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Miss My Google Reader Updates? Here Are 4 Ways You Can Still Get Relevant Tech News

Posted on November 3, 2011 by jessestay

If you’re an avid Google Reader user like me, you are well aware of the recent changes Google Reader made to their interface, removing the ability to share news with friends, and as a result, killing the means for over 1,500 of you to receive relevant tech news updates from me. As a long-time supporter, and defender of Google Reader (I defended it even when others were saying it was dead), it’s no surprise I’m disappointed. However, I’m finding other ways, without Google Reader, to still get you the news you need. Maybe you didn’t even follow me on Google Reader before. Regardless, here are 4 ways you can follow my favorite tech news from around the web without Google Reader – I hope you can find value from one of these.

The Stay N Alive Newsletter

Every Tuesday or Wednesday I send out a newsletter to all my followers with my favorite news from throughout the week. In the newsletter it always has the most relevant highlights from the week, and things that I think you should know about in the tech world and other things I’m interested in. If you subscribe to anything of mine, you’ll definitely want to subscribe to this, as it’s the simplest way to skim through what you may have missed from the previous week. Have other items you want to see on this newsletter? Just let me know and I’ll see if I can highlight those as well.

To sign up for this newsletter, just fill out the form on the right column, or click the “Newsletter” link at the top, or just go here and fill out the form. I’d love to have each of you get this.

JessesLinks

Want something a little more relevant and real-time? Before I had Google Reader and you could just read each item I shared, right in your browser. With Google Reader’s changes, that’s no longer possible. However, I’m still sharing everything I used to share in Google Reader over on Twitter. Just subscribe to me at http://twitter.com/jesseslinks (@jesseslinks) and you’ll have all my favorite news delivered to you in real-time. Consider that the firehose (but it’s good water!)

Want to get updates on your cell phone? You don’t even need a Twitter account. Just send “follow jesseslinks” to 40404 (you don’t need a Twitter account, but that is Twitter’s SMS service) on your cellphone and you’ll immediately start getting news updates delivered to you via SMS as I share them. To stop the updates, just send “stop” to 40404 and they’ll stop.

Flipboard

One of my favorite News reading apps for the iPad is Flipboard. I like it because I can plug in just about any feed to Flipboard and immediately it turns it into news I can read, right on the Flipboard.

To get my shares on your Flipboard is easy. Just add the Twitter account @jesseslinks to Flipboard, and you’ll now be able to read the news I share right inside Flipboard. I think that’s probably one of the best ways to get your news and never have to leave the app to do it – consider it your “Stay N Alive Newspaper”.

Xydo.com

Lastly, and I should disclose that I’m an advisor of Xydo (and that’s for a reason – I only advise companies I believe in), Xydo.com can be an excellent way to get your news from me. You can just go to Xydo.com/Stay and get my updates there. Or, sign up for the site, register your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and get news from not just me but all your friends that are sharing news on Facebook and Twitter. If you’ve followed @jesseslinks on Twitter, those links will appear there as well (you can do that under the “Connections” link, or you can just let it pick the most relevant news out for you – it’s pretty smart!). Want these on Flipboard? Plug in your Xydo RSS feed for me, your personalized feed, or any Xydo topic into Flipboard and you’ve got news on your iPad!

Xydo is actually one of my biggest replacements for Google Reader social sharing at the moment. If you’re looking for a good replacement and don’t just want my shares, it may solve the problem of finding relevant news for you. I highly recommend them, and I’m not just saying that because I’m and advisor. I’m actually finding much more use out of them since Google Reader social sharing went away.

Facebook Just Downplayed The Biggest Launch They’ve Made Since Platform for the Web

Posted on October 11, 2011 by jessestay

I’m still trying to understand what just happened. The other day I wrote about finding some information about the upcoming HTML5 platform for mobile launch awhile back. There was a piece of their developer documentation that they had left open, which listed all the launch partners, and provided sample apps, which were publicly visible at the time. I had images, HTML, and the entire mobile SDK to look at and play with – all available publicly when I found it. Of course, taking the honorable route, I notified my friends at Facebook and they promptly closed the documentation in preparation for their launch. I’m now wondering if I had just written about it, if it would have been more talked about than what Facebook just did.

