(Source: http://www.computerworlduk.com )Forrester recently received a flurry of inquiries concerning social network access inside enterprises. Many firms are reluctant to deny their employees’ access to social networking sites but at the same time are worried about consequences such as malware threat, data loss, and the loss of productivity.

More specifically, risks associated with social networking come in three flavors:

• Malware and phishing: Social networks have become a hot bed for malware and phishing activities. As such, allowing access to sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc., does carry a certain amount of security risks.

• Data loss: Employees post content to social networking sites pose a potential threat of data loss, which has many up in arms about the use of social networks in enterprises.

• Damage to corporate image: There is no reliable way to ensure that no one can set up a fake corporate page in LinkedIn or Facebook, and that no one takes your official promotional video and repost it to YouTube after unauthorized edits.

Should you allow access to social networks and social media? The answer is “yes”. Even if you do not currently allow access to social networks, you will have to soon — access to social networks is approaching the status of a “must-have” at work places. Competitive pressure will sooner or later make you rethink your restrictive stance on social network access. One question we often get asked is: “How many firms out there are allowing access vs. denying access to social networks?” We do not have an accurate answer to that. A small survey we conducted in the beginning of this year indicated that today nearly 40% of companies (enterprises and SMBs) allow access to social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

What best practices should you follow in regulating access to social networking and media sites?

First, you need to establish an acceptable-usage policy with respect to social networking and media access. Consider these aspects when writing your policies:

• Does everyone need the same level of access to social networking sites? The answer is often “no”. For instance, the marketing and sales team may need to post video and other media files for legitimate business purposes. But for other parts of the company, there isn’t such a compelling need. Perhaps a read-only policy is adequate. Of course, this would depend on the general company culture — how liberal or how restrictive you are in terms of personal computing at work plays an important role in these decisions.

• Be vigilant about software downloads. Remember that malware travels via software downloads over the Web, a prudent policy might allow users to access Facebook content but will block any software installation as a result of visiting Facebook pages. This will of course dilute the social networking experience, but in many ways, it is an acceptable compromise for workplace access.

• Should you allow access any time any where? Again, the answer depends on how liberal your company culture is. On one hand, you do not want to place unnecessary restrictions. On the other hand, there has to be a balance between personal uses of social media vs. workplace productivity. So, the acceptable-usage policy may state that employees should use their best judgment when it comes to the amount of time they spend on Internet social networking sites. Or, if the company culture allows, you may enforce time or bandwidth-based limitation on access to social networking sites.

• Acceptable data posts. Social networks allow data posts, which may pose a data leak threat to enterprises. In your usage policy, make it clear what kind of data/content is considered non-appropriate in data posts to public social networking sites. For example, some companies prohibit their employees from posting endorsement or commenting on the company on LinkedIn.

Second, you need to clearly communicate the policies to your users and educate them on the risks of social networking and acceptable usages with regards to data posts and software downloads. Make it clear that these security threats are not just against individuals, but also have the potential to compromise the security posture of the corporate environment.

Lastly, if you decide to enforce your policies (if any) technologically instead of simply stating the policies and hoping for compliance, you need to employ a Web filtering product (you probably want one regardless for anti-malware reasons). You may also want the product to collect and report usage statistics on your users. For any outlier population, e.g., the a few employees who spend an exorbitant amount of time on social networks, his/her manager can be made aware of the situation and deal with it in an appropriate way.

Often, just the knowledge that access to social networks is monitored would curtail such behaviours. Be mindful that not every Web filtering product is equipped to deal with script-based Web malware.

The ones that come with an antivirus engine but no script processing capabilities do not fit the bill. Finally, it is imperative that the Web filtering product comes with data leak prevention (DLP) capabilities to enforce acceptable usage policies for data posts.

facebook stalker application

Source: Facebook Applications Development Company

LONDON  (Source Google)— Doctors in Britain were warned Wednesday not to respond to sexual advances from patients made through social networking sites such as Facebook, as such contacts could breach their ethical duties.

The Medical Defence Union (MDU), which provides legal advice and assistance to medics, said it was aware of several cases where patients propositioned doctors through the sites — and said doctors should stay well clear.

In one case, a female doctor was asked out for a drink by a patient as she left the surgery.

She refused, but the patient continued the requests via Facebook and sent her a bunch of lilies, learning through the site that they were her favourite flowers.

