Daily Bits

Social Networks

Facebook Takes a New Step in Site Governance

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Recently, Facebook has published some updates to its statement of site governance. These updates aim to maintain users’ control over privacy and the things they share on Facebook. Here’s a quick look at the salient features of the proposed changes to Facebook’s Site Governance Page.

On Location – Facebook might soon introduce a new feature that will let you add a place to something you post. By place, Facebook means a page for a local restaurant instead of the actual geotag of its location. More details and other privacy controls about this feature will be rolled out in the coming days.

On Sharing and Connections – Facebook is also clarifying on how members connect with people, places and things that are important and how this information and content are shared with friends and other people. Right now, Facebook members share photos or links on their profile and can control who can access those. Facebook will change some wording to further clarify these policy.

On Applications and Third-Party Websites – Facebook will soon be proposing a new privacy policy that would offer more personalzied experience when visiting and sharing third-party websites that are featured on Facebook.

Other Policy Changes – Facebook is also explaining the series of smaller changes on different aspects of Facebook including why invitations that a non-user receives to join Facebook sometimes include the names of other people besides the person who invited them, as well as a thorough explanation of the “Everyone” setting. The new policy changes also explain how people can sync their contact lists on mobile devices and other contact management services.

Here’s the link to the proposal: Facebook Site Governance policy.

Facebook Tightens Policy on Photo Tagging, Feed Sharing

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In a possible move to contain the growing complaints of members who consistently receive unwanted photo tagging notices and news feeds that they are receiving, Facebook is updating its policies on these features.

First, the new policy on policy tagging states – “You can tag a photo only with the express consent of the user on whose behalf you are doing the tagging, and must only tag images when the tag accurately labels what is depicted in the image.”

In short, you can no longer tag your friends and other Facebook members on photo collages, avatars and other images which are being used for marketing purposes, just to get their attention and hope that they clicked on your campaign materials.

On news feed publishing, the new Facebook policy states – “You must not publish a Feed story unless a user has explicitly indicated an intention to share that content, by clicking a button or checking a box that clearly explains their content will be shared.”

This policy aims to put a stop on reports that some apps are forcing their Facebook members to extend permissions to publish news feeds on their walls. This will give other application developers a good chance at getting more followers and users the legit way – that is because they’ve gained the Facebook members’ trust.

And finally, you can no longer publish the same Feed story to more than one friend’s Wall at a time. This is to avoid spamming of Facebook members stream with feed stories that do not interest them.

Facebook will enforce punishments and suspensions of account on a case to case basis if anybody is proven guilty of violating these policies.

So there, hope these new policies help reduce the noise level in your Facebook content streams.

Digg Unloads Widget, Buttons Generator and Soon an iPhone App

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As if telling us that they are still up and running, the folks at Digg has been sending out noisemakers one after another.  Digg has just released the buttons and widget generators while a native iPhone app is in the pipeline.

The New Digg iPhone Application

The new Digg native iPhone app is not yet announced but Mashable was able to obtain some insider info as well as screenshots to prove that the Digg iPhone app is indeed in the works.  The app would support browsing of popular, upcoming and recent stories across all topics in Digg.com. It will also let you Digg and bury stories right within the app. Plus an option to navigate through comments and related stories. The Digg iPhone app is slated for release anytime now in the Apps Store.

Digg Buttons and Widget Generators

The new Digg buttons and widget generators on the other are now both available. What these online tools allow you to do is to create and customize Digg buttons that you can incorporate to your blogs/sites seamlessly.  Digg is releasing these online tools in preparation for the launch of the redesigned Digg.

But aside from letting you create Digg buttons easily, the buttons that you will create and incorporate in your websites now boasts of  new features such as dynamic display of live Digg count, faster load time, customizable look and feel and more.

The Digg widgets also gets some other new features including more customization options, tabs and columns, thumbnails, fallback content and more.

You can try creating your Digg buttons here, or the Digg Widgets here.

