Facebook | thechromesource - Google Chrome and Chrome OS News and Forum

Open-Xchange’s Open Data Tool

Posted on 12. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 3 Comments

OX 300x155

Bummed out about Facebook blocking the Facebook Friend Exporter? Don’t worry, there’s already a new tool that does pretty much the same thing.

Developed by Open X-Change, the software- christened “Open Data”- uses the official APIs of networks-so,basically, Facebook- to import and export data such as email addresses. To use the app, you need to first create an Open-Xchange account. Open Data then basically works by importing all the contact data it can find- from both social networking sites and the email you use to sign up for the account. Once it’s harvested all of this information, it compiles it all into something that Open-Xchange CEO Rafael Laguna referred to as a “magic” address book. This book can then be exported in the vCard format and copied over to pretty much anywhere.

open xchange rafael laguna

“Import to your liking,” Laguna concludes “in Apple iCal, Gmail/G+, Facebook, Outlook, whatever you like. The data is also in the newly created “Facebook” address book for more exporting or playing pleasure.Now, go out and enjoy this new found liberation. And by all means, go forth and enjoy YOUR data.” Yet again, a developer’s calling out Facebook on their rather absurd data policy. Something tells me that by the time Facebook manages to block this, there’ll be yet another data exporting tool on the ‘net. There seems to be a growing coalition of developers looking to liberate user data from the hands of website like Facebook- in the same blog post where he introduced the Open Data tool, he lauded Mansour for his courage in developing the Facebook Friend Exporter.

Mohamed Mansour 189x300 Something tells me Facebook’s fighting a losing battle against the devs. Mansour’s already working on a patch for the Facebook Friend Exporter that’ll allow the extension to bypass the rather brute force security solution Facebook threw up to prevent the extension from functioning. Mansour was quoted as saying”Facebook is trying so hard to not allow you to export your friends. They started to remove emails of your friends from your profile by today July 5th 2011. It will no longer work for many people.” He’s not discouraged- quite the contrary, he’s already started working on rolling out an answer to the latest obstacle Facebook’s thrown his way.

CNet’s stated that it’s turned into something of a cat and mouse game between Mansour and Facebook. It’s a very fitting analysis, and something tells me the mouse isn’t going to find itself in the cat’s jaws any time soon.

Via GMA News

Facebook Blocks Facebook Friend Exporter

Posted on 05. Jul, 2011 by Nicholas Greene. 2 Comments

exporter12

Well, that didn’t take long. Facebook’s already blocked Mohamed Mansour’s Facebook Friend Exporter. Apparently they did take notice of the Chrome extension, and didn’t much appreciate what it was doing. Fancy that. As expected, no legal action was taken against Mansour.

He’s definitely not happy with this turn of events, though. He added the following message onto his extensions info page:

[...]

Google Worried About Facebook? Big Deal, Since Facebook Can’t Compete

Posted on 30. Nov, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 3 Comments

Hi.

My name is Google Me, the future social network. I’m not real, just a figment in your head. You’ve probably heard I will be the solution to Google’s problems in terms of Facebook, and I’m glad you heard that.

I just wanted to give you a little reality here.

Let’s imagine for a second that Facebook is the “portal”, or the basis of your digital life. Perhaps let’s even consider Facebook as an operating system. Sound good?

Let’s talk about Facebook for a bit then. Facebook is a social network. Is it ever going to help you get any work done? Let’s break this down for a second.

Does Facebook have a way to contact work relationships? Well, they might have Facebook Messages but if you plan on telling your boss you’re going to miss work that’s probably not going to be the best method.

Does Facebook have a way to write documents? Unless you want to compose something that starts with “What’s on your mind?” then not really.

Does Facebook have a way to crunch numbers? Looking around the options in Facebook, I’ve yet to find a spreadsheet function. Actually, after looking at that last sentence I feel stupid for even trying.

Okay, let’s put this in my (Daniel Cawrey) perspective now.

In the end I’ll let Facebook do what they do. I’m not too concerned that if Google tries to start a social network of their own that it will be a problem. Because Google does something totally different than Facebook. They offer Gmail, Google Apps for those who don’t want Office and search that is better than anything else.

Why are they supposedly afraid of Facebook again? This seems totally different from them.

Why Does Google Think Social Media is so Important?

Posted on 02. Sep, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Google has been on a buying spree for social media companies. In 2010 alone, social companies Aardvark, Slide, Jambool, Like.com, Angstro and SocialDeck have been acquired by the search company. The past five companies they have bought are social-related. This doesn’t include a $100 million investment in social media games maker Zygna, which makes the popular FarmVille, among others.

It’s clear that in the coming months Google plans to launch something big, notwithstanding other projects such as Chrome OS and Google Music. It’s possible that the company believes that any social networking strategy could be the “glue” so to speak that holds many of these services together.

It’s all a part of trying to keep users on Google’s services since they are starting to see a lot of eyeballs move from Google and sticking on Facebook, since people spend a lot of time on that site. Consider this recent graph released by Business Insider, and you’ll see what executives at Google see as a potential threat from Facebook.

[...]

Flock Brings Organized Social Networking to the Browser

Posted on 24. Aug, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

You’ve got your Facebook, you’ve got whatever you use to push out tweets. There’s Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon for crowdsourcing the news you want. These, amid countless other social networking sites, pose an interesting question.

Is the browser really built for the social web?

The company Flock doesn’t seem to think so. That’s why they have built a browser based on Chromium (formerly, they used Firefox) that takes into account all of the various social networking sites. Instead of having twelve tabs devoted to all these sites, Flock simplifies the whole deal.

[...]

