Facebook to construct its own data centers

For most companies, it is cheaper to rent data center space rather than build a server room themselves. Not for Facebook, however. The social networking site has reached the size where it is cheaper to build its own data center rather than rent space. It is expected to announce the building of a new facility soon.

Facebook spokesperson Kathleen Loughlin stated:

Facebook is always looking at ways to scale our infrastructure and better serve our users. It should come as no surprise that, at some point, building a customized data center will be the most efficient and cost effective way to to do this. However, we have nothing further to announce at this time.

While the location(s) of the data center(s) is unknown, one rumoured city is Prineville, Oregon, where a 117,000-square-foot facility has been built for an unidentified client. Whatever the location, expect Facebook’s data centers to be very efficient. They will use the latest in technology, including a recent innovation that forgoes UPS power backup for a physical battery inside every server.

Source | Data Center Knowledge
Photo | Flickr

Facebook Cybersquatting Concerns Prove Valid

It’s only been three days since Facebook launched its new vanity URL system, an event that many intellectual property experts claimed would result in a flurry of cybersquatting. Well, they were right.

Since the service’s launch three days ago, hundreds of celebrities, companies, and even royalty have had vanity URLs created by others without their consent.

Charlie Nordholm, a conniving lad from Hawaii, took it upon himself to register facebook.com/princecharles/. While he may have Prince Charles’s username, he won’t be seeing the likes of Buckingham Palace any time soon.

Facebook is already starting to take action. A West Midlands woman by the name of Jordan Bromley registered www.facebook.com/peachesgeldof/ on Friday, but now her Facebook is unavailable.

I think the vast majority of these username registrations are not cases of cybersquatting, but people just doing it as a joke or for attention. The vanity URLs are non-transferable and Facebook is able to take them away without warning.

Source: Ireland Online
Photo: Flickr

Trademark Holders Concerned About Facebook Vanity URLs

Later today, Facebook will begin allowing users to register their own vanity URLS, such as http://www.facebook.com/danielfoster. While many users are eagerly awaiting this opportunity, trademark holders are concerned this might be an opportunity for cybersquatting to occur.

Trademark lawyers are urging their clients to get on Facebook as soon as possible and register their trademarks. Otherwise, they claim the intellectual property could be registered by cybersquatters and exploited, just like in the domain industry.

This is really a way for someone who has a distinct or famous trademark to let Facebook know that others should not be allowed to register that page. They can just say, ‘Please don’t let anyone use my registered trademark,’” said Brian Fergemann, a partner and intellectual property attorney at Winston & Strawn.

Earlier this month, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa filed a lawsuit against Twitter over cybersquatting, claiming another user registered his name and used it to defame him.

Registration for the new URLS will begin at 12:01 Eastern Time. Facebook is not turning a blind eye to the issue and has set up a form where trademarks can be registered ahead of time.

Source: Law.com

Why people keep blogging

Last week the New York Times ran a feature about several bloggers who had abandoned their blogs. They quoted statistics from Technorati stating that 95 percent of blogs are abandoned, the ruins of the lost World Wide Web. They cite many reasons. Some people thought they would become financially independent. Others thought they would become famous and suddenly have an audience without a major publishing deal. Still others simply no longer had the time to blog.

The question the article does not answer is: why do some people keep blogging? According to Technorati, there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs at any one time, but only 50,000 to 100,000 generate the most page views. Nevertheless, those people who have not become famous or rich continue to blog and probably get visits and comments from people they know with an occasional stranger here and there.

The truth is that some of us blog because we love to write. Blogging is a quick and easy way to get something off your chest. People may read it, or they may not. Writers write because they love it. Moreover, many bloggers who quit undoubtedly thought that the would be the center of attention, but as with most social media (Twitter and Facebook included), it is a participatory culture.
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EFF tracks policy changes on Facebook, YouTube and others

TOSBack is a new site created by the Electronic Frontier Foundation that tracks terms of service (TOS) agreements on major websites such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, eBay, Apple, and WordPress. In the past, some major social media sites have instituted TOS agreements that alarmed users and raised questions about their right to privacy. All of the sites in question frequently collect sensitive user data that most users expect to be protected from advertising, unwanted disclosure and fraud.

With this new website, the EFF gives users the ability to see changes in policies via a real-time feed, including side-by-side comparisons of the agreements with the changes highlighted.

‘Terms of Service’ policies on websites define how Internet businesses interact with you and use your personal information,” the EFF said in a statement. “But most web users don’t read these policies–or understand that the terms are constantly changing.”

Usually, a website will send mass emails to their users whenever a policy change takes effect, but most users do not bother to read the often complicated and lengthy documents. Earlier this year, Facebook made a change to its policy that allowed it to use deleted user content whenever and for as long as it wanted. When users protested, the company backed down from the change. The EFF hopes to put other major Internet services under the same scrutiny to ensure user rights are protected.

Source: CNET
Photo: Flickr

Facebook to Offer Vanity URLs

This week Facebook is expected to announce a new feature: vanity URLs. The new web addresses will make it much easier for people to be found and market themselves. Rather than have the normal http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=xxxxxxxxx, users will have the chance to register http://www.facebook.com/yourname.

Sites like Flickr, Twitter, and LinkedIn have offered this feature for years. Facebook has allowed businesses and celebrities to have vanity URLs in the past, but never the general public.

There will be restrictions, however. No URLs may contain trademarks or generic keywords. So http://www.facebook.com/viagra and http://www.facebook.com/freecreditreport will be simply out of the question.

This is all part of Facebook’s strategy to market their profiles as a catch-all online identity. It’s realized the competition is doing something right for once and doesn’t want to be left in the cyber dust.

Right now it is looking like the vanity addresses will be first-come first-serve. But there is also speculation that the social networking site might charge for the feature. If so, you can count me out.

Source: TechCrunch