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.

Harley Finkelstein sent me a message informing me of an initiative that he was involved in. Harley is lead investor at Innoventure Capital. The following is the media release:

==

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC), based at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, has asked the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to investigate alleged violations of Canadian privacy law by the popular social networking site, Facebook.

CIPPIC’s 35-page complaint alleges 22 separate violations by Facebook, including its failure to inform Facebook members of how their personal information is disclosed to third parties for advertising and other profit-making activities and its failure to obtain permission from Facebook members to such uses and disclosures of their personal information.
A team of law students, some of whom are dedicated Facebook users, analysed the company’s policies and practices as part of a clinic course this past winter and identified specific practices that appear to violate the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (“PIPEDA”).

“Social networking online is growing phenomenon,” said Clinic Director Philippa Lawson. “It is proving to be a tremendous tool for community-building and social change, but at the same time, a minefield of privacy invasion. We chose to focus on Facebook because it is the most popular social networking site in Canada and because it appeals to young teens who may not appreciate the risks involved in exposing their personal details online.”

Facebook has more than seven million Canadian members, with more joining every day. This makes Canada the third largest user base, after the U.S.A. and the U.K. “Facebook purports to provide users with a high level of control over their data,” said Harley Finkelstein, one of the law students who lodged the complaint. “But our investigation found that this is not entirely true – for example, even if you select the strongest privacy settings, your information may be shared more widely if your Facebook Friends have lower privacy settings.
As well, if you add a third party application offered on Facebook, you have no choice but to let the application developer access all your information even if they don’t need it”.

Jordan Plener, another law student who worked on the complaint, noted that “although Facebook has taken steps to allow for more control over sharing one’s information on the site, its default settings are for sharing in most cases. Changing those settings requires a high level of aptitude and experience with the site. We believe that many Facebook Users, especially young people, don’t appreciate the extent to which their often sensitive personal information is being shared beyond their social circle.”

“We’re concerned that Facebook is deceiving its users,” said Lisa Feinberg, another law student behind the Complaint. “Facebook promotes itself as a social utility, but it’s also involved in commercial activities like targeted advertising. Facebook users need to know that when they’re signing up to Facebook, they’re signing up to share their information with advertisers.” Under PIPEDA, the Privacy Commissioner has up to a year to investigate and render her findings on the complaint.

For a copy of the complaint and more information, see www.cippic.ca under “CIPPIC News” and “Projects – Privacy – PIPEDA complaints”.

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]

Everyone knows I love http://www.MeeMix.com. It is an absolutely amazing tool. You basically enter one artist/song you like, and it will continue to play songs that you like all day long. It works in Canada (unlike Pandora), which is awesome.

Recently they’ve added a whole bunch of cool social features where you can add friends that have similar music taste as you do. This is a very cool and addictive feature… I’ve made friends with a bunch of people on the website through these community additions. MeeMix even has Facebook & Twitter integration now… I for one can’t get enough of the music on the site… if you haven’t signed up, you are missing out

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