Preface

Before I start, I would like you to know that I am not just any button you usually come across clinging on to shirts, jeans, your mobile or a remote, I am the greatest of them all, more prominent than any other thing with the same sir-name as mine. 

 Hi there everyone, you may disagree to it but the fact is that each one of you love me, so much that the online ‘you’ cannot even survive without me. I may seem conceited but that’s the ultimate reality. People or things that have me by their side are more popular and sought-after and these are the ones who at times  embarrass me by putting a whole lot of time and effort on me. Some less-intelligent people might claim that I am not that valuable but these wise men are not aware of the amount of money my fans shell out just to get a glance of me. That’s enough of self-appraisal I guess. I just want to tell you people about me, my birth, my shot to fame and all so that the next time you hit me, you could be proud of doing it.

I was born in the minds of a great dude, in a beautiful site (to be pronounced ‘city’) called Friendfeed on October 30, 2007 and I marked the beginning of a new era in the World Wide Web. Within two days of my birth, I was more popular than errr, whatever. I was so cute, polite and ambitious that the social network giant, Facebook decided that they must have me. Adopting me would have been enough, but they went on to acquire the whole site I was born at.My path to fame was laid.

My presence is not limited to Facebook or other social networks, You can find me all over the Internet. I do have rivals like the +1 button (who is pretty much younger than me), but they hardly make me shriek. I am far ahead in the race and I am not gonna sleep (Yeah I have heard the story of the Hare and the tortoise).I am inclined to thank you all for this.

Another thing I love is the way people express their love towards me. While some hit the ‘like button’, some others punch me, a few guys destroy (not literally) the like button, some hindi speaking guys can be heard saying – “thoko like”. Through the years, Facebook has experimented with me, I recently underwent a plastic surgery though it didn’t disturb my identity much. They sometimes place me wherever they please. Facebook is also planning to give birth to my new competitor- the dislike button. I’ll definitely try to be in good terms with her, after all its all in the game.

Not a very long autobiography right? well, I am only seven. With the love you give me, I am sure to entertain you for years to come (even if dislike button isn’t much impressed with me). Keep thoking, hitting, punching and destroying me. 

signing off 
yours 
“Like button” .

like this picture?

Wanna show your friends how popular and loved you are? Just get more number of likes than them.

Be it a page, a status or a photo, there is nothing more pleasing on the internet than getting more likes than you ever expected. According to a small survey conducted by me, 67% of all facebook users revealed they felt depressed when they received less or null likes on their status. The numbers increased in the case of profile pictures.

Copying quotes to design your status, posing or shooting yourself in almost all the possible ways and places known to you, dressing up yourself and your hair and spending a quarter of your day in front of the mirror (and other reflecting surfaces) are just some of the symptoms that proves that you are just as desperate as your friend for likes.

All of you might already know all ways of getting likes, still, it’s my humble duty to share this:

1) The direct way: Simple and humble! The words that describe this method. All you got to do is befriend more people, post unique and interesting statuses, tag those who you think would like it. Talk to your friends occasionally and the most important of them all- spend time on the news feed commenting and liking the posts of your friends.

2) What you give is what you get: No matter how irritating it might be to like the photos of friends who keep on changing their profile pics every half an hour, if you are need of likes, make sure you keep your friends happy by providing them the likes they are in need of.

Certain groups and pages in fb are dedicated towards this service. All you need to do is like the pages/photos of the members of the group and they will return the favor. One of them is profile picture likers

yes it does!

3) Be a philosopher: and have many followers. You may be deprived of the likes you deserve as a result of the maximum reach limit for posts and photos. The only way to make sure your friends see your posts is to get them to follow you. Ask them to follow you and follow them in return. Another way is to get a friend with the most number of followers to like your posts.

4) The nothing is free concept: Another effective way to get a minimum of 1000 likes on your posts is to pay for it. There are a dozen sites that offer “likes” for a price. Give a try to like4like and likeasap, sites which claim to offer you free likes.

Likes on pages: There is in fact only one way to get more likes to your pages-promote. Irritate page owners by posting the link to your page in between the comments, chances are that someone might click on it (even if by mistake). Keep your audience thrilled and engaged by posting regularly so that they invite their friends to your page. If you are ready to shell out some notes, advertise.

I sincerely hope that you receive so many likes that even Facebook finds it difficult to keep a track on it.

