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Apple warns appayola-using app-makers

App Store competition can be tough, but Apple has warned the consequences of trying to game the system are tougher. Apple is reminding app-makers that using appayola services – paying to artificially inflate an app’s chart ranking – will lead to them being stripped of their ability to release apps in the App Store. In a post on Apple’s Developer website, the company said: “Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it. However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts. “Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership.” The reminder appears to have come in response to a recent conversation on the forum for the mobile games site Touch Arcade. In the forum posting , an independent developer claimed to have been contacted by an ad network charging $5,000 (

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Deleted photos live on in Facebook servers

Old Facebook photos may still be accessible for months – or even years – after being deleted, living on in the depths of the social network’s servers. First revealed in 2009 by Ars Technica, the firm recently queried Facebook again after discovering backup copies – that could potentially be accessed by users – still existed some three years later. “Users who might have had second thoughts about posting a photo could certainly remove the image from Facebook’s main user interface, but as long as someone had a direct link to the JPEG file in question, the photo would remain accessible for an indefinite amount of time,” the company said in a blog post . According to Facebook, a poorly-functioning legacy system is the culprit, but a new system is on its way to ensure deleted photos can no longer be accessed. “We are in the process of migrating these photos to the newer system to ensure proper deletion, but until this migration is complete, CDN URLs from deleted photos stored on this legacy system may still be accessible,” Facebook spokesman Frederic Wolens told CNET

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Deleted photos live on in Facebook servers

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Google home page gets a makeover

A new year, a new look for Google’s home page. In a bid to simplify the page and improve user experience, the titans of search are rolling out one of the biggest home page changes to date. The revamp takes away the black bar that currently runs horizontally across the top of the Google home page and replaces it with a grey logo. When a user clicks or highlights the new logo, a drop-down menu appears offering seven alternative services to the site’s search page, such as Gmail and YouTube. Experts are speculating the change was designed to promote more of Google’s businesses while still maintaining its preferred uncluttered and plain minimalist front page. A spokesperson for Google said that the roll-out was also designed to improve user-experience

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Google home page gets a makeover

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Facebook hands out Visa cards to researchers

Facebook continues to build on the success of its bug bounty program , offering vigilant developers custom Visa cards as a reward for their efforts. “White Hat Bug Bounty Program” Visa debit cards are being awarded to researchers and developers for finding and reporting security holes on the social networking site directly to Facebook rather than making the information public. The incentive program was instantly popular with users – Facebook awarded more than $40,000 (

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Active Google+ users drops by 60pc

According to new figures released by data analytics company Chitika, social networking newcomer Google+ has lost 60 per cent of active users since it launched to the general public in late September. After an impressive 1,200 per cent increase in traffic over the first few days following its public launch, numbers have since slumped. “The data shows that, on the day of its public debut, Google+ traffic skyrocketed to peak levels. But, soon after, traffic fell by over 60 per cent as it returned to its normal, underwhelming state. It would appear that although high levels of publicity were able to draw new traffic to Google+, few of them saw reason to stay,” Gabe Donnini from Chitika said . However, looking at the numbers from a different perspective paints a different picture. While Chitika reports a 60 per cent decline in traffic , Forbes contributor Time Worstall took a second look at the numbers , calculating this decline from the initial 1,200 per cent surge, which ultimately, still translates to a 480 per cent increase in traffic . Despite being one of the fastest-growing social networks of all time – with a reported 25 million unique visitors in its first month – industry insiders speculate that most users simply want to see what all the fuss is about

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Active Google+ users drops by 60pc

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Facebook launches iPad app

Finally, social networkers have a better way to connect with friends on their tablet computers. Users can now take to their touchpads with the hotly anticipated addition to Facebook’s mobile services- the Facebook iPad app – yet another way to spend time stalking/looking through photos of friends. The app has been a long time coming for iPad users, with much speculation that the new app would launch at the F8 Conference in September. Software Engineer Leon Dubinsky took to the Facebook blog to highlight some of the app’s new features. He wrote: “With the iPad app, you get the full Facebook experience right at your fingertips. It’s a fun way to keep up with friends, share photos, chat and more. “Photos really shine on the iPad. They’re bigger and easier to flip through, like a real photo album

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Facebook launches iPad app

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Spotify heeds complaints over Facebook sharing concerns

Spotify received hundreds of complaints from angry users following changes to the music streaming service after joining forces with Facebook, prompting new privacy settings for the app. Last week’s f8 conference saw the two web heavyweights team up to provide what they described as a ‘frictionless sharing’ experience for users. Friction, however, seems to be exactly what a significant number of users felt following the changes. The GetSatisfaction support forum and Spotify’s blog have been inundated with messages from disgruntled music listeners claiming the changes to the service violate their privacy. Privacy campaigners in the US have also filed a letter of complaint with federal regulators

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Spotify heeds complaints over Facebook sharing concerns

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Google+ opens doors to the masses

Social networking newcomer Google+ has opened its social networking site to everyone, inconspicuously advertising the change on its search homepage. The project made its debut to fanfare in June, but was available by invitation only while the search titan stretched its sea legs in the competitive waters of social networking. Senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra wrote on the Google Blog : “The Google+ project has been in field trial for just under 90 days, and in that time we’ve made 91 different improvements. “We’re nowhere near done, but with the improvements we’ve made so far, we’re ready to move from field trial to beta , and introduce our 100th feature: open sign-ups.” “This way, anyone can visit Google .com/+, join the project, and connect with the people they care about.” Google is also rolling out new tweaks to its Hangouts feature, a service that facilitates group videoconferencing for up to ten people. Previously, the Hangouts feature was only available to PC users on the social network, but now mobile devices running Android version 2.3 and later with front-facing cameras will be able to Hangout on the go, with promises of the feature being available to Apple iOS soon. Google+ will also utilise Hangouts as a broadcast feature, where users can tune into Hangouts On Air.

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Google+ opens doors to the masses

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Facebook Celebrates 250 Million Users

Barely three months after the announcement that Facebook reached 200 million users, the social networking site today announced a new milestone of 250 million active users worldwide, according to a post on the company blog by CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

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Facebook Celebrates 250 Million Users

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Facebook Grows Worldwide

Facebook is the sixth most popular Web property in the world, according to a recent report by comScore. With 275 million visitors worldwide in February, the social networking site has seen a 175% increase from last year.

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Facebook Grows Worldwide

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