No Home for Facebook at AT&T: HTC First to be discontinued

By Zach Epstein

Published May 13, 2013

BGR

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The HTC First, or “Facebook phone” as many prefer to call it, is officially a flop. 

It certainly wasn’t a good sign when AT&T dropped the price of HTC’s First to $0.99 just one month after its debut, and now BGR has confirmed that HTC and Facebook’s little experiment is nearing its end. BGR has learned from a trusted source that sales of the HTC First have been shockingly bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T has already decided to discontinue the phone.

Our source at AT&T has confirmed that the HTC First, which is the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed, will soon be discontinued and unsold inventory will be returned to HTC. How much unsold inventory is there? We don’t have an exact figure, but things aren’t looking good. According to our source, AT&T sold fewer than 15,000 units nationwide through last week when the phone’s price was slashed to $0.99.

For some perspective, BGR has been informed that sales of the HTC First have been even worse than HTC Chacha sales were back in 2011, when AT&T launched the ill-fated phone as the Status.

BGR recently reviewed Facebook Home and found it to be a promising product in need of some serious tweaking.

We’re told that AT&T sales representatives do not like Facebook Home or the First at all, and they are making little if any effort to sell the handset to customers. Right now iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy S4 are the biggest sellers at AT&T by a substantial margin, our source said.

It is unclear exactly when the First will be pulled from store shelves. AT&T’s $0.99 sale is obviously intended to move as much inventory as possible, and then the phone will be discontinued as soon as HTC’s in-store display contract expires. HTC has paid to reserve display space in AT&T’s retail stores for a certain period of time and the phone cannot be pulled until that contract has run its course.

An HTC spokesman and a spokesperson from AT&T both declined to comment.

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Michigan woman used Facebook to harass herself, police say

Published May 05, 2013

Associated Press

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. –  A western Michigan woman is accused of creating a Facebook account to stalk herself.

Cheryl Nelson, a 52-year-old from the Grand Rapids area, complained to sheriff's deputies that she was the victim of stalking, harassment and other crimes. But authorities learned that she set up a Facebook account with her ex-boyfriend's information and made it appear that his new girlfriend was using it to harass her.

Detective Jason Russo of the sheriff's department says Nelson couldn't let go of her relationship with her former boyfriend.

MLive.com reports that Nelson is charged with falsely reporting a felony. She could not be reached for comment Saturday. There is no listing for a home number.

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Facebook brings 'chat heads' feature to its iPhone, iPad apps in update

Published April 16, 2013

Associated Press

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NEW YORK –  Facebook has updated its iPhone and iPad applications to let people keep using its chat feature even when they are doing other things, such as reading friends' updates.

Facebook also said Tuesday that it's bringing its "chat heads" feature to its Apple apps. It's called chat heads because friends' profile photos pop up when they send you a message.

Chat heads is part of a broader integration that Facebook is doing with a new Home app on some phones running Google's Android operating system.

Unlike with Home, iPhone and iPad users will have to stay inside the Facebook application to use chat heads. The update is already available in Apple's App Store, but Facebook says the chat heads feature will roll out in the coming weeks.

The new Android product, which can reside on the home screen of phones powered by Google's operating system, is a family of apps designed around people's Facebook connections. Rather than see a set of apps for email, maps and other services on the screen, users will be greeted with photos and updates from their Facebook feeds.

"We think this is the best version of Facebook there is," Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg says users can have an experience on Android phones that they can't have on other platforms. That's because Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, allowing others to adapt it to their needs.

The move coincides with rapid growth among the number of users who access the social network from smartphones and tablet computers and Facebook's aim to evolve from its Web-based roots into a "mobile-first" company.