Since its humble beginning in 2004, Facebook has rolled out a lot of features that benefit both users and business page owners. While some appreciate the change in its appearance and features, some believe that the old was gold. Suppose you were given a lamp and were asked to rub it. You do it and out comes a facebook genie, what would be your three wishes- more likes?, more friends?, more followers?, or will it be something more exciting. Though I am not lucky enough to get a lamp or a genie, there is no harm in telling what my wishes would be. So, here is a list of the features that I, my friends and maybe most of you wish to see on your favorite social network:-

the button we strive for

1) The ‘dislike’ button: Perhaps the most wanted feature as of now. We users are addicted to

the ‘like’ button but while some of the ‘likes’ come from our heart, some other ‘likes’ are for the sake of – ‘what you give is what you get’ policy. We often come across posts that are just dumb. They irritate us, disappoint us, frustrate us and drive us mad and following such posts, comes a message –“did you like my status?” and that is when you really wish there was a ‘dislike’ button. ( I am not talking about the ‘dislike’ button that emerges after you press the ‘like’ button.) Though there are softwares that help us do so, it would be great if it was official.

2) Gifs as profile picture: I don’t know if many have thought about it or not, but my genius friends

want it back

sure have. I guess, if it was not for facebook, mobile cameras would have lost its market. Almost every picture clicked can be seen hanging on the facebook wall the following day. No wonder people care so much about how they look online. But sometimes, a picture is not enough to say much about us.  Images took a new form called the ‘gifs’ also known as ‘pictures in motion’. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could display a series of pictures instead of just one? “Flip SG” was an application built to do just the same but was later abandoned and our beloved Facebook doesn’t allow us to upload images with extension ‘.gif’.

3) Themes: For people who really like to stand out from the crowd, even the appearance of their Facebook timeline matters. The blue-white theme may appear nice and appealing, but wouldn’t you be happier if you could change the appearance of your timeline? There are many sites which help you do so, but unfortunately, its limited to yourself. While you will be sitting admiring your new theme, the visitors to your timeline would still be seeing the same old thing.

4) The ‘ask a question’ feature: Did anyone of you even notice the sudden disappearance of this feature from your status box? Although I rarely used it, I still miss it. The reason behind disappearance of this feature from the wall and its reappearance on pages and groups is an unsolved mystery. Wouldn’t you love to have it back?

5) Hangout: Google+ users would know about this awesome feature. Hangout allows a maximum of 10 people to video-chat at real time just like a video-conference. Though Facebook allows video call, its nowhere near to this amazing thing.

Did I miss something? Post the feature you want in the comment section

inspired by the twilight saga??

Notifications are exciting. It may be a like or comment on your post or a post by someone you follow. Whatever it may be, it always brings a smile on the face, Right? Wrong. Not always. Especially if you are using a dial-up connection with a high speed internet as mine (30KB/s) and the notification is nothing other than a game request. Games on social networks are designed to force people to invite more friends to play it or shell out a few coins to make up for the audience they lose.

The latest addictive game under this category is the ‘Candy crush saga’. I would like to get the autograph of the facebook user who hasn’t received a single candy crush saga request till date. These requests irritate much more than a best friend. So here is a way to stop the candy crush nuisance:

Method 1: Stop Candy Crush Facebook Notifications

This method is for those who are using candy crush app on their phone, but don’t want any request on their Facebook account.

1) Open your Facebook account and open the settings menu

2) Now select “Apps” from Left sidebar

3) Now find “Candy Crush Saga” app and click on the edit button

4) Now in “When to notify you” section, select “Never” option

That’s it, now you will never receive the notification on your Facebook profile, you can enjoy your game and accept and send requests using the candy crush app.

Method 2: Block Candy Crush Facebook Notifications

This method is for those who have no relation with Candy crush saga whatsoever.

1) Open your Facebook account and open settings menu

2) Now select the “blocking” option from left side bar

3) Now go to Block Apps option and type Candy Crush

4) Select the candy crush saga app.

5) You can now see that the app is blocked.

Among the thousand ways to waste your precious time, logging into facebook might just top the list. In a survey conducted (I don’t know by whom), 52% of all users confessed that they wanted to quit Facebook but couldn’t get their cursor to the ‘deactivate’ button. Here, I am talking about quitting ‘Facebook’ which is much different from quitting social media as a whole. So, if you ever think of doing something worthwhile with your life, this article may help you take the first step (which is no less than a giant leap)

.

1) Keep another hobby ready: “I log out of facebook. Reason- I’m bored. After two minutes I log in again. Reason- I’m bored” says a facebook status gone viral. There may be many reasons you log into the social network but the three definite reasons would be – a) to connect to old and new friends and share photos, videos blah blah blah.. b) to kill time (though option (a) does almost the same thing) and c) to propel your business. All I would say is – Think deep about something to do in your free time, else you would find yourself glued to the blue laced site within a few minutes again.

try to face your the instead

2) Try out another social network: As I mentioned before, shunning Facebook doesn’t mean leaving the entire social media. There are dozens of similar sites striving (don’t know since when) to grab your attention. It is my humble duty to mention some of them – Google+ (Facebook killed Orkut, so here is another one from Google), Ello (the one that doesn’t track you), Care2 (for people who want to fight for a cause), twitter (no need to elaborate). Why don’t you just google it!

