Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Will Project Fame Switch Times?
Given that the new alcohol bill takes effect from midnight November 26th, and that Project Fame proudly sponsored by beer Tusker airs on November 26th at 8pm, will the good people at Citizen TV move the show to a later date? Let's wait and see...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Read The August Issue of The Insyder Here...
It's the 25th of the month and you def know what time it is...IT'S READ THE INSYDER FOR FREE TIME!! Check out the Drake Drizzy issue
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
ATTEENTION! Be Part of the i-Qru & Rep’ Ya Skool!
ATEENTION! Do you have swagga, mad writing skillz, hawk-like observation, know all the latest 411? Then we are looking for you! The Insyder Magazine is offering six lucky teeiez the once in a life-time opportunity to be part of the i-Qru, all access pass to The Insyder HQ, attend all the coolest gigs this holz V.I.P style, meet and chill with your favourite celeb & get featured in The Insyder Magazine.
All you have to do is tell us why you think you've got the swagga to join the i-Qru & to rep your skool. Holla at us at yuaholla@theinsyder.com with the following details before Friday August 13th:
- Your full names
- Age
- School
- Class
- Contact Details
Rules & Regulations
- You must be in high school i.e. Form 1-4.
- You must reside in Nairobi ( for your own convenience).
- 12 lucky teens will be shortlisted from the entries recieved.
- If selected your parent/ guardian must givea pproval before you commence the internship.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Nu Joint! P Unit unleash video for 'Kare'
Tunaifeel Kaa Tentacles Za Paul Ze Octopus...Kare!
Let us know what you think of this new song from P Unit...halla!
Let us know what you think of this new song from P Unit...halla!
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Cover Boy Drake DRiZZY Release Nu Joint Featuring Lil' Wayne
We nicked this off the Billboard website, but who cares?! The Insyder cover boy Drake has teamed up with Young Money captain Lil' Wayne to release a new track. New York's Hot 97 DJ Funkmaster Flex aired an interview with Lil Wayne yesterday (Aug. 3), but it was competing station Power 105.1's DJ Clue that gave fans the exclusive first listen to Lil Wayne's "Right Above It" track, the Drake-assisted lead single off the incarcerated rapper's "I'm Not A Human Being" EP.
"I want to tell you something that you probably should know, it's that 'Slumdog Millionaire' Bollywood flow," Drake raps in the first verse over horns and thumps. "Now tell me how you love it, you know you're at the top and all the heaven's right above it, we on," Wayne spits in his chipmunk-like voice on the chorus before jumping into his own verse. "Meet me on the fresh train, yes I'm in the building, you're just on the list of guest names," he confidently flows.
"I'm Not A Human Being" drops on Sept. 27, coinciding with Wayne's birthday.
Get tune here:
Download Lil Wayne Ft Drake - Right Above It.mp3 from FileFactory.com
Never Ever Underestimate Your Rival. Never!
The rivalry was supposed to begin at the Beijing Olympics two years ago. Instead, it kicked into high gear Friday evening in Stockholm.
In their first meeting since last year's world championships, American Tyson Gay stunned world record holder Usain Bolt in the 100-meter dash at the DN Galan meet in the Swedish capital. (Watch the clip here on Universal Sports.) It's the first major victory for Gay over Bolt in the event since the Jamaican shook the track world by setting a world record in May of 2008 and the first loss overall for Bolt in two years.
The final margin was almost as surprising as the order of finish: Gay crossed the tape in a 9.84 compared to a 9.97 for the three-time Olympic gold medalist. The American took advantage of Bolt's slowness out of the blocks in taking an early lead and then held him off down the stretch for an easy victory.
[Related: Usain Bolt adopts cheetah, names it 'Lightning']
Before we get too excited about this and start making analogies to Ali-Frazier and Bird-Magic, there's two important factors to consider. First, this was a glorified exhibition. Both Bolt and Gay were paid for their participation in the meet (Bolt got a reported $250,000) and, while both run to win every time they step foot on the track, neither were as physically or mentally prepared as they'd be for a world championships or Olympics.
The other thing is, there was much more at stake in Stockholm for Gay than Bolt. The Jamaican is the king of sprinting. Nothing that happened today, short of a miraculous world record for Gay, was going to change that. Bolt didn't want to lose, but crossing in second changes nothing. Maybe it gives him a reason to train harder, who knows.
But Gay needed this. He had such a tough Olympics (he was injured during trials and failed to qualify for the finals of the 100) and has lived in the immense shadow of Bolt since then. Gay had to win, to send a message to Bolt that his dominance can't go on forever and, more importantly, to send a message to himself that it's possible to dethrone Bolt.
