Facebook rates Opera over Google Chrome

Sparking more fuel for debate between Facebook and Google, the Facebook management team have replaced the search giant’s popular Chrome web browser with the Norwegian backed Opera on their list of supported browsers. This landing page only appears when using unsupported browsers, in particular Google Chrome and suggests that users try Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera instead.

There are two points that initially bring attention to this bold statement. Firstly, Facebook have recently been very keen to add Opera to it's list of acquisitions, since the people behind the browser were actively looking for potential buyers. This comes weeks after the acquisition of Instagram for a cool $1 billion along with the IPO of the goliath social networking site, valuing the company at $104 billion, the largest to date ever for a newly listed company.

Opposed to it's meager 1.77% market share in the desktop browser marker, Opera occupies the largest stake in the mobile market at 22.86%. Facebook also has strong rumors to suggest that a smartphone maybe in the works and plans to tie the possible purchase of Opera within it's development.

The other point to take note of is that last month Google Chrome became the most popular desktop browser of them all, knocking Microsoft's Internet Explorer off the top spot for the first time this millennium. The rivalry between Facebook and Google has been heating up over the past few years, as Google has tried multiple times grasp a strangle hold on the Social Networking market, with the latest offering, Google+ putting up the strongest fight. The decision to remove Chrome from it's list of supported browsers maybe a tongue in cheek attempt by Facebook to question the popularity of the browser, as the saga continues.

Facebook to Display your Life

Facebook is set to reach deeper into your life with the new features outlined at Facebook's annual developers conference f8 this week. Facebook's master plan is to boldly go where noone has gone before to add entertainment to the social sharing space.

The key driver is allowing users to share what they are consuming, whether it be movies, music or articles. Facebook has recently partnered with the likes of Spotify and Netflix allowing for members to expose their interests in streamed entertainment to their friends.
The latest feature Facebook has sought to implement is to replace users profiles with an audio and visual timeline of their life. Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, demonstrated the new 'timeline' at f8 using his page as an example, by showing pictures of him as a baby and progressing up through his life with the content being organised into years. The update is expected to be rolled out within the next "few weeks".

Unlike Twitter or Google+ which are heavily focused on the exchange of messages between users, Facebook has realized its USP is their content is orientated around allowing people to document their life's history. The latest step is seeing Facebook move away from a purely social sharing site and to expand to become ultimately your life online.

Video: Mark Zuckerberg explains 'Timeline'

Privacy is of an utmost importance to Facebook and they have stressed that members will be able to use the recently simplified privacy controls to manage their content.

That said, are we seeing the beginnings of a similarity from the real world to the virtual world, where market dominance will lead to reduced diversification? In years to come will we only need to use a handful of sites to satisfy our every web need?

How Safe is the New Google+Facebook App?

Since the launch of the latest Google social network site a few weeks ago, Google+, the techheads amongst us have been rushing to find or create the latest addons for the site.

Crossrider, an Israeli company have claimed to have developed an extension that will allow Facebook to be streamed within the Google+ site. Crossrider's co-founder, Koby Menachemi claims that the app, labelled Google+Facebook has already received over 100,000 downloads within the last week.

However, today i came across a highly rated post on reddit, attempting to unmask the potential risks after installation of the service.

The user behind the reddit post, RogueDarkJedi (RDJ), lists the problems with the app's coding and how it could be open to manipulation. RDJ highlights the specific areas in which there could be potential security, privacy or malware risks from the app.

Ironically similar warnings can be found below the applications download page on the Crossrider site's Facebook stream.

It is normal for applications of this nature to require access to a large amount of your facebook account in order to emulate the data on their desired platform. Though now with the case put forward by RDJ, it may be wise to avoid this extension.

Facebook Approaches 700 Million Users

Facebook is set to pass another milestone, according to an unofficial statistics portal. Socialbakers, reports that Facebook membership is steaming towards the 700 million mark. With estimates of 655 million in April, How long will it be before the social network site reaches 1 billion active users?

Socialbakers also tracks and compares countries membership growth, Brazil experienced the largest increase in May 2011 at 1.9 million. With Brazil's total membership figure at 19 million, this represents a 11.37% increase from the previous month. Indonesia and India both appear in the top 6, with both countries having around 30 million users as well as 4% growth of membership in May. These figures are important as Facebook previously has never been able to crack these large countries, where social networking rival's Orkut, have a large presence.

The UK holds the 10th spot with a 2% growth in membership, however The USA didn't even make the top 20 list. This is unsurprising as its estimated that 96% of all Americans under the age of 50 have a Facebook account. Additionally a recent poll showed that 63% of Americans under 30 were able to identify Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg, and only 21% for the speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner.

Pixel, a photo sharing social network, site expects that Facebook will be hosting over 100 Billion photos by the end of the summer, with the current rate of uploads being at 6 Billion per month. To put that into perspective, dedicated photo sharing sites such as Flickr and Photobucket hold each in total what Facebook receive per month.

Earlier today, The Washington Post blog pointed out that if Facebook was a country it would be the third largest in the world. Though, is the world enough for Facebook?

Web Bigshots Meet in Paris E-G8 Forum

Over the next few days there will be a forum held, created by French President Sarkosy to discuss the effects the Internet will have on the G8 globalisation agenda. The members involve Google's Eric Schmidt, News Corp's Rupert Murdoch and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Many political leaders are aware of the power social network's can hold with over 600 million users alone. Thus the interest of getting the support of the web's key players on their political side, and increasing the importance of the future direction to those such as Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg, described by his colleagues as "the man from the future" has revealed that  the possibility of a Facebook phone is doubtful, even though users of the mobile apps have soared to over 300 million. He went on futher to point out the importance of gaming to Facebook's model, noting that Zynga has overtaken EA's market cap.