In the last hour Facebook has announced a number of changes that you need to know about.
- It’s now easier to control what you share with who
Wherever you can share anything (photos, videos, personal information etc) you’ll be able to choose from multiple privacy levels; ‘Everyone’ (to make it completely public), ‘Friends and Networks’, ‘Friends of Friends’, ‘Share With Friends’ and ‘Customize’ (allowing you to choose specific people to share with.
- Privacy options have been simplified
Privacy options for your Facebook account currently span six pages. These have been consolodated into one page.
- Regional networks have been removed
These have always been an odd part of the Facebook experience. Some countries had many small networks while others had one network. Facebook says only 50% of users are in a regional network.
- Transition Tools are being introduced
To ensure that users are eased into Facebook’s new-found ability to share anything with anyone, Transition Tools are being introduced. This will allow you to change who can see different parts of your profile quickly and easily. Until you change anything here, your existing privacy settings will remain in place.
What does this all mean?
The good news is that if you like your profile to be private it will stay that way. If you want to operate more publicly you can do that too while still being sure those embarrassing photos from your college years remain hidden from public view.
While it’s good that Facebook is simplifying its privacy options, there are still concerns. Facebook is considering allowing anything that’s shared with ‘Everyone’ to be indexed by search engines. This makes sense on one level, but what about if you want to change your mind and make it private later? Will those embarrassing photos remain cached by Google if you hide them from view on Facebook?
The new privacy controls and the removal of regional networks will be rolled out to all users over the next few weeks. While previous Facebook changes have caused uproar, it’s unlikely there’ll be much to complain about here. Only the removal regional networks may cause a problem, but opening up parts of your profile to everyone should solve this problem for most people.
Facebook has today announced a number of changes that you need to know about. The changes make it easier to share information publicly without getting bogged down in Facebook’s current complicated privacy controls.
Here they all in one simple-to-follow list.
- It’s now easier to control who sees what
Wherever you can share anything (photos, videos, personal information etc) you’ll be able to choose from multiple privacy levels; ‘Everyone’ (to make it completely public), ‘Friends and Networks’, ‘Friends of Friends’, ‘Share With Friends’ and ‘Customize’ (allowing you to choose specific people to share with. (more…)
Written on 28th June 2009
4 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Technologic Overkill is reportedly the first music video shot on an iPhone 3GS. The song by XFYA records the activities of a little blue robot and his efforts to become significant in an increasingly technological world.
Created by Steve Ellington of The Automatic Filmmaker, its rather good actually (considering its shot on a phone):
Written on 24th June 2009
6 COMMENTS Martin Bryant, Co-founder, Social Media Café Manchester
If you want to try your hand at iPhone app development but don’t feel confident with your coding skills, a group of ex-Adobe employees may have just the solution for you.
Corona, from Californian startup Ansca, is a new iPhone software development kit that allows developers with creative ideas but a lack of technical skills to build apps in a similar way to using Adobe Flash. Experienced coders will also find value here. Ansca claim their SDK can cut development time from weeks to a matter of days. (more…)
Written on 23rd June 2009
0 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
The Dev Team have clearly been hard at work and have finally released the Ultrasn0w full unlock for last-gen iPhone running iPhone OS 3.0 – but unfortunately NOT the iPhone 3GS.
If you have used yellowsn0w to unlock your iPhone 3G on firmware 2.2 before, ultrasn0w should be familiar to you. Ultrasn0w is simply a replacement of yellowsn0w and it works on iPhone 3.0 OS.
This is the first time when both jailbreak & Unlock tools for iPhone 3G 3.0 have been ready, so its a pretty big deal
Written on 23rd June 2009
6 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
After far too long a wait, Beejive for the iPhone 3.0 OS goes live.
Beejive is generally considered the best iPhone messaging service out there and features integrations with virtually every major messaging service aside from Skype.
This update brings a number of updates but most significantly push notifications, so no more having to open the application to receive messages.
The application costs £5.99 and according Boy Genius, the app will be integrating video sharing via AIM in the not so distant future.
If I’m honest, its Skype push notifications which I’m most excited about - but whilst we’re waiting…
Are you based in the U.S.A, Austria, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands or Switzerland and is your iPhone upgraded to Firmware version 3.0? Then all you need to do is visit this URL to enable Tethering on your iPhone. No hacking, jailbreaking or any of that scary stuff. Just visit this url, on your iPhone!
