Google Plus To Challenge Facebook

ReadWriteWeb Reports : Here come the Google Plus games. Google has announced a big move toward mainstream adoption today, integrating Web-based games within the brand new social network. "We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as meaningful, as playing in real life," the announcement says. Titles include Angry Birds, Bejeweled Blitz, Zynga Poker and Sudoku. Google has launched a new Google Plus Platform Blog to help encourage more.

36) Facebook Creates Its Own Phone Secretly?, Possible, But The Giant Socializer Denies It!

Earlier this weekend, Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch published a story called “Facebook Is Secretly Building a Phone.” The story posts that Facebook is deep in development on a brand-new smartphone platform, evidenced by the reports of one unnamed source and by the supposed activities of two high-level Facebook employees, Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos. The Facebook phone was allegedly going to be a low-cost, entry level phone that, naturally, deeply integrates Facebook’s social networking features. The rumor originated from TechCrunch, and was then fueled even more by AlleyInsider, who claimed that the social network was building a new phone and definitely using Android.

32) Got 1500 Facebook/Twitter Friends? Your Brain Can’t Even Handle 150

No matter how many friends you have on social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter or Orkut, the human brain is capable of handling up to a maximum of 150 pals only, a new study has claimed. A professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University has found out that human beings are physically limited to being able to link up and manage up to 150 friends at most, regardless of any other societal variables. The researchers, led by led by Robin Dunbar, have developed a theory known as “Dunbar’s number“, which claimed that the size of our neocortex – the part of the brain used for conscious thought and language — is too small to handle more than 150 active relationships. He told the Sunday Times that “The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world“. “People obviously like the kudos of having hundreds of friends but the reality is that they’re unlikely to be bigger than anyone else’s.” Anyhow, those looking to catch a glimpse of the work of Professor Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar, can consult one of his numerous publications, “The evolution of culture: An interdisciplinary view” on Google Books. Professor Dunbar’s findings will be published towards the end of the year and might finally debunk the myth of Facebookers who claim to have 5000 friends or so and Twitter users with over 34,000 followers. How many friends do you have on Facebook/Twitter?

24) Where Would You Be Without Facebook?

Facebook already knows what you like, who your friends are, what you're thinking right now, so what the hell does it matter that it knows where you are too, right? The king of social networks has finally revealed its much-anticipated location-awareness features. Facebook Places will let users with Facebook apps on their mobile devices "check in" at various locations to let their friends know they've arrived. It sounds very similar to existing networks like FourSquare and Gowalla, except for the small detail that Places is backed by a network with more than half a billion members. Those other two have loyal followings, but it's going to be tough to compete with a rival that big. But all is not lost for the pioneers of location-aware social networks. In fact, Facebook is actually partnering with FourSquare and Gowalla and prepping an application programming interface so that other location-aware services can create Facebook apps. So FourSquare users might still decide to use FourSquare; they may just prefer to do it while piggybacking on Facebook's platform. Also, these other services can keep differentiating themselves by focusing on things like location-based games. So don't worry, Mayor of the South Park Mall food court Sbarro in Moline, Ill. Your position is not in jeopardy. The arrival of a Facebook location-based service is a double red-alert for privacy watchdogs -- letting a Web service know where you are at all times sounds fishy, and anything Facebook does comes under suspicion just because it's Facebook. This time, though, the site made its new feature opt-in. You have to make the conscious decision to broadcast your whereabouts before anyone can know where you are. Still, Facebook added a couple of new privacy settings related to Places that let you control who sees that information, so you might want check the defaults and customize those.