Facebook launches suicide prevention tool to detect suicidal behavior.

Social networking, in general has been touching more aspects of our lives than we can imagine, or that we are even aware of. While most of us just use it as the means of staying connected with our pals, there have been instances, where social networks become a platform to exhibit suicidal behavior for those who're troubled with their lives. Facebook with its 800 million and growing active user base was working on a set-up to reach out to those who exhibit such disturbing behavior and offer them encouraging words, advice and other required assistance, confirms Reuters. The result? Facebook has introduced a suicide prevention tool for their platform, wherein contacts of those who've been showing such behavior can report it to Facebook and help initiate action.

On noticing specific behavioral changes in one's contact's status updates, and the likes, which show suicidal bends, users can report it by clicking on the report option available next to any content on Facebook, and then picking 'suicidal content' under the 'harmful behavior' option. Once Facebook is informed, they will on their part send an e-mail to the 'suicidal' user containing a direct link for engaging in a private online chat with a crisis representative from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, along with the group's contact number. In addition to this, users can report suicidal behavior by going to the Help Center on Facebook or look out for suicide reporting forums on Facebook. Also, those who reported this in the first place will receive an e-mail saying that the issue has been addressed.

This report states that this service is available only to Facebook users across the United States and Canada. However, over the years, other nations across the globe, including India, have been reporting a vast number of suicides. Each day, we read about several such instances, wherein students, over-worked professionals, married couples are forced to take the extreme step. Thanks to the Internet, major portions of our urban population have access to Facebook, among others, and these platforms in turn become the window to their lives.

Do you think we need services like these on a popular platform like Facebook in India, too? Let us know in the comments section below.

Google+ brings Find My Face to enable photo tagging.

Google+ recently revealed its plans of launching Find My Face, a facial recognition feature for the fairly new social networking site, according to an official post by Matt Steiner, Engineering Lead on the Google+ Photos team. Scheduled for a roll-out shortly, Find My Face will ask your contacts to tag you in the photos you appear on. While this will make it easier during instances when there are just too many photos you appear in, Google gives you an option to control photos in which you want to be tagged, or otherwise as well as to turn this feature off, if you wish in Google+ settings.

Facial recognition has been one of the most controversial aspects of the social networking age. Facebook, just recently was in the news for having allegedly defied German security laws over its facial recognition feature ambiguities, among other sticky situations.

It'll be worth a wait to see which way Google takes this controversial feature. What do you think?

Facebook buys location service Gowalla.

Facebook rolled out Places, earlier this year to get into the location service game against Foursquare. And now, they're taking the service one step further. The social network has bought Texas-based location service, Gowalla for an undisclosed sum of money, according to CNN Money. According to the report, Gowalla's staff are getting ready to move the company from Texas to California, but some will stay back in Texas and work in Facebook's local office there. However, representatives from Gowalla have not confirmed the report and Facebook representatives have declined to comment.

The reason behind Facebook purchasing Gowalla has to do with storytelling and how much of a role it plays on Facebook's new feature, the Timeline. An unnamed source told CNN Money for their report, “It’s a perfect match. As far as the big picture, Gowalla’s vision is about people telling stories, and Facebook’s vision for Timeline is about stories about important moments in life.”

According to Mashable, Gowalla's rival Foursquare has commented on the deal saying, "Congrats to Josh and the team in Austin. Here at Foursquare, we continue to focus on building an amazing product and growing our 15,000,000-strong community."

Google+ Adds Chat With People In Your Circles.

Google is relentless when it comes to adding new features to Google+. It seems like nearly every day I see something new showing up on my Google+ profile, and today is no exception. Google+ now has a chat built right in for people in your circles. Of course, they must have you in their circles as well, otherwise that would just lead to a ridiculous amount of people spamming celebrities. It’s a feature that makes sense, considering their main competitor, Facebook, has had a chat feature for a long time.

The intriguing part about this update is that it allows users who are in each others circles to chat outside of Google+. They can chat on Gmail, iGoogle, Google Talk and Orkut. This gives users a terrific way to extend the Google+ experience, even if they are not actively on the site.

Facebook updates the News Feed.