“The pitfalls posed to doctors using social networking sites by inadvertently breaching confidentiality or posting unprofessional content, such as photos, have been well documented,” said Dr. Emma Cuzner, MDU medico-legal adviser.

“But doctors may be less prepared for patients using sites like Facebook to ask them out on a date.”

She added that doctors must keep relationships with patients “on a professional footing”, saying: “This is in line with doctors’ ethical duties not to pursue improper relationships with patients.”

Facebook & iPhone application developers in London UK

Source: Facebook Applications Development Company

One of the interesting things to come out of his just concluded townhall meeting in Shanghai was US President Barack Obama’s admission: “I have never used Twitter”.

Obama casually divulged this while answering a question about the Great Firewall of China in this historic town meeting between the US president and Chinese students, which was livestreamed by the White House, with a discussion on Facebook via Facebook Connect.

The US president’s official @BarackObama account is one of the most popular on Twitter, with over 2.6 million followers. People have, of course, assumed that a staff member must be doing the posting, but still it’s somewhat surprising that Obama, who has been savvy in using New Media for his campaign and presidency, has not even tried using this social-networking tool.

Obama explained that his thumbs are “too clumsy”, while stressing his firm belief in advocating the use of technology and not restricting Internet access–a pronouncement aimed at the Great Firewall of China, which refers to the Chinese Government’s censorship and filtering of Internet sites.

In fact, Facebook is one of the Web sites blocked in China, making it ironic that the White House live video stream was making use of Facebook Connect. Or perhaps that was part of the plan? Were Chinese Netizens even able to watch the live video stream–was it being streamed by Chinese media, or were they able to use proxies?

Earlier in his speech, Obama noted that China is now the world’s biggest Internet user, which is why they were “pleased to include the Internet in today’s event”. He told the audience that the townhall meeting is a cherished tradition in the US, and thanked the Chinese students for this opportunity to talk to them, and, more importantly, hear their questions.

This is Obama’s first visit to China, and this year marks the 30th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the US and China. He expressed the desire to meet with China’s youth whom he referred to as “China’s future”.

I don’t know how freely the students were allowed to ask their questions, but at the very least, this livestreamed townhall meeting, with questions posted on the site, was symbolic of the role that technology is playing in creating an interconnected world, one in which powerful nations like the US and China must learn to cooperate and co-exist.

It may sound naive, but Obama expressed the hope that the US youth will be his nation’s best ambassadors to China, and that the Chinese youth will in turn be China’s. He talked of the common aspirations and shared values of the youth, and the need for both nations to understand each other’s culture.

Perhaps, through the youth, through the Web, the US, China and every other nation could learn to accept that we are all interconnected.

Perhaps, through their eyes, we may be able to shed our cynicism and forget the sins of the past, and look excitedly toward the future.

Source: facebookapp blog Development Company

(Source: mediapost.com ) Last week, I got a lot of grief for saying that “The Widget is Dead,”  so this should be interesting: I am willing to bet it won’t be long until Facebook, and other social networking “applications”  join widgets in the marketer’s “toolkit graveyard.” Why? Because using Facebook Connect offers marketers more flexibility to develop more immersive experiences for application developers. Want “canary in the coal mine” proof? Consider that Zynga, the largest and most successful application on Facebook (by nearly all measures), has developed and launched its Facebook Connect powered stand alone site for Farmville, one of its most popular application games

Facebook isn’t shedding tears over this, and neither should marketers. Facebook is encouraging people to leverage Facebook Connect, for lots of reasons, including the “secret race for permission” that generated much discussion two weeks ago.

For marketers, and for agencies leading social media strategies, the opportunity will be to leverage the lessons learned in the application environment about engagement, interaction and virality to best using Facebook Connect in their marketing efforts. The best practices  learned by top application developers will be instrumental in leveraging Facebook Connect for marketers, because a lot of the functionality will be similar — namely, the ability to include people’s social graph and publish feeds.

What will be different? The biggest difference will be where the socially connected portion of marketer’s campaigns will live. More and more, marketers will simply consider how all of their consumer touch points best leverage Facebook Connect, or MySpace ID, or Google’s Friend Connect, rather than considering the development of an “application” as a separate marketing initiative. This change will allow digital efforts to be more integrated; no more “digital strategy” and then a separate “social media strategy.” I cannot tell you how happy this is going to make me, and anyone else who has to talk about “social media” as something different than “digital media” — but not for long.

