There’s something terrible happening behind Facebook right now, a blunder if not worst than that. Coming straight to the point, Facebook has blocked access to all bit.ly links spread across Facebook and telling the users that link has been reported “abusive” by other Facebook users.

If you try to update your status with a bit.ly link at this very moment, Facebook won’t let you do that. It says…

“This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think ...]]>

There’s something terrible happening behind Facebook right now, a blunder if not worst than that. Coming straight to the point, Facebook has blocked access to all bit.ly links spread across Facebook and telling the users that link has been reported “abusive” by other Facebook users.

If you try to update your status with a bit.ly link at this very moment, Facebook won’t let you do that. It says…

“This message contains blocked content that has previously been flagged as abusive or spammy. Let us know if you think this is an error.”

Bit.ly is the most popular URL shortener on web and there is no reason why Facebook would deliberately block all those tens of millions of existent bit.ly links on Facebook and prohibit any further bit.ly links from getting shared.

It is, of course, a huge blunder and some facebook employee is surely going to be screwed for making that mistake. We hope that Facebook will soon rectify the problem as too many folks must be reporting this problem to Facebook support every second at the moment.

We will update this post when Facebook fixes this bug !

Update: The bit.ly problem has been fixed by Facebook now.

Now that Facebook has grown to well over 350 million users, it’s an uphill task for them to implement even a small policy change to the entire network population. You never know how users will react to the new policies. Nobody can forget the Beacon controversy and now there is another BIG Policy change rolling all across Facebook these days. And this one is tough, really tough to handle(did we hear why ?) Because, it’s about your Privacy folks.

Privacy is something that’s most critical for any Facebook user, as ...]]>

Now that Facebook has grown to well over 350 million users, it’s an uphill task for them to implement even a small policy change to the entire network population. You never know how users will react to the new policies. Nobody can forget the Beacon controversy and now there is another BIG Policy change rolling all across Facebook these days. And this one is tough, really tough to handle(did we hear why ?) Because, it’s about your Privacy folks.

Privacy is something that’s most critical for any Facebook user, as nowadays, folks live their social lives more on the web than in real. And Facebook is now making changes to that.

Is it really for the benefit of the end users ? Is it really to give you more control ? Really ? Have some reality bytes now…

Facebook is making these privacy changes to actually let your content get indexed by Google, Bing, Yahoo and all other search engines around. This way, you are not only making privacy changes to those who are logged-in Facebook users but also to search engine spiders, which will index your personal content, pictures, posts and everything else that can be indexed.

Now simply try to figure out one reason why exposing your private data to search engine spiders is good for you. No, you can’t figure it out because the reason simply doesn’t exist !

So, why Facebook wants to give you more control(as what they say) then ? Because it’s good for Facebook. It’s a way for them to squeeze out more revenues from their network. Opening up to search engine spiders will drive huge amount of traffic to them, eventually converting to more money in their bank.

Now the main problem with Facebook right now is their approach with implementing Privacy changes to its user base. When you get a notification to go through the new changes they’re making to every user’s profile, you’re not really told the hard facts about search engine exposure upfront(they’re deep buried in the terms and conditions you never read).

So any common Facebook user isn’t all that concerned over the changes being made to his profile.

Will this trouble Facebook like Beacon did ? The chances are poor as the changes do not really affect front scenario but the rear one. And later on, the public reaction will not be impulsive or unified.

We have to say that Facebook is doing excellent job on its part…making more $$ for itself.

Social Networking is an inevitable part of our life today but honestly, it is nothing more than an extension of our Social life onto Web. We prefer connecting to folks who’re real life friends of ours, not strangers.

Our cause of friendship on these social networks is our pre-established real life relations. This is all what Facebook, Myspace, Orkut etc are all about.

Now, it’s time to for you to explore a new social life, purely built around you and everything that’s just about yourself,  in a different, refreshing way altogether. Meet

Social Networking is an inevitable part of our life today but honestly, it is nothing more than an extension of our Social life onto Web. We prefer connecting to folks who’re real life friends of ours, not strangers.

Our cause of friendship on these social networks is our pre-established real life relations. This is all what Facebook, Myspace, Orkut etc are all about.

Now, it’s time to for you to explore a new social life, purely built around you and everything that’s just about yourself,  in a different, refreshing way altogether. Meet Youtego.

Youtego is a Social Networking site that lets you explore and befriend other mates on the site, on the basis of overlapping interests, characteristics, academics, profession etc. This might remind you of Lunch.com, if you’ve heard about it already but the true novelty of Youtego doesn’t lie in Interest based exploration and networking but Self-visualization.

