Google opens Android front in Zuckerberg data war Google has opened up yet another front in its longstanding war with Facebook over who gets to know who your friends are, updating its Nexus S Android phone so that the handset's contacts application no longer dovetails with Mark Zuckerberg's social networking behemoth. Mountain View is still unhappy with Facebook's refusal to …
Will take this into serious consideration with my next phone.
I currently have a HTC Desire - and am very pleased with it - in particular the way all my contacts from Google and Facebook can be easily linked together.
If I cannnot do this in my next phone I will have to seriously consider which Phone OS I go with next time.
I'm actually the opposite... didn't like the way my Facebook stuff suddenly got linked with my phone contacts.
And my Gmail contacts suddenly appearing in my phone contacts and being linked with my actual phone contacts.
For years Gmail decided that anyone you e-mail gets added to your Gmail contacts. Meaning I suddenly had about 30 unsubscribe@whereever.com appearing in my phone contacts. Fortunately they've slightly changed that behaviour in Gmail now.
But each to their own.
Having said that, my next phone will definitely be an Android HTC as my HTC Desire is a great bit of kit.
Just wish you weren't reliant on the operators providing the system updates, and that they come direct from Google/HTC. But fortunately I've de-branded so that's not a problem for me anyway. Be good if you didn't have to do that though.
My HTC Hero randomly decided to put my Yahoo contacts in as I have the yahoo mail app, I really didn't like this, seemed creepy and also ended up with everyone I have ever emailed in the last ten years as a contact in my address book! I do however like being able to manually link Facebook contacts into my phone contacts, mainly so I can get a pictures of people in my phonebook
Supposedly WebOS handles pulling in contacts from everywhere nicely. That's what I've read, but I use an Android phone.
I wanted to go with a Palm WebOS phone since my last few phones were all Palm, but I also wanted a phone that had apps available for it and an actual future.
"Like Google, it realizes how valuable that data is"
However, unlike Google, contacts data is literally all Facebook has got.
If you're a Facebook user, then all it does that you can't already do better somewhere else is link you to your friends. If you were connected through another service - any other service - and could tie in whichever photo gallery, status update feed etc. that you liked, then what would you need Zuckerberg's baby for?
It's going to happen sooner or later that your network is recreated somewhere else, no matter how hard Facebook fights against it. Best not buy too many of those shares eh?
Nokia is a north american company now :p
I've never noticed any particular facebook functionality on the nexus S - and there hasn't been a firmware update so how exactly have google 'removed' it anyway? - poor reporting.
Deciphering the story I guess they've updated the facebook app so it doesn't upload your contact details to facebook any more (rather than anything to do with the nexus S). There are about a dozen 3rd party apps that do exactly the same thing, so it's no big deal.
I don't know which side of this I agree with. It's probably fair enough for Google to push for their idea of open standards. But then their idea of open standards usually means 'do it out way', which smacks of bullying.
But in the end the only people this is going to inconvenience is that actual users of the phone. That's a bit crap really.
Google's point is totally valid - give and take, Zuckerberg!
Also Facebook contacts integration wasn't that great, the often invalidly formatted phone numbers from Facebook would overwrite the valid ones from Google. Facebook - badly coded?! Whodathinkit?!
Now, where's the Zuckerberg with horns icon...
Eh?
I make use of it on my Desire HD, and it certianly doesn't cut off or alter any numbers - it can't without updating other services.
It just presents multiple numbers to chose from where they are different.
I find it one of the best features of the phone the fact it links contacts from various sources - Facebook being just one, so you don't end up with loads of duplicates and have everyones detials up to date.
This seems more like a case of Google cutting off their nose to spite their face to me.
Not sure what Google's problem is. They were able to merge your facebook friends with your google contacts, which seems exporty enough to me.
There's a button on the iOS Facebook app to sync your Facebook friends with you Address Book contacts.
WebOS merges your contacts with Facebook automatically.
What more does Google want?
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/security/hacked-boys-facebook-page-4000-respond-to-open-house-party-20110225-1b886.html
'Hacked' boy's Facebook page: 4000 respond to open house party
February 25, 2011 - 4:13PM
Queensland Police have issued a warning about social network security after a teenager's Facebook site was hacked and thousands of people responded to an open house party.
Police were told about the situation by Twitter and contacted the South Brisbane family who said they were not holding a party this weekend and were unaware their teenage son's Facebook site had been tampered with.
The boy's father said it was a warning to them about internet security.
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He said his son panicked and told him his Facebook site had been hacked when the number of people saying they were coming to the party started to climb, eventually reaching around 4,000.
"The first thing I thought of was, 'how am I going to be able to control this', because the numbers of people coming just kept climbing, it was crazy," the father said in a statement.
"I told my son that he better tell everyone that the party wasn't happening and no-one was coming in the front gate."
"This is a real eye-opener for us. We immediately posted online that the party has been cancelled and the account had been hacked," the father said.
Police said they would be on hand at the weekend to make sure would-be partygoers did not disturb the people living at the address.
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