Today Facebook launched their iPad app. At least that’s what you would think if you were just a normal user and had no privy information to building apps for Facebook and weren’t following Facebook’s developer blog. Facebook wrote a blog post, announcing the new iPad app, and only briefly mentioned an app ecosystem that had launched with it. When in reality, Facebook just launched something bigger than the original F8 Platform Launch back in 2007.

What Facebook just launched should have had the pomp and circumstance of another F8, when in reality all they published was a blog post to developers. This should have been a press event lead by Mark Zuckerberg, and it should have been touted as “something awesome”, just like Zuck did at the Skype video integration launch a few months ago. Yes, it’s that big, and I’m extremely excited for this launch – my hope is that others can see the potential. I’m a little worried Facebook didn’t hype this up enough.

Facebook HTML5 Mobile Platform’s Potential

When Facebook Platform launched for web back in 2007, Facebook only had 20 million users at the time. Shortly after launch, regardless of that size, developers were immediately seeing their apps built for Facebook platform go from 0 to millions of users in a matter of days. That was for web only.

Today, with the almost exact same type of launch – this time on mobile – Facebook is giving developers an audience of over 350 million users to target their apps. While not called such, all these apps run under similar experiences to the web “Canvas Pages”, and allow developers’ apps to run as a native part of the existing Facebook app experience. Users never have to leave the Facebook app (which is now on the iPad as well) to use their favorite Facebook apps (think Farmville, or Words With Friends).

It doesn’t stop there though. Developers’ apps now appear in the news feed of the mobile apps, allowing for greater discovery of the apps they build. If users search for their app they can also use it by just typing the app’s name in the search box. That’s the potential of 350+ million users all sharing your app with their friends. In addition, Facebook extended the requests dialog to work with mobile – this means your friends can also invite you to use the mobile apps they’re using on their devices.

With today’s launch you can expect Facebook on mobile devices to grow even further. It’s at 350+ million users now. Just as in the days of their original platform launch, users are now more likely to use the mobile apps, and more likely to get their friends using the Facebook experience on mobile. That means more viewers and users for developers, and a much greater opportunity for entrepreneurs.

HTML5 Goes Mainstream

Perhaps the biggest affect of today’s launch is the affect it is going to have on HTML5 mobile apps. Now, in one fell swoop, Facebook has created its own “app store” which reaches hundreds of millions of users. Developers can create their apps natively, or in HTML5 – it doesn’t matter, and they’ll all work in the experience, across numerous devices. Facebook can just be the means of distributing the app – the HTML5 apps don’t even need to exist inside Facebook!

I think the game has changed for HTML5 after today’s launch. Now developers finally have a choice. They finally have a means to standardize and use a technology that works across any device, and in any browser, but looks like a normal app. Today, with Facebook’s Platform for Mobile launch, HTML5 just went mainstream.

I am stoked about today’s launch of Facebook’s HTML5 Platform for mobile – it’s a huge game changer. It’s revolutionary. To me it’s even bigger than Timeline and the real time ticker that they launched at F8. I just don’t get why Facebook didn’t launch this at F8, or at least, why they didn’t do a special press event to get people more excited about it. I’m really worried Facebook didn’t get their PR in order for this launch – it should have been better prepared, and much better explained to the mainstream press and users.

Today’s launch is big – real big, and I’m not sure I’m seeing enough people talk about it. If you ask most members of the press, they’d say just an iPad app launched today. I’m not sure that’s the news Facebook wanted out of today’s launch.

The Conflict of Honor, or Fame and Expertise – What Would You Do?

Posted on October 4, 2011 by jessestay

I came across some very public information tonight on Facebook’s site (not from any of my Facebook friends – anyone can find it), that to any other blogger would be fair game to share. It basically confirms many of the rumors of Techcrunch’s reporting of Spartan, and reveals more details that even Techcrunch doesn’t know. I guess being a developer kind of helps in “reporting”. However, I’m torn whether the “right thing” to do is to share the information I just found.

The thing is – I have very close friends at Facebook. I tried to get them to spill the beans about what is launching, but understandably, they wouldn’t share it (I don’t expect them to). Of course, if they told me what I know now I would definitely not have shared it. My word is my honor – if someone tells me something and tells me not to share it, I don’t share it. My friendship is more important to me than breaking my honor. However, what I found tonight wasn’t from any friend – it’s out there in the open.