It's possible, but such a takeover can't happen unless the stakes are huge. The world track championships begin Aug. 27, 2011 in South Korea. Circle your calendars now.
Game on, Usain.
Story courtesy of Yahoo! sports
Who Looks Mo' Bangin'?
Friday, August 06, 2010
New Kanye West Music Vid
Check out Kanye's new, controversial music video "Power" and tell us what you think...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Drizzy Drake Does The Insyder
Fun, fun, fun is the definition of what the August holidays are about. But as we have a blast ,don’t let the blast take over. your life. Be in full control peeps! The August issue features one of the illest young money rappers on the planet - Drake. Insyde, you will find tit bits of what's brewing in the entertainment industry in Nairobi, Brooklyn and Kingston. We were reppin’ to the fullest in funkiez to bring you the pix, the stories and the low, down dirt that you crave! In the scandal mix is St. Gee, Changez, and Uppah amongst others. Then we have a treat for y'all dancehall lovers - a mega-sized poster of Gyptian! Real talk, you'll be holdin' n' squeezin' The August issue of The Insyder all month long. Don’t miss the August issue; you miss it you miss out!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Separated @ Pumwani Maternity Ward
Brothers from another father; that's Ghanaian World Cup 2010 revelation Andre Ayew (20) and US hip hop superstar Bow Wow. You decide, were these guys separated at birth or what?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
People Quitting Facebook Coz Of Privacy Issues
Concerns over Facebook's new privacy policy and the online social network's recent efforts to spread its information across the Web have led some of the site's faithful to delete their accounts -- or at least try to.
On Wednesday's episode of a podcast called This Week in Technology, host Leo Laporte, a well-known tech pundit, said he had to search wikiHow, a how-to site, to figure out how to delete his Facebook account permanently.
After finding the delete button, which he said is hidden deep within the site's menus, Laporte proceeded to delete his account during the online broadcast.
"That's it. It's gone," he said during the show. "And I think that's the right thing to do."
It's unclear how many people have chosen to delete their Facebook accounts in recent weeks. The popular social network doesn't publish statistics on how many people quit the site.
But there has been much uproar online about Facebook's alleged lack of concern for the privacy of its users' personal information, and its clear that some people have become so upset that they're leaving the networking site, which has more than 400 million members.
Still, the account deletions likely aren't numerous enough numbers to affect the site's overall size. Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta said in an e-mail that Facebook has grown by more than 10 million active users since late April.
Read full story here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/13/facebook.delete.privacy/index.html?hpt=C1
On Wednesday's episode of a podcast called This Week in Technology, host Leo Laporte, a well-known tech pundit, said he had to search wikiHow, a how-to site, to figure out how to delete his Facebook account permanently.
After finding the delete button, which he said is hidden deep within the site's menus, Laporte proceeded to delete his account during the online broadcast.
"That's it. It's gone," he said during the show. "And I think that's the right thing to do."
It's unclear how many people have chosen to delete their Facebook accounts in recent weeks. The popular social network doesn't publish statistics on how many people quit the site.
But there has been much uproar online about Facebook's alleged lack of concern for the privacy of its users' personal information, and its clear that some people have become so upset that they're leaving the networking site, which has more than 400 million members.
Still, the account deletions likely aren't numerous enough numbers to affect the site's overall size. Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta said in an e-mail that Facebook has grown by more than 10 million active users since late April.
Read full story here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/13/facebook.delete.privacy/index.html?hpt=C1
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Changez, Strath In Tricky Draws
Two-time winners (1986 & 2002) Changez and 2008 champions Strath have landed tricky pools in the 2010 Blackrock Rugby Festival. In the draw, which comprises of 8 pools with 3 teams each, Changez have been matched up with Ditchez and Upper II, while Strath will battle it out with Resolution Health Impala Floodlights finalists MFA, and pool outsiders Uhuru High.
The girls' tournament is really open, with most of the participating teams attending the championship for the first time. A total of 12 teams have entered this year's competition, with 3 teams being put into 4 pools. The top 2 teams in each pool with then automatically progress in the Main Cup quarter finals, while the 3rd placed teams will enter the Bowl Cup competition.
The 2010 championship kicks off this Saturday at 9am and is expected to end at 5pm. This year's tournament has been sponsored by mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, though Ovi Store .
