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The President Says No to Facebook For Sasha And Malia, Yes To 'Modern Family'

Posted 12/14/11 2:44 pm EST by in Facebook, Politics, Television


President Obama

By Shakira Atitebi

Regardless of the growing international popularity of Facebook, which has over 800 million users, the social networking is not allowed in the White House.

In their only exclusive print interview of the holiday season, President Obama and First Lady Michelle tell PEOPLE Magazine they do not permit daughters Sasha and Malia on Facebook. "It's not been a hard decision," the President said.

Although the First Family is always under the watchful eye of the public, the Commander in Chief prefers his privacy, saying, "Why would we want to have a whole bunch of people who we don't know knowing our business? That doesn't make much sense."

But when Michelle explained that Malia is only 13 and Sasha is 10, the President giggled and added, "We'll see how they feel in four years."

While the President and his lovely wife might have a change of heart in the future about whether Malia and Sasha can be on Facebook, at least they can agree on their favorite TV show as a family. Read on to see what it is! Read More...

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Some Handy Tips To Avoid The Current Hacking Epidemic On Facebook

Posted 11/16/11 1:41 pm EST by in Facebook


Facebook

By Dionne Buxton

The saying goes, “Curiosity killed the cat.” Well, in this case, it just killed your reputation.

If you’ve logged onto Facebook in the past week, chances are you’ve seen horrid images posted by your “friends” clogging up your Newsfeed.

Although no animals have been harmed in this action it has changed the dynamic of the social media website that some see as a safe haven to communicate with family, friends and co-workers.

Well don’t un-friend or judge the victims just yet … Facebook suffered a coordinated spam attack. The technique is called “clickjacking,” i.e. fake links that pose as regular Facebook posts which when clicked a Javascript dominion is executed and causes a computer to spread the link.

"We experienced a coordinated spam attack that exploited a browser vulnerability," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes told USA Today. "Our efforts have drastically limited the damage caused by this attack, and we are now in the process of investigating to identify those responsible."

This spam also can do more than just damage your profile. If the Javascript is armed with malware they can gain access to your computer’s personal information and passwords.

But don’t fret! It’s not too late to turn your social media rep back to positive. Follow these tips to avoid being hacked! Read More...

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How To Survive The Most Recent Changes To Facebook

Posted 9/21/11 2:47 pm EST by in Facebook, The Interweb


Facebook

By Dionne Buxton

Change is never easy, especially when you have to appeal to more that 750 million people. As we're sure you've noticed, Facebook has revamped … AGAIN.

Last night brought some drastic changes to your Facebook homepage. The most significant change is in the redesign of the News Feed, which now determines what it thinks is interesting to you. A little thing we like to call “algorithm hell.”

“You won’t have to worry about missing important stuff. All your news will be in a single stream with the most interesting stories featured at the top,” developer Mark Tonkelowitz wrote on the Facebook blog.

They’ve also installed a Twitter-like “ticker” that gives users real-time updates. “Now when a friend comments, asks a question or shares something like a check in you’ll be able to join the conversation right away,” explained Tonkelowitz.

Here at MTV News, we know how important Facebook is to your lives (almost as important as MTV, right?). We have come up with your change survival guide! Read More...

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Facebook To Launch Music Service This Fall?

Posted 9/2/11 6:00 am EST by in Facebook


Facebook

By Zachary Swickey

Rumors have been swirling for years that Facebook would create a new online music service, which if any company could give Apple a run for its money, it’s Mark Zuckerberg’s web-baby. The LA Times is suggesting that the new service could be launching at FB’s own F8 developer conference being held on September 22 in San Francisco.

On the show “Fast Money Halftime Report,” John Forter, a technology reporter for CNBC, gave his thoughts on Facebook entering a market that is becoming increasingly competitive with new services like Spotify, Google’s Music Beta, and Apple’s “cloud” storage.

“Next month is going to be a big one for music. I’m hearing from someone familiar with the plans that Facebook plans to launch its long-rumored music service at the F8 conference on September 22," he said. "Now, it seems likely that Facebook won’t actually host the music, but will partner with others to do that."

Corralling all major music labels into any new agreement is a daunting task that even Steve Jobs himself labored over when originally launching Apple’s iTunes service. But once again, few have a stranglehold on Silicon Valley like Zuckerberg. Even Fort isn’t 100 percent certain what the new service will entail. Read More...