"What Facebook wants is to put itself at the front of the Android user experience for as many Facebook users as possible and make Facebook more elemental to their customers' experience," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

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Facebook barges into Google turf with Home

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  April 4, 2013: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Zuckerberg says the company is not building a phone or an operating system. Rather, Facebook is introducing a new experience for Android phones.AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

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  April 4, 2013: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Zuckerberg says the company is not building a phone or an operating system. Rather, Facebook is introducing a new experience for Android phones.AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

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  April 4, 2013: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Zuckerberg says the company is not building a phone or an operating system. Rather, Facebook is introducing a new experience for Android phones.AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Next Slide Previous Slide

MENLO PARK, Calif. –  Facebook Home, the new application that takes over the front screen of a smartphone, is a bit of a corporate home invasion. Facebook is essentially moving into Google's turf, taking advantage of software the search giant and competitor created.

Facebook Home will operate on phones running Google's Android software and present Facebook status updates, messages and other content on the home screen, rather than making the user fire up Facebook's app. The software will be available for users to download on April 12 and will come preloaded on a new phone from HTC, sold by AT&T in the U.S.

'I think this is really good for Android.'

- Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg

Google gives away Android, the most popular smartphone software in the world, in the hope that it will steer phone users toward Google services, such as Maps and Gmail, and the ads it sells. Compared to ads targeting PC surfers, mobile ads are a small market, but it's growing quickly. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion.

With Home, Facebook is inserting itself between users and Google, diverting them to the social network's own ads and services. It's taking advantage of the fact that Google places few restrictions on how phone manufacturers and software developers modify Android. By contrast, Facebook Home would not work on the iPhone without approval from Apple Inc., and close collaboration with the company.

"Facebook Home can only reside on Android because only Google was daft enough to allow it," said independent phone analyst Horace Dediu, via Twitter.

At the launch event Thursday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Google was aware of the project, but Facebook didn't work them to create Home. Asked if he believed Google could change tactics and restrict apps like Home, he said it was theoretically possible, but highly unlikely for Google to do a "180-degree change" in its stance on Android's openness.

It's not the first time a big Internet company has co-opted Android: Amazon.com has gone much farther with its Kindle Fire tablets. They run a version of Android that strips out all Google services, replacing them with Amazon's equivalents. Barnes & Noble Inc. does the same thing with its Nook tablets. These devices lie outside the Google system, whereas phones running Facebook Home still come with Google apps like Maps and the Play Store for music, movies and applications.

The Play Store has many examples of downloadable applications that modify the Android home screen -- so-called "launchers." Home, however, represents the first time a major Internet company and Google competitor has created a downloadable launcher.

J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth said Home may increase the pressure on Google to find ways to get people to spend more time on its Plus social network, which so far hasn't been as magnetic as Facebook's hangout. Anmuth also thinks the communication tools built into Home could decrease usage of Google's Gmail and Gchat services.

But Zuckerberg said the app will help Google.

"I think this is really good for Android," he told the audience at the launch event in Menlo Park, Calif. Developers do their best work on the iPhone first, but with Home, Facebook is putting Android first. If consumers want the Facebook Home experience, they'll have to get an Android phone.

In a statement, Google seemed to agree. "This latest device demonstrates the openness and flexibility that has made Android so popular," it said.

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Facebook unveils new home on Android

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  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. at a March 20 event. A research firm expects Facebooks mobile ad revenue to soar this year, hitting nearly $1 billion a year after the company started to splice ads into its users mobile phones and tablets.AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

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  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Thursday, March 7, 2013. Zuckerberg on Thursday will unveil a new Android product.AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

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NEW YORK –  Facebook is unveiling a new Android product Thursday, a move that comes as a fast-growing number of its 1.06 billion users access it on smartphones and tablet computers.

Advertisers are not far behind. Though mobile ads have been a big concern for Facebook's investors since before the company's initial public offering last May, some of that worry has subsided as Facebook began muscling its way into the market.

Last year, the company began showing ads to its mobile audience by splicing corporate sponsorships and content into users' news feeds, which also includes updates from friends and brands they follow. Among the challenges Facebook faces now is showing people mobile ads without annoying or alienating them.

