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Chevy Cruze to read back Facebook status updates, make / ruin your night (video)
We knew good and well that Chevrolet was planning to integrate Facebook read-backs into its OnStar technology, and now it seems all but confirmed... at least on the Cruze. An early Super Bowl ad peek has revealed that the aforesaid automobile has the ability to read back statuses on command, giving you one less reason to keep your mind on the task at hand (read: driving) and one more reason to make The Zuck even richer. Go on and mash play below, but don't expect any details on how exactly this whole setup works. Something tells us it's tied to a BT-enabled smartphone, but hopefully we'll find out the nitty-gritty sooner rather than later.
Mark Zuckerberg meets the fake Mark Zuckerbergs on Saturday Night Live (video)
Mark Zuckerberg, the man who invented poking and the subject of a major motion picture in 2010 just met his nemeses on the set of Saturday Night Live. No, not the Winklevoss twins, we're talking Jesse Eisenberg, the man nominated for an Academy Award after playing Zuckerberg in The Social Network. Toss in Andy Samberg and we've got a comically uncomfortable situation from Web 2.0's very personification of awkward. All hail the Zuck Bergs!
@MeTees shows your Twitter handle to the world, gets you one step closer to #trending
Twitter-related messages on t-shirts aren't unheard of, but tossing your actual handle on a tee? Now that's an idea we're down with. We can't exactly say we're boastful enough to toss our own name on a shirt, but it might not be a bad idea to throw your company Twitter account on there and force all of your employees to rock one on a trade show floor. Watch for The Situation to roll into B.E.D. rocking one of these in 3... 2...
Mayor of Newark, New Jersey starts Twitter blizzard cleanup snowpocalypse revolution
Newark, New Jersey's popular Mayor, Cory Booker, has had a novel reaction to the problems the blizzard is causing for his people: he's listening to them, and trying to help. Shocking, we know. Even more interesting, of course, is the fact that he's using Twitter to do so. While phone lines all over the tri-state area remain a joke (try calling an airline or public hotline), Twitter has presented Newark's Mayor with a unique, and incredibly direct way of interacting with people who need help with everything from getting their streets plowed to delivering diapers -- personally in many situations. While it's not exactly enough to make us consider a move to Newark, it's certainly impressive.
ComScore: Facebook overtakes Yahoo, is now the third most trafficked website in the world
ComScore -- a common metric used to measure internet traffic -- is showing off some impressive stats these days. In the month of November, for instance, Facebook overtook Yahoo! for the first time in worldwide traffic, with the social network nabbing 648 million unique visitors while the portal named after Gulliver's Travels pulled in 630 million. What does this mean to? Well, to point out the obvious, it seems that while Facebook continues its epic growth, the relatively flat state of Yahoo!'s traffic is simply not enough to retain its third place spot behind Google and Microsoft's sites, which grab up places one and two consistently. One note about these ComScore statistics, just in case you're wondering about that last one: it 'groups' sites together rather than counting individual URLS, so for instance, the Microsoft sites take the number two spot en masse. In terms of U.S. traffic, Facebook still trails Yahoo! a bit, with 152 million visitors and 181 million, respectively, so if they're truly hoping for world domination, they have their work cut out for them. We're looking at you, Mark!
Ping sneaks onto iPad
It's no iOS 4.2, but it's an interesting little update nonetheless -- through the magic of an iTunes backend overhaul, Ping has come to the iPad. Now, the untold millions who enjoy broadcasting that they've purchased an iTunes track can do so on a larger screen. Assuming, of course, that they didn't migrate their Ping experience to Twitter yesterday evening.
Twitter teams up with Ping
It's a social network... for music. Get it? Well, now it's sort of two social networks, because Twitter is getting some pretty deep Ping integration. Basically, any of your Ping activity (posts, purchases, likes, reviews) can be tweeted, all it takes is linking your Twitter account to your Ping account from within iTunes. Unfortunately, right now it looks like the Tweets are an all-or-nothing affair (you don't get to choose which aspects of your Ping activity you want broadcast), so get ready for everybody to know you bought that Colbie Caillat album. The good news on the Twitter end is that Ping tweets will include album art and song previews right from the fancy new Twitter UI, along with a purchase link, of course. Can you taste the synergy?
The British Monarchy launches official Facebook fan page
So, everybody has a Facebook page now: your parents, your next door neighbor's cat, and now even the Queen of England... or more specifically, the British Monarchy. Yes, the Crown of England has launched an official fan page for itself on everybody's favorite and most hated social network. Apparently, the page managed to rake in over 40,000 likes in its first hour of operation -- no small feat considering it took Miley Cyrus something like three days to get that many. Regardless, the Queen is posting tons of candid photos and we're hoping to get some videos of her getting crazy with the Cheez Whiz any day now; we'll let you know if / when they appear.