Youtego lets you self-visualize yourself with the use of images. On Youtego, instead of filling out long in-depth forms or answering questions about your interests or passions, you pick pictures from various sources(Flickr, Picasa, Google Images..) or upload it directly, that identifies you, your interests, academics, profession etc. This might not sound that interesting but do it yourself and it won’t take you long to realize how interesting it would turn out to be.

From end user’s perspective, filling out user’s profile feels like a burden at the beginning of any new account at conventional social networks but Youtego reverses the game altogether by making Profile creation, quite a fun actually.

It sparks quite an excitement to even imagine how would a social networking experience be, when everything about you and other mates on that network would purely be symbolized by staggering images.

After you sign up, you get to have six default ‘Tegosets‘(I, I Know, I Can, I Love, My Work, My Education) and you can simply start picking up pictures from available sources and associating them with respective Tegosets. It is all about how you self-visualize and depict it in the form of pictures.

The moment you populate your tegosets with appropriate pictures, you start getting suggestions for matching tegomates, who happen to share some or many traits/characteristics with you. You can then look at their profiles and send them friend request.

You can also create Tego Tours, a basic video using your choosen pictures with a background music and the good part is that you can also share these TegoTours outside Youtego as well. Here’s a TegoTour that i created within my account.

Take a note that you create a Tegotour by using your existing Tegosets only so you got to have some tegosets before you create your first Tegotour. You just need to think of anything that you want to share with Tegomates and outside world  and start creating it by adding appropriate Tegosets within the tour. Putting some ‘description text’ is recommended as it would make things more elaborative for Tegotour viewers.

Take a look at this TegoTour !

Branding terminology such as Tegos, Tegosets, Tegomates, Tegotours might not be very intuitive to new eyeballs but as one gets used to it, there shouldn’t be much problems in understanding their meaning.

Overall, it’s an all-new and innovative way of exploring and building interest oriented social relations. The overall website and UI design is pure visual treat to the end users.

The official Facebook blog, blog.facebook.com is not showing up for more than 16 hrs as of now. I was on some Wikipedia article where few references were pointing to posts on official Facebook blog. When i followed the external link to Facebook blog, i was almost dumbstruck, finding official Facebook blog with an “Invalid URL” error message.

Although i could never expect official Facebook blog, showing such an error, even in the event of the blog, being down for maintainence but just because it was ...]]>

The official Facebook blog, blog.facebook.com is not showing up for more than 16 hrs as of now. I was on some Wikipedia article where few references were pointing to posts on official Facebook blog. When i followed the external link to Facebook blog, i was almost dumbstruck, finding official Facebook blog with an “Invalid URL” error message.

Although i could never expect official Facebook blog, showing such an error, even in the event of the blog, being down for maintainence but just because it was an official blog of Facebook, i waited before speaking up about it. But now, its more than 16 hrs since i realised its dramatic non-existance on the web. I am sure there must be tens of thousands of links to hundreds of posts on official Facebook blog and suddenly, they all will appear ‘Dead links’ to the users who would click through them.

But yes, it will be very interesting to see when it comes back into existance(it surely will) and if it will answer why it went MISSING for so long.

Update: After having couple of conversations with folks at Twitter, i am realising that Facebook Blog is very much active and working fine. But i still can’t access Facebook blog at my end. Facebook is no problem to me(and no other website i guess). I reckon, its more to do with my ISP or may be the particular region(or country ‘India’) from where i am accessing Facebook Blog. The mystery remains puzzled as to why i can access Facebook and possibly every other site on web but Facebook Blog.

Update 2(June 9, 2009): Official Facebook Blog is very much accessible from here now. As the updated previously, the Facebook blog was not accessible from particular regions(i suspect it was India or may be entire Indian sub-continent). It never went down for U.S. and european countries. Anyways, guys at Facebook seems to  be have resolved the issue and Facebook Blog is back in action.

It was back in April when we wrote a post regarding [content suppressed] act by Orkut, where Orkut had started suppressing links posted by the users within their profiles and status updates, to counter growing spam activities within the social network.

About one month from that post, we wrote another post about Orkut’s Act Reversal when we could clearly make out that the links were no more being replaced with [content suppressed] within user profiles. We reckon, it was a direct effect of the User agitation due to Orkut’s link suppression policy.

And now, ...]]>

It was back in April when we wrote a post regarding [content suppressed] act by Orkut, where Orkut had started suppressing links posted by the users within their profiles and status updates, to counter growing spam activities within the social network.