The mobile advertisement market is growing quickly. That's thanks in large part to Facebook and Twitter, which also entered the space in 2012. Research firm eMarketer expects U.S. mobile ad spending to grow 77 percent this year to $7.29 billion, from $4.11 billion last year.

As for Thursday's event at the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, speculation has centered on a mobile phone, made by HTC Corp., that deeply integrates Facebook into the Android operating system. The move comes as Facebook works to evolve from its Web-based roots to a "mobile-first" company, as its mantra goes.

"What Facebook wants is to put itself at the front of the Android user experience for as many Facebook users as possible and make Facebook more elemental to their customers' experience," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin.

EMarketer said Wednesday that it expects Facebook Inc. to reap $965 million in U.S. mobile ad revenue in 2013. That's about 2.5 times the $391 million in 2012, the first year that Facebook started showing mobile ads.

Clark Fredricksen, vice president at eMarketer, said it's "tough to speculate" how much effect Thursday's announcement would have on ad revenue.

At the same time, he says "there are some clear reasons why a deeper integration with mobile operating systems and handsets make sense for Facebook. At the end of the day, the more deeply Facebook can engage consumers, no matter what device or operating system or handset," the better.

Facebook's rival, Google Inc., makes the Android software that Facebook and HTC would be using under the widely speculated scenario. Google makes the software available on an open-source basis, meaning others including rivals are free to adapt it to their needs. Amazon.com Inc. does just that in modifying Android to run its Kindle tablet computers.

Facebook is No. 2 behind Google Inc. when it comes to mobile advertisements, and it isn't expected to surpass the online search leader any time soon. Google dominates the mobile search market with 93 percent of U.S. mobile search advertising dollars, according to eMarketer. Online music service Pandora Inc. is in third place when it comes to mobile ad dollars, followed by Twitter.

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Washington school officials accused of searching student's Facebook page

Published March 17, 2013

Associated Press

EVERETT, Wash. –  The American Civil Liberties Union is asking the Everett School District to apologize to a student because a supervisor pressured her to make her Facebook page available during an investigation of a complaint of cyber-bullying that involved other students.

The group sent a letter to Superintendent Gary Cohn on Friday regarding an incident last month involving a North Middle School vice principal and student Samantha Negrete, The Everett Herald reported.

"Our hope is to work together with the school district to find a resolution to this that allows Samantha to return to a safe and welcoming school environment," said Linda Mangel, an ACLU attorney.

Samantha said she did not willingly disclose the contents of her Facebook page. The ACLU said that the request for Toutant's transfer was made because Samantha fears "he will seek to abuse his power and punish her for reporting his illegal search."

Samantha is "being called a snitch, a tattletale," Mangel said. "She's being ostracized. She's afraid."

The group wants students to be formally notified that Samantha's Facebook page was involuntarily and improperly searched; for students to be trained on their rights and responsibilities in using online technology and their rights regarding school searches; and for a new school district policy outlining when school officials may access students' online accounts.

It called for Bryan Toutant, North Middle School's vice principal, to be re-assigned to another school for the remainder of the school year.

School district spokeswoman Mary Waggoner said Cohn had not seen a copy of the letter.

"If something was done that was inappropriate, we would always apologize," she said.

A report on the North Middle School incident is expected next week, she said. Any decision on whether disciplinary action will be taken against staff will occur after the superintendent gets a chance to review the report, Waggoner said.

Waggoner said that Toutant has not been at North Middle School this past week because he was involved in the investigation of the Facebook incident.

View the original article here

Facebook to use Twitter-style hashtags, sources say

Published March 15, 2013

The Wall Street Journal

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  Facebook is working on adding Twitter-style hashtags to its service as a way of organizing conversations, sources say.AP/Paul Sakuma

Facebook is taking its business rivalry with Twitter into the realm of symbols: #Feud.

Facebook is working on incorporating the hashtag, one of Twitter's most iconic markers, into its service by using the symbol as a way to group conversations, said people familiar with the matter. It is unclear how far along Facebook's work on the hashtag is and the feature isn't likely to be introduced imminently, these people said.

