Author: Josh Wolford

Facebook wants you to post more statuses and more photos/videos. Earlier this month, we told you about a test the company was running that pushed a notification to mobile devices asking users to “tell friends what’s on your mind” by posting an update.

Now, it looks like Facebook is looking for more ways to make sure people are still creating content on the site.

Facebook is testing a new button in its top blue bar that allows users to post a status or a photo/video quickly, from any page on the site.

Here are some screenshots of the test courtesy of Mashable, who first spotted it.

When you click it, a familiar lightbox pops up:

It’s important to note that the user who saw the test obviously doesn’t have Facebook Graph Search or the new look news feed – two new products that Facebook is rolling out very slowly. Has anyone who has Graph Search or the new news feed seen this test?

As you may remember, Facebook was painted red on Tuesday as marriage equality supporters changed their profile pictures to a red and pink equals sign to show their support of the cause.

The image was shared by the Human Rights Campaign’s Facebook page, who repurposed their normal blue and yellow logo to show support for same-sex marriage as the U.S. Supreme Court began to hear arguments in two relevant cases.

Facebook’s data science team has analyzed the campaign, and has provided us with a neat little map of all the counties in the U.S. The redder the county, the more profile pic changes its Facebook users made on that day.

Look, we’re not saying that there are no marriage equality supporters in the south, or that everyone in California or Michigan supports same-sex marriage. We’re just saying that the look of this map leaves nobody around here surprised.

Facebook notes a not all that curious trend. Apparently, many of the top 25 counties in the country that showed the most love for HRC’s marriage equality campaign house colleges – Orange (University of North Carolina), Durham (Duke University), Monroe (Indiana University), Johnson (University of Iowa), Athens (Ohio University), Dane (University of Wisconsin), Boulder (University of Colorado), and Travis (University of Texas at Austin).

Apart from that, San Francisco County, San Mateo County, and Washington, D.C. also ranked high on the list for changed profile pics.

Facebook’s data team has some more interesting insights about HRC’s campaign. Here’s a couple:

• 120% more people across the network changed their profile picture on Tuesday compared to the previous Tuesday.
• Those closest to the age of 30 were the most likely users to update their profile picture.
• Females were slightly more likely (2.3%) to change their profile pic.

Facebook closes their study with this:

“For a long time, when people stood up for a cause and weren’t all physically standing shoulder to shoulder, the size of their impact wasn’t immediately apparent. But today, we can see the spread of an idea online in greater detail than ever before. That’s data well worth finding.”

Did you change you profile picture on Tuesday?

We’re not international politics experts, so we’ll refrain from commenting on North Korean state media’s suggestions that leader Kim Jong Un and his generals are planning some sort of “U.S. mainland strike,” and whether or not this is credible or simply some sort of chest thumping designed to pump up support, domestically.

But they did release some interesting photos of Kim Jong Un seemingly making some sort of plans in a military control room.

And in those photos, we can confirm Kim Jong Un’s predilection for Apple products.

Look! An iMac!

“A 21.5 inch aluminium unibody iMac is on Kim Jong Un’s desk, confirming long-held rumors of the Kim family’s passion for Apple Macs,” says NK News.

Here are the photos that purportedly references some sort of attack plans:

As you may know, Nick Offerman is a man of many talents. It just so happens that one of those talents is breaking it down.

On last night’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Offerman discussed his reddit AMAs, walking the beans, and his childhood rap career.

Oh yeah, and then he busted out some sweet moves.

Then, he joined Fallon and Blake Shelton for an all-clicking version of the Lumineer’s hit song “Ho Hey.”

Is live streaming sports (read: boxing) coming to HBO GO?

According to HBO Sports head Ken Hershman, yes. But HBO leadership aren’t all in the same boat, and another exec isn’t ready to spill the beans on any such project.

Speaking at Harvard Law School’s Sports Law Symposium, Hershman said that live sports, and specifically boxing, are coming to HBO GO “by the end of the year.

But HBO SVP of corporate affairs Jeff Cusson told The Verge that there are currently no plans for any such streaming offerings.