So you understand why I’m torn. I know a whole lot about what Facebook is getting ready to launch as a result of this find, and I could notify my friends at Facebook of the mistake of this data being out in the open, or I can publish it on my blog, letting the world know I understand how to find these things, bringing a ton of traffic here, and breaking the news before even Facebook does. People get pretty good job offers off this type of stuff (although I admit I’m not sure I’m looking right now, yet). Would that be the right thing to do though? I know what Techcrunch would do (and I probably would do the same thing if I was employed there – it’s expected of a blog like that – it’s news).

I think I’ve decided to hold on to most of the information, but I will share one thing with you to prove I know something’s coming, very likely tomorrow, in the realm of a mobile platform on Facebook. Keep watching here and on Google+ and Facebook and I hope to share more, in the right way, as it makes sense.

Anyway, here’s the iOS icon they’re likely going to use:

I’ll let you speculate what this means.

What do you think? Am I doing the right thing in keeping this quiet?

One Thing is Clear About F8 – the Focus of a Facebook Conference is on Relationships

Posted on September 23, 2011 by jessestay

I just finished my 3rd consecutive Facebook F8 developers conference. While I missed the first one (I followed it remotely though), the Facebook conferences I have attended thus far just get better year to year. This year was no exception. I noticed something this year though, reflecting on years past and other, non-Facebook conferences I’ve attended in the past. There’s one thing Facebook (and a lot of that credit, according to many Facebook employees I talk to, is due to Mark Zuckerberg himself) really, really understands is relationships. That understanding bleeds into everything they do, and that includes their conferences.

Looking at other, non-Facebook conferences I’ve attended, they try to get attendees excited by giving them freebies – a free laptop, a free tablet, or even a free phone or similar device. Attendees flock there out of hopes they’ll get to learn the latest things about the products they’re passionate about, but many also have in the back of their minds that, on their company’s money, they’re going to get something free out of the experience.

While the people attending may be focusing on meeting new people and getting to know their industry, the conferences themselves weren’t really designed around building relationships or networking. There are often closed room session, with single speakers in a very intimate setting designed around learning. The focus of most conferences is just that – learning. At Facebook’s F8 it’s different though – the entire experience is designed around networking. They’re designed around relationships.

From the sessions, all in open rooms that you can walk through from room to room, to the main floor, which stands centered amongst all the sessions so people can easily pass by other developers and Facebook engineers, everything is designed so you have to pass by other people in order to participate. Booths are set up around the conference where you can swipe a card that is tied to your Facebook account, and on Facebook it checks you in, or uploads a photo of you, and other things, showing you the other of your Facebook friends that are also there with you. Even the DJ booth is programmed so that when you swipe that card the songs are played by your Facebook likes and friends’ Facebook likes, making even the music experience a more social experience.

It’s not uncommon to see even Mark Zuckerberg roaming the halls, talking to anyone he has time for, and most of the executive team also make themselves available. In past years Mark has even brought his family to the events with him – yes, it’s a family event too!

My entire experience ended with a party, usually with a well known artist of some sort, but right in the main hall where everyone can participate (last night was an exception for me, as I was invited to another party, but Facebook’s still went on without me!). Delicious food is served by the wonderful chefs at Facebook, and participants are encouraged to celebrate with each other, and the entire Facebook staff and their families all come to join in on the fun with the participants. It is the epitome of a social event!

Having worked with the Facebook team over the years and having the privilege of intimate knowledge of how they work, there is one thing you quickly realize – Facebook gets relationships in a way no one else can understand. It’s a different culture and way of thinking than I’ve ever experienced. The best way to learn of this is by attending their annual F8 conference, where the same culture extends to the developers participating. If you haven’t been able to attend previously, maybe you can attend in the future. If not, at least be sure to check out the recordings of all the keynotes and sessions from yesterday’s conference and at least you can catch a glimpse. It truly is a unique experience I haven’t experienced anywhere else!

Disclosure: Facebook comp’d me a press pass for this since I’m an author of Facebook developer books and blog about Facebook. I’d say the same thing if I paid for the conference though. It would be worth every penny.

