I got into an argument with a friend a few weeks ago. I was complaining that I really didn't like the spam that Facebook shoves into my newsfeed. His argument was - and I paraphrase... I don't mind the occasional advert - between the Farmville notifications and "inspirational" quotes, I barely notice them. For me, this was quite the shocker. I don't see game invitations. I rarely see "spiritual" messages, or ill-informed racist rants. Why? Not because my friends are better than his -…
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I'm really late to the party on this one - so this blog post is mostly an aide-mémoire. The web is built on three fundamental components: HTML - the structure of the page. CSS - how the page is styled. JavaScript - the interactivity. Typically, the website owner sets up the CSS to say links are blue, headlines are big, images have borders etc. etc. Users, however, can over-ride these styles using their own CSS. For example, a person with poor vision may decided to pump up all …
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I've found (and disclosed) what I think is an interesting little security flaw in Facebook's Two-Factor Authentication usage. First thing's first, this isn't a show-stopping bug. It's more of a curiosity which shows how different providers treat the verification of Two-Factor Authentication. Details If you are a security conscious user, you should have set up Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). Every time you try to log in to Facebook, after providing the correct password, you are send a…
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So, Yahoo! is to buy tumblr for $1.1 BEEEEEELLION. I don't understand money. Well, specifically, I don't understand how companies are funded, classify shares, or any of that finance stuff. But, there's something which has been bothering me about the recent sale of some social media properties. According to some estimates, tumblr has 170 million users. $1.1 billion / 170 million users is.... double checks workings $6.47 per user. Err... what? Even if those number are off by 50% - Yahoo have …
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Analysts estimates are always interesting to read - especially if you know the real statistics which they are trying to prophetize. Even when someone releases "official" statistics, they're usually hard to verify independently, and even harder to analyse by region. Benedict Evans - who I've had the pleasure of meeting at Mobile Monday - published some very interesting official stats on Facebook's mobile usage. The statistics show that roughly 44% of Facebook use is "not mobile". How does…
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I've moaned before about the crap adverts on social networks. Facebook has suddenly been getting a lot worse. Today they decided that it would be great to show me adverts for a steak restaurant. Which, would be fine, if I hadn't been vegetarian for the last 13 years... Facebook have been spamming my wall with all sorts of rubbish - dodgy share trading deals, timeshare scams, PPI reclaim cons, malicious Android apps - really bottom of the barrel stuff. So, as I'm too weak-willed to abandon…
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I'm sat here, in my dressing gown. My fingers are greasy from eating crisps all morning. My back aches because I spent all night playing a stupid video game. The gin hangover isn't helping either. My week off work has been a wash out. I didn't write any code, I didn't cook anything other than pizza, and I'm beginning to smell of used dish water. I log on to Facebook - and this is what I see, all complete with photos of smiling people doing awesome things. Melody checked in at Bury Lane…
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Man! Instagram sucks! Let's all move to Flickr! The Internet - December 2012 The same flickr which capriciously deletes the photos of paying customers? The same flickr which has catastrophic accidents? The same flickr who bans paying customers for commenting on political issues? The same flickr which one day decided that paintings and drawings weren't suitable for its site? Yeah. I'm not ok with that. If you're "liberating" your Instagram photos to Flickr, you're merely trading one jail…
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Facebook has been getting a lot of criticism for its lack of mobile revenue. A fact it tried to hide from its IPO. Much ink has been spilled, but is it really necessary for Facebook to worry? Here's a quick case study. Facebook has, in its infinite wisdom, decided that I would be interested in adverts for cancer. Or, perhaps, AXA have decided that 30 something males are a prime market. The creator of the advert was Equator's Fiona Dow who, judging from her bitly profile just loves…
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On Thursday, I attended my first TeaCamp. It's a mini-meetup for UK Gov folk doing interesting digital things. These are some random jotterings based on the discussions both at the event and at BeerCamp afterwards. All conversations were under Chatham House Rules. Social Media is a problem for all organisations - whether public or private. Rightly or wrongly, the "public" see an organisation as having a single mind and a single focus. Anything which gives the impression of a lack of unit…
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For the last few weeks I've been unable to run Spotify in Linux using WINE. I was continually getting a crash with this error message: Unhandled page fault on read access to 0x00000068 at address 0x7bc34e57 After lots of fruitless digging around, I discovered that the issue is with the Facebook integration! The fix is simple. Visit the Facebook Applications Page, remove Spotify. I've noted this error on the WINE Site. If you're a premium Spotify user, you can run their Linux Preview of…
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Facebook has a funny idea of society. From telling you to reconnect with dead friends, to offering your partner up as a "single" in your area - Facebook has a habit of getting things wrong. My partner and I, like many married couples, live together. We speak over breakfast, commute together and send each other emails and texts throughout the day. But we don't do any of this on Facebook. This worries Facebook. It thinks our marriage may be on the rocks because we haven't - excuse me - "po…
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