Facebook Working on a Social Jobs Board

Facebook may be working on a new jobs board feature, according to a new report by the WSJ. It will essentially act as a job postings aggregator and make them available to Facebook users.

With this move, Facebook is trying to leverage the power of social to enter the job search market. Instead of cutting off popular job search apps like BranchOut and JobVite on its platform, it is going to involve them in the new service. The new job board may directly compete with LinkedIn.

It’s not one of Facebook’s core focuses for now. It could initially be used just to drive user engagement on the website. However, if it eventually takes off, it could generate a sizeable amount of revenue for Facebook, as recruitment solutions are a huge market.

While it is expected to be a standalone section of the site initially, it may be integrated into a user’s News Feed going forward.

Given Facebook’s massive user base, this could be the greatest threat LinkedIn has ever faced. Even apps like BranchOut and GlassDoor on Facebook have amassed a sizable user base in a matter of days due to the inherent virality or connectedness of the network. Since this is Facebook’s own baby, it could be reasonably expected to do even better.

Src: http://techie-buzz.com/

Is Facebook Blocking Google Plus Invite Links?

Facebook is irked about the growth of Google Plus. Google Plus now has over 25 million users, and ever since it was launched, it has had a tremendous growth. Despite that Google Plus is in field test and new registrations to the site can be done via “invite only“, and the fact being that Google had to shut down the invite system because of high demand, it somehow still managed to achieve enormous popularity.

Now that Google allows its Plus users to invite (more people) their friends to experience the new social network, its rival Facebook, seems to be overwhelmed. Of course, currently the best way to interact with friends on the Internet is via Facebook, and thus users are making use of this means by sharing Google Plus invite links on their walls. Users are not just getting themselves a Plus account, but are also attracted to the new social network and slowly migrating from Facebook.

Facebook appears to be piqued about this and is reported to be blocking Google Plus invites from the users’ Facebook news feed. This came into light when the Senior Vice President of social business, Vic Gundotra posted a video on YouTube demonstrating that Google+ invites that have been shared on Facebook did not show up in the news feed of other Facebook users.

The video was posted after which the company had gotten reports of this unusual behavior. “I wonder how widespread this problem is?” Gundotra asked.In response to Vic Gundotra’s statement, Facebook (obviously) has denied the fact that it is stopping users from sharing the Google Plus invite URL. Facebook noted that they have a display-filtering technology that help prevent spam and thus could exclude certain links from re-appearing on a user’s news feed if it had previously been posted several times.

“Newsfeed is an automated system that is designed to deliver the most relevant content to you and your friends. The technology evaluates hundreds of factors, including your relationship to the poster, the type of content, the click-through rate (where appropriate), and people hiding similar posts from their feed.

In real time, it decides what to display to you and what to filter for both Top News and Most Recent. It also includes systems that attempt to identify and block spam. Links have a history of the most abuse and are given the most scrutiny. As a result of all of these factors, a given link may be shown or filtered to people differently at different times.”

Facebook, are you sure that you truly “attempt” to “identify” and “block” spam messages? Well, there are several scams that are out there on Facebook, and practically a new one is born every day. As a matter of fact, scams that were reported months back are still spreading on Facebook.

Nevertheless, after watching the video, I tried the same by sharing a Google Plus invite on Facebook and simultaneously checking with another account if it had updated or not? The results? Well, it successfully posted the invite link in the news feed of the other account.



Now the question is whether Google tried to drive attention towards its social network by creating this gimmick or did Facebook really block the invite link? Vic Gundotra, edited his original post and added – “they appear to have stopped on Friday”


Author: Joel Fernandes

20yrs young and is a passionate Blogger, Web Developer, Photographer, Gamer and an Entrepreneur. Not a professional in anyway!My Twitter handle - @joelfernandesHe owns a tech blog TechnoBitez Joel Fernandes has written 136 articles.

360 for Android – Click and Share Panorama Images with Your Friends [Review]

Panorama images are clicked with an elongated field of view. In laymen term, it basically means stitching or joining multiple images to make one giant ‘wide’ image.

Below is an example of a panorama image-:



In today’s world, camera phones are the primary image capturing device for a majority of people. Irrespective of the poor quality of images, and the lack of detail, everyone prefers camera phones because of their portability factor, and mainly because we carry our cellphones with us everywhere.

2-3 years ago, it would have been impossible to click a panorama image from your handset. However, with advancements in technology and handsets featuring faster 1 GHz processors, and oodles of RAM, capturing panorama images is not a big task for modern age smartphones. Many quality apps exist for iOS to click panorama images. However, the same cannot be said for Android. The problem with panorama images is that they are very hardware centric, and since every Android phone has a different hardware configuration, it is tough to make one app which works on a range of hardware, especially on low-end ones.

360 for Android is one slick app to click and share panorama images with your friends. The app is made by TeliportMe, which consists of only 3 highly talented people. This same team was awarded by Nvidia as the Emerging Technology Company in 2010. The app has been available in the Android Market for quite some time now, and has a pretty big user base of around 45,000+ users.