On short-messaging service Twitter, the hashtag—a word or phrase preceded by the "#" pound symbol—is a way for people to collate many Twitter messages about a single news event or topic, like the selection of the Pope (#PopeFrancis). The hashtag is closely associated with Twitter, and fans of the service use the hashtag as short-form creative expression.

Facebook is testing whether to follow Twitter's lead and allow users to click on a hashtag to pull up all posts about similar topics or events so it can quickly index conversations around trending topics and build those conversations up, giving users more reason to stay logged in and see more ads. Instagram, which Facebook acquired last year, already uses hashtags, allowing users to sort photos by the symbol.

Facebook's work on a hashtag is a sign of the heightening battle between Facebook and Twitter, as both compete for mobile users and fight for advertising dollars. For years, Twitter and Facebook seemed to occupy different poles of the social-media spectrum. While Facebook was the home of close friends and family, Twitter was the real-time broadcasting device for the rest of the world.

Read more on Facebook's plans at The Wall Street Journal. 

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Facebook sharing comes to Netflix, at last

I know what you watched last summer.

Video-rental business Netflix has turned on a new social sharing features for U.S. users that lets them share what they watched on Facebook, after Congress finally updated a restrictive law from the era of the VHS tape.

"Movies and TV shows are better with friends," Cameron Johnson, a director of product innovation at Netflix, wrote Wednesday in a news post on its site announcing the new "Netflix Social" feature. 

"You'll see what titles your friends have watched in a new ''Watched by your friends' row and what they have rated four or five stars in a new 'Friends’ Favorites' row."

- Cameron Johnson, a director of product innovation at Netflix

"We get suggestions from our friends for new things to watch and we connect with our friends through the shared enjoyment of a great movie or TV show. Starting today, Netflix members in the U.S. can share their favorite shows and movies on Netflix with friends by connecting to Facebook and agreeing to share."

The change came about as a result of the “Video Privacy Protection Act Amendments Act of 2012,” which updates the old video-privacy act that had prohibited companies from disclosing their VHS and laser-disc rental history without a court order.

That law also prevented companies like Netflix and Hulu from sharing that history, as well as likes and dislikes and more, on social media sites.

Users in Canada and Latin America have had the ability to link Netflix and Facebook accounts and share viewed movies since 2011, but Netflix hasn’t offered it in the U.S. yet due to the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) said the changes would let consumers share video viewing information via the Internet while preserving privacy protections already in the law.

“To protect the privacy of American consumers, the bill retains key privacy protections already in the VPPA which require that consumers “opt-in” to the sharing of their video viewing information,” Leahy said in December.

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Facebook overhauls News Feed with sorting feature, bigger pictures and more

The world's biggest social networking company is getting ready to unveil a new version of News Feed, the flow of status updates, photos and advertisements that Facebook users see on the site.

Facebook Inc. is hosting an event Thursday to show off "a new look for News Feed." It will be Facebook's second staged event at its headquarters since the company's May initial public offering. The company unveiled a search feature at the first one in January.

Facebook users often complain about changes to the site, whether it's cosmetic tweaks or the overhaul of privacy settings.

The event comes a month after a Pew study reported that many Facebook users take a break from the site for weeks at a time. The report, from the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project, found that some 61 percent of Facebook users had taken a hiatus for reasons that range from boredom to too much irrelevant information.

Overall, though, Facebook's user base is growing, especially on mobile devices. At last count, it had 1.06 billion active monthly accounts. The number of people who access Facebook daily is also on the rise.

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Facebook founders are world's youngest billionaires

Oh, to be young and filthy, stinking rich.

Forbes released its annual list of the world’s billionaires on Monday -- there are 1,426 of them on the planet -- and noted that there are just 23 under 40. And Facebook’s founders are the youngest on the list.