Facebook's added yet another update to their News Feed. They announced in a blog post that they're adding a 'Sort' button, which will allow you to choose whether you'd like to see highlighted stories first or recent stories first. The way in which Facebook works right now, involves it pushing highlighted stories first. If you're one of the many that protested against this feature, you now have the option to sort your stories from most recent backwards. The update will roll out over the next few days.

The News Feed, even if you set it in reverse chronological order, will in no way be as comprehensive as the Ticker. Facebook previously had 'Top Stories' and 'Recent Stories' tabs on the top of the News Feed page and this update brings users closer to that set up. The social network changed things up for its News Feed in September. The aim of the change was to make sure that users don't miss the important highlights in their friends' lives. Will you sort your Facebook friends' stories by highlight or recency? Let us know in the comments section below.

Facebook lets you post to Twitter.

Up until now, if you wanted the same post on both your Facebook and Twitter accounts, you had to set up Twitter sharing on Facebook and type in Twitter itself with a #fb at the end of your post. Now you have another option of making sure the same content goes across both your accounts. Facebook now lets you send your status updates to Twitter on personal accounts. It has been a feature of Facebook Pages for a while now, making life easier for brands, bands and public figures, where they're able to conveniently share their updates across their web presence. According to ZDNet, a few third party apps have allowed this kind of sharing before for personal pages, but Facebook, being the content sticklers that they are have stayed on top of blocking these applications.

In order to sync your Facebook account to your Twitter (even if you already have your Twitter account synced to Facebook), go to www.facebook.com/twitter. You can link not only your Facebook account but any pages that you might also be admin of. You will then be taken to an authorization screen for allowing Twitter to access your Facebook account. As usual, the app will not see your direct messages, nor will it read your Twitter password. You can choose what type of updates you want to send to Twitter on the next screen, whether it's only status updates, or updates and photos or even notes, events and/or videos. What this also means is you can type more than 140 characters without having to worry. Twitter will shrink your more than 140 character posts to a Facebook link with the entire post.

Facebook Messenger app gets major updates.

Facebook Messenger, the app from Facebook that consolidates all your communication in one place got a major update. For one, it's now
available for BlackBerry OS so when BBM's out again, you have yet another alternative. Additionally, you can now see which of your
Facebook friends is online, which of them is on their mobile, and when you're communicating with a friend, you can see when they are typing. They've also made it easier to send messages to people that you communicate with the most. Facebook's also added support for 22 new languages for their Messenger app on Android and for 12 new languages for their iOS app.

In addition to these new features, the app still shows you all your messages in real time, be it chat messages, Facebook messages or email (if you've set up Facebook email). The app allows easy group messaging and you can see the entire conversation in one thread. You can also share where you are when you send a message. It comes with a mapping feature that lets you find your friends when you're out and about. You can even share photos with messages to show your friends what you're doing. Facebook Messenger works across platforms and even on feature phones with normal text messaging capabilities.

Google Engineer Slams Google Plus As "pathetic afterthought".

A Google engineer has caused an online stir by posting a long rant on Google+ that slams Google and calls the company's new social network a "pathetic afterthought." Steve Yegge, a Google software engineer, accidentally posted a diatribe publicly instead of privately on Google+ Tuesday night. And while he has removed the post, his words are still ringing around the Internet.

"We don't understand platforms. We don't 'get' platforms. Some of you do, but you are the minority," wrote Yegge, according to a copy of his post picked up by SiliconFilter. "The Google+ platform is a pathetic afterthought."

Adding that the failure to understand platforms starts at the top of Google's chain of command, Yegge specifically called out CEO Larry Page, co-founder Sergey Brin and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

"Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking, predicated on the incorrect notion that Facebook is successful because they built a great product," Yegge wrote, adding that Facebook wants to hire him. "I'm not saying it's too late for us, but the longer we wait, the closer we get to being Too Late."

Early Wednesday, Yegge took down the post and added a new one, saying his first rant wasn't meant to go out publicly. "Sadly, it was intended to be an internal post, visible to everybody at Google, but not externally," wrote Yegge. "So my opinions, even though they may seem well-formed and accurate, really are just a bunch of opinions from someone who's nowhere near the center of the action -- so I wouldn't read too much into anything I said."

