Voice chat coming to Facebook

The Setting: So does this mean I will be able to talk to other gangsters right before I kill them in Mob Wars? Woot!

Using a plug-in from Vivox, Facebook users will soon be able to voice chat one-on-one or hold large group discusions with anyone on their friends list. Vivox is the company that provides integrated voice service for virtual worlds Second Life and EVE Online. I occasionally use the voice feature within Second Life and the quality is very good. Non-Facebook users will be able to call in to existing conversations using free dial-in numbers.

I'm curious to see how people will use this feature in Facebook. I'm envisioning that instead of just using the text chat feature to communicate with my niece who's in college on the other side of the country, we could switch to the voice feature and have an actual conversation. For free, without cutting into precious cell phone minutes. Pretty cool. According to the article, the voice can also be integrated into any of the third-party Facebook applications, such as games.

When this feature becomes available, I'll definitely check it out. Click here to read the article about this upcoming feature.

Tweetdeck adds Facebook and MySpace

The Setting: Tweetdeck is a free client that helps you more easily filter your Twitter messages. It's one of the many tools out there that makes Twitter a lot more manageable.

Tweetdeck has been updated to allow it to work more smoothly with Facebook and MySpace. I don't use MySpace but the Facebook feature is really cool. You can now see more than just your friends' status updates. You can see their Likes and Comments, you can click Like, make comments, and write on someone's wall, all from within Facebook.

The updated Tweetdeck makes it easy to drag photos and links to the composing window. It then automatically shortens the URLs for you. I'm still discovering all the features, but I really like it so far. I'll let you know about any other cool things I learn.

Here's where you can download Tweetdeck for free. Here's some more information about updated Tweetdeck.

Five jobs for Facebook addicts

The Setting: Are you a Facebook guru and/or an expert in Twitter and LinkedIn?

New job roles are being developed as a result of the growth of all these social media tools. However, there's really not a lot of these jobs available yet, so get ready for some competition.

Here is an article that describes five jobs to consider in your next job search if you feel you are a social media / networking expert.

Celebrity Death Watch

The Setting: It seems a lot of celebrities have died over the past couple of weeks. Weird...

Once several celebrities had died, rumors quickly started spreading online about a whole bunch of others dying. I heard the rumors about Jeff Goldblum and I seem to recall something about Natalie Portman, but I had not heard the rumors about Harrison Ford, George Clooney, and Britney Spears.
There's some dude named Rich Hoover who has a site called fakeawish.com, that "allows users to input celebrity names into five false news templates with outlandish stories about their deaths." Apparently, after Michael Jackson died, people used this site to generate false stories about other celebrities. Some people then read the stories and reposted links to them on their Twitter and Facebook pages without reading the "small disclaimer" that said the stories were not true. Others then jumped on the bandwagon and reposted / retweeted the fake stories themselves.

Hoover said, "I'm absolutely flabbergasted by the success of this and the impact these social networks have on communication -- and the communication of misinformation."

Well, that's the thing. All this social media is great for quickly spreading information. Only problem is, it may not be true. Hell, you don't even know if what I just said is true. Here's a link to the article about celebrity death rumors.

The Ego Massage Generation

The Setting: Do you feel obligated to accept someone’s friendship request on Facebook just because they offered it?

Or connect with someone on LinkedIn because they sent a request? Or follow someone on Twitter because they’re following you? Or connect with anyone on any other social networking tool out there, just because they asked?

I have had this conversation with a few of my friends and many are having these same thoughts. For some people, it really is about quantity and not necessarily about quality. It's a competition – who can get the most connections. Is it just massaging your ego if you have more friends, connections, links, followers, minions than anyone else? Is it about connecting with as many people as possible, is it about the networking?

Speaking specifically about Facebook, I admit I have accepted friend requests from people who are friends of my brother (I at least knew who they were), people I don't really know but we belong to the same organization or professional group, and people who are friends of friends.

I have three friends requests on my Facebook account right now. One is a friend suggestion from someone who thought I might know the person. I don’t. One is from someone I went to high school with whose name sounds vaguely familiar but I know she was not someone I hung out with. The last is from someone I did know in high school and although we were not enemies, I don’t have the best memories of our relationship. Why is it so important for them to be friends with me? Because I am so amazing? Perhaps. Who can blame them, really? I'll keep ya posted.

Facebook Turns Five

The Setting: The social networking site Facebook is five years old today.

It was started in 2004 by then 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, and now he's a millionaire. Oh wait, I meant billionaire. Although, according to this article, no one's really sure how Facebook is making money, other than through advertising. Really doesn't matter. Dude's rich.

I resisted signing up for the longest time. My impression was that it was something like MySpace, which I thought of as a site for a bunch of 13 year olds and a bunch of pervs pretending to be 13 years old. I thought of Facebook as something for college students, but my brother convinced me to sign up after I looked at his FB page. That was back in August 2008. Since then, I have connected with a bunch of friends, including a couple from high school; I have found (and been found by) old co-workers; and I am FB friends with many current co-workers. I have friends and family all over the place who, I admit, I don't see or talk to on the phone as often as I would like but it is very easy and fast to communicate with them on a regular basis using FB.

Some people use the site for business, although most I know use it to stay connected with friends and family. Some people post their statuses so often, you feel like a fly on the wall of their lives, watching the whole thing unfold. FB works really well for posting photos and creating albums, which is one of the main things people with kids do so their families living elsewhere can see pics of the kiddies. There are countless applications you can add to your page (I like Sudoku), altough many people choose not to add any apps.

I Can't Fuggetaboutit

The Setting: If I'm lucky, sometime tomorrow I will be buying an apartment building and a grenade launcher. One to generate income and one to destroy my enemies. MwaaHaHaHaHa!! Meet my latest addiction: Mob Wars.

I play it as an app through Facebook, although there is a standalone online version. A friend of mine convinced me to sign up and join her mob, and then I invited another friend to join. I really should not have started playing when I had a couple of days to kill while on Thanksgiving vacation. The more time I spent playing, the more strategy I learned, so the more I wanted to play. It's like crack, I tell ya.

Like a typical mob, the point is to acquire money and power by obtaining weapons and cars, committing crimes (jobs), buying property, and increasing your mob size. You can even keep your money in the bank after paying their 10% laundering fee. You can also attack rival mobs and try to steal their money. I was not at all interested in doing that. I was just going to lay low, try not to draw any attention to myself, and let my properties generate income.

Then someone attacked me. Actually, a few people attacked me and a couple got some of my money. OK, it was only like 12 virtual dollars, but it was MY 12 virtual dollars. It was so ON after that. I sought my revenge, attacking rival gangs with a passion, slowed only by my depleting health points. Once, I got lucky and stole $43K dollars from someone. MwaaHaHaHaHa, part II.

Anyway, I only need another $30K or so to go shopping tomorrow. I love the smell of grenade launcher smoke in the morning. Smells like... well, grenade launcher smoke.