The five software that Facebook recommends are McAfee, Microsoft Security Essentials, Norton Anti-Virus, Sophos AV for Macs and finally Trend Micro Internet for PCs and Macs.

A majority of these anti-virus software are free while a couple of them are free on a 6 months trial basis. There are some notable exceptions in this list like Kaspersky, BitDefender and AVG Anti-Virus.

The pessimist in me would probably say Facebook has just found another way to sell more advertisements but fact is personal computers are usually not as well protected as they should be. So if Facebook is recommending free anti-virus to users and giving them a single page to access it, I guess it is beneficial.

Will Facebook start selling software?

Facebook earns a lot of money by showing advertisements and also through online gaming. But this landing page for anti-virus is curiously named Marketplace, which makes be suspect that they might get into selling software in the future.

What are your views on Facebook’s recommended list of anti-virus? Do drop in your comments.

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-- This Post Facebook Introduces Anti-Virus Marketplace is Published on Devils Workshop .

Facebook, which has recently filed for an IPO and hence is flush with cash and Instagram which was a rage with iPhone users has recently made the app available for Android.

The fact that Facebook is buying a company that makes no money for a cool billion dollars is going to start floating rumors that yet another dotcom bubble is around the corner.

Whats so special about Instagram?

Instagram is a big social success but on a platform on which no one has really suceeded. Instagram is a service that solely works on mobile phones. It allows people to skim through various filters and share these photos on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

It is gaining a lot of popularity with younger audiences who usually are more comfortable sharing photos from their phones than a slightly older demographic.

Instagram is very personal, as in the photos shared on it are taken by people on their personal mobile phones. So Instagram users end up taking photos of places they visit or see rather than sharing some random online photo.

You cannot have a online social experience without photos being shared among your friends.  Facebook understands that and if Instagram was part of Google+ or Twitter, it would have lost out on a big opportunity. Photos also ensure that people will not quit a service. It is like an insurance policy against your users getting tempted to move to another social platform.

What part did Google have to play in this?

There are some interesting things happening with Google over the past few months. Google has some incredibly successful products like Search, Android, YouTube, Gmail and Chrome. These products until only a few months ago seemed to be unrelated and independent.

But recently it has integrated so many of its services like Chrome app for Android, a renamed Android Market (Google Play) selling movies and books, Google+ spreading its tentacles into every Google product and search becoming more social. Also with a successful mobile OS in Android, it will have tremendous clout in a future, where more people will go online from their phones rather than a computer.

Facebook has now become defensive because to ensure a strong growth rate and also make sure Google does not take away its users. Acquiring Instagram was a wise move as it might block Instagram from Google+. Facebook will also suddenly have a lot of expertise at hand on how to build and attract a mobile only audience. That said, maybe a billion dollars was a bit too much.

What are your views on Facebook acquiring Instagram? Will it fuel great things for Facebook or will it fizzle like so many acquisitions? Do drop in your comments.

-- This Post What is so special about Instagram for Facebook to shell out $1 Billion? is Published on Devils Workshop .

So who will survive in the long run? Facebook or Google+? I believe the answer to it is neither and Twitter will outlast them all.

#1. Twitter is anonymous

Twitter does not expect users to use their full names and associate it with your account. This sort of anonymity simply does not exist on Facebook or Google+. Also Twitter does not expect users to have only one account. You can have multiple accounts and they can be about anything you want.

#2. Network of strangers

On Facebook we connect with our family, friends and even colleagues. That is pretty great but the fact is most Facebook contacts are a phone call away. Twitter is a different network where almost all the people we follow and more importantly consume information from are complete strangers.

#3. Breaking News

Twitter has consistently broken news from around the world a lot faster than traditional news media. This has made even the traditional new media scan Twitter and tap into it for local updates and opinions. I doubt any news channel or web service can compete with the ability of Twitter to make a 140 character update into a trending global story within minutes. Presently no other web service can compete on this point with Twitter.

#4. Twitter has more potential to make money than others

Even if Facebook is selling ads and making millions if not billions, there is always the problem of having relevancy to their ads. Facebook has all my personal data and can sell me personalized ads, but I am unlikely to click on a Facebook ad. The reason for this is because I am not on Facebook trying to check the latest trends but rather to connect with friends.

I might actually click on a sponsored tweet as I often check out latest trends on Twitter. The idea is simple, selling something to people who are looking for something is easier.