However, he also noted that he would be reposting his thoughts internally. Google had not responded to a request for comments at deadline.

While Yegge's post presents the thoughts of just one Google engineer, Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group, said this accidental posting is a striking reminder about the need to know how to post something privately and publicly. But it also could be quite telling in terms of the internal Google discussion about how Google+ is faring and how to take it forward.

"This rant tells us a few things," he added. "While it could be one engineer having a bad day, I think it indicates that there's probably some serious discussion within Google about how to make Google+ into something that can give Facebook a run for its money."

While Facebook remains the highly dominant social network around the world, Google+ has gained a lot of ground in the few months since it was launched this past summer. However, despite its advances, analysts have said the question remains as to whether people will use more than one social network in the long term.

"It's safe to say that users don't see Google+ as the best thing since sliced bread," Olds told Computerworld. "While they have gotten a lot of buzz and mindshare, it hasn't translated into the kind of growth that will allow them to strongly compete with Facebook."

Facebook for iPad Arrives.

The reports have finally come to fruition. The rumour was that Facebook was going to launch the app at the iPhone 5 event (where Apple eventually displayed the iPhone 4S). But now, it's here. Facebook for iPad is rolling out to the App Store (still rolling out, every App Store may not have access to it yet). The app is designed to emphasize photos. When you view a photo in the Facebook for iPad app, the picture will take up the entire screen. You can pinch to zoom in or out of the picture. It has a left hand navigation bar for the News Feed, photos, messages, groups and settings. You can also get notifications, chat and search on the Facebook for iPad app.

Facebook for iPad supports HD video and AirPlay, so users can watch videos from Facebook on their Apple TVs or other Apple devices. The app also allows users to play games in full screen mode, so for all you Farmville addicts, you can now sow your strawberries in full screen. Zynga and EA will support Facebook Credits for their games on the Facebook for iPad app. The app is slowly and quietly rolling out and is available for free from the iOS App Store.

Facebook launching official iPad app at iPhone 5 event.

Apple's slated to have their iPhone 5 revealing event on the 4th of October, this year and Facebook's jumping on the launcher bandwagon. The long anticipated official iPad app from the social network is reported to be made available then, too. In addition to the iPad app, Facebook might also update its iPhone app and release an HTML5-based mobile app marketplace. News of the Facebook iPad app has made the rounds since June of this year. However, according to one blog post by a former Facebook engineer, Jeff Verkoeyen the app has been completed, since May.

Facebook and Apple haven't had the best relationship till date. Facebook has already gone into attack mode on Apple with Project Spartan. When Apple initially came out with Ping, Facebook Connect was supposed to be integrated into the music social network, but Facebook pulled the plug when they realized how much of their own bandwidth that would involve. Apple has also been in talks with Facebook for years to integrate the social network to its mobile operating system, however, iOS 5 is bringing Twitter integration.

However, now it seems the two companies may just have resolved their differences, if Facebook's finally releasing the iPad app on Apple's own turf. Apple's even being said to have been helping Facebook perfect their HTML5-based app market. If you want Facebook for iPad now and can't wait till October 4th, the app is available via Cydia, which means, you have to jailbreak your iPad.

Google+ releases API for developers

While Facebook has been rolling out features this week with improved lists and subscribe buttons, Google+ has stayed quiet for the most part. Now, however, Google+ is releasing part of their API for developers saying, "This is just the beginning". This means there will now be outside applications for Google+, however, they have laid some pretty strict rules for third party developers. Some of the principles Google has laid for their developers include, "put the user first, be transparent, and respect user data". The API was released on public data only, which means they can only retrieve public posts and public profile data.

Developers note that there are not a lot of APIs in this release, and it only allows for querying of a single person or an activity/action on Google+. So third party apps like Tweetdeck or HootSuite could be created to display what's going on on Google+, but they will not let users post to Google+. Because the APIs are so simple, the app approval procedure is also simple, they only request to know who the developer is on Google. Given that this is only an initial release, more releases of Google+ APIs are sure to come. Which means more potential for Google+ to be more ubiquitous.