Source: facebookapp blog Development Company

(Source : betternetworker.com) If you look at Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the idea is to improve your Search Engine rankings by doing certain things to your website, or by trying to build links.

A couple years ago, a lot of the social media networks were passing what we call “Page Rank.” You could go in and place a link on that network back to your website, and your website would increase in ranking on the Search Engines, as a result of that “link love” – the inbound links.

In recent months, that mode has changed. The Search Engines, especially Google, are paying attention to how people are using social networks in an attempt to gain higher rankings when perhaps they don’t deserve them. That is what technical SEO has been all about – improving your rankings by focusing solely on link-building and link love.

The social media and the direction they’re going has changed that.

Then look at the direction that Google is heading. They are in position (at the time of writing) to become the largest social media network in existence. They’re paying attention to communities. They’re paying attention to voting patterns. They’re paying attention to crowd sourcing patterns, where other people go in and bookmark and share content.

So it’s really easy for Google to go in and spot an account and see that it has nothing but links back to your websites. If you multiply that by many different social networks, it’s obvious to Google that you are just trying to game their system. So they will penalize you for that by not counting any of your effort.

What about people like Copyblogger and Chris Brogan? We find them on Twitter all the time. They do interact, but they also post links to their latest blog… where is the line there?

It’s simple. What you have to do is stop focusing on link-building and simply focus on your community (networking). When you do that, it’s evident that you’re not just creating a network for the sole purpose of increasing your search engine ranking. You remove the focus on technical search engine rankings and, instead, put it on social community building. Doing that empowers your network to crowd source. They can bookmark your content, Digg it, Sphinn it, etc. That is the way these applications were designed to be used, and that’s the purpose of the content.

People will bookmark it when you give them great content, and you’ll get the result you want. Plus – Google will be happy.

So all these activities improve your search engine rankings – but only if you are not the one doing it. Intent is critical.

In all the study I’ve done the last few months, it all goes back to natural human intent. Search engines today have prodigious technology they have developed to search out artificial community and content. By following this group, I will show you how to get high search engine visibility without focusing on link building.

The new SEO is upon us.

The moral of the story is… Don’t misuse social media networks by only using them to increase your search engine rankings. I have tested this course using many different case studies. While it may be more or less effective in the short-term, the long-term outlook on link building in social media is frowned upon by the search engines and is becoming less effective.

Link building is an element of SEO that is for ever changing. It is invariably a bad idea to involve yourself in processes that change all the time. It causes you to have to reconstruct your entire income structure over and over again.

As stated before, in this group we purely focus on aspects that DO NOT change so that time and effort spent today will continue to have residual effects 2 years from now.

Gaming systems for short-term rewards is a short-sighted policy that will ALWAYS lead to a re-investment of time. The question you have to ask yourself is… Do you want to waste your time or compound your efforts over time to build an asset?

]]> http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/don%e2%80%99t-misuse-social-networks.html/feed 0 http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-becomes-third-most-popular-video-site.html http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-becomes-third-most-popular-video-site.html#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:55:24 +0000 admin http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-becomes-third-most-popular-video-site.html

(Source : Cent News) YouTube might still reign supreme in online video, but the big surprise coming out of Nielsen’s VideoCensus release on Thursday is that Facebook is now the world’s third most popular place to view video online.

According to Nielsen’s latest VideoCensus numbers, which look at the number of video views in October, YouTube serviced over 6.6 billion streams. In a distant second, Hulu offered up over 632 million video streams. But it was Facebook with over 217 million streams in October that easily beat out Bing, Yahoo, and several other online sites. In September, Facebook was ranked tenth in total streams.

In October, Facebook placed second in total number of unique viewers: over 31.5 million. YouTube had almost 106 million unique viewers during October. Hulu placed fifth with 13.4 million viewers.

According to Nielsen, the amount of time Web users spent viewing videos on social-networking sites increased 98 percent year over year. In October 2008, users watched 503.8 million minutes of video; they watched 999.4 million video minutes in October this year. That growth far outpaced growth in number of online video streams as a whole, which grew 26 percent year over year.