Here’s What I Can Predict With Absolute Certainty

Posted on September 20, 2011 by jessestay

Including this year, I’ve been to 3 Facebook F8 Developer Conferences now (I missed the first year, but followed it remotely). There is a repeat pattern for each, that I want to just get out of the way before this conference starts, and predict, with absolute certainty, will happen. I thought this warranted its own post:

Bloggers will complain. Users will revolt. People will leave the service.

This happens with every single major Facebook update, and it has happened after every F8 conference (maybe not the first one). It is so predictable now that I just smile and laugh.

The fact is, no matter how many people say they are quitting, no matter how many people say they hate the new changes, people still stay. They always come back. They’re always more vocal leaving than they are coming back, too.

The truth is, as long as Facebook continues to innovate, and as long as they continue to adapt and listen to their users, yet innovate as they do so (meaning they are the first to an idea, not necessarily their users), they’ll always lure people back into their service. I guarantee they’ll make mistakes. I guarantee users will hate them for that. However, Facebook always adapts when it’s clear they made a mistake, and the users always come back. They’ll continue to grow, and in more and more areas – I can guarantee that.

You’re already starting to see this – “Facebook’s another Yahoo”. “Facebook is dying”. “The sky is falling”. This happens again and again, year after year. It’s almost predictable, and it will keep happening. You’ll keep coming back though. You’ll keep finding new and better ways to use the service, and you’ll continue to realize this is one of the best services for your closest friends and family to connect.

BTW, you may be asking, “but what about Google+?” I really don’t think they’re direct competitors. Certain people will use Google+ – many people will, in fact (I wouldn’t have written a book on it if that weren’t the case). However, different types of people will use Facebook. The two will compete, and that’s good. I don’t think either service is “dying” though. We’ll all find better ways to use the best tools available.

In fact, for any service, when people are yelling you’re dying, when you’re still growing, that’s a good thing! It shows you’ve touched a few nerves and you’ve got people’s attention.

You’ve Heard the Rumors. Here are a Few Predictions That "Just Make Sense" For Facebook’s F8

Posted on September 20, 2011 by jessestay

Facebook’s developer conference, F8, is coming up this Thursday, having developers like myself drooling at what Facebook might be launching. Last year I was pretty close in my prediction (I had the code right – just not exactly what the code did – this was all the launch of Facebook’s Social Plugins), having got some clues in their open source Javascript SDK that were launched in the code before they were released to developers. The thing is, this year I’m stumped. I can’t see a single thing in Facebook’s code (with the exception of some sort of “Questions” XFBML tag, but I don’t think that’s new – perhaps in testing?). None of their employees are giving any hints whatsoever of what’s launching, and overall, there have been no obvious clues as to what might launch. The truth is, I don’t even know if I’d blog about it this time even if I did find anything – there is something to the element of Surprise and letting others experience that at F8 as well. I’d like to respect that. I figured I’d put down my thoughts though, and rather than trying to predict anything, I’d share what makes sense to me, out of pure speculation, but with a little bit of backup as to why I think this way.

To start, let’s talk about what the other tech blogs are sharing – it should be noted that even these are rumor, and should not be given any source of credibility until some sort of proof is shown of their pending launch.

The HTML5 App Market and Platform (Spartan). This was covered, and scooped thoroughly by Techcrunch’s MG Siegler. I think he’s pretty close to where they’re going with this. I’ve said frequently that Facebook would do well if they had some sort of control of the client, and launching such a platform makes sense. I predict they’ll likely release some sort of app marketplace, via a native app that controls the installation of Facebook-enabled HTML5 apps. They’ll also probably provide native apps for photo sharing and other native-only features of phones so that HTML5 apps can easily tie in and integrate with those features, under Facebook’s control. This is also why they’ll launch an iPad app – it gives them more control.
BTW, I predicted this 3 years ago.

Some sort of Music solution. This too has been covered. I haven’t seen any hint of it by anyone, but it is well known that Facebook employees have loved the social experience of musical apps like Spotify. Not only that, but it would make a lot of sense for Facebook to control the music library of your phone or portable device. There’s just something really social about music, and wanting to share your favorite music with your close friends and family. The more Facebook controls this, the better experience they can provide. I bet this launches as a mobile solution of some sort. It could potentially also launch as a browser plugin (which I’ll explain below).

