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Facebook will not support Google Friend Connnect

Marc Chacksfield — 1210947060

In quite a stinging – albeit back-handed – indictment of Google’s Friend Connect project, Facebook developer Charlie Cheever has posted an announcement on the Facebook Developers’ noticeboard that the social-networking website will not be joining up to Friend Connect just yet.

Not respecting privacy

In his statement, Cheever says: “Now that Google has launched Friend Connect, we’ve had a chance to evaluate the technology.

“We’ve found that it redistributes user information from Facebook to other developers without users’ knowledge, which doesn’t respect the privacy standards our users have come to expect and is a violation of our Terms of Service.”

He continues to say: “We think MySpace’s Data Availability, Google Friend Connect, and Facebook Connect can be part of a great movement in the industry to give users a better and safer experience online, while respecting user privacy.

“We look forward to working with our developer community and everyone else in the industry to help all of our users take their information, and their privacy, with them wherever they go.”

Friends not-united

Considering the point of the Friend Connect, Data Availability, and Facebook Connect projects is about making the internet a more transparently social place – where you can share and share alike all your online information – it does seem that this bickering between three heavyweights of the web world is bringing about anti-social measures.

Instead of a unified social-network, the whole thing is becoming worryingly divided.

Fair And Square campaign: Apple responds

Marc Chacksfield — 1210945320

Following on from our Fair And Square interview and article yesterday, Apple has responded to the findings that the company's online UK store was contravening the ‘Distance Selling Regulations’.

Dropping the charges

Apple had previously been charging consumers with a fee for the ‘collecting and processing’ of goods. The money that had to be paid out was dependent on how expensive the bought item was. This fee has now been completely dropped.

The terms and conditions published on the Apple website will be changed within 10 days, and any purchases returned before then will not be subject to the fee.

Time to clean up Facebook

Gareth Beavis — 1210930500

The makers of Californian site Facebook have decided to cut the clutter on its pages, and will instead return to the spick and span look that brought it such popularity.

The amount of applications now available for each user to use on their profile has grown rapidly, causing annoyance for many. (Does anyone really want to be asked to become a zombie/pirate/werewolf/ninja every single day? Hint - no)

Ditch the mess

The first ‘major’ social networking phenomenon - MySpace - has been criticised for allowing its users to modify nearly all aspects of its aesthetic, leading to a sites becoming visually difficult to decipher in some cases.

The Facebook designers will attempt to avert their site going down the same route by likely dividing the content into distinct areas - possible by tabs or a side list, allowing users to view their messages, comments and applications separately.

The site’s visage will not change dramatically - indeed, the Facebook layout and colours have already become entrenched within the brand - instead users will hopefully gain more control over the way their profile is organised, allowing their friends to network with them easier.

The designers have been currying opinion on a possible redesign through the company’s developer blog and wiki, and have also enabled a group within the site to gain user feedback.

A quick check - over 10 Facebook groups have been created to express pleasure/distaste for the new redesign. To these people have nothing better to do? (Hint - yes, we're avoiding it.)

Sharp dials Aquos TVs into Yahoo channel

J Mark Lytle — 1210919634

Piping web pages to television sets has never been a particular success in the past - something Sharp and Yahoo Japan hope to change with the introduction of a new service later this month.

Yahoo Japan for Aquos commences on 29 May, delivering pre-selected Yahoo pages to 31 current Aquos models, all of which offer full high-definition screens.

Anyone using the free service needs to connect their TV to the internet via an Ethernet cable, as there are no wireless Aquos models available yet.

Family emphasis

Using the normal TV remote control, users can select from channels that include travel guides, recipes, puzzles and entertainment guides. The 'Shape Your Square Head Round' option sounds particularly intriguing.

Yahoo Japan director Hiroaki Kitano is fully aware of the pitfalls of offering web TV and isn't rushing into anything major at first. The key to expanding the service to something more comprehensive will be in making the simple, free services a success first.

He explained: "We would like to consider adding [commercial services, but those] won't start unless the initial service succeeds. The key figure as a benchmark is one million units or one million people."

Interview: Fair And Square campaign

Marc Chacksfield — 1210868280

Intrigued with Computeractive’s Fair And Square campaign, TechRadar spoke to Paul Allen, the editor of Computeractive about the magazine’s fight for online rights.

TechRadar: So, how has the campaign gone so far?

Paul Allen: It was only launched today, but we have already had one retailer contact us and say they are rewriting their terms and conditions, making them clearer for buyers which is great.

TR: Are you against online shopping?

PA: Not at all, online shopping is a brilliant, quick and easy way of buying goods, it’s just that we feel there needs to be more enforcement for people after they buy goods online.

The government has recently announced new legislation protecting people purchasing items, but we are focusing on what goes on after purchasing, when you want to send things back or get goods repaired. We need more education about this.

TR: What was the age range of the people polled.

PA: The magazine has a readership of over 200,000 and we polled 3,500. The age range was between 35 to 65.

TR: What would you like to see happen?

PA: We think online retailers have a responsibility and they should make the returning of goods a great deal easier. We are not saying that there is a big conspiracy on the internet about this; it’s more a series of little crimes with various online retailers failing to make it simple for online buyers to contact them when something goes wrong with a product.

TR: How can online retailers do this?

PA: It comes down really to simple things, like putting up postal addresses for the return of goods. Looking at the data we have gathered we found that reputable retailers like the O2 Store and Screwfix have failed to put their postal addresses up on their website. Or if they have, they are so tucked away that it’s impossible for your average buyer to find.

TR: How exactly is Apple contravening the ‘Distance Selling Regulations’?