Recently, a new version of 360 was released on the Android Market which has many under-the-hood changes. I gave the app a try, and I must say I have been pretty impressed by it.

Below is a video of 360 in action –:

360 uses the various sensors found in today’s high-end Android handsets, and the powerful CPU+GPU combo to click panorama images. The app makes use of the GPU instead of the CPU to stitch the images together, and because of this the images are stitched together in a very short span of time. The best part about 360 is its ability to share your panorama images online with other fellow 360 users, or your friends on Twitter or Facebook.

360 also has a public timeline which shows you the panorama images clicked by other 360 users. I spent a lot of time in seeing all the panorama images clicked by other 360 users. Thanks to the image being panoramic, you get a feeling of being physically present in that place. This one feature is what makes 360 stands out from other panorama apps on the Android Market.

Sadly, not all is perfect with the app. The images are not stitched properly all the time. However, the team behind 360 is working on this, and in the latest version the stitching errors are definitely less. Another problem with the app is the 3D image viewer. It is a bit buggy, and sometimes one light flick will be registered as a full swipe.

Thankfully, I have been in constant touch with the developer, and they have assured me that they are working hard on improving the stitching process. That said, these couple of small bugs do not deter me from recommending 360 to all Android users out there. Install the app, and have fun by just watching panorama images of unknown places, a stranger’s room or car. 360 for Android can be downloaded for free from the Android Market (link).

Facebook Jumps into the Deals Battleground, Bad News for Google and Groupon

Facebook Deals is no secret. We have all seen a Deals page at Facebook for a month now. Finally, Facebook is launching deals as a service in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco. The difference with Facebook Deals, is that it integrates with the social aspect of Facebook. There are individual deals as usual, but you will also find deals that relate to group activities like live concerts.

Facebook has a massive audience, something that neither Groupon nor LivingSocial has. This Deals offering from Facebook is also a reply to Google’s deals offering. Another update that has come with Deals, is that Facebook will use its Credits system to offer the deal to its users. However, these credits can be used once a deal shows up in the user’s newsfeed.

It was speculated earlier that Facebook is trying to be different here by keeping only 30% of the total credit revenue. Though, Facebook has made it clear that the split will not necessarily be a 30/70. Additionally, this deal service finally brings the Facebook virtual currency into the real world.

Facebook has already gathered some partners to go ahead with the Deals offering.

Facebook will rely on its own sales force to find businesses interested in offering Deals. It will also tap other services that offer deals, including OpenTable, which focuses on restaurants, PopSugar City, which tailors offers to women, and Zozi, which focuses on outdoor activities like kayak excursions or wine-tasting tours.

Google and Facebook are fighting head on in the deals space and the parallel launch of their services gives immense competition to this field. Though, as I have always said, more the competition, more the companies are forced to deliver. At the end of the day, the user is the one who benefits.

Facebook Brings More features to The “Like” Button

Facebook is all set to change the way users share content and links using the “Like” and “Share” buttons. The sharing functionality of Facebook’s like button has been slightly overhauled which might trigger a retiring door for Facebook’s share button.

Before this update, the “Like” button was kind of a recommendation while the share button was “Sharing” in it’s true sense. Liking a webpage would post a mini update on your Facebook profile while sharing a webpage would bring additional details e.g thumbnails, excerpt, personal comments and so on.

The newer update rolled by Facebook changes how the “Liked” story is shared on your Facebook profile or news feed. Unlike before, a thumbnail and excerpt is returned, an example is shown below:

The next major update is that now users can “Like” updates within a Facebook application. You can “Like” and share content or updates from an application which your friend is using, hence expect some heavyweight Facebook liking cluttering up your News feed, “Mr X likes your daily horoscope” and stuff like that.

Why Facebook’s Share Button Shouldn’t Retire

There is a major difference between Facebook’s share and like buttons. It’s “personal commentary”.

When you are sharing a webpage using the “Share” button, you have the ability to add a personal note or comment to the update. Whether you hate the page, whether it’s funny, you can express it. But such is not the case with Facebook’s like button. The moment you hit “Like” it’s dumped to your profile, no second chance at all.

You can always post a comment to the “Liked” story and express your views but this is kind of boring for two reasons. First, you have to open your Facebook profile and then comment on the “Liked” link. Second, your close friends might get annoyed when you keep liking and commenting on the same link over and over again.

For Facebook, The Like Button Makes More Sense

But if you think from Facebook shoes, pushing the “Like” button makes perfect sense for two reasons.

First, content sharing is much more rapid, instantaneous and lucid. No popups or any other confirmation as such, all the user needs to do is hit the “Like” button on any website, blog, app and the page is shared instantly on his news feed.* Second, the “Like” button is much easier to implement and has a powerful branding attached to it. “Hey I have 12K Likes on my Facebook page while you have only 4K”, you get the idea.

Facebook Spokeswoman Malorie Lucich told Mashable that they will continue to support the Share button, Like is the “recommended solution moving forward.”

What’s your take on the newer features of Facebook’s “Like” button? Do you think it’s useful enough and worth ditching the share button from your website ?

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