Nick O’Neill recently wrote about the possibility that if Facebook would just open up your status updates, Twitter could be put out of its tracks. Well, actually, Facebook updates are open - it’s just up to each user to release them. Any user on Facebook can provide their friends’ status updates to any third party provider, through a simple RSS feed, and this feed has been around since April of 2007!

To obtain the RSS feed is simple. Just click on “Friends” in the header at the top of Facebook and select “All Friends” in the drop-down. Now, look up in the URL bar of your browser (this works best in Firefox or Safari) - see the little RSS icon? Click on it, an voila, your friends’ status updates will come, in a live feed, straight to your RSS reader. There’s nothing stopping developers from creating a service around this, asking for this URL from users, and providing a Twitter-like interface around it. The URL goes in this format, and it’s completely controlled by the user, because a key must be provided to the app that wants to use it (this is for me and my friends, key obviously omitted):

feed://www.facebook.com/feeds/friends_status.php?id=683545112&key=xxxxxxxxxxx&format=rss20

This also works for your own updates. To get an RSS feed of just your updates, you have to go to your mini feed page at this url (I can’t find a way to get there through links on Facebook - if you know of a way please let me know in the comments). On the right hand side of the page, you’ll see a “My Status” link. Add that to your RSS reader and now all your personal Facebook status updates will go to your reader! Again, with a key you give out as a user, any app can now use this data to track your own status updates. In fact, FriendFeed is already utilizing this feed! The URL for personal updates is in the format of (I’m leaving my key in this case so you can see my own updates):

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=683545112&viewer=683545112&key=77b2714b66&format=rss20

Of course, any developer can also access these updates, with the user’s permission, via the Facebook API as well so theoretically you don’t even have to collect these URLs. However, through this method, anyone can track you, and your friends’ status updates with your permission. So your Facebook updates are public, sort of.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
How I wonder what you are.
Up above the world so high,
like a Diamond, in the sky.
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
How I wonder what you are.

When the blazing sun is gone,
When the nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night.

Then the traveller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He couldn’t see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so.

In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often through my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky.

As your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the traveller in the dark,—
Though I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

–Jane Taylor

Original Photo (Jesse Stay)

Okay, I know no one at Apple reads my blog, but this is wishful thinking on my part. I’m getting really desperate, and so are what seems to be hundreds of others who have recently upgraded to the 10.5.6 update on the various Mac and Apple forums on the internet. The issue lies around Safari, and Facebook, and Gmail, and sessions. When I use Safari, no matter what I do, after about 30 seconds, Facebook logs me out. I can’t use Facebook in Safari. After 30 minutes or so on Gmail, it becomes unresponsive, and refreshing returns a 400 Bad Request error.

The only way I’ve found to fix this is to reset Safari, reboot, or clear all my cookies, but then, another 30 minutes later or so, all the other problems resurface again. I tried downloading the latest Webkit build, still no go. I tried reinstalling Leopard, still no go. I tried installing the full package from Apple.com for 10.5.6 and it still gives me the same issue. Each time I think it gets fixed, but a few minutes to hours later the problem comes right back.

It would appear that I’m not alone on this issue, either. Just doing a google search for “10.5.6 safari cookies session” or “safari gmail 400 bad request” returns page after page of users having issues. Threads like this one and this one prove there’s a serious issue here, with no response at all from Apple.

I’ve switched to Firefox, which actually I prefer, but Firefox is extremely slow for me on my Mac when compared to Safari for some reason. I want my Safari back! Apple, please, if anyone is listening, we need a fix soon! I am powerless without this update, and I’m really, really close to just getting a PC.

Back in March, I reported the occurance of a new worm on Facebook, which surfaced due to a phishing scam, and took over users’ profiles.  It would appear that a similar scam is surfacing on Twitter as we speak.  The scam comes in the form of a direct message to a user’s followers, stating “hey! check out this funny blog about you…”, followed by a URL.  When you click on the URL it takes you to a phished version of Twitter, looking exactly like the original Twitter site, which collects your username and password.  I’ve received about 5 of these just in the past hour so it is spreading rampantly. Twitter just reported the incident here.