“Read, Watch, Listen.” AllThingsD covered this well. Tonight was the first I heard about it. It fits with the music sharing idea I mentioned above. It also fits with the expanded, 5,000 character limit status update posts that are anticipated to launch tomorrow (see the comments in that link), according to Blake Ross, Facebook’s Director of Product. It seems Facebook is getting ready to launch better ways to curate content – they definitely seem to be trying to get Robert Scoble’s attention with this (he seems to know more than he’s telling). Robert loves curation – he’ll be all over this. I think it will also be really good for Facebook.
One question I do have though is could Facebook also be partnering with, or starting their own movie and media streaming and sharing service with this? They seem to have been experimenting already some with Livestream at Facebook.com/live.

The other option (which could be combined with the above) is Facebook could be ready to launch a true Google+ Hangouts competitor using their Skype relationship, allowing people to better share and collaborate and “watch” their favorite videos with groups of their closest friends and family. I get the feeling this Skype relationship is only the beginning.

New, revamped profiles. This will be interesting. Mashable reports that some anonymous sources are reporting that a new profile focused more on what media users are listening to or watching will be launched, the intent being to bring more attention to the profile of each user, and encourage others to spend more time on each user’s profile. Kinda reminds me of Myspace – I hope not.
There are a few things that do make sense here though. With the new emphasis on subscriptions, I anticipate they will likely turn on some sort of capability for individuals to create custom tabs like they do Facebook Pages. Facebook will also likely need to turn on analytics (they’re “Insights” product) to give full reasoning to have people with dual personal Facebook Pages and Profiles have a reason to switch.

Also, being able to go to my profile to see what music I’m listening to is also an interesting concept – not sure why they wouldn’t use the news feed for that, though. Instead, perhaps they’ll use some sort of concept more similar to Google+’s Hangouts or turntable.fm where you can actually listen together to the music, comment on what you’re listening to, and give others the ability to control your own music flow. The same could apply to movies as well.

With those out of the way, let me share a few things that just make sense to me, with the recent launch of subscriptions, and the direction Facebook seems to be going. I should be careful to note that I haven’t gotten any official confirmation from any Facebook employee on these. They are pure speculation on my part – they just make sense though. I predict some or all of these could be launched, and if they aren’t launched at F8 we will see them at some point in Facebook’s future:

A browser plugin platform, to complement the HTML5 Mobile platform. I’ve lauded the web with no login button for awhile now. The concept being you can go from site to site, and have each site automatically identify you based on information supplied by your browser. What if it was a Facebook extension or plugin in your browser that actually did this? What if Facebook provided a platform for this, so that other apps could easily tie in and augment the experience, based on permission from the user.
It just occurred to me today that it’s been a little eerie that there have been no hints of anything new in the code in Facebook’s website or their SDK. True, Facebook could just have a stronger security model than they used to (likely), but it could also be that some of their employees are also using a browser extension to test sharing, and other features. With this, it would be much harder to detect what’s happening, and you wouldn’t see anything in the code of the website itself.

Also interesting is the activity I’m seeing by Facebook’s Director of Product, Blake Ross, recently. He seems to have had a major role in the launch of many of these recent products. For those that don’t know, Blake Ross was one of the founders of the Mozilla Firefox project (yes, the browser).

I should also be clear that anything I ever see from an employee friend I never reveal on this blog – to me a friend is a friend, and I would never abuse that relationship. I can certainly write about what I’m not seeing though! (and of note, I have not seen anything this year, oddly!)

Better, and more accessible search options. With Facebook’s subscriptions recently launching, along with a better lists user experience and easier ability to target posts publicly, or to specific lists, it makes sense that more and more people on Facebook are going to begin posting updates publicly. This is what Facebook’s been trying to make happen for quite awhile now. I think finally they did it.
As a result, it makes sense that Facebook would release a better search user experience, to search these public updates. This is what currently makes Twitter powerful. And with the “Read, Watch, Listen” theme, it would make sense that Facebook wants you to be able to discover content easier. Will we be able to search public updates? Will there be trending terms and other stats (similar to their Lexicon that used to be available). I talked about this potential a few years ago.