Facebook launches 'Subscribe' button

Facebook's on a small 'control how you share' roll. Yesterday, they launched an improved friends list. Now, they're rolling out a 'subscribe' button, which lets you set which users you'd like to see content from more. Until now, you could set your News Feed to not show updates from certain people. Subscribe works the other way around. If you'd like to see more updates from your best friends and less from your co-workers, subscribe helps you with that. Also, if you'd like to see updates from journalists and bloggers who aren't your friends, you can subscribe to them, too. So all in all, what you can do with the subscribe button is choose what you see from people in your News Feed, hear from people even if you're not friends and let people hear from you even if you're not friends.

When you choose what you see in the News Feed, you can set it to how much you want to see, as well. For instance, when you hit Subscribe on someone's profile, you can choose from "you'd like to see all updates (everything your friend posts), most updates (what you normally see) or important updates only" (only highlights like a new job). When you want to essentially follow a journalist or a blogger on Facebook like you would on Twitter, if you see a subscribe button on their profile, it means you can get their public updates in your News Feed. You will also be able to choose whether you want all, most or only important updates. Finally, you have the optional feature of placing the subscribe button on your own profile. When users subscribe to you, they will be able to see the posts you have listed as public.

The subscribe button will pop up on the top right side of the Facebook profile page. To add the subscribe button to your Facebook profile, go to the Subscription Page and click on 'Allow subscribers'. Once you allow subscribers, you can choose who can comment and what notifications you get. You will also get a subscribers tab on your profile where you can see who's subscribed to you.

Facebook launches 'improved friends lists

Facebook now understands that you might want to share a story with just your friends and not your co-workers or family. Hmm, sound familiar? Perhaps like some Circles? Facebook wrote in a blog post that with their new and improved Friends list, you can easily share updates with and see content from very specific sets of friends. However, a common complaint, according to the social network, is how troublesome and time consuming it is to make lists. In response to those complaints, Facebook's introduced some features to make list generating easier.


The first feature is 'Smart Lists'. These lists will be automatically created and updated based on information on your profile that your friends have in common with you like college information, family and city. There is also a 'Close Friends and Acquaintances' feature where you can see your best friends' photos and updates in one place and content from everyone else whose stuff you don't care about seeing too much will not appear as much. This list is not automatically created and updated by Facebook, you have to manually add your friends in this list. Finally, 'Better Suggestions' is where you can add the right friends to your lists without too much effort.


Friend lists are completely optional. You can then see and share with these lists as you want. Each list will have its own News Feed. Lists created in the past can still be used. You can continue to make new lists, too. When you share something with one particular list, no one will be able to see which list you've shared that content with. However, if you have shared content with one particular list, everyone who is able to receive that shared content will be able to see who else you have shared with. This may make them more comfortable to comment on your content. When you add someone as a friend, you can select which list you'd like to place them in. Finally, you can always see how specific people view your profile which might help fine tune your list creation.

G+7 brings Google+ to the Windows 7 desktop

For those of you who wanted to run Google+ on your desktop, here's a way. G+7 is a Windows 7 gadget that remains on your desktop. It provides access to your stream and includes links and images and if you see something interesting, you can open it immediately. When you click on something to open it, a mini side browser opens up with the content and when you click again, your default browser opens up displaying the content you want to see. When you're logged in to the app, it will keep your stream up to date constantly. There is a tool that will allow you to specify how often you want your stream to update. You can increase or decrease the size of an undocked G+7. The size can go from 300 x 400 pixels to 500 x 600 pixels. It can be moved anywhere around on the desktop since it is a Windows 7 gadget.

If you love Google+ and are a Windows 7 user, this gadget will help you access your stream right from your desktop, of course allowing you to stay connected more. G+7 is free and it currently only supports Windows 7. It is one of the ways Google+ offers accessibility and allows users to stay connected easily.

Facebook to launch iTunes competitor

Reports presume that Facebook will be launching a music service at their F8 conference scheduled on the 22nd of September, 2011 in San Francisco. This music service will be Facebook's competition to iTunes and will allow users to share songs through Facebook the same way they can currently share movies, videos and links. The feature would allow online music services like Spotify and Rdio to post information to Facebook pages, which is reminscent of Apple's Ping service. The feature will be similar to the way websites can be 'liked' on Facebook and will reportedly work the same way Ping worked in iTunes.