Twitter Wants to be @anywhere

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Twitter just announced its latest strategy at possibly conquering the web – Twitter @anywhere.  The Twitter blog describes this simply as a new set of frameworks that will add the Twitter experience anywhere on the web.  In other words, Twitter will soon be rolling out a framework that will let you do your Twitter activities where ever you maybe on the web – minus the need to visit Twitter.com.

Twitter @Anywhere aims to bring all the features of Twitter that we have all grown to love and some even hate – read tweets from friends, celebrities, companies, media outlets, fictional characters and more, follow any account and be followed by any account and interact with the whole Twitter community. Again without leaving what you are currently doing on the web.

And how does Twitter plans to implement this? Not through APIs. It’s too complicated for simple folks like us but rather a more simpler method – through Javascript.

The Twitter blog also stated that once Twitter @Anywhere is ready for launch, there will be more participating sites including Amazon, Adage, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, Meebo, NYT, Yahoo and YouTube. Yup, those are the sites that have become part of our daily online fare.

Soon, you’d be able to follow your favorite NYT journalist directly from her byline or tweet a video right from where you are in YouTube. Or if you’re a Yahoo fan, you can discover new people to follow on Twitter while getting your daily news fix from Yahoo.

Sounds promising? Actually it is. If only Twitter gave some examples on how this is going to implemented. But then, patience is a virtue dear readers.  We can count on the Twitter folks to roll this out the soonest time possible.

Big Changes Are About to Happen with Digg

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Do you still use Digg for bookmarking and sharing these bookmarks? Do you still maintain a Digg page? If you do, well expect to see some big changes in Digg in the coming weeks. These changes were announced by Digg CEO Jay Adelson during the Digg’s annual SXSW party.  Some of the changes that you should expect include – streamlined submission process, new personalized homepage, unlimited amount of topic pages, new commenting system and better curation tools.

Read Write Web got the full details of these changes. You may check out their coverage or read the summary below.

Personalized homepage – The new Digg personalized homepage will be populated by popular stories among your friends in relation to the topic that interest you.  This will become your default Digg homepage and not the generic Digg main page anymore. So, once this new feature kicks in, it is imperative that you sign in with Digg.

De-emphasizing the Power of Submitters – The new Digg will now put more premium on who votes for stories rather than who submit them. It will also put more emphasis on third-party services like Twitter and Facebook by allowing auto-submission of stories from these services.

More Twitter and Third-Party Integration – The Digg folks finally realized that to stay relevant in this “social integrated” market, they have to establish a relationship with other sites. So, more integration with Twitter as well as other social sites will be established in the coming weeks.

A Whole New Platform – Digg has stripped down its old infrastructure and completely rebuild a new platform. Possible directions will be more advertising and monetization option for Digg traffic, and the old Digg effect will no longer apply.

All these changes will be rolled out in the coming weeks. Digg is also testing beta testers and you can sign up here.

Foursquare Ties Up with Starbucks, Free Barista Badges for Every Check-in

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Foursquare continues its quest for media hype dominance with yet another interesting feature. It just launched a new promotional gig that ties it up with Starbucks. So, on Thursday, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet and check-in to your Foursquare account, you will be rewarded with a barista badge.

The Starbucks barista badge can be earned if you’ve checked-in to five Startbucks outlet. Although, there’s no physical reward yet is given if you earn the barista badge, I’m pretty sure Starbucks and Foursquare will come with something to give out some form of physical rewards in the future. A free tall Cappuccino perhaps for every barista badge earned? This may sound appealing for frequent Startbucks customers, but Starbucks’ Chris Bruzzo, vice president for brand, content and online said that the company is eyeing different rewards set, not just free Starbucks drinks.

This is a rather unique gig and both companies stand a chance of getting positive gains from this deal. Starbucks can use Foursquare to gather feedbacks from clients and perhaps gain new clients as well since Foursquare members can easily share their feedback to their network of friends on Foursquare.

For Foursquare, it already gained from the deal since Starbucks is planning to use the Foursquare business analytics tools that it recently launched.

So, the next time you visit a Starbucks outlet, don’t forget to check it in to your Foursquare account. You might be the first person to earn that “prestigious” barista badge.