“During the past year, online video viewing has become central to the Web experience,” Nielsen Vice President of Media Analytics Jon Gibs said in a statement. “In conjunction with this increase, we are seeing remarkable growth in video viewing on social networking sites and it is only natural that these two trends would converge in consumers’ minds, making sites like Facebook and Myspace.com, increasingly important distribution points for both consumer and professionally generated video.”

But it was Facebook, not MySpace, that led the way in video streams on social-networking sites, nearly tripling MySpace’s 85.2 million streams during October.

According to Nielsen, the “total time spent viewing video on Facebook” grew by 1,840 percent year over year. The number of unique viewers grew 548 percent over the same period. Total streams increased by 987 percent year over year.

“Facebook’s rapid growth in online video during the last year illustrates the site’s evolution from simply a communications focused tool to a media portal,” Gibs said. “Social networking sites are evolving from a venue for catching up with friends to a platform for personal expression, allowing consumers to share their experiences in the full variety of content formats available online.”

]]> http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-becomes-third-most-popular-video-site.html/feed 0 http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/what-happens-to-your-facebook-after-you-die.html http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/what-happens-to-your-facebook-after-you-die.html#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:55:23 +0000 admin http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/what-happens-to-your-facebook-after-you-die.html

(Source facebookapp blog” href=”http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1932803,00.html”>Time.com)In an Oct. 26 blog post, Max Kelly, Facebook’s head of security, announced Facebook’s policy of “memorializing” profiles of users who have died, taking them out of the public search results, sealing them from any future log-in attempts and leaving the wall open for family and friends to pay their respects. Though most media reports claimed this was a new Facebook feature, a spokeswoman for the company told TIME that it’s an option the site has had since its early days.

The company decided to publicize the policy because of a backlash caused by a new version of the site’s homepage rolled out Oct. 23, which includes automatically generated “suggestions” of people to “reconnect” with. Within days of the launch, Twitter users and blog posts from across the Web complained that some of these Facebook suggestions were for friends who had died. “Would that I could …,” complained a user on Twitter before ending her tweet with the hash tag #MassiveFacebookFail.

“We understand how difficult it can be for people to be reminded of those who are no longer with them, which is why it’s important when someone passes away that their friends or family contact Facebook to request that a profile be memorialized,” Kelly said in the post. To discourage pranksters, Facebook does require proof before sending a profile down the digital river Styx. Family or friends must fill out a Facebook form, including a link to an obituary or other information confirming a user’s death, before the profile is officially memorialized. Once that is completed, the user will cease showing up in Facebook’s suggestions and certain information like status updates won’t show up in Facebook’s news feed, the stream of real-time user updates that is the site’s centerpiece. If relatives prefer not to have the profile stand as an online memorial, Facebook says it will remove the account altogether.

Better publicizing memorialized profiles is an attempt by Facebook to answer lingering privacy concerns. Canadian privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart investigated the company in July and issued a report that asked Facebook to explain certain areas of its privacy policy, including policies regarding the profiles of deceased users. In response, the company promised to issue a new privacy policy that better articulates how user information is treated postmortem and offered the commissioner an outline of its memorializing policy, nearly three months before the blog post explained it to users. Spokeswoman Anne-Marie Hayden says the privacy commissioner was “quite pleased” with Facebook’s response to the office’s concerns and says the commissioner will review the detailed version of the site’s new policy, expected in late October. (See what happens when parents join Facebook.)

Facebook’s attempt to clearly state its policy is prudent, as other social-networking sites have struggled with the question of users’ deaths. MySpace in particular has had a difficult time with digital rubbernecking — during the site’s heyday, a handful of well-trafficked blogs specialized in matching MySpace profiles directly to obituaries and posting the pairings online for all to see. By sealing profiles to family and friends and removing profiles from search results, Facebook assuages users’ fears that they’ll be fodder for online voyeurs in the event of their untimely demise — and hopefully will put the issue to rest.

]]> http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/what-happens-to-your-facebook-after-you-die.html/feed 0 http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-fan-page.html http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-fan-page.html#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:55:21 +0000 admin http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-fan-page.html

(Source searchenginejournal.com)When Facebook announced the Fan pages, there were a number of mixed reviews.  Some where hailing it and its integration to the new advertising platform and some hated it – claiming it was turning Facebook into Myspace.  Whatever your stance is, here are 6 reasons you need to make a Facebook page for your website or company now.

