personal self on Tumblr."

According to Darabi, all these professional and personal Internet services create a chasm between our true selves and our online identity. "What social media presents really is an issue of Web literacy," she explained. "We have to first understand what it means to be social online before we can accurately and authentically represent ourselves on each individual platform."

Until then, however, what makes its way to our social network profiles and Twitter feeds often offers a skewed picture of our identities--glimpses that interviewers and HR officers somehow always pick up on. Do you have multiple e-dentity disorder?     Via   FastCompany




Check out Video:



Professional Hosting from Just Host Share

Friday, June 11, 2010

Kalamazoo Student Sitting Behind Obama Was Asleep


One of the Kalamazoo Central students -- who was seated behind keynote speaker President Barack Obama during Monday night's commencement ceremony -- fell asleep.


The student, who earned such a prime seat by singing in the choir, was captured on video due to his proximity to the president. He also was a hot topic on Twitter and the subject of several recently created Facebook pages with close to 11,000 fans.  While it’s not a massive number of Facebook users, it’s impressive that so many people noticed the kid sleeping during a mid-day event and turned to Facebook to share the experience.



Share

Thursday, June 3, 2010