“We’re always exploring ways to enhance HBO Go, but we have no immediate plans to offer live boxing on the platform,” he said.

HBO’s sports division airs documentaries like the 24/7 series and weekly news programs like Real Sports, but when you think of HBO Sports it’s likely that you think of boxing.

So when the head of HBO Sports says that the company will bring sports content to their HBO GO subscription streaming service by the end of the year, you would think that he means boxing, right?

This isn’t the only hint that we’ve heard recently about HBO expanding their HBO GO service. Last week, HBO CEO Richard Plepler mentioned that it’s possible that the service could become available without a cable subscription, as a package deal with ISPs. And by “it’s possible,” we mean he said that maybe, just maybe, HBO GO could “evolve,” but right now they totally have the right model for the service.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is working on another startup.

According to Kara Swisher at All Things D, Stone’s new project is called “Jelly,” which her source called a “native mobile” effort.

That’s pretty vague, and the only other tidbit provided was that the product will likely “be aimed and smartphones and tablets.”

Apparently, Stone has already hired four or five employees to work on Jelly.

In 2011, after leaving his day-to-day role at Twitter, Stone put his attention into Obvious, which says that they “do various things.”

Obvious, which Stone launched alongside other Twitterites Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, is involved in blog platform Medium, as well as Lift, Branch, and a handful of other products.

Biz Stone was recently granted inventor status when his name, along with Jack Dorsey’s, appeared on an approved patent for Twitter. Yes, the entire concept of Twitter wasn’t patented until earlier this month.

Earlier this week, Amazon announced that they had ordered up a pilot for Zombieland, a TV series based on the incredibly popular movie of the same name.

When the pilot makes its way to Prime Instant Video, user feedback will determine whether or not it receives orders for a full series run. It will have some competition, going up against six other comedy pilots.

And the series just got its first poster. It’s familiar, while still being different. What do you think?

“Zombieland will strive to break the rules—action, adventure, thrills, chills and laughs and all packed into a half hour format,” said creator Paul Wernick. “This is not your average show but Amazon is not your average network.”

Zombieland the series features the same characters from the film – Columbus, Little Rock, Tallahassee, etc. But it features new actors Tyler Ross, Izabela Vidovic, and Kirk Ward, respectively. Some of the film’s original creative team in on board, however, including writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick. It’s being directed by Tucker and Dale vs Evil‘s Eli Craig.

[via Huffington Post]

Facebook has just sent out press invites for an event at their Menlo Park HQ on Thursday, April 4th. The invites, in true Facebook fashion, are pretty vague. All they say is “Come See Our New Home on Android.”

Is Facebook working on a new Android-based OS? Is this about that long-rumored Facebook phone?

Well, yes and yes, according to one report.

TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook will unveil a modified Android OS built to heavily incorporate Facebook, and that it may come to a new HTC device.

This is not a totally new OS we’re talking about here. Apparently, it will simply be an Android tweak that has a bunch of Facebook functionality. TechCrunch describes it as “Facebook’s integration with iOS 6, but on steroids.”

The report indicates that it could be called “Facebook Home,” which you may be able to guess would sport a Facebook-themed home screen. Maybe your news feed stories built in, maybe your messages, maybe any other aspect of Facebook that you want to greet you in the morning.

Is this that mythical Facebook Phone that we’ve been hearing about off and on for a couple of years? You may remember that rumors emerged back in April of 2012 that Facebook and HTC were working to develop a Facebook Phone. Similar reports emerged a few months later, stating that Facebook would debut a modified Android OS centered around their service on an HTC handset.

That report suggested such a product would surface mid-2013. Hm.

But the reports of a possible Facebook phone have been shut down at every turn, even by CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself. Speaking just two months ago, here’s what he had to say about it:

“We’re not going to build a phone. It’s not the right strategy for us to build one integrated system…Let’s say we sell 10 million units — that would be 1 percent of users. Who cares for us?”

This newest report sure sounds a lot like that mythical Facebook Phone. Maybe not the Facebook Phone of yore, but at least a device that runs a Facebook-centric OS. We’ll see what goes down next Thursday.

