Facebook Home, HTC First Smartphone, & Privacy Concerns

Facebook Home was unveiled, by Mark Zuckerberg, on April 4, 2013. It is basically a user interface (UI) designed for Android smartphones to replace home screens on Android mobile devices.

As per Mark Zukerberg, Facebook Home “is designed around people, rather than apps”. With Facebook Home activated on your smartphone, your home screen becomes a cover feed displaying updates from your Facebook Newsfeed. It acts like an automatic slideshow with users being able to interact with their updates.

With FB Home, you can now get notifications, not only from FB, but others apps like Gmail and other social networks. And finally, Chat Heads is a messaging system, via Facebook, which allows users to interact with friends via SMS messages. Though FB Home is your main screen, you can get to your other apps, however, it’s one extra step.

Facebook Home comes pre-loaded on HTC First, a phone specifically designed to provide an optimal user experience with Home. Though, the Facebook Home App is available for download on Android devices via Google Play. The HTC First is a mid-level smartphone with a 4.3-inch multi-touch capacitive display, equipped with a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB RAM, and weighs 124 grams. It has a 5 MP rear camera and a 1.6 MP front-facing camera. The battery life of the HTC First smartphone is approximately 14 hours. The HTC First is not designed to compete with premium smartphones like the Apple iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy S4, rather it's meant to be an affordable mobile phone, which is exclusively available through AT&T.

Check the video below to see the HTC smartphone specs and Facebook Home in action on the HTC First:

When talking about Facebook, one has to raise the question regarding privacy concerns. In the past, Facebook has faced numerous complaints with regards to user’s privacy. For users who use Facebook Home as their main screen, given that Facebook Home will constantly be on, it raises the concern that advertisers will be able to track FB user’s every actions as they interact.

Many Android apps today get access to a lot of the data on the user’s smartphones, however, it doesn’t stop Facebook from data-mining FB user’s information so advertisers and Facebook can benefit from it. I know many users, especially those who are addicted to Facebook, will enjoy this new user interface. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too comfortable letting Facebook Home take over my smartphone and my life.

So I will not be using this app. In response to user’s privacy concerns, Facebook responded “doesn’t change anything related to your privacy settings on Facebook, and your privacy controls work the same with Home as they do everywhere else on Facebook”. Here is the link to the Facebook’s Official Response to Privacy Concerns.

Google+ Social Network Takes on Facebook

Google+ (Google Plus) is a brand new social network that I'm sure you've already heard of by now. Looks like the big G is ready to take on Facebook now, but it's too early to say how it will shape up.

The overall "look and feel" of Google+ is quite similar to Facebook, but it has unique features like Google Hangouts, Google Sparks, Google Huddle, Instant Upload and of course, Google Circles.

Google+ is still in its basic state at the moment because it's being back-tested with limited number of users. I've used Google+ for a few days now and one of the main features that I like is Google Circles which allows you to create your own cliques of friends. Circles are unique because they allow you to maintain privacy of your status updates, newsfeeds, etc. with only those cliques.

The other neat and unique Google+ feature is Google Hangouts which allows you to video chat with up to 10 of your friends from different Circles. I've created a Squidoo web page which provides a more detailed coverage of the key Google+ features with video overviews of each.

At the moment the social networking platform is not open to the public and is by invite-only. If you know a friend who is on Google+, you can request an invite. Though, I believe Google is still monitoring the influx of invites and rationing them out.

If you'd like a Google+ invite feel free to Contact Me and request an invite. Beware not to leave your email addresses on public forums and comment sections because unscrupulous people could harvest your email address and spam or scam you.

PeopleString: An Alternative to Facebook

PeopleString is the next generation social network!

It is similar to Facebook, except that you get paid to do the things you already do like use the social network to interact with friends, check email, play games, shop online, etc.

Unlike Facebook, PeopleString shares 70% of its advertising revenue with its members so everyone benefits from it.

You not only earn income from your activity, but also from people that you refer. PeopleString has a multi-tiered affiliate program that pays you through 6 levels.

PeopleString is a publicly-traded company and its parent company BigString Corporation has been around since 2003.

Membership to PeopleString is FREE, so JOIN IN and be part of the new evolution of social network.