Facebook will be looking to provide music streaming services instead of cloud music services. They may require users to pay a monthly subscription fee to Spotify or Rdio, but users will then be able to stream unlimited amounts of music. This is different from cloud services like Google and Amazon's services, as well as Apple's upcoming iCloud because these services allow users to access their private collections remotely.

Having a music service would mean Facebook would have to develop a music player specifically for the website. This would require users to log in to be able to stream music, but for non-users, the service might be available as an app. The app would allow users who work in places that do not allow Facebook log in to stream music. The idea of such a service would be to share music in a way that friends can 'discover' new music from each other. If users wanted to just stream music, Grooveshark would be a way to go since that does not require a monthly subscription, but Facebook's service would add the social element that is currently not ubiquitous with Grooveshark.

Google+ gets Translate service in Chrome

Often in Google+, users will share a link in a language other than English. To save you the trouble of opening a new tab or window to access a translation service like Google translate, Google's built Translate into the Chrome browser as an extension for Google+. You can see the Translate extension in the same line as the +1, Comment and Share icons. The Translate feature exists on every link or update that is shared, no matter which language the post is shared in or what your native language is. This however, could be resource friendly as it might take a lot of processing power to go through a page and detect a post in a foreign language.

When you click on Translate for any post, you get your translated text instantly, without a page reload. The extension sets translated text against a yellow background on the Google+ page. The colour that the extension shows up in can be switched to a colour other than yellow in the extension options. In the same screen of extension options, you can also choose to turn off the Translate service by unchecking the box that reads "Always Add to Google+". You can also choose which language you'd like to translate all your text to. Google+ users who use Chrome and want to download the Translate extension can do so from the Chrome web store from here.

Now Google+ updates show up in Gmail

Google’s habit of slowly evolving a product through its phases will effect Google+, as well. The adoption of Google+ was quick and as people continue to move to the newly launched social networking site, Google has been busy at work adding features to Google+, along with integrating the social networking site into other services. In this case, Gmail will start showing Google+ posts by the contacts in the right pane. The right pane is usually reserved for related advertisements, as well as recent events and mails from the recipient of the mails. The widget is currently being rolled across Gmail accounts around the world, so it might be a day or two before you see it in your Gmail account.

Other examples of this integration of services can be seen in YouTube. YouTube’s new Google Plus Hangout feature, which we talked about yesterday allows several users to watch the same YouTube video in real-time. There are also other features that are being added. Google started adding verified accounts to its database, much like Twitter’s verified account system for celebrities and well known figures.

How to Use Social Media for Business: Give Your Customers a Voice.

One of the best aspects of social media is that it allows for conversation to occur. Not only is it an easy way to market your newest campaign and easily reach both current and future customers, but social media allows for a dialogue between you and your fans about anything related to your business. Establishing your presence on the social media channels your customers also use and then listening to their thoughts about your products and services gives your customers a voice about the decisions that your business makes.

Customer service lines have always existed, and before social media channels, customers quite literally used their voices to connect with brands and businesses when they had a complaint. With the evolution of social media, your brand can now establish a presence on platforms like Facebook and Twitter and allow customers to voice concerns — or praise — using the same words with which they previously could only call in. To give your customers this opportunity to vocalize their thoughts about your business using social media, your brand or business needs a presence on social media channels. The key in deciding which platform to utilize — and how often to use each one — is to know where your audience is. While over 700 million people use Facebook, you may also want to have an active presence on Twitter if you are a tech-related company or hope to reach bloggers. If you already have an email newsletter of devoted readers, converting them to reading your blog and leaving comments to discuss questions or concerns may be most ideal for your business.

Regardless of the platforms you choose to utilize to engage your customers and give them a voice, you should never take this voice away or restrict it. Closing comments in any shape or form essentially tells your audience — which, as a business, are your customers — that you do not respect their opinions, let alone care if they have a complaint or concern. Many blogs offer the ability to moderate comments, and YouTube has this option as well, which can offer a great deal of crowd control if the content of comments becomes an issue that would affect your reputation. Of course, deleting comments on Facebook is always an option, too.