Amazon has just announced that they are acquiring Goodreads, “the world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.” Good reads launched in 2007 and since then has built up a user base of 16 million members, who have added 525 million books and 23 million reviews.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, and it is expected to be closed in Q2 of this year.

“Amazon and Goodreads share a passion for reinventing reading,” said Russ Grandinetti, Amazon Vice President, Kindle Content. “Goodreads has helped change how we discover and discuss books and, with Kindle, Amazon has helped expand reading around the world. In addition, both Amazon and Goodreads have helped thousands of authors reach a wider audience and make a better living at their craft. Together we intend to build many new ways to delight readers and authors alike.”

Over on the Goodreads blog, founder Otis Chandler says that he’s excited about the reach and resources that Amazon can provide. And the partnership means that Goodreads can finally launch on an ereader. Chandler says that that was one of the things that Goodreads users asked for the most, and they are going to make it on of their top priorities.

He says that Goodreads will continue to function as usual. Their headquarters will remains in San francisco.

“It’s important to be clear that Goodreads and the awesome team behind it are not going away. Goodreads will continue to be the wonderful community that we all cherish. We plan to continue offering you everything that you love about the site—the ability to track what you read, discover great books, discuss and share them with fellow book lovers, and connect directly with your favorite authors—and your reviews and ratings will remain here on Goodreads. And it’s incredibly important to us that we remain a home for all types of readers, no matter if you read on paper, audio, digitally, from scrolls, or even stone tablets.”

In Redding, California, there is currently a 5′ 11”, 350-pound man still at large who may have just committed one of funniest attempted burglaries in the history of convenient store burglaries.

Lucky for us, there’s surveillance footage.

[Redding.com via reddit]

Google has just announced that they are ready to give all Gmail users the new compose box that they’ve been testing since October.

With the new compose enabled, Gmail no longer takes you to a different screen to write a message. When you click “compose,” a small message box pops up in the bottom-right-hand corner of the page. From there, you retain all the functionality of the old compose method – it’s just smaller and looks more like a chat box.

“You are busy people, so it’s no surprise that an overwhelming number of you opted to try out Gmail’s faster, simpler compose experience after it launched last October. In addition to telling us what you love about the new compose experience (like how much easier it is to multitask!) you’ve also been sending us helpful suggestions for what features you’d like to see added. As a result of your input, we’re now ready to introduce the new compose experience as the default for everyone. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think!” says Gmail Product Manager Phil Sharp.

Over the past few months, Google has been tweaking the new compose feature and has added the ability to send files with Google Drive, pop-out replies, and starring and labeling while composing.

Google says that the rollout will take a few days.

Overall, the compose box is pretty useful in some circumstances – especially when you’re writing an email and you have to reference another email. It simply saves a lot of time. You can also write multiple messages at a time and minimize any of them to finish later. It’s a solid improvement to the Gmail experience, and I doubt we’ll hear any bitching from Gmail users as the rollout proceeds.

Considering the fact that’s Spotify’s logo is pretty much absent from both its desktop and mobile apps, you may not have noticed that the streaming music service recently changed it.

Yep, out with the old (left), and in with the new (right).

The new logo is definitely more straightforward and more mature looking. The “o” has been put back in line with the rest of the letters, and the font has been simplified.

Earlier this month, Spotify announced 6 million paid subscribers (out of 24 million total users). That was an increase of a million paid subscriptions in just three months.

Spotify also unveiled their first ever advertising campaign with a few new TV, digital, and social media spots – the first of which debuted earlier this week during NBC’s The Voice. The new logo was seen in these ads.

We also heard the rumor that Spotify is working on its own exclusive video to compete with services like Netflix and HBO GO.

New stuff, new look. What do you think of the new logo?

[Brand New via The Verge]

Klout has just announced that its adding another element into your influence score: Instagram.

“Instagram generates some of social media’s most beautiful and engaging content, and is one of the most highly-requested networks by Klout users. Starting this week, all your Instagram activities will be part of your Klout Score, and your most popular photos will appear in your Klout Moments. We are rolling out this integration by phases so some of our users might have seen their score increase due to Instagram before this post,” says the company on its blog.