Asking those that have sent the message, it would appear most of them filled out the form thinking they were logging into Twitter, so it is most likely one person that sent such a message to all their followers, starting the domino effect of spam and password collection.  This begs the question, though, which I’ve brought up multiple times in the forums and Chris Messina blogged about today on the urgency of Twitter requiring OAuth or similar Key-based authentication in the API.  It would take any application, similar to Twtply, to be sold to a spammer, full of usernames and passwords to set off such a worm.  Essentially, any application which collects your username and password right now has the potential to turn its users into Twitter zombie accounts, similar to this worm spreading currently, spreading false information, collecting bank account information, or you name the possibility.

I hope Twitter has this as their number one priority currently - stopping this worm is important, but implementing some sort of key-based authentication such as OAuth should be the next thing on Twitter’s mind, and in my opinion, that should occur even before the new API push they are getting ready to launch.  Twitter - it sounds like you need a patch applied to your service!

From myself, my family, and for all my readers, Happy New Year 2009!  May you all have a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

Image Source (Jesse Stay)

One of the reasons I started this blog back in 2004 (I believe it was actually earlier, in various forms) was to enable me to chronicle the intellectual things I came across throughout life. This year has been such an amazing year for me, experiencing the birth of my son (which we Twittered and Ustreamed), the birth of 2 identical twin nieces (which I didn’t document here), to the complete opposite of the spectrum with the death of both my Grandfather, and just recently my Grandmother, whose 85th birthday would have been January 1st, 2009. I have experienced such joys, and at the same time such sorrow, and you all have been there with me every step of the way. I’ve never done the “list” thing before (never had time!), so I thought this year would be different. I thought I’d go through each month and share with you some of the highlights on Stay N’ Alive this year.

January

January was the start of my Twitter woes, with frequent outages and frustration.  ChaCha saved my brother due to lack of weather and traffic reports in the area he was traveling.  January was the month I created my largest annoyance, coining the technique (which was the first time the idea was mentioned anywhere, I believe) of tagging friends in Facebook Notes to bring attention to them.  This technique worked and helped me build relationships with several bloggers I am now friends with today.  I now hate the technique because everyone uses it on me.  Myspace announced their own developer platform, giving hints to a date OpenSocial would go live.  Pownce, which ironically I was a user of long before Twitter, began to show purpose for me.  People got confused about what the Facebook Platform was, and the leader of my faith passed away (Death #1).

February

I started February by coining my idea of Social Media bringing back the small communities and villages of olden times.  I pointed out the fact that Amazon has its own Social Network (which surprisingly still, not many people are aware of).  I took my very first trip to the Bay area, and got an awesome tour of the Googleplex from my cousin, who treated me to one of the best lunches I’ve ever eaten.  I wrote my first OpenSocial application, and realized web development had changed as we know it.  Back then, Twitter Track over SMS still worked, so I wrote one of the very first posts suggesting Twitter as a tool for disasters and emergencies.  Other than for news, I’m not so sure about that any more.  I launched OpensocialNow.com, which quickly fizzled as I ran out of time.  London had a small, but rare earthquake, and I saw it first on Twitter, on my cell phone, via track. In February I published my first book.

March

March, Facebook introduced their Feed Forms (which we were first to announce), providing a way for developers to easily publish stories to the Facebook news feed.  March marked the birth of our 4th child and youngest son, Jesse III, which we Twittered, blogged, and Ustreamed the entire way.  We began to see the makings of the first Facebook Worm, which this blog was one of the first to report (and henceforth recorded by Fortiguard security, and then PC Magazine’s blog).  Google launched the OpenSocial Foundation, and Yahoo became a member and announced their (future) support for the platform.