The ability to “subscribe” to Lists. Several people, including Facebook’s Blake Ross (again, see the comments in that link), have hinted that Facebook is getting ready to launch better ways for family and friends to only get the content they want to see from you. This is the problem I’m running into right now with the new subscriptions. I post a lot more with subscriptions, but half of my posts my family and friends can’t even understand! The majority of my subscribers can though. So how do I set it so that my close family and friends don’t see those public updates?
A solution I think makes a lot of sense is the idea of creating Facebook lists that others can subscribe to. Right now, when someone subscribes to my public updates, I get a notification saying, “so and so has subscribed to your public updates”. What if that notification was also programmed to say “so and so has subscribed to your technology updates”? The wording seems to make that possible.

I think it would make a lot of sense if I could create lists targeted towards things I’m interested in. I could create a “technology” list. I could create a “facebook” list. Or, I could take one of my existing lists. Then I could have the option to make that list “subscribable”. Doing so would then, instead of only allowing me to decide who gets updates targeted towards that list, allow anyone who wants to be on that list also receive updates I want to intend towards people on that list. It would be a lot like an email list where anyone can subscribe to get updates, a common feature of many mailing list providers.

The death of Notes. As I said above, Blake Ross also confirmed tonight that tomorrow, a new change will be launching allowing Facebook posts to have a maximum limit of 5,000 characters, and potentially even more after that. The current limit is 500 characters. This, in essence, removes the need for the Notes app on Facebook. I think it makes a lot of sense that this app will go away. There’s just not much need any more for the app if I can do the same thing in my status updates.

The reintroduction of ActivityStreams, in a distributed consumption (and publishing) model. Chris Messina gave an excellent presentation on the vision for this model. Google+ just launched support (read-only right now) for ActivityStreams, in a limited format. It would make a lot of sense for Facebook to do the same. They’re already rumored to be launching Twitter integration and the ability to post updates to Twitter. What if they also end up having a content consumption model, using ActivityStreams’ standard to be able to import content that has a different source than the current site the content is being shared on. This, in essence, could allow for a distributed subscription model.
Also of note, Chris Messina worked on the SpreadFirefox project at Mozilla with Blake Ross

The launch of OpenID Connect support. OpenID Connect just released their spec. Both Facebook and Google have been very public supporters in the development of this spec. Facebook has always been one of the first on board to the new OAuth specs for developers, with their launch of OAuth 2.0 support last year. It would make a whole lot of sense for Facebook to launch their first implementation of OpenID Connect during this conference.

Revamped Facebook Pages. It’s already been rumored that profiles are getting a revamped look and feel. What about Facebook Pages? Up until now they’ve been pretty neglected. I think it makes a lot of sense that Facebook Pages would get a better interface. More moderation capabilities. Easier management. Better promotional opportunities to gain more likes. I think this is very likely this conference.

An actual Phone based on their Open Hardware initiative? Facebook has been very big on their open hardware support, with the launch of their new server hosting facility near Seattle. In fact, David Recordon, Facebook’s Senior Open Programs manager, was quoted recently by Jolie O’Dell at Venturebeat saying that Open Hardware was the future over open source software.
What if one of their focuses currently is on an open hardware phone? There’s nothing like that out there right now. Google’s focus with Android has been on open source, not Open Hardware. Facebook could really take the mobile game to the next level with this approach.

Of course, all these predictions are just speculation, but you have to admit they all make a lot of sense. Whether we see them at F8, or in the months following, I bet we see a lot of these come to fruition. The innovation in this space is just mind boggling (and I’m sure overwhelming for many users!). While I’m sure competitors such as Google+ are a motivating factor, Facebook truly seems to be thinking outside the box in their efforts going forward. As long as they keep doing so, we’ll continue to see this playing field move forward at a pace we’ve never seen before. Let’s just hope the users can keep up!

In the meantime, let me know in the comments if you’re coming to F8 – I’d love to meet you! Of course, as always, you can subscribe to me any time on Facebook to get more updates like this.

"Relative Finder", Using FamilySearch.org, Shows the Future of Social Genealogy

Posted on August 25, 2011 by jessestay

Family History, or Genealogy as it is also known, is one of the most popular hobbies in the world. There’s something fascinating about learning whom your ancestors are and where you come from. In a way, we all want to figure out how we’re linked together as a world. Imagine if you could index the entire, living, human family tree. If a new app on Facebook gets its way, you may just see this some time in the near future. The Facebook App, “Relative Finder”, seeks to do just that by searching family tree data provided by a new beta of FamilySearch.org (owned by my employer), and find out which of your Facebook friends are related to you based on the family trees of those individuals.

