Facebook

Facebook gives cleaner, app-centric Timeline design to all

Facebook said Thursday that it has completed the rollout of a cleaned-up version of Timeline, first unveiled in March, that comes with application sections for showing off a person's favorite interests.

The idea behind the new design is to not only turn Timeline into a more organized area, but to make the profile space better reflect the individual tastes of every Facebook user through a feature called "sections."

Sections, which are handpicked by each individual Facebook user, are included in the About tab and sit to the left of a now single-column stream of updates on a … Read more

Facebook kills social suicide app Social Roulette

A Facebook app that mimicked the real-life lethal game of Russian roulette in deleting user accounts apparently did not leave the social network fired up.

Social Roulette, which launched Saturday, gave players a one-in-six chance of deleting their own Facebook account, a form of social suicide, if you will. If you lost (or won, depending on your level of exasperation with social networking), the app would delete all aspects of the user's account, including posts, likes, photos, and friend connections, before deactivating the account.

According to its description, the app was intended for people looking to burn their Facebook … Read more

HTC's Facebook phone: Not dead yet

No, the first Facebook phone, also known as the HTC First, isn't ready for the smartphone graveyard just yet.

BGR reported Monday that AT&T would discontinue selling the HTC First and return unsold inventory back to the manufacturer once it met the contractual obligations of its in-store display arrangement with HTC.

But AT&T has not made a decision to discontinue the First, according to a person familiar with the carrier's plans.

"I am not aware of any discussion ever taking place about sending the phones back or to stop selling the First," … Read more

Facebook Home finally hits 1M download mark

A month after its release, Facebook Home has reached 1 million downloads, according to download numbers at Google Play.

It hit the milestone just days after Facebook's director of mobile engineering told reporters that Home had been downloaded "just about" 1 million times. The app's page was updated Sunday morning to indicate that its download numbers now fall in the 1 million to 5 million range.

While the social network's software suite for Android achieved its first 500,000 downloads in its first 10 days out in the wild, Facebook Home took twice as long … Read more

Facebook general counsel exiting company

Facebook Vice President and General Counsel Ted Ullyot is leaving the social network after nearly five years on the job.

"Ted has been a valued member of Facebook's leadership who built our legal team through an intense 5-year period in which we faced complex and high-stakes legal issues of all types. We wish him the best of luck in the future," Facebook spokesperson Tucker Bounds said in a statement to CNET.

Ullyot, a Harvard graduate, joined Facebook as the company's first general counsel in October 2008 and was one of the then young company's first &… Read more

Bing adds more Facebook to search

Continuing down the path of enhancing search results with social data, Microsoft's Bing search engine added even more Facebook features to its right-hand social sidebar.

Thursday, people who search on Bing, and who have connected their Facebook accounts, will find that they can view comments on Facebook posts in the sidebar, add their own comments to surfaced status updates, and "like" the social-network posts without leaving the search engine.

"Now you can see what your friends might know about what you're searching for and engage with them directly without leaving the search page," Bing … Read more

Facebook brings its Yelp-like business Pages to Android

Facebook said Thursday that its Android application will feature its newly redesigned layout for mobile Pages. Pages are Facebook profiles for brands, businesses, and public figures that use the social network.

The new layout, which resembles business listings on Yelp, pushes essential business information such as contact details and location to the top of the Page. It also encourages visitors to leave a mini review, check-in to the location, or "like" the Page.

Facebook first introduced the new look for mobile Pages on iOS and mobile Web a few weeks ago. The changes play nicely with Facebook's … Read more

Facebook Home downloads: When 1M is a small number

Facebook confirmed Thursday that Android users have downloaded its Facebook Home software suite just shy of a million times since the product's launch last month. While that's a whole lotta mobile users, it's a tiny number considering what's possible.

If you consider the number of Facebook users and the amount of Android devices sold, you get a massive network of potential Home users. The social network alone has more than 1 billion users on the site. That's a thousand times more than the number of Home downloads so far.

Then there's the sheer number … Read more

Why Facebook would buy Waze: To fight Google for mobile search

Rumors that Facebook is in late-stage talks to buy Waze for as much as $1 billion have many wondering if the social network's next great ambition is to tackle the maps and navigation market. Maybe -- but only because maps would be Facebook's best way to route around Google and make money from mobile search.

Founded in 2007, Waze makes a navigation application for iPhone and Android used by roughly 45 million people. The app's mapping service is powered by the people who use it. Waze ingests all types of location data as shared, either implicitly or … Read more