The full draw is highlighted below:
Top two teams qualify automatically for the Quarter Finals of the Main Cup, 3rd placed team go directly to the Bowl Cup. Losing quarter finalists in the Main Cup, automatically enter the Plate Cup. There will be no Shield Cup in this year’s championship.
POOL A
Upper Hill, Rosslyn Academy, St. Christopher’s
POOL B
Strathmore , Moi Forces Academy, Uhuru
POOL C
Hillcrest, Braeburn & Peponi Combined, Mutuini
POOL D
St. Mary’s I, Muhuri Muchiri, Juja Preparatory
POOL E
Rift Valley Academy, Ofafa Jericho, St. Mary’s II
POOL F
Nairobi School, Highway Secondary, Le Pic
POOL G
Lenana, Dagoretti, Upper Hill II
POOL H
Maseno, Sunshine, Mutugoni
Girls’ Draw
POOL A
Nembu Girls, Raila Educational Centre, St. Martin’s
POOL B
St. Teresa’s, Ruthimitu, Crescent
POOL C
Precious Blood Girls, Maono Educational Centre, Nile Road Academy
POOL D
Hidden Talent Academy, State House Girls, Buruburu
Rabbit and Q-Ta-C Medley at CHAT Awards 2010
The Insyder CHAT Awards 2010 DVD Highlights: Two of the hottest new comers of 2009 rock The 8th Insyder/Skiza CHAT Awards. Rabbit and Q-Ta-C bring the house down with their live renditions of their hit songs "Niko Kwa Jam" and "Ocha" respectively.
CHAT Awards DVD To Go On Sale
The Insyder has announced that a 2 hour DVD special of the recently hosted 8th CHAT Awards will go on sale soon. The DVD will be distributed to all leading retail outlets including supermarket chains such as Nakumatt, Tuskys and Uchumi. The DVD special will also be available for download online.
This is the first time that a DVD version of an awards ceremony is being packaged for sale in Kenya. Details as to when the DVD drops, the outlets it will be available in and the price will be revealed soon.
You can watch the introductory 5-minute clip of the 8th edition of the event below...
This is the first time that a DVD version of an awards ceremony is being packaged for sale in Kenya. Details as to when the DVD drops, the outlets it will be available in and the price will be revealed soon.
You can watch the introductory 5-minute clip of the 8th edition of the event below...
Monday, May 10, 2010
Blackrock Rugby Festival Draw To Be On Wednesday
The 36 teams participating in this year’s Blackrock Rugby Festival will know the fate of who they are meeting on Wednesday, May 12th when the draw for the tournament takes place. The draw will be conducted at St. Mary’s School from 10am. Eight (8) teams will be seeded and placed into Groups A – H, while the other non-seeded teams will randomly drawn into the 8 different groups.The tournament coordinator, Mr. Gregory Sang’, expects a tough draw not just for his Saints team, but for all participating teams. In the words of the sports administrator, “gone are the days when teams would get draws and refer to them as walk over’s – we have seen that on a good day, even schools like Kangaru High can beat any team in the country…”
This year, 24 of rugby’s heaviest hitters and 12 pioneering girls’ schools will go head to head in an adrenaline-packed tournament. The 2010 St.Mary’s Blackrock Rugby Festival the 27th edition of East & Central Africa’s biggest high school rugby tournament will be on Saturday the 15th of May.
Teams Confirmed for 2010 Event include:
Boys’ Teams; St. Mary’s School (2 teams), Upper Hill (2 teams), Strathmore, Nairobi School, Lenana School, Highway, RVA (2 teams), Dagoretti, Mutuini, Muhuri Muchiri, Ofafa Jericho, Jamhuri, Sunshine, Hillcrest, Rosslyn Academy, Ruthimitu, MFA, Mutungoni, Uhuru, NPC, Juja Preparatory
Girls’ Teams; Maono Educational Centre, Raila Educational Centre, State House Girls, Ruthimitu, Hidden Talent Academy, Nile Road, Saint Martins, Precious Blood Girls’, Saint Teresa’s Girls, Buru Buru Girls, Crescent Girls, Nembu Girls.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
We got this story from this website: http://www.rocket.ly/home/2010/4/26/top-ten-reasons-you-should-quit-facebook.html
It was written by someone calling himself Dan Yoder (don't know if he's a former Facebook employee :-) ) Anywayz, you read it and tell us what you think
10. Facebook's Terms Of Service are completely one-sided. Let's start with the basics. Facebook's Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don't keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14). You could argue that the terms are just protecting Facebook's interests, and are not in practice enforced, but in the context of their other activities, this defense is pretty weak. As you'll see, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data.
