facebook

GDC 2010: Meet BackChatter, the Twitter MMO

Both Twitter and Facebook are immensely popular social networking tools that offer real-time sharing of ideas and updates--but of the two, only Facebook has a second life as a huge gaming platform. After all, the sheer simplicity of Twitter makes it hard to imagine what kind of games could even be developed for it.

BackChatter is a project created especially for the Game Developers Conference, using Twitter as the basis of what is being called a "massively multiplayer GDC game." Though that might conjure up images of World of Warcraft, the actual game uses the definition of a … Read more

When TiVoing the Oscars, Twitter is not your friend

If I can tell you one thing about trying to TiVo Sunday night's Oscars, it's that being online during the ceremonies was definitely not a safe place to be.

This is the era of time-shifting, and I like to take full advantage of the fact that I can set my DVR to record something like the Oscars and then sit down later on and watch it at my leisure and yet still be surprised by what happens.

But just as the show was beginning, I switched over to TweetDeck to check something out on Twitter and was horrified … Read more

At GDC, iPhone game development breaks out

If you had any doubts that the iPhone must now be considered one of the world's most important gaming platforms, this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco will try to put them to rest once and for all.

For years, GDC, as it's known, has hosted two days of "summits" early in the week, before the main keynote address and the bulk of the panels and sessions begin, including the longstanding GDC Mobile, which dealt with just about every issue a developer could want on mobile and handheld devices.

And this year is no … Read more

Has business press lost touch with the tech industry?

A new report by ITDatabase that examines tech coverage over the last six months from eight top business news publications raises some questions, in particular: Does the business press factor companies' revenue and profits into their tech editorial agenda?

The report shows that Apple and Google dominate, while Twitter and Facebook are far more discussed in the business press than Intel, Dell, IBM, or even HP (the largest tech company in the world).

The eight publications surveyed are: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Financial Times, and USA Today. Over a period of … Read more

Stellar voice search

Of the handful of voice-transcription iPhone apps to search the Web or place a call, Vlingo's is the best. Thanks to a redesign, it's also attractive and easy to use. Speaking into the phone searches the Web using Google, Yahoo, or Bing, dials contacts, maps a location, and updates your status on Twitter and Facebook. You only need to touch the keypad to edit, which sometimes happens in noisy areas, when you mumble, and when you speak too quickly for Vlingo's rather sensitive electronic ears.

Team Vlingo has added an in-app browser that previous builds lacked, and … Read more

Buzz backfire: How Google pushed me to Facebook

I use and enjoy Google Buzz. But here's the funny thing: because of it, I've begun using Facebook more.

Buzz backfired for me for one simple reason. I wanted a mechanism for social networking with my personal contacts, but Facebook is where those ties are active.

Although I have plenty of close contacts in my Gmail address book, not all of them use Gmail and therefore Buzz. Buzz has a good framework but the wrong faces.

Of course, Google infamously pre-populated Buzz with everybody's follower lists. Leaving the privacy repercussions aside, that move did serve to jump-start Buzz so trying it wasn't like talking to yourself in an empty room, as with Wave.

But for whatever reasons relating to contact lists, algorithms, and activity, Google filled my Buzz follower and followee lists chiefly with professional contacts. … Read more

Zune Facebook app update: It works now

Microsoft's long-awaited Facebook app for the Zune HD may not have waited long enough. After rolling out late Monday night, users immediately reported problems with the app's capability to pull down content, as well as a slow performance in general. The Zune team quickly acknowledged the problem and promised to investigate the issues.

Well, I'm happy to report that the issues have apparently been resolved, and it seems the problems weren't entirely Microsoft's fault.

A Microsoft spokesperson emailed CNET the following statement:

"Yesterday evening, the Microsoft and Facebook engineering teams worked together to fix … Read more

Buzz Out Loud Podcast 1177: Nerd freestyle

We stayed on the rails pretty well in this episode, but there's a whole long thing about cake toward the end that the chat room dubbed "nerd freestyle" and, well, we love that. In other news, new TiVo underwhelms a bit (other than the remote) and Viacom goes all anti-Internet with "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." That's the cake part.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) Episode 1177

TiVo unveils Series4 ‘Premiere’ DVRs with enhanced online integration http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10462438-1.html?… Read more

Why the social-media aggregator has croaked

A couple of years ago, they were everywhere: fresh, design-savvy start-ups, taking everything you might ever want to know your friends were doing on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, and goodness knows what else.

Social-network feed aggregators--FriendFeed, Socialthing, Plaxo's Pulse--have been part of the dizzying array of Web apps ever since it became evident that the average Internet user was using more than one of these nifty social-media services and just might want to have them all in one place. But they've been on the way out for some time: FriendFeed sold to Facebook, and Socialthing to AOL, both … Read more