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Sunday, September 25, 2011
Facebook facelift faces tough fight
Facebook facelift faces tough fight Priyanka Joshi / Mumbai Sep 26, 2011, 00:24
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Users irked with new features, design updates every week.
Last week, 29-year-old K Dasaratha Rao, a website developer and software consultant from Bangalore, saw several new features being added to the social networking site Facebook (FB).
“Honestly, I didn’t take to the changes immediately. But as I spent time on the site and saw what Facebook had done, I realised that it had actually simplified the number of clicks I would make on the home page.”
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What made sense for Rao is that the new FB interface automatically grouped his over 450 friends in convenient lists, made it easier for him to see the popular FB updates by close friends as top stories and even added a button that allowed him to subscribe to international web developers, who do not know him but can share insights on technology.
But Rao’s enthusiasm seems to be an exception when you hear avid Facebook users like New Delhi-based beauty and wellness consultant Ritika Sharma, 27. “What was wrong with the old Facebook that it is now being constantly redesigned. The new features make my FB page too complicated,” she says.
Her colleague, Bhawna Misao, a receptionist, too had similar views. “Since online Facebook has changed so much, I have started using the Facebook app on my BlackBerry, which is still a reflection of the old interface.”
New features on FB have also failed to impress 20-year-old Miranda House student, Rachna Punjabi who sys: “Recent features like Facebook’s real-time “ticker” stream that alerts me about what my friends read, watch and listen to or tag, is dizzying real time and way too much social sharing.” This also prompted Punjabi to tweak her FB settings that allowed limited sharing of what she does on the social networking portal.
With nearly 36 million users from India (according to September statistics from Socialbakers), Facebook was accessed by more than 45 per cent of India’s internet users. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of Facebook, should be closely listening to Indian users because the site witnessed a heady growth of about 27 per cent in the last three months, adding over seven milion users.
And FB is not done with the changes yet. At last week’s f8, Facebook’s annual developers conference in San Francisco, Zuckerberg announced the company’s intent to overhaul the profile page on FB for a new feature called Timeline and revealed plans to encourage people to use Facebook as a media-consumption platform.
Sam Lessin, a product manager at Facebook wrote in an official blog: “The way your profile works today, 99 per cent of the stories you share vanish. The only way to find the posts that matter is to click ‘Older Posts’ at the bottom of the page. Again. And again.” With Timeline, FB will curate a home for all stories users share, will be wider than the existing profile, and a lot more visual.
Part of FB’s hurry to evolve as the social network for the masses across the globe is partly due to the heat it is facing from the three-month-old social network site, Google Plus. The new kid on the block from Google’s stable aims to take some of Facebook’s shine off with its own set of social features and forthcoming integration with the search giant’s various online products expected to be launched.
For now, however, it looks like Facebook still enjoys the users’ confidence. According to Informate Mobile Intelligence, Facebook has outpaced Google Plus in terms of share of page views. While share of page views for Google.com declined by 36 per cent over the last six months, the share of Facebook.com saw an increase of 68 per cent.
Users, like Vinit Udeshi, a music jockey in Kolkata, hailed Facebook for launching a standalone messaging and chat app for iPhone and Android devices. “This app allows you to send text messages to anyone in your phone’s contact list as well as your Facebook friends. You can see the messages from the Messenger app as well as your web-based version of Facebook.” The site has also introduced a free 90-day access on mobile devices as part of its tie-ups with telecom operators, including Reliance, Aircel and Airtel in India.
Today, Facebook India is hoarded with over 17 million users in the age group of 18-24 years, followed by the users in the age of 25-34, reveals Socialbakers’ data. Now, Google Plus too is targeting the same user group.
Social media experts like Hareesh Tibrewala, joint CEO, Social Wavelength, says: “Google Plus is still too much in the nascent stage but Google has the power of its search and email. It should be able to grow about 50 per cent or so in the next 12 months.” Google Plus already has over three million users from India although it’s not exactly a happy user base.
Saurabh Rathore, partner at Moe’s Art, says: “Google Plus interface is boring and Facebook is trying to get more and more complicated. Twitter seems to be the best bet for me. It’s a place where I can control whom I want to follow.”