Twitter adding 370,000 new users a day, only half of them weight loss spammers
If you weren't out egging cars all weekend, you may have noticed The New York Times profile of former Twitter CEO Evan Williams. Among other things, the article contains some interesting nuggets of information about the service's user base and rate of growth... and let's just say that it's growing. Fast. According to the Times, Twitter is adding nearly 370,000 users per day to its current (as of the writing) user base of 175 million. Yes, that's heading ever closer to the 200 million mark, a truly huge number. No further information was spilled about where those users are coming from and what their level of engagement is (it's been reported that as much as 55% of users never make a single Tweet and that many of them don't follow anybody at all). However, we're pretty sure of one thing: newcomers to Twitter won't have any trouble fitting in if they just stick to talking about food and drink (or dieting, if you want to fit in with the bots). Hit up the source for the full, riveting portrait.
What's on Facebook's mind? Mobile event set for November 3rd
Facebook's made no official push into the smartphone universe -- to date, we've been left using various mobile apps to connect with J. Timberlake, Marky Z. and the rest of the crew, but it looks as if the preeminent social networking site of our generation (ahem) is just about ready to clear the air on at least one issue. The invite above recently landed in our inbox, requesting our presence at "a mobile event at Facebook HQ" in Palo Alto, California. Naturally, we'll be on hand from NorCal bringing you the blow-by-blow, and we're interested to know what you think will be on deck. Will we finally see the Facebook phone that it quickly shot down? The Nexus Two with a borderline-criminal amount of Facebook integration? The resurgence of using pastel colored tin cans to connect Jane and Joe? Whatever the case, we're sure It's Complicated.
Target rolls out 'social network connectivity' at its Kodak kiosks, Sorkin furiously prepping script
Target's just announced that, effective immediately, most of its stores nationwide now offer social network connectivity at its Kodak Picture Kiosks. What does this mean for you, dear Target consumer? Well, it means you can now head over to Target and log into Facebook (or your Kodak Gallery account) and print photos directly from there -- if you can find anything worth actually printing, of course. Can you imagine anything better than casually printing out a few years' worth of photos of yourself making the KISS face on New Years' Eve while shopping for Michael Graves-designed tchotchkes? We can't. Press release (which you could print out if you really wanted to) is below.
Raptr releases free iPhone app
Raptr is one of the gaming social networks that seems to have some staying power -- the idea is that you can broadcast and track what and when you're playing, and the network will share all of that information with your friends as it happens. Raptr has just introduced an iPhone app that allows you to check in on all your friends and their gaming habits from anywhere, and even send messages across to Xbox Live with just one inbox. The app is free on the App Store, but if you're brand new to Raptr, you'll want to head over to their site and create an account first (and probably pick up the desktop client, too, although it's Windows-only at the moment). If you're already a Raptr user, then there's no reason not to have this app. That said, a few recent App Store reviews say the app has a problem with friends list loading. I didn't see any issues, but be warned. I'm sure the Raptr team is hard at work on fixing any issues that come up.
Dick Costolo named new Twitter CEO, Evan Williams to focus on product strategy
To say Evan Williams has had a stellar run at Twitter would be understating things tremendously, but he apparently couldn't take the pressure after watching The Social Network this weekend. All kidding aside, Mr. Williams has decided to step aside and let COO Dick Costolo take over as CEO, while he focuses entirely on "product strategy." It's unclear what exactly Evan will be doing at his new post, nor why he decided to step away from the ultimate limelight, but then again, it's hard to sum up a corner office job description in just 140 characters.
Facebook 'very confident' it can work with Ping
Last we heard, Facebook and the new iTunes-based social network Ping were at odds with each other, with Facebook providing "onerous terms" and Apple trying to hook into the bigger network anyway. But maybe they can still heal the rift. Facebook CTO Bret Taylor told Silicon Alley Insider that he's "very confident" that the two networks can find some common ground. Unfortunately, he didn't say anything other than that, so as for what kind of common ground they'll find, that's still up in the air. But Apple would do well to enlist Facebook's help in their fledgling network, "onerous" as the terms may be. Ping is an interesting network, as we've said, but given the lack of action that I've seen in my own little slice of Ping lately, bringing in some links and eyeballs from a more active and veteran social network seems like it would be worth the compromise. [via Cult of Mac]
Facebook starts rolling out high resolution photo sharing to users
Facebook is already a popular way to share photo with your 'friends,' but the quality leaves a little something to be desired, to say the least. Well, that's all about to change, as the company has announced that it'll be rolling out high resolution photo uploading to all of its users over the coming weeks. Users will be able to upload and store photos that are eight times larger than what the service now allows (720 pixels). At the same time, the photo viewer will be upgraded to have a lightbox feel -- black background -- for better viewing. Great news, no doubt, for those of us who just couldn't stand another low res shot of someone's baby doing something silly.
