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8 Best features of Facebook Questions

Vinay Gowda — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 16:51:43 +0000

As we discussed before Facebook is having some or other problems everyday and in news for almost two or three months. In our previous post also we explained you one of the big mistake by Facebook.

At the same Facebook is coming up new features everyday, which is making it to stay on top the social network. This time around we got to know its cool feature “Facebook Questions”, that allows user to post questions and get answers from the entire Facebook Community.

“Facebook Questions,” as the beta, or test, product is called, lets members “tap into the collective knowledge” of other members, Facebook’s director of product management Blake Ross said.

Facebook Questions is a beta version and it is available to selected users only. These selected members will see an “Ask Question” button at the top of their homepage.

“Since we like to develop products carefully over time with your help, Facebook Questions is available to a limited number of people right now, and we’ll be developing it rapidly based on their feedback. We’re aiming to bring this product to all of you as quickly as we can.” Ross said in Facebook Blog.

Following are few notable features in Facebook Questions.

1. Quality answer for your Questions

Facebook has recently reached 500 million users mark, which covers 80% of the world’s population. Don’t you think at least a one in 500 million can answer to your question?

Of course this is a great move by Facebook. It may find few big rivals like Yahoo! Answers, Ask.com etc. Still it all depends on how it going to get changes.

2. Ask whom you like

Yes, this time Facebook has given a chance to its your user. They can fire a question to there friends group of to whole community. For instance, if you have a question about what type of camera you should buy, you could tag it with “Photography.” If you want to find the best bike routes in the area, you might tag it with “Cycling.”

The questions you ask will be shown to people who have expressed interest in the particular topics you tag, as well as to your friends and friends of friends.

3. Explore any Topic

Tagging themes also helps others benefit from the knowledge of everyone on Facebook. For instance, if you’ve always wanted to learn more about technology, social life or even how to train for a interview, Facebook Questions lets you see what others are asking about those subjects.

You can browse answers from people with deep knowledge on a topic or click “Follow” under any question to receive a notification each time someone submits a new answer.

4. Publish on wall

If a user posts a question, a small link referencing the question shows up in the “recent activity.” At the moment, Facebook Pages are not able to publish the questions onto their walls, a place that showcases all of the page’s activity and is a resource for users.

Being able to publish questions to the wall will let everyone to track a questions more easily and will feature questions in a familiar setting for easy interactions.

Tech Tip: The feature would be better if it was integrated with profile and page walls.

5. Like and Comment

Like any content on Facebook, users will expect to be able to comment on Questions and “like” them. Users are able to mark questions as either “helpful” or “unhelpful,” and these notes are tallied next to each question. But it isn’t the same as the familiar “like” functionality. Commenting is especially crucial, but is limited to answers of users your are friends with.

6. Type of Question

User can ask any kind of question, and they have the feature of adding a multiple answer kind of questions as well.

For an instance, if you to plan for a trip and need to ask all your friends. Will you go and write on each and everyone’s wall and ask? How about having voting kind of question with Yes and No buttons? Isn’t it useful?

7. Analytics

Analytics will especially be important to brands using the feature on their pages. Brands will want to track and learn how to best engage their audience with Questions and most effectively use the feature. This would include tracking the number of people who responded to a poll question, how many followers a question received and similar metrics.

8. Post photos in Photo Questions

User can even ask a question by showing some photo. Isn’t a cool feature? Just imagine you want to ask a question to your friend on the photo they have added. You can use this feature right?

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Well these are the best features which each and every user should know about Facebook Questions.

Even Google earlier this year bought Aardvark, a “social search” service that relies on a user’s social network contacts – including their Facebook contacts – to provide answers to questions. May be Facebook Questions will challenge to Google’s Aardvark. Let us wait and watch more space about it.

Got any new feature and like to be added under your name? Please do share it using our comment box and we will add it. Sharing is also Respecting

Facebook Flaw : 100+ mn Facebook profiles leaked

Vinay Gowda — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:08:29 +0000

Yes! Facebook is in news again with its one more flaw! I think F and F (Facebook and Flaws) is making very good news now a days in net.

This time Facbook has made big mistake. Let us ask a question here. How you will feel if your data is exposed to others? Is there is anything called PRIVACY in Facebook which facebook always speaks about?

This time the news is, “100 million facebook user profiles are leaked in web and anyone can download it!”

Many are even saying that the data is more than 100 millions! Well see below the was everyone are speaking about this.