However, he quickly adds that Facebook still gets a higher rating than Google Plus “because it’s an older platform hence more friends and more conversations. Plus has graveyard-at-midnight kind of silence. When I am happy, I’m on Facebook, when I have to rant, I go to Twitter. Google Plus is my fifth option, after Linkedin and Foursquare.”
Google is listening. Its social search is now integrating Google Plus posts into its search engine results pages for those who log in to their Google account for a personalised search experience. “That means content that your Google Plus contacts have shared will enhance your search experience,” says Adhvith Dhuddu of Alive Now, a social media management firm.
The biggest improvement to Google Plus is via Hangouts - the popular group web conferencing application that lets up to 10 users share a browser-based video chat session. Hangouts On Air is a hangout that lets users broadcast and record their session. When a user is “on air”, up to nine other people can join the Hangout, though anyone can tune in to the live broadcast.
The move may pique interest among Android device users, estimated to be 10 per cent of India’s mobile handset base. Vic Gunhotra, senior vice president of engineering, Google wrote in his blog: “Hangouts currently supports Android 2.3+ devices with front-facing cameras (and iOS support is coming soon). The new mobile app is rolling out to Android Market today [20 September], so you can start hanging out at any time, from just about anywhere.”
Social media expert Rajiv Dingra, founder and CEO of social media agency WatBlog, says: “I don’t believe Google Plus was meant to be a Facebook challenger as much as it was meant to be a more controlled forum for highly-focused content. The design of Plus favours interaction within groups and is not about posting trivial comments.”
His sentiments are echoed by 32-year-old Jayaraman, a chemical engineer based in UAE. “I think Google Plus made itself better after the latest improvements. Facebook has nearly ruined its news feed. I now spend a few minutes every day unmarking updates as “top stories”. I do not want to see “top stories” when I go to my Facebook news feed, especially when Facebook has no idea what I think is important or interesting.”
It is perhaps worth pointing out that Google co-founder and CEO Larry Page himself hasn’t made any public postings on his Google Plus page in more than a month.
Amazon Kindle Tablet Could Shake Up Tablet Wars: Here's How | PCWorld
Amazon’s unveiling of a Kindle tablet would shake up the industry and pose one of the biggest threats to the Apple iPad -- which is why the technology world has its eyes on the online retailer as it prepares for a media gathering in New York this week ahead of the holiday season.
The iPad is still expected to maintain its dominance, as it will account for nearly 75 percent of the tablets sold this year. But the Kindle tablet could start a new era that beckons a major slugfest between not just Amazon and Apple, but also with other big players like Samsung and Motorola.
Amazon has brand recognition, a bevy of existing loyal Kindle e-reader owners, and a Web-based e-commerce platform that includes one-click access to buying e-books, movies, digital music downloads, its own Android app store, and streaming media catalog. That adds up to Amazon being uniquely suited to go head-to-head with Apple in the tablet market and become a formidable competitor across the industry.
Wednesday could be the day, as Amazon has scheduled a news conference. Forrester estimates that an Amazon tablet could sell between 3 million and 5 million units by the end of the year.
While it borrows the name of the Amazon e-reader, the Kindle tablet is believed to be much more than just color upgrade to Amazon’s popular e-book reader, the Kindle. It’s expected to be a customized version of an Android-based tablet, more recognizable to an iPad or Motorola Xoom than a limited function e-book reader.
Here’s a primer on what the Amazon Kindle tablet will look like and the competition it will spark.
Tracking Down the Amazon Kindle Tablet
Rumors have circulated for months that Amazon is developing a tablet, and recently one reporter confirmed its existence and wrote of his hands-on experience working with a preproduction test unit.
TechCrunch's MG Siegler says he has seen and touched a prototype of the Amazon Kindle tablet. He says the tablet is Android at heart, but distinctively Amazon in its implementation. Amazon has taken the open source Android OS and developed its own custom skin for the OS -- creating a user interface that mimics the ubiquitous Kindle motif with its dark blue, black, and orange color scheme.