3) Use distraction killers: Your new hobby might be blogging, or something which requires you to be online but the frequent Facebook notifications and pop-ups won’t let you keep calm and concentrate? Or you just want to cut short the time you spend on Facebook (or other social networks)? Here are four applications that might help.

The fb rehab app

•  Self-control: the ‘use with caution’ app lets you make a list of all the pages you want to block and define the time period you want them to be unavailable to you. This app actually helps you to control your temptation. But be careful before using it. Once you add the sites to the block list, there is no going back. Restarting the system, using a proxy or another browser is not going to help and you must wait until the time runs out.
• 
  
• 
  
• Fb Rehab: This one lets you peep into your Facebook account just twice a day, each session lasting ten minutes. 

• iFreeface: this distraction blocking PC application helps you concentrate on studies instead of dangling around on the fb wall.

• Facebook Addict Alarm: if there is anything for frustrating than the morning alarm bell, its this. It pops up every fifteen minutes to force you to logout.

These are just suggestions that might help you but what it actually takes to deactivate your Facebook account? – WILL POWER.

 You are obsessed with Facebook. The simple and attractive layout, the option of sharing almost everything in your clogged brain and the ability to make your stuff reach out to the maximum has made it almost impossible for you to leave it untouched. I remember one of friends "saying Facebook is like my refrigerator. Though there is nothing inside, I peep into it every half an hour."

     Suppose you got up one day, opened the browser, typed in the URL and what you got is a 404 error page showing – “webpage not found”. What would be your first reaction? Would you fall off the chair or would you be pleased that you no longer need to face the blue hyped facebook login page. The reaction would surely differ from person to person depending upon the way they make use of the social network, here is how I think it would affect our daily lives. A facebook less day initiative : Here it is

never say never

Boredom: This one is for amateurs who use facebook just to interact with friends and update their status. Absence of Facebook, would probably not put them in a state of depression. In my opinion, the only thing that would disappoint these users is that they would lose an account of  everything that he/she had shared with friends. It’s almost obvious that they would soon find an alternative to it, but will these people ever be able to forget the pleasant time spent on Facebook.

No “Like” Button: Among the many virtual hand gesture, the thumb up button is the most addictive one, a kind of can die for type. The popularity of post, a page, a picture or a video is aggregated on the basis of the number of likes they receive. And based upon my observations,  users keep no strings pulled to get the maximum number of thumbs up. My own friends tag people, share it repeatedly and some even beg their friends for it. In the absence of this most preferred gesture, I just hope they don’t cut off their own thumbs.

Affect on advertisement: With the end of Facebook, the advertisers though would surely get another platform to expand their business, they might find hard time to mingle with the new environment and if I am right, they would soon get frustrated and if I am wrong, I would make a terrible entrepreneur .

Back to Real world: To some, I may seem crazy, but I could think of only one way it might prove to be a good thing – Welcome back everyone to the real world. Facebook acts as a virtual world for each of those addicted ones who spend more than half of their precious time managing their relationships and their status online.  Once the virtual world vanishes, I just hope that people start interacting and living the way they used to do several years ago. This may bind the relationships.
Though Mark seems to have no intention of bringing this wonderful social network to an end anytime soon or in the near future, I spent much of my time thinking about the after effects of this step. Make the most of Facebook now and hope that it stays there forever.

A whopping $19 billion. Thats what Facebook spent in order to buy the most popular messenger- whatsapp.

Facebook’s hold over the mobile messaging giant whatsapp is the most trending topic of today. The social networking giant added whatsapp to its collection. This was a rather unexpected step from Mark Zuckerberg and its going to change the way people interact. Let us have a look at  what it has got in store for the company, the advertisers and of course, the common users.

What it means to the company?

With more than 7.2 billion active users and as many pages, Facebook rules the world of social networking and  with the addition of whatsapp, the most popular mobile messenger, no wonder, its going to be more addictive than ever. But was Zuckerberg really looking for a messenger worth 19 billion USD  or was he looking for something else to replace the not so inspiring facebook messenger ? Here is how, in my opinion, the company, the users and the advertisers would benefit from it.

do you like the whatbook.err...or.. faceapp??