Make sure that if you do receive a valid, negative comment about your business, you take the time to personally respond to correct the issue. Offering apology and asking for a second chance can often correct the course, and yield a positive comment in the future, which can boost your reputation for both the product you offer as well as for your level of customer service.

How to Use Social Media Tools for Marketing to Spread Your Message

If you are a business or brand, you know how critical it is to not only use traditional marketing methods to advertise your product or service, but also use tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and YouTube to reach a wider and broader audience. Traditional PR is, of course, still critical, but almost every person now consumes some form of media via social media platforms. Knowing what these tools are and how to use them to spread your message is critical for success in today’s world.

One of the most important social media tools to utilize in spreading your message is Facebook. With over 700 million users, almost everyone who is in the market to buy something is on Facebook — or knows someone who is. Facebook has a type of profile page designed specifically for businesses and brands called Pages, which allows you to attract fans of your brand and post messages about your product or service that are appearing on your fans’ Facebook walls. These posts can be shared by your fans, which makes it easier to spread your message. Facebook pages also feature the ability to track the statistics of your fans and your messages so you can see if you are attracting the right market, and if your messaging is working.

Another social media tool that can help spread your message is Twitter. With Twitter, you can talk about your product and share related news and information in 140 characters or less to followers of your brand’s Twitter account. These tweets can easily be retweeted by others, which can then be retweeted by their followers, spreading your message even further. To make sure that the most people read your message and potentially share it, you will want to attract followers and potentially target your message to key influencers. To find followers who are interested in your brand and find key influencers, you can use a directory of Twitter profiles like Listorious, which categorizes Twitter users into lists by interest or activities.

You can also use social media tools like blogs and YouTube to spread your message. Blogs are a great way to write about your product and reference other links, which can then be used as a reference and linked back to in your posts on Facebook or Twitter, where brevity is most preferred. YouTube is also a great way to talk about your brand or product. If your video is especially interesting or funny, your initial viewers will share it with their followers and friends, which will continue to spread your message.

Whichever social media tool you use, you will want to be sure you are using the tool that will help you spread your message best. This means going where your audience is, and knowing what your audience prefers. If you find your audience does not watch many YouTube videos but is very active on Twitter, you will want to devote your attention accordingly.

How to Use Social Media for Marketing to Generate Ideas

Many social media tools are equipped with several features that make it easy to engage your fans and followers. These features, which include the ability to reply to an update on Facebook or a tweet on Twitter, as well as leave a comment on a blog or YouTube video, can inspire discussion. While these these discussions may often lead astray from the initial topic, they usually generate new ideas that can help shape and grow your business.



Facebook is one of the best ways to use social media to generate ideas. With Facebook, you can ask your fans and followers if they like a new product, what they think about a product, or what their opinion is about an emerging trend that affects your business or brand. You can then use this feedback to generate new ideas about the future direction of your services or product. Asking direct questions is the easiest way to do this, but you can also use Facebook’s built in poll generator to offer your fans a quick way to vote on or choose between various ideas or options. This is a great option if you have a few ideas in mind, and also want to engage your community.


Twitter can be used similarly to Facebook. Asking questions on Twitter tends to generate a much higher response rate than flat statements. Use this to your brand’s benefit and ask your followers what they think, and then respond with follow-up questions to each reply to get an even stronger understanding of their ideas. While you may not agree with the thoughts of your followers and fans, their opinions could inspire ideas of your own to apply to your brand’s strategy and product development.

Gathering comments from YouTube and your blog are also great uses of social media that can help generate ideas. While these comments can often be spam or detritus from “trolls” who do not contribute anything meaningful to the conversation, many other responses can provide valuable feedback. Engaging with these commenters can help narrow down either a demonstrated problem in your presentation or discussion, or inspire an entire new set of ideas. While moderating comments on both your blog and YouTube can be time-consuming, turning off the option to leave a comment can make your brand’s fans feel like they have no voice, which will turn them away. It may also prevent someone with a truly good idea from reaching you. Try not to take this route.

Social media provides great features for marketing to generate ideas. To take full advantage of these platforms, be sure you are engaging your fans and followers and listening to their opinions and thoughts to hear their ideas, and to inspire your own as well.