Then carefully read the instructions, click a few magic buttons and restart your iPhone. You will be able to surf the web on your Mac via the 3G connection of your iPhone. The speed will be limited to the Bluetooth connection between your iPhone and your Mac AND you should go easy on those downloads so you don’t wake up your Mobile Provider. (more…)
Written on 22nd June 2009
4 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Apple announces sales of over 1 million iPhone 3G S models in their opening weekend, an incredible feat by any measure.
Aside from the sales figures, the most interesting part of the press release is a comment from Steve Jobs himself, the first we’ve heard from the Apple CEO since his leave of absence for a liver transplant:
“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning, with over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.”
As Apple site MacRumors report, the sales figures match last years with a million sold by the Sunday – merely 4 days after launch.
Despite incredible opening sales, there have been minor bumps, the most notable being iPhone activation problems that have lead to the company issuing an apology in the form of a $30 iTunes store voucher.
Written on 19th June 2009
6 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
For the rebels and hackers of you out there, the iPhone Dev team have released the jailbreak for the iPhone 3G.
The jailbreak is currently a multipart release and only currently available to Mac OS X users via PwnageTool, with QuickPwn on the way for the Mac and Windows shortly.
You can find full instructions here (make sure you read them thoroughly.
You should know if you are using a 3G iPhone with yellowsn0w then you should not use PwnageTool right now, also – you lucky new iPhone 3G S owners – the jailbreak will NOT work with your handset just yet.
Written on 19th June 2009
7 COMMENTS Martin Bryant, Co-founder, Social Media Café Manchester
Way before Skype made its play in the mobile space, Truphone was offering a solid VoIP-by-mobile offering. It’s always worked like a dream, allowing you to make and receive calls over the internet wherever you are. That is, it’s always worked like a dream on phones that allow apps to run in the background.
Truphone for iPhone, on the other hand, was always a bit of a lame compromise. You could make and receive calls, but only when the app was open and running. If you didn’t have the app open it was like you didn’t have a Truphone account at all. Skype for iPhone suffers the same problem – it’s virtually useless unless you leave it running all the time.
Now firmware 3.0 is live can VoIP finally become a viable proposition for iPhone users? Push notifications for incoming calls and voicemail messages mean that you can be connected to your internet phoneline even when the app isn’t running. While many people will be waiting for Skype to launch their 3.0 compatible update, if you want to find out what VOIP via push notifications is like then Truphone 3.0 has gone live today.
Written on 17th June 2009
2 COMMENTS Ralf Rottmann, Serial Mobile Entrepreneur, Apple Addict
It’s not that much a secret that many of us here at The Next Web are Apple fanboys. Those who are not have the liberty to tell the world in the comments. :-)
Earlier this month Palm Inc. released it’s iPhone competitor, the Palm Pre. We have an extended executive summary covering most aspects of the device.
Now, besides the fact that the Palm Pre does not work with Europe’s GSM networks, chances are you’re curious as we are and would love to get an idea of how it actually “looks andfeels”.
So why don’t you turn your iPhone into a Palm Pre… at least user-interface-wise?
Of course we do not actively encourage you to modify the Apple firmware. However, in case you’ve got an iPhone with a Jailbreak already applied, Palm Prefection provides you with a theme that resembles the Palm Pre UI to great detail.
And all your beloved iPhone tools stay right there!
Written on 1st July 2009
18 COMMENTS 
Facebook has today announced a number of changes that you need to know about. The changes make it easier to share information publicly without getting bogged down in Facebook’s current complicated privacy controls.
Written on 28th June 2009
If you want to try your hand at iPhone app development but don’t feel confident with your coding skills, a group of ex-Adobe employees may have just the solution for you.
The 
After far too long a wait, Beejive for the iPhone 3.0 OS goes live.
Written on 22nd June 2009
Apple announces sales of over 1 million iPhone 3G S models in their opening weekend, an incredible feat by any measure.
For the rebels and hackers of you out there, the 
Way before Skype made its play in the mobile space, 
Written on 17th June 2009
It’s not that much a secret that many of us here at The Next Web are Apple fanboys. Those who are not have the liberty to tell the world in the comments. :-)
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