About one month from that post, we wrote another post about Orkut’s Act Reversal when we could clearly make out that the links were no more being replaced with [content suppressed] within user profiles. We reckon, it was a direct effect of the User agitation due to Orkut’s link suppression policy.

And now, it seems as if Orkut has started suppressing links with keyword [content suppressed] within user profiles yet again. I can’t even imagine Facebook or Myspace taking such a step ever. Facebook is such a rage today that even a minor phishing attack on Facebook creates waves in blogosphere and even in mainstream media. But phishing attacks and spam activities have never forced Facebook to simply start suppressing links posted by the users within their profiles. 

I believe, replacing links with [content suppressed] is a poor defensive way of fighting spam and will result in more and more users, turning to Facebook as their primary social network. Actually, i can already see the drift happening.

Stay cautious, Orkut !

Facebook (or Facbook, as you may spell it), the popular social network most of us are addicted to, is juggling with a lot of troubles these days. And it’s not one but many issues that are bugging Facebook(Facbook) time and again. The latest issues with Facebook(Facbook) include ‘heavy phishing scam’, ‘countrywide site blockage’ and ‘trademark disputes’. Good news is ‘More money’ for Facebook(Facbook). Let’ take a look at all of them one by one.

Heavy Phishing Attacks on Facebook(Facbook)

Over the last one week, the Anti-spamming team ...]]>

Facebook (or Facbook, as you may spell it), the popular social network most of us are addicted to, is juggling with a lot of troubles these days. And it’s not one but many issues that are bugging Facebook(Facbook) time and again. The latest issues with Facebook(Facbook) include ‘heavy phishing scam’, ‘countrywide site blockage’ and ‘trademark disputes’. Good news is ‘More money’ for Facebook(Facbook). Let’ take a look at all of them one by one.

Heavy Phishing Attacks on Facebook(Facbook)

Over the last one week, the Anti-spamming team at Facebook(Facbook) was fighting a potential spam attack which was quite visible all across Facebook(Facbook). Plenty of shortened links(using tinyurl,bit.ly etc) were floating all around, duping thousands of folks out there. Although this particular spam attack was quite a headache for Facebook(Facbook) to handle but the situation seems to be getting in control now. 

Countrywide Facebook(Facbook) blockage

There were a lot of rumors about Facebook’s(Facbook’s) ban in Iran for hardly any reason. The rumors were somewhat true and the reason for the ban of Facebook(Facbook)  by Iranian government is to prevent an opposition leader from gathering his supporters and running promotional campaigns using Facebook(Facbook).

Now if a country’s government can ban a popular social network such as Facebook(Facbook) for stopping the opposition from promoting their campaigns on the web,’Twitter‘ might be their next target, i suppose. Anyways, the ban on Facebook(Facbook) is quite temporary and will soon be lifted.

Facebook(Facbook) Trademark Disputes

I think, this has become quite a trend now. Any garage startup that hits the Bull’s eye has to juggle with a trademark dispute when it’s just about to turn into a mainstream business. It recently happened with Android and now it was Facebook’s(Facbook’s) turn.

There was a long pending trademark dispute with Facebook(Facbook) since late 2007 with Aaron Greenspan, the dispute which used to gain some attention from time to time but was never taken that seriously by the media and Facebook(Facbook) itself. In late 2008, the dispute went rigorously legal and now the news is that Aaron Greenspan has gone for a settlement with Facebook(Facbook). And no surprises with such an end of the case. Probably, this is how most of such genuine trademark disputes end.

More Funding For Facebook(Facbook)

With bad news comes the good news  for Facebook(Facbook) as well. Facebook(Facbook) has just announced that it has accepted an investment of $200 Million from Digital Sky Technologies in exchange for a 1.96 percent equity stake, valuing Facebook(Facbook) at over $10 Billion. Now, the total investment in Facebook(Facbook) has collectively crossed $715 Million. That’s huge, isn’t it !

General Information : Facebook (Facbook)

Facebook(Facbook) is a social networking website that enables users to connect with their family and friends online and join niche networks of their interest. It also lets users to engage with various applications developed on Facebook platform.

Imp : You might have observed that this article mentions ‘Facbook’ with ‘Facebook’. If you think, we have commited a ‘Typo Blunder’ then you need a disprin. Hope, you would get it.

By now, you might have already heard a lot about Google Friend Connect(GFC) (From now on, TechPluto is also a GFC enabled site). In brief, it’s an online service by Google that empowers its implementing website, with most of the social features that any basic social networking website possesses. It requires no technical knowledge to install ‘Google Friend Connect’ and this truely makes it a Common man’s product.

