via Inside Facebook:
Less than three months after joining the OpenID Foundation’s board as a sustaining corporate member (i.e. putting its weight and financial support behind OpenID), Facebook has just announced at the “technology tasting” event this afternoon at its Palo Alto headquarters that users will soon be able to log in to Facebook with their OpenID.
Very cool!
Cross-posted to http://macfreedom.com:
I’m proud to announce Freedom v0.5 is now available for public download. This version addresses a number of issues with programs that require network access, offers greater stability, and now allows donors to turn off the request for donations you see when Freedom’s time expires.
Download the new version directly (http://macfreedom.com/wp-content/dmg/Freedom.dmg) or from the website (http://macfreedom.com). Previous donors have already been sent a registration code, but if I’ve missed you, please drop me a line and I’ll send you a code. To employ the code, select the “Register” option at the end of your Freedom session. This will only work with the most recent version of Freedom, and this code is perpetual. New donors will be sent a code upon receipt of their donation (generally within 12 hours).
Full changelog:
Freedom 0.5
Addressing Microsoft Word bug
Allow for registration/kill the nag screen
Better support for applications that require some form of network access
Better support for remote filesystems
Better stability
Your donations made this new version possible. As usual, please let me know of your bugs, problems and feature requests.
Unconfirmed, but here’s the quote from The Flightpad:
Last week, a sales rep from Facebook came to Flightpath to have a discussion with us concerning the most recent changes to the site. During the course of the meeting, he revealed that Facebook will soon be allowing users to earn Facebook Credits by simply engaging with their friends, whether it’s by “liking” a status, adding a friend, or posting a video. People will also be able to gift Facebook Credits to others, along with using credits to purchase gifts. In short, Facebook is going to have a currency. Holy Terms Of Service.
Bold mine, via Alice Marwick.
When Facebook announced the “Facebook Governance” voting back in February, Mark Zuckerberg hailed it as an “unprecedented” effort to involve users in the development of the terms of service. Almost two months later the voting has finally begun and around 260,000 individuals have voted on which terms to use. Within one week, 30 percent of the site’s population, or 60,000,000 individuals, will have to vote in order for the decision to stick. In other words, the vote is more symbolic than an actual vote.
It calls to mind the age-old trick of asking the children whether they’d like to wear their red or green pajamas to bed – with no choice about when bedtime actually is. Facebook still holds the quill and frames the choice. But the fact is that most companies wouldn’t dream of going as far as Facebook just has, because the kinds of public pressures that create privacy crises can also be elicited when cynical choices are presented. Facebook has intentionally placed itself in a new zone, borrowing elements of .org and .gov to inform how a .com is run. Coming from .edu myself, I’m disappointed that something initially as academically-related as Facebook – a social networking site for university communities – wasn’t begun and nurtured under university auspices, naturally incorporating public interest values.
I just discovered this today, but Public Opinion Quarterly 72(5) is a special edition dedicated completely to web surveys. All articles are available as a free download. If you’re using web surveys in your research, this is an issue you’ll want to pay attention to.
Have Web surveys lived up the hope and expectations of some, or the fears of others? Some claimed that Web surveys would replace other modes of data collection (especially telephone surveys); others saw Web surveys contributing to the disintegration or dilution—if not total demise—of the survey enterprise. Neither of these extremes has come to pass. Web surveys, like other methods of survey data collection, have strengths and weaknesses. Much of the research over the past several years has focused on identifying these strengths and weaknesses and finding ways to overcome the former and exploit the latter. The papers in this special issue continue this trend.
Notably, Sociological Methods & Research 37(3) is also a special edition dedicated to web surveys. This one is behind the paywall, unfortunately.
I’m pleased to announce that Freedom, my nifty OS X productivity software, has a new home at http://macfreedom.com.
This site is built on WordPress, using Derek Punsalan’s amazing Grid Focus theme. I’ll be blogging about productivity and announcing version upgrades on MacFreedom.com – so grab the RSS feed if you’re a freedom user. Please feel free to leave any feedback/comments/suggestions about the design, and if you get a chance, please bookmark MacFreedom.com in delicious.
via Inside Facebook:
Just seven months after hitting the 100 million user mark last August and 90 days after hitting the 150 million mark in January, Facebook confirmed today that the site has just crossed another major milestone: 200 million active users.
On average, Facebook has added nearly half a million users per day, every day, since late August. If Facebook were a country, it would now have the 5th largest population in the world (about 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States).
Quite an accomplishment – congrats to Facebook!
Fred Stutzman is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, where he studies privacy and social media. He is the designer of the productivity software Freedom and Anti-Social, and co-founder of the identity management service ClaimID.com.