9. Facebook's CEO has a documented history of unethical behaviour. From the very beginning of Facebook's existence, there are questions about Zuckerberg's ethics. According to BusinessInsider.com, he used Facebook user data to guess email passwords and read personal email in order to discredit his rivals. These allegations, albeit unproven and somewhat dated, nonetheless raise troubling questions about the ethics of the CEO of the world's largest social network. They're particularly compelling given that Facebook chose to fork over $65M to settle a related lawsuit alleging that Zuckerberg had actually stolen the idea for Facebook.
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy. Founder and CEO of Facebook, in defense of Facebook's privacy changes last January: "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." More recently, in introducing the Open Graph API: "... the default is now social." Essentially, this means Facebook not only wants to know everything about you, and own that data, but to make it available to everybody. Which would not, by itself, necessarily be unethical, except that ...
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch. At the same time that they're telling developers how to access your data with new APIs, they are relatively quiet about explaining the implications of that to members. What this amounts to is a bait-and-switch. Facebook gets you to share information that you might not otherwise share, and then they make it publicly available. Since they are in the business of monetizing information about you for advertising purposes, this amounts to tricking their users into giving advertisers information about themselves. This is why Facebook is so much worse than Twitter in this regard: Twitter has made only the simplest (and thus, more credible) privacy claims and their customers know up front that all their tweets are public. It's also why the FTC is getting involved, and people are suing them (and winning). Update: Check out this excellent time line from the EFF documenting the changes to Facebook's privacy policy.
6. Facebook is a bully. When Pete Warden demonstrated just how this bait-and-switch works (by crawling all the data that Facebook's privacy settings changes had inadvertently made public) they sued him. Keep in mind, this happened just before they announced the Open Graph API and stated that the "default is now social." So why sue an independent software developer and fledgling entrepreneur for making data publicly available when you're actually already planning to do that yourself? Their real agenda is pretty clear: they don't want their membership to know how much data is really available. It's one thing to talk to developers about how great all this sharing is going to be; quite another to actually see what that means in the form of files anyone can download and load into MatLab.
5. Even your private data is shared with applications. At this point, all your data is shared with applications that you install. Which means now you're not only trusting Facebook, but the application developers, too, many of whom are too small to worry much about keeping your data secure. And some of whom might be even more ethically challenged than Facebook. In practice, what this means is that all your data - all of it - must be effectively considered public, unless you simply never use any Facebook applications at all. Coupled with the OpenGraph API, you are no longer trusting Facebook, but the Facebook ecosystem.
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted. Even if we weren't talking about ethical issues here, I can't trust Facebook's technical competence to make sure my data isn't hijacked. For example, their recent introduction of their "Like" button makes it rather easy for spammers to gain access to my feed and spam my social network. Or how about this gem for harvesting profile data? These are just the latest of a series of Keystone Kops mistakes, such as accidentally making users' profiles completely public, or the cross-site scripting hole that took them over two weeks to fix. They either don't care too much about your privacy or don't really have very good engineers, or perhaps both.
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account. It's one thing to make data public or even mislead users about doing so; but where I really draw the line is that, once you decide you've had enough, it's pretty tricky to really delete your account. They make no promises about deleting your data and every application you've used may keep it as well. On top of that, account deletion is incredibly (and intentionally) confusing. When you go to your account settings, you're given an option to deactivate your account, which turns out not to be the same thing as deleting it. Deactivating means you can still be tagged in photos and be spammed by Facebook (you actually have to opt out of getting emails as part of the deactivation, an incredibly easy detail to overlook, since you think you're deleting your account). Finally, the moment you log back in, you're back like nothing ever happened! In fact, it's really not much different from not logging in for awhile. To actually delete your account, you have to find a link buried in the on-line help (by "buried" I mean it takes five clicks to get there). Or you can just click here. Basically, Facebook is trying to trick their users into allowing them to keep their data even after they've "deleted" their account.
2. Facebook doesn't (really) support the Open Web. The so-called Open Graph API is named so as to disguise its fundamentally closed nature. It's bad enough that the idea here is that we all pitch in and make it easier than ever to help Facebook collect more data about you. It's bad enough that most consumers will have no idea that this data is basically public. It's bad enough that they claim to own this data and are aiming to be the one source for accessing it. But then they are disingenuous enough to call it "open," when, in fact, it is completely proprietary to Facebook. You can't use this feature unless you're on Facebook. A truly open implementation would work with whichever social network we prefer, and it would look something like OpenLike. Similarly, they implement just enough of OpenID to claim they support it, while aggressively promoting a proprietary alternative, Facebook Connect.
