My Facebook Account Was Hacked

Someone broke into my Facebook account and posted messages on all of my friend's profiles about an amazing new site for free ringtones. Yay.

Why the Facebook system let my account post 100 wall postings within about 30 seconds is beyond me. I got a system message from Facebook saying that they reset my password.... about 4 hours after several of my friends told me about the problem and I had already reset the password on my own.

Oh well.

In spite, I am now @Zuckerberg on Twitter.

I'm Glad Scoble's Not My Friend

You've probably heard the buzz all over the web - poor techie-hero Robert Scoble was booted from Facebook for using a Plaxo script to scrape his friends information from Facebook and import it into Plaxo Pulse. A clear violation of Facebook's TOS, Robert's cry is that all data should be open and free.

Well, I disagree. I'm not friends with Scoble on Facebook, but if I were I'd be pissed if he took my information, without my permission, and gave it to another company (in this case, Plaxo, the spam kings). I hope and trust that none of my Facebook friends use this tool. Where I put my e-mail, name and birthday should be entirely up to me.

What's the solution here? Plaxo should create a Facebook application that asks you for this information. Yes, asks your permission. If I wanted to use it, I could then send an invitation to my friends to participate and they would have a choice.

Thank You Facebook!

Facebook has faced a lot of bad press recently over their Beacon project, but now that an apology has been issued on that, and opt-out features added, things are starting to turn around. Namely, when you receive a message on Facebook you'll now get the content of that message in the e-mail alert.

This is great, great news that will make a lot of heavy Facebook users very happy. It's so annoying to receive an e-mail alert about a new message without any actual information about the message.

Everyone knows this has been a hotly debated and requested feature, so were they saving it for a time when they needed some love from the community? Probably not, but I'm still a happy camper.

Via TechCrunch

Hooked on Twitter

I held out for a while, but I've finally started using Twitter. I'm hooked. I update on my iPhone via Thincloud and my Twitters are linked to my Facebook status. It drives my friends crazy that everywhere I go, the Twitter universe knows all about it. I love it. I'm a dork like that, so Follow Me.

Don't Worry LinkedIn, We'll Stick Around

Mashable posted today about Hobnob, a Facebook application that allows you to request a business connection from your group of friends or through a public feed. The request is fairly open ended, "I'd like to Hobnob with... [insert name or company here]."

I added the application to my Facebook, but quickly plan to remove it. He's a sampling of some of the requests I saw:

• So and So wants to Hobnob with... "Sex"
• So and So wants to Hobnob with... "President Bush"
• So and So wants to Hobnob with... "Sports"
• So and So wants to Hobnob with... "jessie"
• So and So wants to Hobnob with... "People disappointed with Smash Mouth"

Naw, I think I'll stick to LinkedIn. Thanks.

Andrew Baisley Opening Up For Development

Facebook did it. Myspace and Apple (iPhone) are doing it. So, why shouldn't I do it? It's all the rage these days. And hey, it's better than being a hipster or a scene kid.

Andrew Baisley, the person, not the blog, is now open for development.

While I won't let any of you go near my application programming interface (API), I will start to consider how to go about publishing my personal software development kit (SDK). What port do you think Yahoo! Pipes would fit into? Oh, never mind.

E-mailing Photos to Facebook Working Again

Seems that Facebook has re-enabled the ability to upload photos via e-mail. They recently turned off the feature, saying that the photo must be sent via MMS, but that shut out us iPhone users. Thanks Facebook. You the bomb.

Uploading Mobile Photos from the iPhone to Facebook

The iPhone doesn't support MMS messaging. I suppose the though is, why should it if you have full access to e-mail? So, there were issues in not being able to upload mobile images to Facebook, which is done via MMS.

Along came pxPipe from alwaysBETA to fix the problem. Which, I'm told, worked great. Until Facebook added e-mail support, allowing iPhone users to simply e-mail the photos to photos[at]facebook[dot]com and pxPipe, no longer needed, shut down.

That was great and I used the Facebook e-mail address method all the time. Now, when I try to e-mail photos to Facebook I get the message:

Sorry, we cannot support uploads sent via email. You sent from GMail. If you are sending from a phone, it must be configured to send directly.

Facebook doesn't seem to have any mention of this in their Mobile Help section. There's really no info about this on the Interwebs. So, what's up? Facebook needs to fix this; pxPipe needs to open back up; something must be done! Oh! The angst!

Fortune Agrees With Me

I've said before that I don't think MySpace is going anywhere partly because it's so very different from Facebook. MySpace = content, Facebook = software. Fortune agrees.

Comparing MySpace and Facebook is inevitable because of their dominance in the business, but their differences are profound.

Facebook is intended to be used only to connect you to the people you already know offline; it's a "utility," to use the preferred label of its founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Its user interface is clean and tidy, and the whole vibe is efficiency and getting things done.

MySpace, on the other hand, is a mishmash of modern media - rich with music and video and comedy. It's like a rock & roll club - chaotic, loud, and packed. Many user profiles are florid and flamboyant, with flashing text and music that starts playing as soon as you arrive.

"We're focused on helping people express themselves and do the connection and discovery game," says Steve Pearman, one of Anderson's top deputies in designing the service. "If you want pink blinking text on a black background, who am I to say it's wrong?"

At MySpace you can befriend not only anybody but anything. A dog can have a profile, and so can AT&T. This looseness has powerful effects, very different from anything on Facebook. MySpace became the de facto home page for the music industry because its members could befriend bands. Any brand, political candidate, nonprofit, even government, can create a profile and start adding friends.

Music Downtown

Anyone going to Music Downtown?

I'd like to go tonight and see Illinois, but I can't find anyone willing to go last minute. It's sad... all of my friends are getting old. They work too hard. Either way, I'm going tomorrow. So hit me up if you want to come.

According to Facebook, this is the top music in New York:


Come out and let's change that.

Interpol Tonight

I'll be seeing Interpol tonight at the garden, right up front in the pit. If we're Facebook friends, keep an eye out - I plan on posting live mobile pictures during the show. Well, assuming that I have signal and that it won't be too dark for the iPhone's crappy camera.

We'll see.