Amazon Kindle Tablet Could Shake Up Tablet Wars, And Here's HowSiegler claims the Kindle tablet unit he worked with has a 7-inch display. Multiple sources -- including Siegler -- report that Amazon will also offer a 10-inch model of the Kindle tablet, but not until after the 2011 holiday season. Siegler also confirms that Amazon will offer the Kindle tablet for $250 -- half of the entry level cost for an iPad 2, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, and Motorola Xoom. Even among its 7-inch cousins, the Kindle tablet will be competitively priced at $250.
If the $250 price tag includes membership in Amazon Prime, as rumored, that price becomes a bargain. Membership in the service is a $79 value -- effectively bringing the cost of the tablet itself to only $171, and providing additional value unique to the Kindle tablet. Amazon Prime provides free two-day shipping on eligible Amazon purchases, and has its own Netflix-like movie streaming service. For example, there are also rumors that Amazon is preparing a subscription model for e-books, similar to what Netflix offers for movies; the book subscription would also be included as part of Amazon Prime.
Amazon has already launched its own Android app store. The Amazon app store for Android integrates Android into the Amazon ecosystem, and the Kindle tablet will integrate Amazon into the Android ecosystem. The combination of the capabilities of Android and the brand recognition and respect of Amazon will make the Kindle tablet a formidable competitor.
The Competition
The Amazon Kindle tablet is entering an overwhelming sea of tablet rivals.
The 7-inch form factor is closer to the size of the Kindle e-reader, and for many it hits a sweet spot between being large enough to be useful as a tablet, yet small enough to be more portable and well-suited for one-handed use. While the Kindle tablet will be measured against the iPad 2 like every other tablet, its real competition comes from other 7-inch tablets like the Acer Iconia A100, the Lenovo A1, and the upcoming successor to the original 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, now bumped slightly larger to the 7.7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7.
Amazon's E-book Reader, KindleComparisons to the Barnes & Noble Nook Color are also inevitable. The $249 Nook Color is an e-reader, but it is built on its own custom version of Android, and Barnes & Noble eventually embraced those Android roots to make the Nook Color a low-cost Android tablet with its own app store.
Barnes & Noble is also rumored to be launching a 10-inch version of the Nook Color before the end of 2011. It is expected to sell for $349, and will give Barnes & Noble a head start against a larger Kindle tablet for users who prefer the 10-inch tablet form factor.
Amazon's Weak Spot
For all of its potential advantages, the Amazon Kindle tablet also faces challenges.
First, just as there are those who prefer the 7-inch form factor, there are those who do not. At 7 inches, the display has significantly less real estate than a 9- or 10-inch tablet, yet it is still too big to fit comfortably in a pocket. It is possible that Amazon chose 7 inches to intentionally avoid direct iPad comparisons, or to make the device more appealing to the Kindle e-reader fan base.
Customizing Android could be brilliant, or it could end up being Amazon's Achilles heel. Customizing Android enables Amazon to create a tablet experience that is unique to Amazon -- setting it apart from the array of rival Android tablets and putting Amazon in control of updates rather than waiting around for Google. But, the burden will be on Amazon to continue to develop and maintain its custom OS, and splitting off from the Android pack could lead to app compatibility issues -- especially as Android moves to its next-generation operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich, later this year.
The other pitfall is the same one that plagues every tablet on the market: it's not an iPad. Apple dominates the tablet market with the iPad, and it is a dominant player in the smartphone area with the iPhone. The popularity of iOS is a self-perpetuating cycle. Millions of users are already invested in the Apple iOS ecosystem, and convincing them to break ranks and start over on a new platform is a daunting challenge.
That said, the future seems bright for the Amazon Kindle tablet. Amazon is a respected brand name, and it has established the Kindle as the de facto e-reader. Merging the Amazon brand, the popularity of the Kindle, the functionality of Android, and the vast media and retail distribution ecosystem of Amazon into a single device at a reasonable price point seems like a perfect storm capable of actually putting a dent in Apple's dominance of the tablet market.
We’ll have to wait and see. Follow PCWorld updates on the New York event.
via pcworld.com
Gadhafi gunmen cross border from Algeria to Libya - Yahoo! News
TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Gunmen loyal to Moammar Gadhafi have crossed the Libyan border from Algeria and attacked revolutionary forces in a town near the frontier, killing six people, officials said Sunday.