1. The Facebook application itself sucks. Between the farms and the mafia wars and the "top news" (which always guesses wrong - is that configurable somehow?) and the myriad privacy settings and the annoying ads (with all that data about me, the best they can apparently do is promote dating sites, because, uh, I'm single) and the thousands upon thousands of crappy applications, Facebook is almost completely useless to me at this point. Yes, I could probably customize it better, but the navigation is ridiculous, so I don't bother. (And, yet, somehow, I can't even change colors or apply themes or do anything to make my page look personalized.) Let's not even get into how slowly your feed page loads. Basically, at this point, Facebook is more annoying than anything else. Facebook is clearly determined to add every feature of every competing social network in an attempt to take over the Web (this is a never-ending quest that goes back to AOL and those damn CDs that were practically falling out of the sky). While Twitter isn't the most usable thing in the world, at least they've tried to stay focused and aren't trying to be everything to everyone. I often hear people talking about Facebook as though they were some sort of monopoly or public trust. Well, they aren't. They owe us nothing. They can do whatever they want, within the bounds of the laws. (And keep in mind, even those criteria are pretty murky when it comes to social networking.) But that doesn't mean we have to actually put up with them. Furthermore, their long-term success is by no means guaranteed - have we all forgotten MySpace? Oh, right, we have. Regardless of the hype, the fact remains that Sergei Brin or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could personally acquire a majority stake in Facebook without even straining their bank account. And Facebook's revenue remains more or less a rounding error for more established tech companies. While social networking is a fun new application category enjoying remarkable growth, Facebook isn't the only game in town. I don't like their application nor how they do business and so I've made my choice to use other providers. And so can you.
What's your opinion on this article?
It was written by someone calling himself Dan Yoder (don't know if he's a former Facebook employee :-) ) Anywayz, you read it and tell us what you think
10. Facebook's Terms Of Service are completely one-sided. Let's start with the basics. Facebook's Terms Of Service state that not only do they own your data (section 2.1), but if you don't keep it up to date and accurate (section 4.6), they can terminate your account (section 14). You could argue that the terms are just protecting Facebook's interests, and are not in practice enforced, but in the context of their other activities, this defense is pretty weak. As you'll see, there's no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. Essentially, they see their customers as unpaid employees for crowd-sourcing ad-targeting data. 9. Facebook's CEO has a documented history of unethical behaviour. From the very beginning of Facebook's existence, there are questions about Zuckerberg's ethics. According to BusinessInsider.com, he used Facebook user data to guess email passwords and read personal email in order to discredit his rivals. These allegations, albeit unproven and somewhat dated, nonetheless raise troubling questions about the ethics of the CEO of the world's largest social network. They're particularly compelling given that Facebook chose to fork over $65M to settle a related lawsuit alleging that Zuckerberg had actually stolen the idea for Facebook.
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy. Founder and CEO of Facebook, in defense of Facebook's privacy changes last January: "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." More recently, in introducing the Open Graph API: "... the default is now social." Essentially, this means Facebook not only wants to know everything about you, and own that data, but to make it available to everybody. Which would not, by itself, necessarily be unethical, except that ...
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch. At the same time that they're telling developers how to access your data with new APIs, they are relatively quiet about explaining the implications of that to members. What this amounts to is a bait-and-switch. Facebook gets you to share information that you might not otherwise share, and then they make it publicly available. Since they are in the business of monetizing information about you for advertising purposes, this amounts to tricking their users into giving advertisers information about themselves. This is why Facebook is so much worse than Twitter in this regard: Twitter has made only the simplest (and thus, more credible) privacy claims and their customers know up front that all their tweets are public. It's also why the FTC is getting involved, and people are suing them (and winning). Update: Check out this excellent time line from the EFF documenting the changes to Facebook's privacy policy.
6. Facebook is a bully. When Pete Warden demonstrated just how this bait-and-switch works (by crawling all the data that Facebook's privacy settings changes had inadvertently made public) they sued him. Keep in mind, this happened just before they announced the Open Graph API and stated that the "default is now social." So why sue an independent software developer and fledgling entrepreneur for making data publicly available when you're actually already planning to do that yourself? Their real agenda is pretty clear: they don't want their membership to know how much data is really available. It's one thing to talk to developers about how great all this sharing is going to be; quite another to actually see what that means in the form of files anyone can download and load into MatLab.