iPhone 3G left out of the Game Center fun, 2nd gen iPod touch gets picked last
Thought that every iOS 4.1 device would be compatible with Apple's Game Center mobile and social gaming platform? We're sorry to say that's not the case. Initially it was looking like both the iPhone 3G and second-generation iPod touch would be left out, having to take their copies of Kickety-Kick Ball Bounce Out and go home. But, Apple is now confirming that second-gen touch models will be included after all, however the iPhone 3G is still not invited, nor are first-gen iPhones and iPod touches. That means the final compatibility list includes the iPhone 3GS and 4, along with second, third, and fourth generation iPod touch models. Everybody else: you're out.
Apple's Ping gains a million users in first two days
We're still trying to figure out exactly what Apple's new Ping social network is good for, but apparently quite a few people are curious about it: it's already racked up a million users in its first two days. That's just a third of the people who've downloaded iTunes 10, so we're sure the numbers are will grow even faster as more people snag iTunes and the network effect starts to kick in -- and things will get really crazy if Apple and Facebook ever work out their little tiff. Just remember: it's a social network... for music.
Steve Jobs: Facebook had "onerous terms" for Ping
Steve Jobs was surprisingly candid with All Things Digital's Kara Swisher yesterday -- he reportedly told her that both Facebook and Apple had spoken about integrating more closely with the new iTunes social network Ping, but Facebook asked for "onerous terms that we could not agree to" regarding Facebook friends connecting on Ping. He didn't elaborate, obviously, but you can see in Facebook's public documentation that Apple probably wouldn't have appreciated handing any more of its network over to Facebook than it did. All Ping seems to be at this point is a system of "liking" certain content (specifically on the iTunes Store, to the frustration of many of us who want to do it directly from our personal library of music), and if Facebook required that all of the "like" buttons went their way, you can see why Jobs wouldn't agree. Turns out that even after Ping's launch, things got even more fractious between the two companies -- Apple did kick off Ping with the option to add friends with Facebook Connect, but Facebook blocked access when it was discovered that Apple wasn't playing by the rules. It's actually an open service, unless Facebook decides that it isn't, and apparently Apple's Ping network was an unwelcome guest with a lot of traffic since Apple didn't come to terms with FB ahead of time. Apple removed the service from Ping, but you'll still see some notes around suggesting you can bring in friends from Facebook. So. Looks like Ping is already making a splash with much larger social networks. If Apple can build up its network without using Facebook's services, it seems much less likely that they'll find a way to share users in the future. As you can see above, Facebook is still implemented on iTunes, in the form of sharing albums and songs that you like, but it's completely separate from what's been built for Ping. Despite the sour start to the social mixup between Ping and FB, Engadget suggests that conversations between the two companies are still ongoing. It may not be long before all this is a hearty laugh between friends.
All Things D: Facebook blocked Apple's Ping service for unauthorized use
We'd already heard whispers that Apple had to yank Facebook Connect integration from its new Ping music network because the connection was being denied by Facebook, and now Kara Swisher at All Things D is confirming it -- and she's saying Facebook shut down access on purpose after Apple used the find-your-friends API without permission. Juicy! Here's the deal: Facebook's friend-finding API is generally open access, but anyone that wants to hit it an extreme number of times has to sign a deal agreeing to protect Facebook user data and limit network impact. Given the sheer size of the iTunes customer base, it's no surprise that Facebook wanted such a deal, but apparently negotiations broke down -- possibly over what Steve Jobs referred to as "onerous terms" -- and Apple decided to just go ahead and use the API anyway. (Which, truth be told, is pretty in character for Apple.) Facebook then blocked access, Apple had to scramble to clean up all the Facebook references, and here we are. Only possibly not for long: Swisher also says Apple and Facebook are still negotiating, and Facebook Connect might eventually reappear in Ping. There is no word when Ping might actually be useful or interesting, however.
Follow Engadget on the new and improved Digg... you know you want to
You may have noticed that Digg got a pretty major overhaul yesterday. One of the nice aspects of the improved site is that it's a little more social than its previous incarnation. So if you're in the market for someone new to follow on Digg... well, you could always hit up Engadget on Digg. You probably won't regret it. You can also follow Engadget on Twitter and Facebook, too!
