What Is Facebook Graph Search, and Why Should I Pay Attention?

Earlier this week, Facebook unveiled their new Graph Search functionality, a new way to browse information on Facebook. While we predicted Facebook would move heavily into Search as a way to add additional revenue streams, up to $2 billion a year in additional advertising spend, we couldn’t anticipate exactly how the new search engine would work.

Now that it’s launched, Facebook’s search engine is beautiful in its simplicity. Unlike Google Search, which is designed to provide links to where you can find the answers to your query, Facebook Search is designed to provide the answer to your query. See the difference? On Facebook, you can search for things like “Who do I know in Chicago?” or perhaps “What are some Italian restaurants in Chicago?” With queries like this, Facebook can return results utilizing their massive social graph technology to show the things that are connected to your social circle.

Graph Search promises to be a large boon for both small and large businesses, as the sheer amount of traffic on Facebook means that if only 10% adopt the Search technology in the first year, that could amount to trillions of connections. Think about it this way: now, your Facebook page is more than just your presence with which you can connect to users, it now doubles as a branded search engine result.

What should you do for now? Continue to engage your customers by growing the number of likes that you have as well as by purchasing sponsored stories. As Graph Search takes off, there will be plenty of opportunities to move part of your search advertising budget into Facebook Search and reach over a billion people by a trifecta of personalization: demographics, context and intent, and customer connections.

originally posted: intechnic

Phishing attack against MSN/Hotmail users - a new year, but old tricks still persist

For an example, an email which claims to come from the "Windows Live Team" and warns Hotmail/MSN users that their account is at risk of immediate closure after different computers logged into it, and multiple attempts were made to guess the password:

Part of the email reads:

VERIFY THIS EMAIL ADDRESS TO AVOID IMMEDIATE CLOSURE

We have recently confirmed that different computers have logged onto your Hotmail and Msn account and multiple password errors have been entered. We are hereby suspending your account; as it has been used for fraudulent purposes.. Now we need you to reconfirm your account information to us. Click your reply tab, fill in the columns below and send it back to us or your email account will be suspended permanently.

The email, which has the subject line "CONFIRMATION ALERT RESET (2013)" and comes from an unofficial-looking @msn.com email address, urges the user to reply via email with their full name, username, password, date of birth, and country in order to confirm their identity.

In case that seems a little brusque, the would-be thieves who spammed out this email provided some helpful tips at the end of the email about managing email accounts.

Of course, Microsoft would never ask you to confirm your identity in this fashion - especially not by sending your password in an (unencrypted) email.

But less security-savvy computer users might be duped into believing it is true, and respond with all the information the cybercriminals want, before having a chance to think twice.

It's a highly unsophisticated attack - but if it works against just a small number of people that the spammers send it out to, what does that matter?

Don't be a cybercrime statistic, make sure that you, your friends and your family are wise to such tricks and don't share your login information with anybody.

reposted from: naked security

‘Facebook Dead’: How Anybody Can ‘Kill’ Their Friends

                                                                                                               (Image Credit: Facebook)

Rusty Foster discovered he was dead last week, at least according to Facebook. He had been locked out of his account, which had been turned into a “memorial page,” because someone had reported the Maine man as deceased to the social media site.

He tweeted Thursday, “Facebook thinks I’m dead. I’m tempted to just let it,” then “Did you know that you can report any of your Facebook friends dead & Facebook will lock them out of their account with no evidence needed?”

As one of Foster’s friends discovered, it doesn’t take much to convince Facebook that somebody is dead. By simply going to the “Memorialization Request” page and filling out a form, including a link to an obituary, anybody can take someone else off Facebook.

                                                                                                               (Image Credit: Facebook)

The obituary needs to have the same name (or at least a close name), but doesn’t need to match any other details on the profile. The obituary Foster’s friend used to prove Foster’s death was for a man who was born in 1924 and died in 2011 in a different state than the one Foster lists on Facebook as his home state.

Foster, 36, said he never got any notification his account was going to be locked, and only discovered it when he attempted to log in. He filled out a form to report the error, and received a response that began with “We are very sorry to hear about your loss.”

More than a full day later, Foster’s account still hadn’t been unlocked. Buzzfeed, tipped off by Foster, posted an article in which one editor “killed” another editor, John Herrman, on Facebook. According to the article, about an hour after Herrman reported the error to Facebook, his profile was reactivated. About an hour after that, 27 hours after Foster first reported his erroneous death, he was “resurrected” by Facebook and allowed back into his account.

Foster does not know the total amount of time he was “Facebook dead.” He told ABC that nothing was different with his account when he logged back in, only that some of his friends had a little fun with his status.

“The only thing that happened was some of my friends posted little mock-eulogies for me, because word got around that I was locked out, due to a temporary case of death,” Foster wrote in an email with the subject line, “Rusty, the Facebook zombie.”

When pages are memorialized, they are removed from sidebars, timelines and friend suggestions and searches. This is likely to prevent people from seeing their friends who have died pop up on their newsfeed, and to prevent people from hacking into the accounts of dead people.

Foster said he understands the position Facebook is in when it comes to the death of one of its users, but believes there are better options for the social media site.

“There ought to be an email sent to the account’s email address informing it that the account has been reported dead and providing a link or something to dispute the report before any action is taken,” Foster wrote.

Foster said the most frustrating part was not being able to get into his account to “click the ‘I’m not dead’ button that should also be there.”

This has apparently been the same “memorialization” process since at least 2009, when another user took to his personal blog to write about his experience of being “Facebook dead.” In his case, the obituary his friend used to have him declared dead wasn’t even close to his real name. Instead, the man who performed the funeral services had a similar name.

In a statement to ABC News, Facebook said the system is in place in order to respect the privacy of the deceased.

“We have designed the memorialization process to be effective for grieving families and friends, while still providing precautions to protect against either erroneous or malicious efforts to memorialize the account of someone who is not deceased,” the statement reads. “We also provide an appeals process for the rare instances in which  accounts  are mistakenly reported or inadvertently memorialized.”

reprinted from: abcnews

Zynga: Off for eleven online games

(Mk) - Not at all good many gamers find the messages that were recently made by Zynga. The giant of the online games on social networking sites underlined in 2013, a series of popular games. This reported the technology blog TechCrunch.

Same eleven tracks are affected: PetVille, Mafia Wars 2, FishVille, Vampire Wars, Treasure Isle and Montopia were already off, Mafia Wars Shakedown, Forestville, Mojitomo and Word Scramble Challenge have been removed from the App Stores. To Indiana Jones Adventure World does not accept new players and more on January14th disappear from the network.

The reasons for the decision: waned The interest of users, the Zynga stock plunged in the summer in the basement, and the company reported billions in losses. The line picked up the red pencil. For prescribed austerity program include not only the streamlining of the games also offer redundancies. 150 employees lost their jobs already, the offices in Japan were closed.

The gamers are however shocked. Some pet owners in Petville complain loudly techcrunch.com the loss of their beloved pets, others destroying their virtual worlds. About Facebook, Zynga.com, iOS, Android, Myspace and other social networks Zynga offers but still at around 30 games, including Castle, Farmville 2, Mafia Wars or horn.

reposted from