5. Even your private data is shared with applications. At this point, all your data is shared with applications that you install. Which means now you're not only trusting Facebook, but the application developers, too, many of whom are too small to worry much about keeping your data secure. And some of whom might be even more ethically challenged than Facebook. In practice, what this means is that all your data - all of it - must be effectively considered public, unless you simply never use any Facebook applications at all. Coupled with the OpenGraph API, you are no longer trusting Facebook, but the Facebook ecosystem.
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted. Even if we weren't talking about ethical issues here, I can't trust Facebook's technical competence to make sure my data isn't hijacked. For example, their recent introduction of their "Like" button makes it rather easy for spammers to gain access to my feed and spam my social network. Or how about this gem for harvesting profile data? These are just the latest of a series of Keystone Kops mistakes, such as accidentally making users' profiles completely public, or the cross-site scripting hole that took them over two weeks to fix. They either don't care too much about your privacy or don't really have very good engineers, or perhaps both.
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account. It's one thing to make data public or even mislead users about doing so; but where I really draw the line is that, once you decide you've had enough, it's pretty tricky to really delete your account. They make no promises about deleting your data and every application you've used may keep it as well. On top of that, account deletion is incredibly (and intentionally) confusing. When you go to your account settings, you're given an option to deactivate your account, which turns out not to be the same thing as deleting it. Deactivating means you can still be tagged in photos and be spammed by Facebook (you actually have to opt out of getting emails as part of the deactivation, an incredibly easy detail to overlook, since you think you're deleting your account). Finally, the moment you log back in, you're back like nothing ever happened! In fact, it's really not much different from not logging in for awhile. To actually delete your account, you have to find a link buried in the on-line help (by "buried" I mean it takes five clicks to get there). Or you can just click here. Basically, Facebook is trying to trick their users into allowing them to keep their data even after they've "deleted" their account.
2. Facebook doesn't (really) support the Open Web. The so-called Open Graph API is named so as to disguise its fundamentally closed nature. It's bad enough that the idea here is that we all pitch in and make it easier than ever to help Facebook collect more data about you. It's bad enough that most consumers will have no idea that this data is basically public. It's bad enough that they claim to own this data and are aiming to be the one source for accessing it. But then they are disingenuous enough to call it "open," when, in fact, it is completely proprietary to Facebook. You can't use this feature unless you're on Facebook. A truly open implementation would work with whichever social network we prefer, and it would look something like OpenLike. Similarly, they implement just enough of OpenID to claim they support it, while aggressively promoting a proprietary alternative, Facebook Connect.
1. The Facebook application itself sucks. Between the farms and the mafia wars and the "top news" (which always guesses wrong - is that configurable somehow?) and the myriad privacy settings and the annoying ads (with all that data about me, the best they can apparently do is promote dating sites, because, uh, I'm single) and the thousands upon thousands of crappy applications, Facebook is almost completely useless to me at this point. Yes, I could probably customize it better, but the navigation is ridiculous, so I don't bother. (And, yet, somehow, I can't even change colors or apply themes or do anything to make my page look personalized.) Let's not even get into how slowly your feed page loads. Basically, at this point, Facebook is more annoying than anything else. Facebook is clearly determined to add every feature of every competing social network in an attempt to take over the Web (this is a never-ending quest that goes back to AOL and those damn CDs that were practically falling out of the sky). While Twitter isn't the most usable thing in the world, at least they've tried to stay focused and aren't trying to be everything to everyone. I often hear people talking about Facebook as though they were some sort of monopoly or public trust. Well, they aren't. They owe us nothing. They can do whatever they want, within the bounds of the laws. (And keep in mind, even those criteria are pretty murky when it comes to social networking.) But that doesn't mean we have to actually put up with them. Furthermore, their long-term success is by no means guaranteed - have we all forgotten MySpace? Oh, right, we have. Regardless of the hype, the fact remains that Sergei Brin or Bill Gates or Warren Buffett could personally acquire a majority stake in Facebook without even straining their bank account. And Facebook's revenue remains more or less a rounding error for more established tech companies. While social networking is a fun new application category enjoying remarkable growth, Facebook isn't the only game in town. I don't like their application nor how they do business and so I've made my choice to use other providers. And so can you.
What's your opinion on this article?
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Nicki Minaj Lil Kim & Foxy Brown - Swag It Out
So who's got more swagg? Nicki, Kim or Foxy? Holla @ us on 0718000002
Monday, May 03, 2010
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