PA: We are still waiting for a response from the company on this, but Computeractive found that, when it comes to sending stuff back, the company has two tiers of charges of collecting and processing – depending on the price of the product – and this simply isn’t allowed.

The Office of Fair Trading clearly states that the supplier has to give a full refund and cannot make any charge or deduction for restocking or handling.

TR: What would you like to see happen at the end of the campaign?

PA: In the end what we want to happen is simple: we want online retailers to communicate clearly with their customers. At the moment, this just isn’t happening.

Poll: Many online retailers are 'breaking the law'

Marc Chacksfield — 1210842720

A poll by Computeractive magazine has uncovered some interesting findings regarding consumers’ rights when shopping online.

Out of the 3,500 people asked, 55 per cent of consumers have been incorrectly told to return faulty goods, while 54 per cent did not understand their online rights.

Paul Allen, editor of Computeractive, says about the findings, “What this research reveals unequivocally is that UK shoppers need to be better informed of their online consumer rights. There are specific rules to protect online shoppers that some retailers abuse.”

Bad Apple

Among the companies that the Computeractive found to be in breach of online consumer protection laws was Apple. Research found that Apple’s online UK store was “contrary to the Distance Selling Regulations.”

In light of the results, Computeractive is encouraging consumers to sign up to its Fair and Square campaign.

The campaign has been set up to highlight the issues the poll has raised, and will hopefully encourage online retailers to sign up to the Consumer Confidence Charter. Companies that do this and meet the stringent criteria will be able to display the Fair and Square logo on their sites.

If you want more information on shopping safely online, then download this handy guide.

Google's Friend Connect enters its preview stage

Marc Chacksfield — 1210782780

The much-anticipated rival to MySpace’s data availability project has entered its preview stage allowing site owners to sign up to the venture.

A Friend Connect preview portal has been launched and is focusing very much on helping webmasters to build up traffic by adding “just a few snippets of code” to their existing websites.

Google gadgets

Sign up to the site and Google promises a number of things. Adding Friend Connect on to your site and you can: attract more viewers, enrich your site with social features, and it all involves no programming whatsoever.

It’s the social features that seem to be the main focus of Friend Connect, though. These social gadgets will help with member management, message board, reviews, and picture-sharing.

The main gadget Google cites as providing social features is the members gadget. This will enable users of sites signed up to Google Friend to:

Sign-in with their existing Google, Yahoo, AIM, or OpenID account
Invite and show activity to existing friends from social networks such as Facebook, Google Talk, hi5, orkut, Plaxo, and more
Browse member profiles across social networks
Connect with new friends on your site

Who has signed up?

Google has added four examples of sites that have signed up to the project. They are: My Latest Piece, a filmmaker’s website; Guacamole, a cooking site based around the dip; Ingrid Michaelson, an independent musician’s portal; and BibleApps, an open source developer.

There’s no information as of yet when Friend Connect will be available to the general public.

The US goes internet video crazy

Marc Chacksfield — 1210765080

Google’s rule over the goggle box seems to be tightening after a US study by comScore reveals that over 11 billion people watched internet video in the month of March, 64 per cent more than the same month just a year ago.

YouTube dominates

Not surprisingly, YouTube was the most-watched video site accounting for a massive 98 per cent of Google video traffic. The search engine itself garnered a total of 4.3 billion video views, 38 per cent of all video traffic.

This dominance shows in the rest of the study’s figures, with second place in the rankings Fox Interactive Media notching up just 4.2 per cent of the online video market share.

Three a day

Those who ‘tuned in’ to YouTube on average watched 83 videos a month, equating to around three a day. What’s surprising is that the average total length of daily video watched was just 2.8 minutes, showing what we already knew that online video watchers prefer their visual info in bite-size chunks.

Internet video to be subtitled?

Marc Chacksfield — 1210757160

Web video is on the rise in America. In fact, more than half of all US internet users watch it, and with broadband services getting faster the quality of the video is only going to get better.

That is why Ed Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, is backing a bill he believes will “ensure that people with disabilities are not left behind as technology changes.”

The bill would see a complete overhaul of internet video, with major TV networks made to add audio descriptive tracks and subtitles to the video they stream on the internet.

Caption contest

Even if the bill were to get passed, it would not count for amateur-upload sites like YouTube. It would be for the main television broadcasters who stream their TV content over the internet.

At the moment NBC is one of the only main US networks to subtitle its internet video streams.

It’s not just the internet, either that would be affected, but any video-streaming device such as mobile phones. Though with the screens being so small, the logistics of this is certain to cause the TV networks a few headaches.

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope now active

Marc Chacksfield — 1210680540

Pushing the possibilities of Web 2.0 to infinity and beyond, Microsoft Research has launched WWT, a visualisation software environment that changes your computer into a virtual telescope.

In essence, what the WorldWide Telescope allows you to do is explore space through different views and perspectives, while learning about various aspects of the night sky at the same time.

Space tours

The site also offers free guided tours by astronomers, or you can go off and explore ‘virtual’ space on your own, via the seamless panning and zooming options – providing your computer is up to it.

Microsoft is claiming to have terabytes of digitised information that makes up its virtual space; this has been taken from various sources over the internet.

The software is based on 16 years of work begun by the late computer scientist Jim Gray who was an integral part of Microsoft Research, right up until his death in January 2007. The WorldWide Telescope is dedicated to him.

Google Earth competitor

The WorldWide Telescope looks likely to be a direct competitor to Google Earth’s Sky application. At first glance it seems to have better imagery and interaction than Google’s star-gazer, but only time will tell if it becomes just as popular.