Dustin Moskovitz and Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook way back in the day. Now, at the tender age of 28, the pair are the youngest billionaires on Forbes list, with net worths of $3.8 billion and $13.3 billion respectively, according to the website.

Eduardo Saverin, who also co-founded the site, is fifth youngest at 30 and worth $2.2 billion, according to Forbes. In 2012, Saverin renounced his U.S. citizenship, a move widely believed to be a way around capital gains tax -- something Saverin denied through his spokesman.

Joining them in the list of the five youngest billionaires are Scott Duncan, who inherited the the massive fortune of late energy pipeline entrepreneur Dan Duncan, and Albert von Thurn und Taxis, who also inherited a vast wealth.

Another Facebook alum numbers in the top ten youngest, however: Sean Parker, the founder of music-sharing website Napster and Facebook’s first president. Parker is 33, and worth $2 billion, Forbes said.

These kids have ways to go before they reach the astronomical wealth at the top of the list, of course. Carlos Slim Helu and his family top the overall list, with a staggering net worth of $73 billion. And Bill Gates sits pretty in second place, with a net worth of $67 billion.

But the 57-year-old Gates won’t remain in that slot for ever. The wealthiest person in United States is also the world’s most generous person, according to Forbes. Gates has already given more than $28 billion to charity, and has said he plans to give away the majority of his fortune in an effort to eradicate deadly diseases like polio and malaria.

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Facebook promises big update to one of its biggest products

Facebook certainly isn’t spending any time sitting around.

After starting a rollout of its new search engine on Facebook, Graph Search, the company is now teasing an event next Thursday that looks like a big update to the News Feed.

Hard to argue that it’s anything less than a design update to what is essentially Facebook’s home page. “Come see a new look for News Feed,” the invitation says.

News Feed ads have turned into a significant business for Facebook. On Facebook’s last earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the addition of advertising had barely affected user engagement. “The numbers turned out better than we expected,” he said.

So it seems only natural that Facebook would want to find a way to better monetize its users in its News Feed. What isn’t clear is how much of the update will focus on the mobile news feed and how much will focus on the desktop feed. Mobile will likely be a big focus given how big it is for Facebook: Mobile revenue was about 23% of ad revenue for fourth quarter 2012.

One new experiment Facebook is running is app install advertisements, a business that also appears to be doing very well. Since mobile App Install ads launched, 20% of the top-grossing iOS apps are using it, Zuckerberg said on the call.

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Microsoft confirms hack attack mirroring recent Facebook break-in

Published February 24, 2013

Associated Press

REDMOND, Wash. –  Microsoft has joined the list of prominent technology companies confirming they have been hit by a recent computer hacking attack.

In a blog posting Friday, Microsoft said it had found no evidence that any customer data had been heisted.

Microsoft Corp. gave few other details about the break-in, except to say that was it similar to a hacking attack that online social networking leader Facebook Inc. disclosed last week. Facebook had said its investigation had discovered other companies had been hacked, but didn't identify the other victims.

Like Facebook, Microsoft says it is still investigating how malicious software was planted on what it said were a small number of its computers.

Online messaging service Twitter also recently disclosed that hackers may have stolen information about 250,000 of its users.

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Michigan woman, 104, forced to lie about age on Facebook

Published February 20, 2013

Associated Press

GROSSE POINTE SHORES, Mich. –  Marguerite Joseph can be forgiven for lying about her age on Facebook.

The 104-year-old Michigan woman's granddaughter says Joseph is unable to list her real age on the social media site.

Gail Marlow says when she tries inputting her grandmother's birth year as 1908, Facebook changes it to 1928. So for the past two years, the Grosse Pointe Shores centenarian has remained 99 -- online, anyway.

Joseph is legally blind and can't hear well, but Marlow reads and responds to all of her Facebook messages.

Marlow tells WDIV-TV she "would love to see" Joseph's real age displayed on Facebook and chalks up her inability to do so to "a glitch in the system."

A Facebook official did not immediately respond to a message Wednesday seeking comment.

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