The new FamilySearch.org beta is currently limited to congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and some select test audiences, but allows for individuals to type in simple information of their immediate relatives, and if a tree exists for those individuals it automatically links your existing family tree with that of other people in the database. So in essence, much of the family history research for many of your friends, and yourself, is already done, and will be available to everyone on the site to use in due time, according to the what FamilySearch says on their site.

Relative Finder, written by a group of BYU Computer Science students working on a class project, takes advantage of this data, and uses your social graph on Facebook to scan your friend list and go into the family trees of each on FamilySearch.org, identifying the relatives found in the FamilySearch database. It then gives you a list of your friends that are related to you, and tells you how far you are related. For me, most of my friends were between 7th and 10th cousins, but I found out very quickly a couple of my Facebook friends that were actually 3rd and 4th cousins. The great thing is, unlike apps like Geni or FamilyLink or others that rely that you manually upload your data to match living relatives, all of this happens automatically because of the data provided by FamilySearch!

Right now Relative Finder requires each of your friends on Facebook to authorize Relative Finder through Facebook before it identifies them as relatives (as far as I can tell). I’m unsure though why they require this (maybe for load balancing purposes?). If they wanted, with Facebook API they could retrieve the same data about your friends by just authorizing you, and not requiring your friends to authorize. If they did it that way, then I could find out how many of all of my friends I am related to, instead of just those that authorize the app and have a FamilySearch.org beta account. Regardless, this is truly revolutionary, and shows the tremendous potential for indexing the entire family tree of every living individual on this earth. Can you imagine the world-changing potential to find out how we are all related?

At the moment only members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the most part, will be able to use this app due to the limitations of the new FamilySearch. However, as soon as the new FamilySearch.org beta opens up to the public (it says “look for a future announcement” on the website), everyone should be able to use this feature. Once we do, can you imagine how fast an app like this will grow?

To me, the future of Genealogy is social. In many ways, the future of Social is genealogy. In the end this is all about finding out how we’re all related, what our common connections are, and how we can work together better as a society based on those common connections. My hope is that other sites, like Facebook and Google+ also realize this connection, and can find ways to integrate technologies like this into their own platforms so we can all learn more about each other, and share through common connections (I’m happy to make introductions if anyone at either company is interested).

Relative Finder has really exposed the tip of the iceberg in what social genealogy could look like. I really love this app, and can’t wait for everyone in the world to be able to start using it. I’ll include some screen shots below.

Disclosure: FamilySearch.org is owned by my employer, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While I don’t work directly with them I do occasionally talk to them. I have not talked to them or consulted with them specifically about this though, nor have I had any participation with Relative Finder, produced by a group of BYU students (BYU also owned by the Church). This is just really cool technology that, no matter where it came from, I thought needed to be shared!

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Facebook to Google+: "Hey Look, We Have This Too – It’s Right Here!"

Posted on August 23, 2011 by jessestay

Facebook announced an expected update to its service today that is scheduled to be released on Thursday. It’s a simple one, which brings to the forefront features that Facebook has had all along and Google+ has been getting all the attention for lately: The ability to target posts and elements of a person’s Facebook profile to specific audience, and see what it looks like to that audience as a whole.

I wrote about the release of Facebook Friend Lists back in 2008 when Jason Alba and myself launched my first book, I’m on Facebook–Now What??? Soon after, Facebook made it possible to finely target posts to just those audiences – I use this feature often, although up until this Thursday, it has been buried under an interface that didn’t seem to put privacy and the realization of privacy at the forefront of the experience. For a network focused and invested in privacy and private social graphs, I always thought this was quite odd.

On Thursday, along with each post to your friends, you’ll be encouraged to select an audience for that post. That audience can be to public (there is no 100% “public” option on Facebook that search engines can see, with the exception of Facebook Pages), friends, and “customize”. It’s much more a part of the experience now, and with each post you share it will be abundantly clear who that post is being shared with. It is basically just an interface change from the functionality they had before.

Facebook has always had the ability to view your profile as other people (Google+ likely learned this from Facebook). It was just buried deep in your privacy settings (Account->Privacy Settings->Connecting on Facebook/View Settings->Preview my Profile). However, with the new change this button will be right on your profile page, just like the Google+ interface, in a nice, easy to find location. In addition, you’ll be able to click next to individual elements on your profile, much like Google+, and change your privacy settings right on your profile.