The cross-border attack on Saturday shows loyalist forces have managed to escape Libya and regroup and collect arms, bolstering fears the North African nation could face a protracted insurgency.
Col. Ahmed Bani, a military spokesman for the transitional government, said the attack on Ghadamis occurred Saturday but revolutionary forces had intelligence that cars filled with weapons had crossed the border a few days earlier. Ghadamis is about 280 miles (450 kilometers) southwest of Tripoli.
He said the loyalist forces were believed to belong to a unit that had been under the command of Gadhafi's son Khamis, who was reportedly killed in fighting before the revolutionary forces seized Tripoli.
Bani said revolutionary forces had repelled the attack but the assailants escaped back across the border.
An official from Ghadamis, Ali al-Mana, however, said fighting was ongoing. He told The Associated Press that six people had been killed and 63 wounded.
"We are sending a plane from Tripoli to evacuate the wounded," said al-Mana, who is the Ghadamis representative on the National Transitional Council, which is acting as the country's government. Al-Mana said Ghadamis has a small runway for the plane to land.
Gadhafi's wife and three of his children, including his daughter Aisha, fled to Algeria through Ghadamis after Tripoli's fall late last month. The whereabouts of the fugitive leader remain unknown and he continues to try to rally supporters. That has raised concern that he could stoke violence as fighting continues between revolutionary forces in his hometown of Sirte and two other strongholds.
Aisha Gadhafi, who played a key role in her father's inner circle, said in an audio recording broadcast Friday that her father is in high spirits and fighting alongside his supporters. She called the country's new leaders traitors, noting that some of them were members of Gadhafi's regime before defecting in the civil war.
"I assure you, he is fine, a believer in God, in good spirits, is carrying his gun and is fighting side by side with the warriors," she said in the recording broadcast on the Syrian-based Al-Rai TV, which has become the mouthpiece of Gadhafi's resistance.
In other developments on Sunday, revolutionary fighters stepped up a siege of Sirte, hoping to wear down loyalist forces a day after an offensive failed to dislodge die-hard loyalists of the fugitive leader.
Anti-Gadhafi fighters set up new checkpoints and posted snipers in strategic areas on the outskirts of Sirte. But they said they were not planning another assault immediately after facing fierce resistance on Saturday that left seven of their comrades dead and more than 150 wounded.
"It's unlikely we'll attack today unless we are attacked," said Aiman Majub, who helps coordinate revolutionary forces. "The idea is to catch our breath and regroup so we can be more strategic instead of blasting our way in."
Saturday's battle for downtown Sirte was the first significant push in a week and included close-range gunfights with loyalists hiding in apartment buildings and throwing hand grenades from windows. The fighters pushed east along the city's main thoroughfare into its urban center, overrunning a TV station as NATO warplanes supporting anti-Gadhafi forces roared overhead.
Osama Nuttawa al-Swehli, a revolutionary logistics officer, said the goal on Sunday was to squeeze the city and prevent any former regime figures believed to be holed up inside from escaping. Al-Swehli said he has heard Gadhafi's son Muatassim communicating by radio with loyalist forces inside Sirte.
"We have to make sure that no supplies get in and that none of their assets escape," he said.
"The priority today is to hold our positions while pounding their targets," he said, adding that they needed to take out loyalist rocket launchers before making another push to take the city.
He said that seven men were killed and 152 wounded, 17 seriously, in Saturday's fighting. Four of those injured lost limbs and four others had serious head wounds, he said.
Sirte, 250 miles (400 kilometers) southeast of Tripoli on the Mediterranean coast, is the Libyan city most associated with Gadhafi.
Revolutionary forces have been working to help civilians trying to flee the city amid rapidly deteriorating living conditions. More than a dozen families drove out toward the west Sunday morning, riding in battered cars with mattresses and suitcases strapped to their roofs.
Al-Swehli said he thinks most of the families who intend to flee have already left the city. It remains unclear how many civilians remain inside the city and if they are helping loyalist forces.
___
Hubbard reported from Sirte. Associated Press writer Rami al-Shaheibi contributed to this report from Benghazi.
via news.yahoo.com
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