#5. Platform Vs Network

Facebook is a great place to connect with people but it expects you to play by their rules. They expect users to access Facebook on the website or through their official apps. Twitter is incredibly open and I won’t be surprised that a majority of Twitter users access it through 3rd party apps. Twitter seems less like a network and more like a platform. Platforms are not specific to a particular purpose and users have to define why and how to use these platforms.

A lot of tech experts might not give Twitter a great chance ahead of Facebook, but then nobody gave much of a chance for a web search engine called Google or a free email service called Hotmail.

What are your views on Twitter and it’s future on the internet? Do drop in your comments.

Related: 5 Things Google+ does better than Facebook

-- This Post 5 Reasons Twitter Will Outlast Social Networks is Published on Devils Workshop .

Timehop is an internet service that sends you email updates everyday with what you shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Four Square.

Sign up with your Facebook account on Timehop.com and also link your other account on social networks like Twitter, Foursquare and Instagram.

Timehop will put togeather all that you shared on these linked accounts from exactly a year ago. This information is sent to you via an email. This email will be the same one you use for your Facebook account, which you have linked to Timehop.

Additionally Timehop also sends interesting global news and events in the email update, which happened exactly a year ago. I find this a great way to relive some interesting updates and photos we shared on social media websites.

Do drop in your comments.

Link: Timehop

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-- This Post Get a Snapshot of Your Social Media Life from Exactly a Year Ago is Published on Devils Workshop .

“A Year in the Like” Features

• Visit the website and allow the app to work with your Facebook account. I found it trustworthy in the sense it is a tool created by Microsoft.
• Look through what sort of updates you want to look through and also who you want this app to be visible for among your friends.
• Your comments and likes start to roll out with the background being an image that you might have shared. All comments and likes are clickable and if done to a particular image, it loads up that image as the background.
• Finally users can also easily create a ready-made video of your comments and photos. This video can then be shared with your friends on Facebook or Twitter.

Here is an app that allows you to look through the year with in status updates you make on Facebook.

Try out One Year in Likes and do drop in your comments and views.

Link: A Year in the Like

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-- This Post Create and Share Videos of One Year on Facebook with Microsoft App is Published on Devils Workshop .

#1. The Novelty of Facebook

Facebook has a certain novelty. When it was created, it was meant only for campus students from the U.S. It outgrew that phase and created some simple features like wall updates, relationship statuses and most importantly the ‘Like’ button.

All these things we associate with Facebook and not any other social network simply because of its novelty. Google+ has to find it’s own sense of novelty rather than mirror all the features from competitors.

#2. Facebook Groups

Google+ simply lacks the ability to give users the chance of creating interest groups. I am part of a couple of book reading groups on Facebook and they are extremely useful. It gives the feeling of being in a smaller network within a network.

I am surprised the Google+ does not have a similar feature on it. It does have excellent service called Google Groups and it would be a wise idea to allow some of these Google Group features being merged into Google+. At the end of the day, Google+ users still do not have any options to create their personal small groups within the bit network.

#3. Facebook Comments

I see many blogs allowing users the ability to comment using their Facebook credentials. Google+ only has +1 buttons which can be used on 3rd party websites. I think it would be a great idea to allow people to comment on a blog using Google+.

Facebook Comments is often used to increase the interactivity of a website with readers. Also it is less likely that people leave hate or spam comments with their Facebook IDs.

#4. Facebook API

I am not a developer and hence I won’t be able to write at length about why Google+ taking so much time over releasing its API.  Google+ is now over 6 months old and with lack of API available, there is a real chance that 3rd party developers might simply have lost interest in creating great apps for it.

#5. Facebook is not serious

I am not suggesting Facebook is not serious about itself as a company. But it seems to not take its role on the internet all that seriously, which is actually the truth. It is a great way to  efficiently waste time. When Facebook messed up on privacy, people might have felt outraged but they did not leave the website. The reason was social networks are not that important or critical to people’s lives like say online maps, email or search engines. Facebook gets this part but I doubt Google+ does.

What do your views on Google+ and Facebook? Do drop in your comments.

-- This Post 5 Things Google+ Needs to Learn from Facebook is Published on Devils Workshop .

#1. Search on Google+ better than Facebook

This is not surprising considering Google is the undisputed champion of search on the internet. On Google+ the search results are intuitive and far more helpful than Facebook.