With a number of widgets available for the website owner to use (such as ‘Member widget’, ‘Comment widget’ and so on), the website administrator is given ...]]>

By now, you might have already heard a lot about Google Friend Connect(GFC) (From now on, TechPluto is also a GFC enabled site). In brief, it’s an online service by Google that empowers its implementing website, with most of the social features that any basic social networking website possesses. It requires no technical knowledge to install ‘Google Friend Connect’ and this truely makes it a Common man’s product.

With a number of widgets available for the website owner to use (such as ‘Member widget’, ‘Comment widget’ and so on), the website administrator is given all the rights to moderate his or her growing community. With ‘Google Friend Connect’ enabled, any website can very well flourish its own targeted community and explore it further.

And with the latest addition from Google called ‘Comments Translation’ feature, there are no more troubles in reading comments written in other languages than English in the ‘Comment Widget’ section of your GFC enabled website or blog.

Google has used machine translation for providing ‘Comment Translation’ but it does its job well in helping users interpret the jist of the comment left in any native language.

More updates from Google include Google Friend Connect Plugins for WordPress( Guide to Install it, Install the Plugin) , Drupal( Guide to Install it, Install the Plugin), PhpBB( Guide to Install it, Install the Plugin).

But the actual benefits of being a ‘Google Friend Connect Enabled’ website aren’t clear to most of the folks till now.

Here are the 7 benefits of being a GFC enabled website, which are enough to convince site owners, to atleast try out the service. 

1. ‘Google Friend Connect’ helps building a community around your website/blog
2. ‘Google Friend Connect’ brings a ‘Social’ touch to your website or blog
3. More website members will fetch you more relevant contacts
4. If ‘Comment Widget’ is enabled by the site owner, it gives an easier way for people to leave feedback about your website, in multiple languages.
5. It gives you all the moderation capabilities within your community.
6. ‘Google Friend Connect’ is extremely easy to install and make it LIVE
7. It’s quite easy for any user to become your site’s member. With so many options(Gmail,AIM,OpenID,Yahoo) available to join any site, it takes seconds for any interested visitor to become your site’s member. 

For many site owners, the above reasons might not appear lucrative enough but for engaging your audiences and giving them a community-like experience, ‘Google Friend Connect’ is possibly the best service one can have.

Orkut(or Orcut.com, if you spell it that way), a popular social network, with major audience belonging to Brazil and India had taken some ‘trouble causing initiatives‘ to reduce spam activities within user profiles.

They had started suppressing the external links from user profiles in order to reduce spam activities but this policy caused a lot of frustration among its users as nobody was able to link their latest blog posts or anything on web that was worth sharing with their Orkut(Orcut) friends.

Call it an ...]]>

Orkut(or Orcut.com, if you spell it that way), a popular social network, with major audience belonging to Brazil and India had taken some ‘trouble causing initiatives‘ to reduce spam activities within user profiles.

They had started suppressing the external links from user profiles in order to reduce spam activities but this policy caused a lot of frustration among its users as nobody was able to link their latest blog posts or anything on web that was worth sharing with their Orkut(Orcut) friends.

Call it an ‘Intelligent approach’ by Orkut(Orcut.com) in spam control or the user’s reaction to the ‘link suppression’ act, Orkut(Orcut) seems to have reverted back to the earlier position and the link suppression isn’t happening anymore. That’s surely some good news, especially for those ardent Orkutters, that used to update their ‘Status’ with external links more frequently.

By the way, Orkut(Orcut) has also started experimenting with ‘Suggested Friends‘ feature(may not be shown to everybody), something that Facebook has been doing for quite a while now. Earlier, it was the ‘Orkut Apps’ innovation that was nothing more than a Rip-off  of ‘Facebook Apps’.

Another interesting thing to note is that one of the most popular apps on Orkut(Orcut.com) are the ‘Gambling apps’. Orkut fanatics can’t just resist themselves from getting their hands on popular Gambling apps on Orkut(Orcut).

In case you’re one of those guys then you may also want to check out Online Casino Help, an online guide to teach you those hidden tips and tricks while playing casino games and also suggests you the best online destinations for online gaming. Check it out !

It appears that Google, which owns Orkut(Orcut) isn’t really interested in doing any innovative stuff for ‘Profit struggling’  Orkut(Orcut). Hope they start doing it from now on.

Imp : In case, you’re perplexed about repetitive usage of ‘Orcut‘ together with ‘Orkut‘ in this write-up then here’s the Disprin.