1. Pages are public.  Most of Facebook is behind a login, preventing search engines from indexing.  However, some Fan pages are not behind a login and thus search engines can index the page.  Hopefully, people will stumble on the result in SERPs, visit the Facebook page, and then get to your site via the link (see reason #2).

2. Pages include links.  Because the pages are public, you can get some nice facebook.com link credit.  You can’t use an anchor text, but hey, it’s free.

3. Send “updates to fans”.  One of the greatest features is that you can send “updates” to fans whenever you want.  It’s a nice way of building a database of interested users.  Send messages about new products, updated website, etc.

4. You control the page.  Making the page before a Fan or a competitor is critical.  You want to be able to send the messages, edit or remove sections, and control the information to an extent.

5. News feed.  When a someone joins a Fan page, it’s published in their News feed for all their to read (unless they have turned this off).  It makes someone joining your Fan page somewhat viral.

If you want to create facebook fan page for your website i would recommended Inka Technology http://www.inkatechnology.co.u . check their portfolio page

]]> http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-fan-page.html/feed 0 http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/woman-arrested-for-%e2%80%98poking%e2%80%99-facebook-user.html http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/woman-arrested-for-%e2%80%98poking%e2%80%99-facebook-user.html#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:55:20 +0000 admin http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/woman-arrested-for-%e2%80%98poking%e2%80%99-facebook-user.html

(Source telegraph.co.uk)Police deemed that 36-year-old Shannon Jackson violated a protection order – similar to a restraining order – by using the site’s feature to attract the attention of another user.

The order previously obtained by the woman who received the poke banned Jackson from “telephoning, contacting or otherwise communicating with the petitioner”.

While police interventions to halt online harassment are not uncommon, this is believed to be one of the first cases of someone being detained for a poke – one of the most rudimentary forms of virtual communication.

The feature, which allows Facebook users to make themselves known to other users of the site without sending a message, is commonly used by members to say hello to their friends, or to flirt with people they do not know.

Police in Hendersonville, Tennessee have obtained screen grabs of the victim’s Facebook page showing evidence of the poke, according to the local newspaper The Tennessean.

Jackson, who lives in Hendersonville, faces up to a year in prison and fine of $2,500 if she is found guilty of breaching the protection order. She is due to appear in court later this month.

Although the poking angle may be unique, this is not the first time that Facebook communication has led to an arrest. Earlier this month a burglar in Italy was held after logging on to Facebook while carrying out a break-in.

]]> http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/woman-arrested-for-%e2%80%98poking%e2%80%99-facebook-user.html/feed 0 http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-offers-translation-tool-to-other-sites.html http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-offers-translation-tool-to-other-sites.html#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:55:18 +0000 admin http://facebookapp.thewallpage.com/facebook-offers-translation-tool-to-other-sites.html

(Source nytimes.com)Back in January 2008, Facebook was available in one language: English. That’s when the company introduced a new translation tool that allowed its members to do the hard work of translating the site into their native languages. As a result, Facebook is now available in 65 languages, and a majority of its users are overseas. On Thursday, Facebook will make that translation tool available to other sites. The new program is called Translations for Facebook Connect, and it is being offered to the 15,000 sites and applications that use the Connect service, which allows visitors to log in using their Facebook ID and password and broadcast some information back to their friends on the social network. The translation tool works by asking users to submit possible translations of phrases, and then soliciting their votes on which is the most accurate. So now a country’s tourism Web site, for example, can use the tool to solicit help with a translation, and then present the site to users in their native language when they log in using their Facebook ID. It is free for developers, but Facebook hopes it will increase the use of the Connect Service. Facebook’s human-powered approach juxtaposes quite sharply with Google’s service, which uses technology to automatically translate Web sites and text — with occasional unintentionally comical results. (The Facebook system, of course, has had to handle a relatively tiny number of phrases.) “Other businesses try to accomplish the same thing using technology to solve these problems, and it’s not always 100 percent accurate,” said Ethan Beard, head of platform at Facebook, in a veiled reference to Google. “But technology doesn’t take into account cultural values, idioms that are hard to translate. In the same way we think reviews are better when they come from friends, translation done by people is significantly better than what you would get otherwise.” [facebookapp blog" href="http://www.inkatechnology.co.uk">Facebook application development ]

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