The only really new thing Facebook is rolling out with this launch is the ability to preview photos and posts you are tagged in before they appear to your friends or in the posts and photos themselves. This in and of itself is a very big change. However, the majority of changes, while very welcome changes in my opinion, are just user interface updates.

Google reacted to Facebook’s poor (yet still robust) privacy interface by launching Google+. Now Facebook has responded back by improving that interface, as I’m sure many expected. It seems as though Facebook is responding to Google, not with many new features, but a “Hey look, we have this too – it’s right here” response. Indeed, those features are there, and it will be great that everyone can finally find them and enjoy what has been my favorite feature of Facebook for the last 3 years.

To see what it looks like, you can view the screenshots below. Also, see this article on AllFacebook.com for a great overview of the new features. Here are all the new features being released on Thursday:

Mitnick’s "Ghost in the Wires" Will Hack Your Mind With Real Life Adventures in Hacking

Posted on August 17, 2011 by jessestay

When I was just 16 years old I got my Ham Radio license. It was then, one of probably 3 Hams my age in the school nerdy enough to care about radio wavelengths, antennas, and electrical engineering, that I gained a fascination for communication. I was fascinated that I could wirelessly tell my mom where I was over patch radio. I was fascinated that I could access the internet over Packet radio even though my parents couldn’t afford an internet connection. The world had little knowledge of the power I had at my hands in that little 2 meter radio.

It was these experiences that made me relate to the stories of Kevin Mitnick in his new book, “Ghost in the Wires” (Foreword by Steve Wozniak). In his book, he begins talking about his childhood as a ham radio operator and having the same fascinations and passion around communication I did. This fascination is what brought him into the world of hacking and social engineering, eventually making him the most wanted man in America by the FBI, landing him in a justice system at a time no one really understood computers or hacking.

Mitnick’s book takes you on a journey through his experiences in social engineering, making you realize that his secret wasn’t cracking passwords as you envision a traditional hacker, but rather becoming a master at hacking people. Every experience in the book is suspenseful, and kept me turning the pages wanting to know what happens. Every experience in and of itself could be an entire blockbuster movie. The real life experiences Mitnick faced are the works only a fiction writer could think of.

In a world where building relationships and learning to work with people through means of social networks and other tools is so important, Mitnick shows how easy it is to manipulate and “hack” the weaknesses of people to get what you want. In this book he shows his real life experiences that allowed him to satisfy a curiosity of determining whether he could conquer challenges that normal people couldn’t fix. It seemed to me he was able to always conquer every one (like the time he hacked the jail phone system while a guard was sitting right in front of him).

Constantly 5 steps ahead of the FBI, Mitnick proved that an ordinary man can outsmart the system through very simple means. This book helped me realize that none of us are truly secure, and what might be secure in our computer systems may not be secure in our minds and psychology. I also found myself sympathizing with Mitnick in many cases, realizing as a man trying to outsmart the system just to see if it could be done, the system had no sympathy for him, nor any understanding of how this man could help him. In the end, the system ended up learning and Mitnick is now one of the world’s top security experts.

If you get a chance, buy the book, “Ghost in the Wires” and read it. I find it rare that I can’t put a book down. This book was one of those rare exceptions, and I found myself embracing every page. In a time where phone tapping and hacking is vividly in the news, this book couldn’t pick a better time to come out. You’ll truly understand how insecure any system is to hackers like this, and it will put you on the defense through the real life experiences of Kevin Mitnick to be sure you yourself don’t get manipulated or hacked. I thoroughly enjoyed “Ghost in the Wires.” I hope they make a movie out of this.

Authors note: I found it fascinating that the one company Mitnick had the most difficulty getting through to (he ended up giving up due to the risk) was Utah’s own Novell. Mitnick gives strong Kudos to Shawn Nunley, Novell’s head of Security at the time and now works for FusionIO here in Utah with Steve Wozniak. Kevin and Shawn, so I’m told by Shawn, are now good friends.

Disclosure: Mitnick’s publisher sent me a free, pre-release copy of the book. The book is now available to all in book stores and Amazon.com.