Facebook Now Recommends People to Subscribe to

The new subscribe feature of Facebook seems to have lot in common with Twitter but with one key difference - if you follow someone on Twitter, you get to see all their shares whereas if you subscribe to someone on Facebook, you only see stuff that they have specifically made 'public.'

Today, Facebook has added a new feature where they recommend you other public Facebook profiles to subscribe to and these recommendations are probably based on your existing subscriptions (see screenshot). Twitter too has a similar recommendation engine which offers suggestions based on who you are currently following.

Twitter has a valid reason to worry here. They just touched 100 million users while Facebook has a 750+ million user base and people spend more time on Facebook than any other site on the web. Twitter only recently added support for multimedia while Facebook does a far better job at rendering shared content with rich snippets and inline previews.

I created my Twitter account some five years and it has taken me all this time to reach a few thousand followers. I enabled subscriptions for my Facebook profile a few days ago and the number of subscribers has already crossed the first thousand mark. That's just because of the sheer reach of Facebook.

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Add a Subscribe Button to your Facebook Profile

Like most other Facebook users, I have a public page where I share updates from my blog and a personal profile which is private and I primarily use it for connecting with my offline friends and family members.

Most of the stuff that I share on my personal Facebook profile – like pictures of kids, songs, cooking recipes, etc. – would be extremely boring to the external world and, fortunately, they don’t get to see any of that.

Having said that, I occasionally post updates on my personal profile page that could be of interest to a wider audience and I would therefore be more than happy if people - who are not my “friends” on Facebook - can see or comment on them. How can you do that without making your profile public?

Facebook has just added a new option to profile pages that would let people “subscribe” to your profile just like the way people follow you on Twitter. Whenever you post an update on Facebook with the privacy set as “public,” it will appear in the news stream of your subscribers.

To put this in more simple terms, Subscribe is to Facebook profiles what Like is to Facebook pages. The only difference is that you get each and update when your “like” a Facebook page whereas you only get public updates when your “subscribe” to a Facebook profile.

You can subscribe to my public Facebook updates at facebook.com/agarwal.amit.

If you would like to add the Subscribe button to your own Facebook profile, go here. Before you do that, it may be a good idea to double-check that only stuff that you really want to share with non-friends is public.

To confirm, go your Facebook profile page, hit the “View As” button and then click the “public” link to see what updates in your profile are public. You can have unlimited number of subscribers to your profile but you can subscribe to a maximum of 5,000 profiles.

You can download this PDF, courtesy the Facebook Public Figures page, to learn more about the new Subscribe option and how it differs from a regular Facebook page.

On a related note, Facebook is using the standard RSS icon with the new Subscribe feature which is confusing because, technically, these aren’t really RSS feeds – you can’t get them in, say, Google Reader.

Also see: Customize your Facebook Profile

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Songza Mobile Apps Socialize the Digital Mix Tape

Streaming music service Songza launched apps for Android and iOS on Tuesday that are designed to make it easy for music fans to find and share digital playlists for practically any occasion.

Think of Songza as curated, hand-picked Internet radio. Like Pandora, Songza is not a stream-on-demand service (meaning, you can’t request to play a certain track or album). Unlike Pandora, Songza doesn’t impose any limitations on how much music you can listen to and it doesn’t serve any audio advertisements. Additionally, Songza doesn’t focus on creating artist based radio stations — although you can do that — instead, it focuses on connecting users with curated or peer-created mix tapes.

These playlists are organized around activities (like “Cocktail Party” or “Coding”), genres (“’70s NYC Punk” or “Math Rock”), Moods and even Culture. For instance, there is a whole playlist category dedicated to Cover Songs, featuring playlists like “More Popular Than the Original” and “Covering Cash.” The playlists are designed to capture a certain mood, event or activity.

Using the free Songza mobile app for iPhone [iTunes link] and Android [Android Market link], users can search and browse through Songza’s expertly curated playlists, save their favorites to their phone and share what they are listening to with friends on Facebook and Twitter.

The Songza team’s previous venture, Amie Street, was acquired by Amazon.com last fall. Songza just closed a financing round led by the same investors that were previously involved in Amie Street. The company clearly has big plans for enhancing its social offerings by allowing users to share their playlists or favorites via social networks.

As it stands, Songza sees itself as a “music concierge” and a better, smarter way of handling social music discovery.

After using the iPhone app over the last 24 hours, we agree. Without a doubt, Songza has the smartest, most well thought out collection of playlists of any of the subscription music services. What we really appreciate is that it is clear that a lot of vetting has gone into creating the officially sanctioned lists. If your friends are on Songza, you can also use the app to follow the playlists they share or like and vice versa.

The one downside to Songza and its mobile app is that right now, users can only create playlists at the Songza.com website. Moreover, Songza’s licensing restrictions prevent users from listening to the playlists they create themselves.

Your friends can listen to your custom mix of ultimate Fall in New York City tunes, but you, the creator can’t. Songza’s co-founder and CEO Elias Roman told us that the company is looking at either partnering with existing on-demand subscription services such as Spotify or working out its own on-demand licensing agreement so that users can listen to their own selections.

If Songza can nail that last loop and provide users who are willing to pay with on-demand access to their own playlists, we could easily see Songza taking off in a huge way.

Still, even with the self-playlist limitations, Songza for iPhone and Android is one of the most promising mobile music apps we’ve seen all year.

