Friday 22 July 2011

Switch Back To Old Facebook Chat


Recently Facebook updated its chat interface to video call and to sidebar chat which just shows only few friends with whom we have interacted most. But this sidebar chat is annoying the users and according to Most of the reviews from users the only word which is found common is that "The New Facebook Chat Sucks".

So is there anyway to get that old facebook chat back ? The answer to this question is unfortunately "no”. But there's a way to chat the old way.

Following are the simple steps to get back your favorite Facebook chat for Firefox and Google Chrome users:


To install it on Mozilla Firefox:
  1. Click here to download and install GreaseMonkey. 



 
      2.  Restart Firefox.

      3.  Now Click here to go to Script Page click Install button which is in the Right top.


       4.  Restart Firefox and login to Facebook.


To install it on Google Chrome:
  1. Click here to go to Script Page click Install button which is in the Right top, same as above.


      2.  Run the installation and it will auto execute.


      3.  Restart Chrome and login to Facebook.

Saturday 9 July 2011

Combine Facebook and Google+ Feeds

               Today the internet has number of Social Networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, My Space etc. and the brand new Google+. So it’s becoming quiet difficult for the people around the globe to keep up with all these social networking sites and to give time to them. But now people can relax a bit as an innovative developer has come up with a way to see the Facebook feeds on Google+. This is quiet an interesting extension as Facebook is the most popular Social Networking site and Google+ was just launched 2 weeks ago, so nothing much is happening over there.

            Crossrider released this extension and titled it as Google+Facebook. After downloading just go through the process of installation. After installation a small Facebook tab will appear at the top of the page beside the Google+ Home button. Just click on it and then you will get your Facebook news feed on Google+....cool B-)

             It imports your "Most Recent" feeds from Facebook but you can’t get the "Top News" feeds. Also it’s not the exact replica of that feed and "Like" extensions is missing. But its an amazing extension as you can update your Facebook status from Google+ and also can be on both Facebook and Google+ simultaneously. 

             Here's a preview : 



             It’s now available for both Firefox and Chrome, and a version for Internet Explorer will be available soon.

             Here’s the link to that extension  Google+Facebook extension and a video.




 


 

Thursday 7 July 2011

Facebook Video Calling

        Clearly war has been declared by Facebook…! Recently after the launch of Google’s latest social-networking platform ( Google+), yesterday Facebook launched the Video Calling feature to an answer to the Hangout feature of Google+. Now the Facebook users will be able to make video calls, all thanks to the Facebook/Skype partnership.

         After the explosive growth of Google+ within the first week, Google’s Paul Allen suggests that their new social network Google+ had 1.7m users worldwide after just one week, which was launched on 28th June. As Google already have huge traffic and other products like GMail, Googledocs and blogger etc. so it can give Facebook a run for its money by being a complete package. So by this launch Mark Zuckerberg has clearly hit the nail right on the head in competition to the Hangout feature of Google+ which I think was a killer feature.

Facebook announced three new features:
•    Group Chat: This lets you message with multiple people in one window. So To include more friends in your conversation, simply select "Add Friends to Chat".
•    Updated Chat Interface.
•    Video Calling.

How to set up video calling on Facebook:


To start video calling now, visit www.facebook.com/videocalling and click on "Get Started".


Once you’ve clicked the button, go through the process and then install the app.


 After you’ve installed it, you can video chat with any available friend by clicking on the video camera like icon on the top of the chat box. NOTE: your friend will also need to install the video calling app.



But if your friend is unavailable or if they don’t answer then you can record the video message.




Google’s HANGOUT vs Facebook’s Video Calling:

           There’s no group video chat in Facebook . According to Facebook one to one video chat is more popular on Skype rather than group chat and to get the group chat feature one as to pay 4.49$ that is included only in the premium account. So it makes sense to start there.

           But on the other hand Google’s new hangout product is all about group chat and up to ten people can use it at once and the main thing it’s totally free. This is an amazing feature as the most active person among the group chat will be in the center and it shifts among them automatically. But it’s not that good for one to one video chat.

           So for now, there’s really no comparison between the products. Facebook video chat is great to talk to friends one at a time. Google Hangouts is great for group chat. There’s no real overlap between the products at all. But…I wouldn’t be surprised to see Facebook launch group video chat down the road.

           Also The Facebook video calling feature is experiencing some initial hiccup. The error message that Facebook displays, reads, "The software that powers video calling is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." These can be due to the hardware and/or software incompatibility.

Saturday 2 July 2011

The Google+ Project


From last week, you may have seen the mysterious black bar appearing on the top of Google.com and some ads of Google. It was a sign of something about to show itself. Something big.The Google+. Google launched its much awaited social networking platform to a limited number of users.

What is Google+ ?

Is Google+ a destination like Facebook.com? Google’s said that this is the first step by the company in its long social journey, which is going to evolve. It’s the top-secret social project that Google has been working on for the past year led by General Patton (Vic Gundotra) and General MacArthur (Bradley Horowitz). Much like Facebook, it allows people to share and discuss status updates, photos and links but with different groups of people.

Some Features of Google+ :

In order to use Google +, you need to have a Google account. Once you set-up your Google account, you can invite people to your network.

Circles: The "Circles" idea initially looks promising. You can create a circle of contacts that are family, friends, work friends, former co-workers and so on. You can add more Circles as you like, and put the same person into more than one Circle. Its main benefit is it encourages more sharing because according to Google every online conversation is usually a “public performance” which means we often share less because of “stage fright”. But the horror comes when you have huge number of people to organise.



Sparks: It is a new feature that allows you to create topics of interest and use them as source of information and then share it with various different groups.‘Sparks’ functions just like a search engine but makes recommendations for content which could be suitable for you, according to the interests you enter. Content includes blog posts, articles and videos from across the web.



Hangouts: This just might be the killer feature of Google +. ‘Hangouts’ enable users to have a group video chat. Its camera switching feature changes who’s on camera based on who’s talking. It also allows several people to watch a YouTube video together, at the same time, whilst seeing each other’s reactions. You can click on the Hangout button and invite members of a certain group by sending them a notification.



Huddle: This is a mobile group-chat service.When you’re trying to get five different people to decide on a particular event, Huddle takes care of it by turning all those different conversations into one simple group chat.



Instant Uploads: It has also come up with a new approach to mobile photos & videos. Google calls it Instant Uploads.You can take a pic and it uploads to your Picasa or YouTube account and then you can share those videos via Google+ to specific “circles.”



Google+ vs. Facebook

Personally, I don't think that Facebook has anything to worry about. Google’s biggest challenge is to convince people to sign-up for yet another social platform, especially since more and more people are hooked to Facebook (750 million) and Twitter. Even I don’t feel quite compelled to switch from Facebook or Twitter to Google.

1. Unlike on Facebook, people do not have to agree to be friends with one another. They can receive someone’s updates without sharing their own.

2. When users visit their Google+ home page, they see three columns and a stream of status updates in the middle that looks similar to Facebook.

3. When people post on Facebook, which is mostly off-limits to search engines, Google loses valuable information that could benefit its search, advertising and other products.