BBC world:

Ron Bowles, an online security consultant, used a code to scan Facebook profiles, collected data not hidden by users’ privacy settings, and compiled a list, which is now available as a downloadable file, containing the URL of every “searchable” Facebook user’s profile, their name and unique ID.

Facebook:

People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want.

In this case, information that people have agreed to make public was collected by a single researcher and already exists in Google, Bing, other search engines, as well as on Facebook.

No private data is available or has been compromised.

Torrentz:

The file is available to download in Bay, the world’s biggest file-sharing website.

File size: 2.8gb

No. of downlaods: 1500+

Torrentz users:

Name : lusifer69

Says: “list was awesome and a little terrifying.”

Privacy International:

Internet watchdog Privacy International said Facebook had been given ample warning that something like this would happen.

Facebook should have anticipated this attack and put measures in place to prevent it.

It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn’t have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there’s an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence.

Tech18:

It is inconceivable that a firm with hundreds of engineers couldn’t have imagined a trawl of this magnitude and there’s an argument to be heard that Facebook have acted with negligence.

This is nothing but the Facebook’s changes in privacy everytime! There are going to be a lot of angry and concerned people right now who will be wondering who has their data and what they should do.

Anything to say? Please share it using our comment box

9 Do-Not’s of Professional Blogging

Lovtoo — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:36:50 +0000

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Last week, we posted an article on the “9 Must-Do’s of Professional Blogging”. Well, we can’t just talk about what to do, without talking about what Not to do, can we? So here it is “9 Do-Not’s of Professional Blogging” =D

1) Don’t Steal

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The actual word is “plagiarize”. This is something we have to emphasize on. Stealing of content is a definite No-No! If you did your research, and obtained a part of your content from elsewhere, make sure you give credit accordingly.

Tech tip: when you use images from Flickr or other sites give credit just below the image as we give in < credit > tag

2) Don’t Spam

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If you’re going to send your readers updates on your blog via their emails/selected medium, make sure that they are expecting it. (On a side note, make sure you make it easy for them to unsubscribe too.)

Sometimes when your users comment on the post, check are they provided proper mail ID with gmail, yahoo or other well known mail ID providers. Some one can simply comment with abc@abc.com. These are spams. Be alert and move them to spam list as soon as possible

Tech Tip: have a look at the commenter’s blog as well. They may add non-existing url’s.

3) Don’t Neglect your Readers

If you don’t want to engage, Don’t. Engaging your audience takes time and effort. If you’re not going to be there, don’t encourage your readers to leave comments that you don’t intend to reply to.

If you are getting comments on your post, its better to reply to that on same day or with-in 2 days. This makes your readers feel that you are genuine author who respects the readers.

Tech Tip: reply to comments with-in 2 days

4) Don’t Confuse your Readers

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Your blog has a theme. All blogs do. And the reason readers come to your blog is because they are interested in what you have to say regarding the said theme. Make sure your message is relevant to that theme. Don’t confuse your readers by giving them content which they didn’t expect. (Likewise with misleading titles)

5) Don’t be Mean

No matter how strongly you feel against something/someone, don’t vent your anger or displeasure on your blog. Understand that if your blog is a professional one, it is a part of the company’s or the brand’s image. If you have an opinion, it’s okay to voice it out and stay opinionated. But make sure you don’t come across as intentionally hurtful.

Tech Tip: DO NOT give link to other blog in negative way! Better leave a comment in professional way by asking “if i am correct me” Makes good sense right?

6) Don’t do “Me Too” posts (Not too Often)

People come to your blog because you hold content that can’t be obtained anywhere else. If most of your posts are complementing other posts and just agreeing with them, without the slightest hint of having a unique perspective, then you’re not very interesting.

Tech Tip: Explore about the topic before posting!! Make unique post and get visitors!

7) Don’t be a Hypocrite

Practice what you preach. Or at least, really try to. Showing people that you walk the talk can often be the most convincing way to prove your point.

Tech Tip: write a post such a way that readers feel like chatting with friend

Don’t “Over-sell” your Blog

Okay, so you have written a post that you feel good about. You post it. Then what? You advertise it via the mediums available to you (E.g. on Twitter and on Facebook.) So far so good. But when your stream starts showing the same post over and over again, it starts to annoy. Try to moderate your “selling”.