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Mark Zuckerberg Launches 'The Facebook': Wake-Up Video

Posted 2/4/11 9:30 am EST by in Wake-Up Video


It has to be sort of weird to wake up in the morning and be Mark Zuckerberg, doesn't it? Being worth billions of dollars and having your professional life story (or at least a version of it) plastered on movie screens around the world has to mess with your head just a little bit. No matter what is true about "The Social Network" and what is a flourish of fiction, one thing has to be certain: Zuckerberg could not have known exactly how huge Facebook would get when he launched the site on this day in 2004.

The story of the rise of Facebook (at least as told in "The Social Network") is, in many ways, the definitive success story of the 21st century. Zuckerberg began his first dalliance with social networking while he was a sophomore at Harvard and hacked into the school's network to create Facesmash, a kind of "Hot or Not" site. Though the site was a huge success, Facesmash ran afoul not only of many of the students represented on the site (whose photos were obviously used without permission) but also of the school's administration (who did not appreciate Zuckerberg the security breach, which essentially crippled their network for a while).

Undaunted, Zuckerberg continued, eventually developing Facebook (which at launch was called "TheFacebook"). Along the way, he ran into massive success, tremendous influence and, of course, a series of lawsuits. But considering nearly half of the United States has a Facebook account (a remarkable statistic), Zuckerberg has easily become the most influential man on the Internet. Not bad for a guy who is only 26 years old.

One of the joys of "The Social Network" is its score, crafted by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The moody soundscapes have almost no relationship to Reznor's early work in Nine Inch Nails, but that doesn't stop "Down In It" (from Reznor's debut album Pretty Hate Machine) from being pretty great.


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Facebook 'I Like It' Statuses: Inappropriate Or All For A Good Cause?

Posted 10/6/10 5:00 pm EST by in MTV News


By Kara Warner

So there's this "I like it" trend taking over Facebook status updates, and as far as we know, Enrique Iglesias is not involved. (Although, after writing that title a few times, his catchy tune with the same name will be thumping in our brains for the rest of the day.)

Anyway! The "I like it" Facebook campaign — some examples of which include "I like it on the floor," I like it in the closet" — is meant to raise awareness about breast cancer. The idea is pegged to women's handbags/purses and where women place them when they come home. Naturally, the idea is to keep the status updates as vague as possible, leaving out the purse part and making them sound slightly naughty. As such, the campaign has gone viral, much like a similar effort earlier during which ladies posted the color of the bra they were wearing on their Facebook pages.

The good thing about all this is, here we are talking and writing about a movement designed to bring awareness to a very important issue. However, some folks have started to suggest that the overtly sexual nature of the campaign cheapens the significance of the cause that inspired it.

"What exactly does provocatively saying where you like to keep your purse have to do with a horrible disease that has challenged millions of lives?" Megan Gibson asked in a story posted on Time.com.

Sassy female-focused website Jezebel encouraged participants to add a little more substance to the "I like it" memes, in the form of a monetary donation toward breast-cancer research. "We'd find it more palatable if each innuendo went beyond the rather vague "awareness" and included a donation — or at least a link — towards material breast cancer research support."

Food for thought, to be sure, and as we mentioned earlier, "like it" or not, it's got us talking.

What do you think of the campaign? Sound off in the comments below!

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Trent Reznor's 'The Social Network' Soundtrack Drops A Free Preview

Posted 9/20/10 5:30 pm EST by in Music


If you're anything like us, you spent your weekend cursing the New York Mets, having arguments about "The Town" and getting wrapped up in the big premiere of HBO's new series "Boardwalk Empire." In between all those things, you probably listened to the five track preview of the soundtrack to "The Social Network" that Trent Reznor released late last week. Co-produced with longtime collaborator Atticus Ross (who worked on several Nine Inch Nails albums and is also a member of How to Destroy Angels), the tracks to "The Social Network" are dense, moody soundscapes that certainly sound like they could easily accompany images crafted by David Fincher (which is exactly what they're supposed to do, so mission accomplished).

But "The Social Network" (which stars Jesse Eisenberg as Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in the tale of the Internet giant's creation) doesn't hit theaters until October 1, so at the moment it's impossible to know how, where or why these tracks factor into the cinematic drama. So as an experiment, we did the next best thing: We surfed around Facebook while listening to the songs.

Not surprisingly, they certainly make Facebook seem like a much more dangerous, dark place than it probably is. Every "Like" was unnerving. Each check-in seemed to threaten to unmoor us from reality forever. Scrolling through photos of friends' vacations became a dangerous detour into a carnival of souls. And when "On We March" kicked in just as we were going to suggest our friends like Nine Inch Nails, we got the sneaking suspicion that we were being watched by some unidentifiable but certainly malevolent entity hellbent on taking our souls. "The Social Network" is not a horror movie, but it does deal with the darkness of capitalism and the isolation felt by Eisenberg's character, which makes Reznor a perfect match.