April

April I attended my first Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.  I learned the wonders of the Bloggers Lounge, and met several great new people there.  Bungee Labs made some great announcements there, and it was looking up for them as Google announced their App Engine platform and the idea of Software as a Service was put in the public eye.  Of course, with layoffs later down the road, things aren’t looking so hot for them right now.  April was also a hallmark month, with the launch of SocialToo.com at the end of the month, in a very small announcement, I invited my small audience at the time to join and help build out intelligent blacklisting for the service.  It was this time I met Guy Kawasaki and built out the UI on his behalf to enable him and myself to follow those that were following us on Twitter.  We didn’t officially launch to the general public until last month. April, I also got to guest post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog.

May

May was an exciting, and somber month at the same time. My former business colleague and friend, Phil Burns’, daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia.  Through Twitter and this blog, and others kind efforts of sharing on their blogs, we were able to raise over $10,000 in just a month, all through means of social media.  This further witnessed to me the power of Social Media, and makes me truly believe in some of the things people like Beth Kanter are doing right now.  In March, I wrote my first 1-word post, in response to another one-word post on TechCrunch, which was in response to Twitter being down for the umpteenth time in a matter of days. That prompted Twitter to blame their outages on Robert Scoble, and Robert Scoble blaming Twitter for their own problems.  I took a trip out to Google I/O, and Robert, under last minute circumstances, invited me to join him in going to the Twitter offices and working things out.  It was there I met Ev Williams and Biz Stone in person, realized what a mess the service really was, and ended up on the front page of TechCrunch.  It was just after that that Twitter continued their classic behavior of cutting out features from the API with little to no notice to developers. It was at the same conference I was able to speak for the Slicon Valley Web Builders on Facebook Development in FBML.  April was also the month I began seriously using FriendFeed.

June

June was a somber month for me.  It started with Facebook announcing their yearly F8 conference, right in the middle of OSCON, both conferences I was hoping to attend.  The most somber part of the month however came when my Grandfather, and namesake, died in a quick turn for the worse due to Cancer and old age.  This was a hard thing for me, being one of the closest people I knew to die.  It was also death #2 of the year of people I adored.  Shortly after that, on my way to the funeral services in fact, I noticed some developers were completely shutting down their apps due to problems with the Twitter API.  I predicted they would continue to succeed regardless.  The month ended somberly, with Bill Gates, a hero of mine, leaving Microsoft.

July

In July, I got my new 2nd generation iPhone, and realized it needs Privacy controls. I attended Facebook’s F8 conference, where I predicted, and they very quietly announced plans for a mobile platform API. All this occurred as they were announcing the launch of Facebook Connect.  Right before F8 I finished my second book. In July I left Twitter, learned some valuable lessons about the service, and ended up coming back a few months later when I realized no one was joining me.  SocialToo announced Identi.ca support.  July was also the month I began blogging as a member of the team at LouisGray.com.  My first post was about none-other than blogging.

August

In August I celebrated my 31st Birthday.  OpenMicroblogger launched their competing software to the Laconi.ca Open Source microblogging platform.  Twitter launched the ability to track threaded replies in the API, and I began to suggest that the Twitter platform needed a meta tagging language to remove the need for the “@”.  Some suggested that the LDS Church was buying Facebook (yeah, I know).  We saw history made as the Olympics hit China.

September

September I took a temporary turn to full time work, going to help out i.TV bring their App to the number one spot in the iTunes App store.  Since then they have continued their growth, and continue as a client of mine as I build out SocialToo.  I launched the first public Wordpress plugin for Facebook Connect.  Wordpress.com passed 4 million blogs.  I had an excellent time at BlogWorld in Las Vegas, where I roomed with Louis Gray and met a ton of new people and bloggers (are bloggers people?).

October

In October I announced for the first time I would be voting for a (gasp!) Democrat.  i.TV reached #1 in the iTunes App store, and I got to witness it first hand, having a part in their promotion and growth.  Facebook reached their 10 billionth photo and we were one of the first to report it.  Proposition 8 in California became the center of a love/hate storm.  Someone left a suicide note in the Facebook developer forums.  SocialToo announced Follower statistics for our users.