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HP TopShot – A 3D Scanner for your Home

Last year, HP unveiled a new range of web-enabled printers that had an email address so you could send print jobs from any computer or mobile phone even while you were miles away from the printer. These printers, and all-in-ones, also had apps to help you print information – like maps, coloring books, news headlines - directly from the Internet without even turning on the computer.

What next? Yes, printers can be made more energy efficient, the printing speed (pages per minute) can be increased, the print quality can be improved, the cost of printing (ink consumption) can be reduced but are these “innovations” enough to excite the home consumer who often has limited printing needs? If you only print 5-10 pages in a day, none of these factors would possibly convince you to upgrade the printer.

HP’s upcoming Laser Printer - HP TopShot – does however carry that ‘wow’ factor and you’ll be quite impressed the first time you use this product (see video).

  
  

With HP TopShot, you can scan 3D objects – say your dull-finish DSLR camera, a watch or even a shining piece of jewelry – and it turns them into 2D pictures that you can either directly print to paper or send to the cloud (like Google Docs) as a digital image.

You just need to place the 3D object on the white surface, hit the Copy button on the 3.5” LCD screen and the scan should be ready in under a minute.

The magic happens inside that adjustable handle which is fitted with cameras and lights. As you hit the scan button, the cameras simultaneously capture multiple images of the 3D object and the internal software transforms all these images into one seamless picture.

HP TopShot, also known as HP LaserJet Pro M275,  is expected to become available in US and Canada later this year while the launch in India and other Asian countries is expected to happen sometime early next year. HP executives didn’t reveal the price but, as per the official website, this 3D scanner can be yours for around $400 (see tech specs).

Technically, what HP TopShot does is equivalent to capturing an image of a 3D object with your regular digital camera and then using Photoshop to remove the background. If you have an online store, say on eBay, TopShot could actually save you a lot of time.

HP also unveiled a new range of premium printers – HP Envy – for people who use Apple products the style-conscious consumer. These are wireless AirPrint enabled printers (you can print directly from and iPad or iPhone) and, unlike the other all-in-ones, the Envy series printers are compact and the white elegant body looks really good. HP says that the Envy range is most popular among Apple users.

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Google+ Hangouts Are Now More Sign-Language Friendly [VIDEO]

Google+ Hangouts were already popular with users who communicate with sign language, but thanks to improvements in video stability and a new “Take the Floor” feature, Google’s group video chat capability just got a lot more accessible for everyone.

Switching between speakers in Hangouts is automatic using voice activation, where whomever is talking the most (or the loudest) is shown in the main video area, and all others are seen in smaller video thumbnails. Sounds great, and that automatic switching is one of the coolest features of Google+ Hangouts.

But that wasn’t working as well for hearing-impaired users in chat areas where all users were signing — the main screen was usually occupied by whichever user’s microphone was picking up the most background noise. As a result, most users were often trying to read the sign language of people who were shown on tiny thumbnail screens.

Google’s fixed that with its new “Take the Floor” feature. In a Google+ post, Google engineering director Chee Chew explained how it works:

1) Have everyone mute their audio.
2) When you want to sign something, hit Shift+s.
3) When you see yourself as the main video, that’s your cue. You’ve got the floor… everyone’s main video has switched to you. Sign away.

Chew added, “We’ve noticed over the past few weeks that the stability and quality of the video in Hangouts has improved as well, which also makes it easier for the hearing impaired to see and understand sign language.”

Great idea, Google.

[via WebProNews]

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Best Buy Sales Suffer Without iPhone Launch

Best Buy, a bellwether for consumer electronics sales, posted weak second-quarter results as sales of TVs slowed and the lack of a high-profile smartphone launch weighed on revenues.

The retailer’s fiscal second-quarter income fell 30% to $177 million compared to the same period last year. The company’s revenues of $11.3 billion for the quarter were less than the $11.5 billion analysts projected and were flat with last year’s second quarter results.

The news sent Best Buy’s stock down about 8% to its lowest level since 2008 in Tuesday’s morning trading. “We’re still facing an uncertain macro-environment with volatile consumer shopping behavior, and this was evident in our results for the second quarter,” president and CEO Brian Dunn told analysts during a conference call Tuesday.

The company also blamed the lack of highly anticipated smartphone launches. Apple has released a new iPhone model every summer since 2007, but this year, the iPhone 5 launch is expected to launch in October.

Image courtesy of Flickr, osed8info

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The Best Mind Mapping App for iOS is now Free

If you have an iPhone or an iPad, here’s a mind-mapping app that you should not miss.

Mindjet is a neat iOS app that you may use to create mind maps, capture notes or to brainstorm ideas on your iPhone or iPad. The app was earlier selling in the iTunes store for $8.99 but, with the upcoming launch of Mind Manager 2012, the mobile app is now available as a free download.

Getting started with Mindjet is easy. Tap and hold a topic to create a child or a sub-topic. Double-tap to change the formatting or the shape of a node. You may also include images, hyperlinks and additional text in the various nodes.

You can connect the Mindjet app to your Dropbox account and the mind map files created on the iOS device will automatically synchronize with your PC or Mac folder. Since the app uses the native .mmap format, mind maps created on the iOS device can also be edited using Mind Manager software on the desktop and vice-versa.

Other alternatives to the Mindjet app include MindMeister, iThoughts HD and MindNode.

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