Entries tagged with facebook app - Channel 10

VisualSage: A New Way To Browse Facebook

sarahintampa — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:09:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to use Facebook as a desktop application? Now you can with a new and innovative application called VisualSage. This WPF-powered app presents a unique way to browse and use Facebook by providing access to many of Facebook’s functions, including pokes, profiles, photos, and chat, all right from your Windows desktop. You can also use VisualSage’s built-in search feature to perform advanced friend searches and then organize your friends into groups via drag-and-drop.

In addition to simply providing an alternative interface to Facebook, VisualSage can create interactive representations of your Facebook “social graph,” which is your network of friends on the Facebook service.

Reviews of the app on Facebook are mixed. Some users are not able to get signed into the app or report other error messages appearing. I’m disappointed to say that I fall into that first category – I can never get signed in. But for those people for whom the app works, the reviews are glowing, so I’m definitely keeping my eye on this one. Perhaps an updated version will finally let me in so I can try it for myself.

PageRage Dresses Up Your Facebook Profile

sarahintampa — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:08:00 GMT

I’m not sure why you would want this, but a new app called PageRage will let dress up your Facebook profile so it looks more like a profile found on MySpace instead. (Yikes!) That’s too bad because one of the nicest things about Facebook is it’s clean and simple look and feel, without the busy backgrounds and image-heavy designs that are so prevalent throughout MySpace.

With the new Facebook app PageRage, you now can customize your Facebook profile with new themes that change both the background and the color schemes of your Facebook profile page. Some of these themes are basic, solid backgrounds, but others are quite busy.

Before you freak out and think this is the end for Facebook, take comfort in the fact that you can only see the new themed profiles if you have the PageRage application installed yourself. If you don’t want to see themes, just don’t install it.

The app works via a browser plugin which uses something called Yontoo Layers. Yontoo Layers create a virtual layer over your browser window. I’m not sure entirely how that all works, but it sounds a lot like what the Firefox extension Stylish offers.

I know. Facebook themes, ick. I definitely won’t be…oh wait…is that a pink one? Awesome.

Messenger for Facebook Updated

sarahintampa — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 10:20:00 GMT

Earlier this year, the Windows Live Messenger team released an app for Facebook which officially integrated Live Messenger with Facebook. The Windows Live Messenger Facebook app shows your online presence on your Facebook profile and lets you IM with your friends directly on the Facebook web site itself.

Recently, this app received an update. The new V.2 version of Facebook Messenger now syncs your Live Messenger status with your Facebook status. The team also listened to user feedback and removed the HIP (Human Interface Proof) challenge which was presented before you could start a conversation.

Additionally, the new version will automatically set your display name to whatever your name is in Facebook. Before it used to prompt you to fill this in. With these updates (both the HIP and display name), there are now no more dialog boxes that appear before chatting can begin. You can now just start typing to IM your friends!

You can add Live Messenger to your Facebook by adding the app here: apps.facebook.com/windowslivemessenger.

New Version of Windows Media Center Status Tool Available

sarahintampa — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:09:00 GMT

There’s a new version of the Facebook app called the Windows Media Center Status Tool now available. (We first mentioned this tool back in February.) This app lets you update your Facebook user profile status based on what you are doing in Windows Media Center. For example, if you’re watching a DVD or TV show, it will change your status to “is watching [name of program/movie].” The latest version of this app (version 0.4.2) can now be configured to request confirmation as to whether or not you want your Facebook status updated. This allows you to have a bit more control over your privacy. However, the configuration must be done via a registry edit. You have to set "ConfirmUpdate_Facebook" to "1" in "HKLM\Software\Hamar Data\FBMCE". There have also been some minor improvements in this latest update and you must now give the app special permissions on a new page, too. That page is available here and you must configure those settings before you’re able to use the tool.

On a side note, I have no idea why the developer, Jussi Palo, chose to use a picture of eggs, ham, and sausage on his Facebook app’s page. Any ideas on that? Color me confused.

Tag Your Friends on Facebook…For Science

sarahintampa — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:34:00 GMT

This summer, Microsoft Researcher Desney Tan led a team that created a Facebook app called Collabio to investigate a new way of applying meta-tags to people – by using the power of crowdsourcing. In the game, friends label each other with descriptive tags that can include anything from physical or personality descriptions (curly-haired, organized, smart) to geographic locations to professional titles and more. When playing the game, you see a blanked-out tag cloud for a friend. By guessing which tags have been applied, you get points. Two or more people have to agree on a tag in order for you to receive those points.

While it’s fun for friends to play Collabio and see how they perceive each other, the researchers are more interested in how the knowledge contained in social networks can be tapped into and utilized for applications like personalization, expert matching, and so on. They plan to analyze the patterns revealed by this data to better understand the strengths and weaknesses of using games like Collabio to harness that knowledge. Using games to gather data can make social networks more of a useful and productive tool while still appearing to be a just be a place for simple, fun activities.

You can learn more about this project and their findings at http://research.microsoft.com/cue/collabio. To play Collabio on Facebook, go here: http://apps.facebook.com/collabio

Zine - Your Online Magazine on Facebook

sarahintampa — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:03:00 GMT

A new Facebook application called Zine is an online magazine of articles and videos that you can add to your Facebook profile. You can completely customize the magazine so you only see the topics that are interesting to you, whether that's News, Sports, Entertainment, Lifestyle, or anything else. Each main category is further divided into sub-categories that allow you to further customize your Zine. For example, you can choose to see just NFL news from the Sports category or just U.S. News and Politics from the News category, and so on. Your Zine is then loaded up for you, with each main category available as a tab at the top which you can click on to easily move through the content.

One thing I noticed right off the bat was that there was no "technology" news section listed. However, there is a feature called "My Topics," which lets you add the latest news stories for specific topics. For example, you could create a custom topic called "Olympics." I, of course, added a topic called "Twitter." I was happy to see a bunch of articles returned on the subject from big news sources like the NY Times, News.com, SFGate, and, of course MSN.com, which helps power this app.

When browsing through the categories, you can click "Prev" and "Next" buttons to scroll through the virtual pages or click "Expand" to have a particular section spread out across the page. You can also send a story to a friend or post it to your Facebook profile.

With all the talk of how newspapers and other print media are fading businesses, Zine stands out as a useful "new media" kind of way to get your daily news...right there in Facebook.