Facebook display search results pushing brand pages. The posts do not show up in real-time and there is also distraction with unwanted information on the right hand column showing birthdays and photos shared long ago by friends. These things have nothing to do with the query I was searching.

#2. Easy to reduce noise on Google+

We can add users into Circles and reduce or optimize the number of updates shown on the main feed. This means if someone is updating Google+ a 100 times a day, I simply have to put him in a Circle from which I get minimal feeds.

Facebook does allow reducing the number of feeds and updates we get from friends. Unfortunately most of these need to be tweaked individually. The news feed on Facebook cannot be managed by bulk management of updates from friends.

#3. Viewing and Editing Photos

Even a hardcore Facebook fan would not say that Facebook is better at displaying photos than Google+. Facebook has actually copied their photo viewer design from Google+. On Facebook there are not photo editing options while on Google+ there are plenty of editing options.

#4. Online Chatting

I admit that Google has a lot more experience designing online chatting because of Gmail. Chatting with your friends on Google+ is pretty much a straight forward experience. It is nothing out of the world but still a lot better than Facebook. Facebook Chat for me is extremely unreliable. Sometimes while chatting the messages are received almost after 24 hours and at other times online friends are show offline.

#5. Hangouts

Google+ has this very innovative way to carry out group discussions between several individuals. The service called Hangout is baked into Google+ and works pretty impressively. I do not see anything similar on Facebook. Yes, there is video chatting but group chatting is still not possible.

I am not at all suggesting that Google+ is better than Facebook. Not by a long shot as it still has to prove itself as a social network. But it seems to put a very high premium on user experience and sadly Facebook probably lacks this insight. Next week I will try finding 5 things Facebook does a lot better than Google+.

Do drop in your comments about Google+ doing things better than Facebook.

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-- This Post 5 Things Google+ Does Better than Facebook! is Published on Devils Workshop .

According to a report by Venture Beat, Facebook will soon start rolling out something called Interest Lists. These will allow looking through lists popular lists on that particular topic. The clever part will be these lists will be either something  users can curate by themselves or leave it to their friends and other users to do the curating work.

As you can see in the image above, it Interest Lists will allow users to either create their own lists or subscribe from others. This is a lot like Twitter Lists where users can create their own lists with feeds from different accounts or simply follow other people and their feeds.

Facebook Interest Lists could make RSS Feed Readers Useless?

I love to subscribe to blogs using Google Reader but I see that a growing number of people follow blogs exclusively on social media. I can easily see more people preferring interest lists to follow blogs rather than subscribing to a feed via email or a reader.

I do not think that people like me who use feed readers will quit using readers anytime soon, but does look that feed readers are not going to become more popular than it is already and so its adoption can only go down from here.

What are your views on Facebook Interest Lists? Will it hurt Twitter and kill feed readers? Do drop in your comments.

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-- This Post Facebook Interest Lists Will Target Twitter and RSS Feed Readers is Published on Devils Workshop .

If you visit a page on which you are an admin, you will see the following message at the top of the page.

As the message explains, the new design will kick in from March 30, 2012. If you click on the ‘Preview’ button, users can see how the new layout will look like.

Page Admins can either review the page or publish it to get the new layout right away. If you own Facebook Pages, it would be a good idea to look at the new layout before it becomes the default design.

Facebook has recently introduced an IPO, which might give it a market valuation of $100 billion. With investors comes greater pressure to monetize and it seems the latest design upgrade for pages will push more interaction between brands and Facebook users.

What are your views on Timelines being  a part of Facebook Pages? Do drop in your comment.

Related: Facebook Design Screenshots [2004 - 2011]

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-- This Post Facebook Pages to Get Timeline Like Design! is Published on Devils Workshop .

Note surprisingly Facebook leads with a incredible 405 minutes per visitor. Even MySpace seems to get users to spend more time on it than Google+.

Google+ has a lot of users who have signed up and chances are that it will reach 400 million users by the end of this year. That said Google+ does not have a single feature which is extremely popular. Yes, there is hangouts which is a great innovation but even some new Google+ users are not aware of Hangouts.

What are your views about the future of Google+? Has Google embarked on a yet another social networking failure? Do drop in your comments.

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-- This Post Users on an Average spend only 3 minutes per month on Google+ is Published on Devils Workshop .