November

I spent a lot of November speaking, starting with an O’Reilly Webinar on Facebook development for beginners.  America elected our first African American president, and I voted, but had to pay for my Chik Fil A sandwich.  I presented to a large group of CIOs in Dallas.  SocialToo went live to the public! (and Guy Kawasaki joined forces to help launch it, as co-owner) I presented Facebook Development in under 5 minutes at Ignite Salt Lake City.

December

I started out December participating on several panels.  We launched a new redesign on Stay N’ Alive.  My family and I took a vacation to Las Vegas.  After getting back, just 2 days before Christmas we received disheartening news that my Grandmother had passed away.  This would make death #3 of the year, but we’re happy she’s home for Christmas.  We ended the month with great news however, announcing Louis Gray joining the Board of Advisors for SocialToo.

Have a safe and Happy New Year!

As I write this, it’s quickly approaching midnight here in the MountainWest.  It’s been an incredible year for me and this blog - I can’t wait to see what lies in store for the next year.  In the meantime, “Stay” tuned, and keep watching here and LouisGray.com, as well as my new business, SocialToo.com for more great content regarding Technology, Social Networking, and new technologies.  I promise to keep things exciting around here, and look forward to the upcoming year.  Let’s hope I don’t explode!

I’m very proud and excited to announce that Louis Gray, my publisher and fellow-author at LouisGray.com, will now be part of my company, SocialToo.com’s, Board of Advisors and helping us to further build out our strategy in the near and long-term future. Louis comes from a strong PR and marketing background, and when not blogging, he works in corporate marketing and public relations for a private Silicon Valley technology infrastructure company, and is an advisor to ReadBurner, Inc. Louis is a UC Berkeley graduate, holding a degree in Political Science and Mass Communications. He’ll serve as a great help in building out strategy for SocialToo, which I believe is a tool for Marketers, to a mass audience.

Louis approached me with several great ideas which I hope we can implement soon, and which we’ll be working to integrate into the already rich set of tools which SocialToo provides. His transparency in what he does I think will serve well in keeping us a responsible participant in building tools that work to meet the needs of all users on social networks our users belong to. Louis himself has quite the following, and has introduced the likes of Robert Scoble and others to FriendFeed - I’m sure you’ll be seeing more from us on that service now with him on board, especially as we branch out to other services beyond Twitter.

Louis was first to recognize and report TweetDeck, the now extremely popular Twitter Client. He was first to cover Social Median, which recently sold for several million dollars under a year. He’s covered many other very successful services and clients, and he’s one that knows a successful company when he sees it. I’m very honored and excited to have him on board, and plan for much, much more thanks to his advice and involvement in SocialToo going forward. Welcome, Louis!

If you check out my Twitter Profile, you’ll notice a new, winter-themed, festive Avatar. Yes, it’s animated, and everyone is going to hate me now for revealing how to do this. Check out my post on LouisGray.com to learn how it’s done. Consider it my second gift to you this Christmas!

Thanks to the Disqus team, along with the guys at Sociable, we’re now supporting Facebook Connect on Stay N’ Alive. It all starts over on the right under Community, where you can see other Facebook users that have visited the site recently. Then, now, when you comment, if you logout of Disqus, and then choose the login option again, you’ll now have the option to login via Facebook Connect and have your comment identified as such. The Disqus guys are continually working to improve this, but now you have one more option to communicate on the site. Oh, and when you comment, your friends should also see your comment in their Facebook News Feeds! Just a little Christmas gift to my readers…

(Dedicated to my Grandmother, born New Years Day, who passed away 2 days ago. This is JJ’s first Christmas Gift that he is wearing in this picture.)

The day after my mom died
Was Christmas morning
There were so many wonderful gifts
Under our tree.
We opened them peacefully
Mom would have wanted it that way.
She would have wanted
Her grandchildren to have a good Christmas.
I held back my tears
As each gift was opened
And that Christmas is such a blur,
But it is March now
And I still see the tiny patches of paper
In a corner of my dining room
That I carefully ripped from each gift
To look at later
Of all the love we got
That Christmas
Which was hard for me to see then
Through teary eyes.

Connie Webb

Original Image (Jesse Stay)
Poem Author: Connie Webb