Furthermore, if Facebook happens to replace its outdated and rather clumsy  chat messenger with the popular WhatsApp messenger to the liking of users, Facebook would be able to draw more attention and prevent existing users from bidding goodbye. We truly hope that such a replacement would also prevent the lags currently faced by the native chat messenger.
As I mentioned earlier, whatsapp is the most popular messaging app with almost no competition. On the other hand, Facebook messenger’s failure in mobile devices has paved the way for whatsapp to attract more users than Facebook. Now, thanks to the masterful step from Zuckerberg, the threat has been eliminated and Facebook can keep the hope of ruling over the world of social networking for years to come, alive.

What it means to the Users?

The integration of Whatsapp messenger with Facebook will give the users a more user friendly experience and it would add to the fun. All the lags faced by Facebook chat would be covered up by this advanced messenger. The replacement of the native messenger with the new Whatsapp messenger would thus be an important step.

Further, the small demands and the problems of  Whatsapp users would be taken care off by Facebook. The high end security provided by Facebook would also be available in Whatsapp too.

However, a problem may arise if the company makes it mandatory for Whatsapp users to have a Facebook account in order to continue using it. There hasn’t been any such news thus far and we hope we don’t hear it anytime in the future too.

What it means to the advertisers?

Advertisers can experience an even more comfortable way to promote their business. Advertisers will be able to extend their promotions to a larger audience in an easy way. This will attract more attention both from the Facbook users and the Whatsappers too.

Thus said, In my opinion, Facebook has indeed made the most of its time and money. We are exited to try it out - the whatbook.

If you are an addict like me, you would probably love to keep your social profile updated till your last breath and maybe, beyond that too. Well, you are not alone. Since the beginning of the social networking giant in 2004, facebook boasts of more than 30 million dead people on Facebook. Not much of a surprise though, as people of almost all ages own a virtual world on the net where they live and die. 

don't you just hope you never see this...

These networks transform into a social graveyard and it does not end there. Some pioneers have taken a step forward and developed applications that might help you become almost immortal on the net. Take for instance “ifidie.com”. The site is designed to store all those status, photos or videos that you would want to update once you bid goodbye to the real world. Seems cool right! Unfortunately, an app to assist you comment on other’s status is yet to be designed. However, in my opinion, it would be a bad idea to make your friends shriek out by messaging them after your demise.

and I'll be one among them

However, these sorts of sites are yet to see their good days. Not many would like the idea of existing online after their extinction offline.

Utilizing this or any of similar sites is up to you, keeping in mind all the possibilities and jeopardizes. Irrespective of that, we can proudly announce that we have the ability to attain immortality…. online at the least!!

edited by:  Rufus Ben Abu 

20 March 2014.  

Social networking giant, Facebook rolled out a yet another innovative new layout. While many aren’t pleased with the new user interface, some others feel that its going to help them build up their business as this interface would help their content reach out to the maximum.

The new timeline inspired layout may not seem much aspiring, read on before you make a final judgement.

According to Facebook, the redesign of the Facebook PageTimeline layout is intended to help admins “find the tools they use most”,which can be seen as great step though I would have liked them to redesign it to the interest of the readers.

the old facebook layout

By now, you would have got an idea that the new Facebook layout  has been optimized for the benefit of facebook pages, page owners and even visitors while ignoring the interest of random users. It’s not exactly so as the timeline view of  help a reader navigate easily instead of jumping over to  left and right like before.

The news feed, where a user spends most of his time, is also getting a face-lift. The main feed stream is still located in the middle, but has been narrowed a bit in-order to provide more space to the left and right columns that provide the users a faster and accurate update to their activities. Thus Facebook has taken over a new four column layout. Believe it or not, this helps the users easily navigate through while keeping an eye on the related information as well.

the new layout

The new layout isn’t much attractive or interactive but it does serve random users in a better manner than before. It’s a path toward being simpler, uniform, and similar no matter what device or location you are on.The facebook home page however remains untouched. Here are the major changes brought about by Facebook-

1) The left column hasn’t undergone much of a change. It displays all the information that relates to the user- facebook apps, pages, groups etc. The main middle column shows the news feed. Next to it, lies a column divided into two. The top half of it shows the “trending now”, a kind of international news while the bottom half is dedicated to advertisements. The last column is the chat box displaying friends who are online and the activities of your friends and the people you follow.

2)  The news feed has been re-innovated. Each “news” is displayed as a separate block and thus each news can be differentiated individually by the user. The beloved “like” button has also undergone a transformation.

the like button has also been addressed

3) Another addition is the new “smart URL” feature along with “smart tag”. The smart tag 

feature allows you to tag pages in  your posts without adding the “@” or 

“#”. You got to try it out. The smart URL feature displays short 

information regarding the webpage and keeps away spam.

Verdict:  ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover seems to be the perfect fit here. And this is just my opinion about the new Facebook interface, what do you guys think? 
want to know more? go here