This isn't Reznor's first visit to the soundtrack dance: He famously scored the video game "Quake" and contributed songs and compositions to the soundtrack to David Lynch's 1997 film "Lost Highway." But "The Social Network" already feels like his most complete score job yet, and it will certainly aid in the storytelling once the movie is finally unleashed on the masses. Don't be surprised if Reznor earns himself some early Oscar buzz, and for a guy who has been around as long as he has and accomplished the things he has accomplished, there would be no more deserving party.

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With Betty White Out Of The Way, What's The Next Facebook Group To Score A Win?

Posted 5/10/10 6:00 pm EST by in Music


Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this past weekend's episode of "Saturday Night Live" was not that the 88-year-old Betty White appeared in every single sketch on the show or that it appears as though even Jay-Z thinks "Young Forever" is sort of flat (though it was charming that he dedicated the tune to the host). No, it was the fact that said episode of the show was made possible by an online campaign that started on Facebook. Following White's attention-grabbing performance in a Super Bowl ad, the petition went forth requesting that White appear as the host of the show. Millions of people spread the idea around and wrote about it, and apparently the virtual shouting was loud enough for "SNL" producer Lorne Michaels to hear, as he booked White for the show and the rest is history.

But now that the people behind White have scored their victory, what's next? Knowing that the power of a Facebook campaign can actually influence how things operate in the real world, let's take a look at some ongoing Facebook petitions and see if we can spot another surefire hit.

Petition For DJ Khaled To Limit "We The Best" Usage
Goal: The administrator would like producer and mixtape master DJ Khaled to cut down on shouting "We the best!" on his tracks. Not stop, mind you — just limit.
Odds: Slim. Even if the group gets enough supporters, it's unlikely Khaled will slow down with his catch phrase. After all, Diddy is still yelling "Bad Boy," and it's been 15 years.

The Petition For Season 4!
Goal: Fans of the FX show "Damages" want a fourth season of the show.
Odds: Moderate. According to an Entertainment Weekly report, the critically-acclaimed bur ratings-challenged (and expensive) series, which stars Glenn Close as lawyer Patty Hewes, may be getting another go-round on DirecTV.

Canada Is The Best Of The U.S. And U.K. Worlds
Goal: The (presumably Canadian) author simply wants acknowledgment that his home nation is actually the best aspects of the United States and the United Kingdom combined.
Odds: Non-existent. Read More...

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Nickelback Officially Less Popular Than A Pickle (On Facebook)

Posted 2/24/10 3:07 pm EST by in Music


It must be tough being a member of Nickelback. Sure, they have sold millions of albums, sold out venues all over the world and are responsible for at least two songs ("Photograph" and "Rockstar") that will be rock radio staples for decades to come.

But at the same time, you've got people mocking you constantly, and your band name is regularly used as an insult or shorthand for bland, faceless rock. It's a bummer. And now comes the latest blast of humiliation. A few weeks ago, a woman named Coral Anne launched a Facebook campaign with a very simple goal: Getting a simple dill pickle to snag more fans than the official Facebook page for Nickelback. In the way that tends to happen on Facebook, it quickly went from a simple inside joke to a viral campaign that saw hundreds of thousands of people siding with the pickle.

But unlike many Facebook gags of this nature, it just kept going. Last night, it finally happened: The pickle managed to top Nickelback. The current count for the pickle is 1,481,561 fans (and counting), eclipsing the band's 1,422,156.

It has been a good week for grassroots viral campaigns, as not only did the pickle beat Nickelback (or "Nickleback," as the Facebook group called them), but the campaign to get Betty White to host "Saturday Night Live" appears to be working. That also began as a Facebook campaign, and the over 450,000 people who have endorsed the idea have caught the attention of the producers of "SNL."

What do you think? Is the pickle vs. Nickelback feud funny or just sort of mean? Leave your thoughts in the comments!

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Love The Album But Hate The Cover? Make Your Own With Album tArt

Posted 6/26/08 5:23 pm EST by in Facebook, Internet


By Andrew Ross Rowe

Ever wonder what the heck an artist was thinking with their album-cover art? Well now, thanks to AlbumtArt.com, you can show how much better your artwork is than theirs — and have your version rated against the original.
Screen shot of AlbumtArt.com
Co-founder Steven Baughman said Radiohead's In Rainbows acted as his inspiration.
Read More...

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