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble – Jolicloud vs Chrome OS

Posted on 22. Aug, 2010 by Julien Cadot. 5 Comments

Making comparisons is always difficult, especially when one tries to compare apples-to-apples something complex like and operating system. But here goes anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen, on the left corner, please welcome one of the most anticipated operating systems, the 10 second-to-launch, fully browser operated Google Chrome OS! On the right corner, ladies and gentlemen, the outsider no one knew before its release except true geeks , the prince who wants to be king before the king has the crown, the black-wallpapered and not-that-clouded Jolicloud!

Everyone should have noticed: we’re dealing with a very much alpha preview version of Chrome OS and a fully functional one in Jolicloud. Unfair to compare? Not really, since I have also alpha tested Jolicloud. I promise, I’ll try to keep that in mind during the comparison.

Which of them will win?

[...]

What is Google Planning to Announce Tomorrow?

Posted on 19. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 1 Comments

Yesterday, we reported in the Daily that Google is planning a press event tomorrow, led by VP of Search Products Marissa Meyer. This is what was published on Fortune’s Google 27/4 blog.

Please join us on Tuesday, July 20th for a brief press event at Google’s office in San Francisco. Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience, will be speaking, and we’ll be introducing a few new things we think you’ll be interested to see. We’ll kick off with a continental breakfast followed by the presentation and product demos.

While there could be a good amount of speculative nature in this post, here are some bubbling developments that have been rumored lately and could have something to do with what is being unveiled tomorrow.

Music

During Google I/O, the company showed off a new Android feature that allows users to stream music that is stored on their computer to their phone. Many said that this was a quiet attempt to show off Google’s coming music service. Google’s China site already has music, and according to one commenter on this blog located in China, this service has been available for a few months, likely lending to lax copyright laws in a country where no one has ever really paid for music anyways.

Social Networking

Most regard Google’s first social attempt, Buzz, as a flop namely because of privacy violations that occurred at the outset. But Google has corrected course to some degree, and whatever you may say about it, Buzz still exists. The rumor milling around is that a further expansion to Buzz is coming soon, possibly with profiles just like Facebook. But how much like Facebook does Google want to be? Remember, Eric Schmidt has said that Facebook users in turn still search quite a bit with Google, and the fact that Schmidt recently met with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggests Google would probably try something that goes in a different direction.

Search

Let’s not discount here who will be presenting tomorrow. Marissa Meyer is the VP that is responsible for the search user interface that we use today, and she has been a part of the company since the early days. Is it possible that we will see a key new element in search? Google is desperately missing a travel option on their home page, so it is quite possible that something related to Google’s purchasing of travel search company ITA Software. Although the deal is under review, that doesn’t mean Google hasn’t already been working on something. That’s good, since right now search rival Bing is seemingly held together by its innovative travel functionality, and not on its core search.

Whatever the case may be, we’ll be interested in the resulting news. As soon as we have information on any developments, they will be posted right here.

Surprise – Google Recently Surpasses Yahoo in Time Visited

Posted on 13. Jul, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

Silicon Alley Insider’s recent chart showing the amount of time spent on major sites displays a strong push for both Google and Facebook, while the previous (shocking) champ Yahoo is experiencing a steady overall drop.

Yahoo and AOL are in steep decline, while Microsoft is simply staying afloat, most likely bolstered by spending hundreds of millions on marketing their Bing search engine. Apple, which is rumored to be preparing for a more cloud-based approach, isn’t even on this list.

Facebook has really pulled up close with Google, but co-founder Sergey Brin recently said the company is unfazed by Facebook’s growth.

“The indications that we have show that when Internet users become Facebook users they actually do significantly more searches on Google,” Brin told Reuters in Sun Valley, Idaho last week.

But Google isn’t resting on their laurels in regards to competing with Facebook. That would explain this recent release of a huge 216 slide presentation by Google UX researcher Paul Adams on the problems and opportunities of social networking.

thechromesource Daily: Links for 6/29/10

Posted on 29. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 0 Comments

The folks on the Chromium project are serious about browser security, turning their focus now to extensions.

Will the rival service to Facebook, which may or may not be called Google Me, look anything like Orkut?

Google Apps for Education is proving to be successful; students may soon be spending more time with this than Microsoft Office.

It really not likely that Google would ever completely shut down their operations in China, they will just be patient.

HTML5 means speed: A Google staff engineer recently said they plan to use the technology so that Gmail loads in one second.

Chrome OS Boss Leaves for Facebook

Posted on 28. Jun, 2010 by Daniel Cawrey. 3 Comments

Chrome OS Engineering Director Matthew Papakipos has announced today on his Twitter account that he is leaving for Facebook.

“Now that Chrome OS & WebGL are in good shape, it’s time for something new. I’m going to work @ Facebook! Love the product and team. Woot!”

At least it’s nice to hear that Chrome OS is in good shape. One of the most memorable things that Papakipos did other than take the reigns of Chrome OS during its infancy was submit to a wide-ranging and lengthy interview with Ars Technica regarding the conceptual vision of Chrome OS. It’s really worth a read if you have not yet checked it out.

Papakipos had previously worked on HTML5 projects for Google. It seems as if this would be a big loss with Chrome OS looming in the fourth quarter for a launch, but Google has a stable of engineers on the project if you have ever taken a gander over to the Chromium.org site. Here’s hoping a replacement is named pretty soon.

Nevertheless, there is clearly something going on between Google and Facebook. It’s rumored that Google is planning to launch its own Facebook-like application, while Facebook could foray into real time or social search. It will be fun to watch these two companies try some things that their rival specializes in, and we’ll see how this battle shakes out.