I convinced myself maybe a year or so ago that Facebook was getting old (it really is… even my grandma is on Facebook). So… naturally, my use of the website has dwindled quite significantly. Every now and then, though, when I do log in, I see something that catches my attention. Today, I found out that a friend of mine who happens to live in Ottawa, whom I haven’t seen for a couple of months, just got married. Wow. That’s pretty big news and without Facebook I would’ve still probably found out… but, a lot later.

The problem is that I really don’t feel like logging into facebook everyday. Too much work. I would really love it if Facebook just gave me a feed of my facebook news so that I could just view it from my feed reader (Google Reader). This would make life a lot easier. I read my news everyday and I consider this social news to be just another source of news. I already am subscibed to a feed of my own profile through Google Reader (i.e. if someone posts a message on my wall or perhaps replies to something I posted, I’ll see it in my feed reader)… but, I can’t see my friends’ news feed through my feed reader.

You know, the funny thing is that Facebook knows that this will have to happen eventually… yet, they take their sweet time to do it. If it’s going to happen, just make it happen now. Really. I realize that they want us to visit their site so they can make advertising revenue… but, really, just put ads in your feeds… accomplishes the same thing… here’s to hoping.

Aydin.

Facebook just announced that it will be adding an inbox search. This is similar to what all other email systems currently have (i.e. gmail, hotmail, yahoo)… I know I’ve really been wanting this for a long time and so I’m glad they’re adding it. So now you can search your Facebook inbox for that message your friend sent you a while back wihout having to go from page to page and clicking from message to message…

Now, Facebook, buddy ol’ pal… please, please, let me reply to facebook messages directly from my gmail account… I really hate how I have to click on a link to be redirected to facebook before I can reply back… If you do this, I’ll like you more than I already do… a lot more for that matter

Aydin.

Twitter is simply amazing… Rather than explain to you myself what it is exactly, I’ll embed this video that will tell you exactly what twitter is in plain english:

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o]

I’m a big Facebook fan but in the last little while I have been wondering about what Facebook will look like in the future… Just thinking about the advantages of having Facebook (especially with all the new privacy features) for government agencies seems like a godsend. I mean, if you think about it, people “without any coercion” are documenting their every move online… If anyone wanted to track you, wouldn’t the best place be Facebook /Twitter ?

Ok, so, how unreasonable is it to assume that some of the following are possible in the future?

-no passport: why would you use a passport when you can add a “Passport Facebook Application” that will do the same thing? All you’d have to do when you get to the airport is show them your “virtual passport” on your Phone/PDA or perhaps give a secret access code to anyone who wants to check it out (possibly via bluetooth)?

-Facebook pages mandatory: Already, if you don’t want to fall behind in life, you need a facebook profile…. is it unreasonable to assume that one day everyone will be required to have a facebook page? Remember, as we go forward, privacy features will only get better (or so we hope)… so, its not all that unreasonable…

-verify with birth certificate: what if you had to verify your facebook page with your original birth certificate in order to prove your identity? Could your facebook page also act as your birth certificate? what if you were given login access credentials in the hospital when you were born?

-driver’s license: why show your driver’s license when you are standing in line for a 19+ bar/club when you can show your facebook page? yeah, yeah, you can show it when you get pulled over by a cop too…

big brother: Is it also unreasonable to assume that government agencies will be freely able to browse through all of this material online? I for one think that one is not so unreasonable at all…

Anywho… a lot of this stuff sounds ridiculous, I know. But, the world changes fast… I remember when I was first telling people about Facebook in Ottawa, Canada they would say: “why would I join? so people could stalk me?” and now look at where we are… people’s ideas and beliefs are changing.

Aydin.

Posted By: Aydin Mirzaee

In one word, wow!

I’d love to see Facebook implement something like this for viewing its photo albums:

http://www.paulvanroekel.nl/picasa/highslidedemo/

Aydin.

That’s right… according to a TechCrunch Story, Facebook is adding its own instant messaging…

Is this brilliant? Yes. It will be a threat to all the other IM services out there.

What’s my concern?

Please let there be privacy options

Aydin.

$30/month Calling Plan:
150 daytime minutes + unlimited incoming calls + unlimited nights& weekends.
150 minutes is really all I need since I use http://www.bOKnow.com to get as many extra minutes I want to anywhere in North America for about 3 cent/minute. bOKnow also covers my calling needs to Europe with their international rates.

Unlimited Data Plan – $45
Unlimited Web Surfing (which also means unlimited Facebook ) + Unlimited Text Messaging + VoiceMail + CallerID + Unlimited Email

What’s the Catch?
Well, apparently, when they say “unlimited web surfing”, that doesn’t include “over-the-air downloads”… in other words, if you want to download the facebook/gmail application onto your blackberry, you’ll be charged… or at least that’s what the customer rep told me on the phone… if I’m wrong about this one, let me know After I hung up the phone with the customer rep, I also started wondering if this “unlimited email” actually included downloading attachments… not sure about this… if anyone does know, please leave a comment…

Does Unlimited Data mean the iPhone is coming?
According to Alec, Ottawa’s celebrity blogger, no

Here is the Table from Telus: (click on image to see it in full)

Aydin.

Posted By: Aydin Mirzaee

So, the other day, my dad sends me a text message saying that he got an iPhone… wtf?

a) text message?

b) iPhone?

Alright, so, what’s wrong with this picture? I don’t even have an iPhone -not available in Canada &  Telus [CDMA] has me locked in for 3 years- and now my dad [living in New York] does Not only that, I didn’t even know my dad knew what a text message was!

At the end of the day, wow! The iPhone has really led a revolution… everyone’s buying them (not only techies)… but, it is also leading people to try new things… I just learned that my dad now accesses facebook through his phone… hmmm…

Aydin.

My birthday (Feb 2nd – Groundhogs day!) just passed… what was special about this birthday was Facebook…

I got something around 30 Happy Birthday wishes from (yes, yes, I know that’s not even a significant number on Facebook these days…) a list of ~480 friends (in other words, 6.25% of my listed Facebook friends)… interesting ratio… only 6.25%. hmm…

but, still… 30 is usually a lot more than I get every year so that was pretty cool to see…

The other interesting thing to point out is that with about 480 friends, it is someone’s birthday almost every day… some days of course have more than a couple of birthdays… Thanks to facebook this can all be tracked… I know for a fact that other than a few very close people, I didn’t know anyone else’s birthday until Facebook dawned… welcome to the age of information?

Aydin.

Posted By: Aydin Mirzaee

Remember the race to register all the domain names in the world? Remember how registering www.your_name.com was a big deal (still is) and lots of people did so in order to prevent so-called “identity theft”? Well, here is a very sneaky marketing tactic that Facebook could use to help accelerate its growth…

Facebook could basically start injecting into the media a multitude of stories that show how a lot of people are getting their identities stolen on Facebook… This is not necessarily false… remember the Moroccan man who got arrested for creating a fake Facebook profile (see story from TechCrunch here)? Ok, so if there was this fear in people that “if” they did not go ahead and register their facebook profiles themselves, then other people might… this might trigger more of the people who say things like “oh… I’m not really a social networking person…” to reconsider…

Yes, this is sneaky… but, who’s to say Facebook is not already doing this? could the story of the Moroccan Man just be a plotted attempt to do exactly this?

Aydin.

Posted By: Aydin Mirzaee