9) Don’t include a background tune

Have you ever visited a blog where a tune starts playing in the background? I have, and it catches me off-guard. My ears don’t expect to be invaded by pleasant tunes all the time! Also, the songs that one person enjoys may not appeal to others. It can really deter your readers from spending more time on your blog.

Tech Tip: Don’t add annoying graphics or songs that may end up irritating your readers when they visit! There may not be a next time~

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Here’s you go, the 9 Do-Not’s of professional blogging.. If you’re guilty of any of the above, time to stop. Like.. Now. Hope this helps~

Do you have any points to add to the list? Leave a comment! We would love to hear from you Cheers!

Symbian 4 OS – a first look at its features

Vinay Gowda — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 06:29:03 +0000

Few days back we gave a perfect view on how Android is growing in smartphone world by comparing it with iOS based iPhone 4 features. Still, that doesn’t end the smartphones fight! The new entry to smartphone’s operating system is by world’s highest mobile seller Nokia. Yes! we are speaking about new version of Symbian OS by Nokia.

Tech Tip: in 2008, Symbian Software Limited was acquired by Nokia.

Statistics

Statistics published in February 2010 showed that the Symbian devices comprised a 47.2% share of the smart mobile devices shipped in in 2009, with RIM having 20.8%, Apple having 15.1% (through iPhone OS), Microsoft having 8.8% (through Windows CE and Windows Mobile) and Android having 4.7%. Other competitors include webOS, Qualcomm’s BREW, SavaJe, Linux and MontaVista Software.

This statistics clearly shows that as of now Symbian devices are ruling the smartphone world!

Symbian 4 – the new version

As the title says, we are going to speak about the new version of Nokia based smartphone OS, Symbian 4.

Symbian 4 is expected to be functionally complete in the second half of 2010 and devices supporting Symbian 4 will start shipping early 2011 onwards. Symbian 4 has a big focus on user experience including Direct UI – a complete makeover of the touch UI – and widespread enhancements to the application suite.

Here are the coolest and enhanced features of Symbian 4.

1. Home Screen

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While comparing the Android and iOS 4 in our previous post, we had mentioned a point that iPhone is lacking the home screen application arrangement and Android is taking advantage over it.

The Home Screen in Symbian 4 gains support for widgets of any size and shape, and gives the user complete control over their placement on the screen.

2. Photos

In the previous versions of symbian OS we had seen the way of accessing the photos had changed and it was very user friendly as well. In symbian, photos benefits from a major overhaul with a new look to every view and direct access to all the most commonly used functionality.

The following are mock-ups of the symbian 4 Photos user interface using the platform theme developed for symbian 3.

3. Calendar

Calendar gains email integration, allowing meeting requests to be sent and responded to from within the Calendar UI. This is one of the unique feature you may find while comparing with other smartphone OS’s.

4. Notifications

One of the brave move by Symbian 4 developers is Notification panel inside the menu or sub-menus. As shown in the image below, there is a small button kept on the top-left corner of the page to access the notifications like new mail, alerts, chats etc.

5. Menu Style

The design of the menu style and icons used are similar to the predecessor of Nokia phone. But this time they have integrated one more new drop-down menu on the top the menu screen. The advantage of this drop down menu is, user can access the menu items from any sub-menu screen.

Tech tip: intergrated menus frees up valuable screen space.

6. Toolbar

This concept of symbian 4 is almost similar to iPhone toolbar. It is nothing but a small strip below the menu item where most wanted shortcut keys are placed. But Symbian 4 hold slight edge over iOS concept by adding a small icon in toolbar. Again frees up valuable screen space!

7. Back Button

Symbian 4 comes with a dedicated back button on top-right corner of the screen. May be this concept is similar to Windows, but its good to have a button on screen than a dedicated physical button.

8. Gaming Widgets

As we explained in home screen above, we can add any number of widgets on the home screen. But one more awesome enhancement here by symbian 4 is we can place gaming widgets and play anytime without browsing inside the menu.

9. Application Developers

Under the covers the Symbian 4 user experience is built on Qt and Orbit. This makes it very easy for developers to write new applications and update those already available to take full advantage of this new paradigm – giving users a broad choice of good looking and easy to use applications with which to customise their devices.

We Suggest: Visit and explore more about QT at http://qt.nokia.com/.

In Symbian 4 the application updates focus on supporting touch and hybrid (touch + keyboard) device types.

Tech tip: Qt is a cross-platform application and UI framework. Using Qt, you can write web-enabled applications once and deploy them across desktop, mobile and embedded operating systems without rewriting the source code.

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What you think about these feature? Is Symbian 4 is ready to take on iOS 4 and Android? Well its too early to speak about it. These are the few cool features we got as of now! Lets wait and watch how Symbian 4 will make a change in smartphone’s world

If you know any other features that we have missed out here please do share it using our comment box Also feel free to share what you feel about this features Cheers!

9+ Must-Do’s of Professional Blogging

Lovtoo — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:31:38 +0000

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Blogging is a great way to share your views with people. However, what are the rules? What is acceptable and what isn’t? What violations should we avoid and what can we do to effectively broadcast our views?

The truth is there really aren’t any rules. What we can say, however, is what we personally observe as effective. On that note, here are our “9 Must-Do’s of Professional Blogging” *Mouths swishing noise for added effect*

1. Include Links

Try to include links to interesting/relevant content. It helps new readers to your blog keep up with the progress of your content! It makes it easier for people to navigate around your blog and at the same time, URL’s are extremely useful for SEO (Search-Engine Optimization).

2. Give Credit

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If you get some of your resources from another person/location, give credit accordingly; it is just common etiquette.

If someone has helped you out in your blogging career, say thank you. Let people know that you appreciate them. (On that note, I’d like to thank Sunil (@gupshupblog) for allowing me the honor of blogging on Tech18)

3. Be Transparent

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Blog from your own perspective; your views are what people are reading for. Your honest thoughts can be the best of contents. As my friend, Jason Viglione (@jayvig) puts it, “Build relationships. It starts with trust. Trust starts with the transparency.”

4. Make it Easy for Readers to Share Your Posts

Okay. So you have wrote a great post. It is attracting lots of readers. But when it comes to sharing the post, we are forced to realize a cruel fact; that there is no “retweet button”!

Making it easier to share your posts on different platforms is definitely a plus. Many a time, whenever I come across an interesting post, and when my RT senses are tingling, I get turned off by the fact that the only way I can share the content, is by doing so manually.

If your blog doesn’t have those features yet, it’s time to get them. Really.

5. Ask Questions

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could hear from your audience? Engaging your audience can help you identify them and understand what they think about your content. In the long run, it can also help build up a loyal fan base!

But how would you accomplish that lofty goal? Here is what I do, at the end of every blog post, I ask my audience a question related to the post. I’ve had cases where these engagements end up sparking off more interesting topics!

Communication is a two way street. Both sides need to have a voice. Ask a question. Spark off that conversation. And listen to what your readers have to say.

6. Research

There are two sides to this; research for content and research for inspiration.

People need to know that the content they get from you, is reliable and of quality! Do your research. Make sure that the info on your blog is as true as the Sun. =D

On the other hand, do your research beforehand. Read from other blogs and talk to people. I’ve found that my greatest arsenal against the writer’s block, are often gotten through plain, solid research.

7. Illustrate Your Content

Employ the use of pictures and videos to help illustrate your point. Let’s face it; a sea of words can be extremely depressing and boring. With the help of relevant, preferably colourful pictures, and captivating videos, you can capture your audience’s attention and relay your message more effectively! And that, my friend, is a “WIN”.

8. Check for Errors

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Read and re-read your posts for spelling and grammatical errors. It may just be me, but the grammar/spelling-nazi in me will never condone such atrocities.

Tech tip: For an easier time, I use Microsoft Word’s grammar and spelling check.

9. Have a Catchy Title

They say that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I ask, “then what can we judge it by?”

The fact remains that people will always judge a book by its cover; especially today when there are so many to choose from! There are many factors that contribute to whether or not a post is read; and amongst them, ranking at the top, is the title.

A good title effectively tells the potential reader what the post is about. It also provokes the potential reader and forces him/her to raise an eyebrow uncontrollably due to an intrigue so intense that it can trigger the said response.

Tech Tip: I have also noticed that good titles that have a quantifying factor, like “9 Must-Do’s of Professional Blogging” often attract more attention. =D

10. Point Forms!

This point is proposed by @whiztechy. It is important that your posts are easy to read. Having point forms to simplify the layout can be a great idea!

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Well, there you go. I hope you find this useful in your quest for blogging greatness! I will be posting on “9+ Don’ts of Professional Blogging”! Be sure to check back then~ =D

Do you have anything to add to the list? If so, please post a comment! we will add it to the list under your name~ (we would love to hear from you!)