Klout is also announcing more fruit from its partnership with Bing. Starting today, you can connect your Klout account to Bing. And in the future, search results will being to factor into your Klout score.

Bing and Klout first announced their partnership back in September of last year. Shortly after that, Klout began to take into account Facebook Pages.

Also:

“Bing is now displaying Klout Scores for high-profile professionals and socially active influencers right in Bing search results. At a glance, it is easy to see an influencer’s Klout Score and expertise without having to click any further.”

Earlier this month, Klout launched Klout for Business so the businesses can “find the influencers in your audience.”

A couple of weeks ago, we looked into a recent study by Cambridge University on Facebook likes and just how revealing they are.

Long story short – they’re quite revealing. The researchers were able to accurately predict subjects’ activities and personality traits based on what they liked on Facebook, even when those likes weren’t specifically about the particular proclivities. For instance, a user didn’t have to like the page “I love being gay” in order for researchers to determine that the user was indeed gay. Around 80% of the time, they could rightly infer it based on other sorts of likes, for instance “Britney Spears” or the show “Desperate Housewives.”

The bottom line is that your likes tell a lot about you, and unless you go to great lengths to make your 100, 200, maybe even thousands of likes non-public, people are going to be able to make judgements about you.

Such the rub when you use a public social network. Deal with it or don’t, it’s up to you.

The Colbert Report looked into the topic of these revealing Facebook likes, and basically came to this conclusion:

“Facebook likes can reveal your personality traits, just as Friendster likes can reveal that you stopped using the internet in 2003.”

No, wait, that’s not a conclusion. That’s just a Friendster jab. Low hanging fruit there, Colbert.

“I don’t need some study to tell me who’s gay and who isn’t. That’s what scarves are for.”

We know why we get goosebumps – scientifically speaking. But there are a lot of different external causes for our internal response. Everyone has experienced goosebumps from being cold, for instance. And most of us have experienced another oddly-enjoyable sensation associated with the response:

Frisson. Or, those chills you get when you’re listening to a music. Is it because the music is so beautiful? Is it because you recognize it from childhood? AsapSCIENCE looks at another theory that has to do with fear. Fear, you say? Yes.

[AsapSCIENCE]

If you think that teens are the most distracted drivers out there on the road, think again. It appears that adults are not only on par with but are actually worse when it comes to one particular high-risk highway activity.

AT&T has a new survey out as part of its “It Can Wait” anti-texting while driving campaign. This one looked at the text while driving problem with commuters – adults going to and from work.

And the results may surprise you. The survey, which looked at over 1,000 commuters, showed that 49% admit to texting while driving. That’s more than teens, who are texting and driving at a rate of 43%, according to a previous AT&T study.

In that study, 77% of teens said that although adults warn them of the dangers, most of them “do it themselves all the time,” so we probably should’ve seen these results coming.

According to the survey, the texting and driving problem is actually getting worse in adult commuters. 60% said that they never texted while driving three years ago. And a whopping 98% said that they knew it was dangerous to text while driving, but do it anyway. 95% acknowledged that just reading an incoming text while driving was also wrong.

“Businesses can help keep their employees and others on the road safe by encouraging responsible behavior behind the wheel, including obeying all laws related to the use of electronic devices,” said U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue. “We also encourage all businesses to consider joining the ‘It Can Wait’ movement to end texting while driving. Together we can help turn the tide on this serious issue.”

As of today, 39 states ban texting while driving for all drivers, and another 6 ban the practice for novice drivers. Still, these surveys make one thing clear – awareness campaigns are fighting an uphill battle. Nearly everyone (98%!) knows that it’s dangerous to text and drive, but nearly 50% do it anyway. Sure, knowing is half the battle. But people know – and it seems, at least for now, that they don’t care.

Google has just announced that they have rolled out support for 6 new Indic languages on Gmail for features phones.

“Indian culture is diverse, with more than 100 languages and thousands of alphabets used every day. Depending on where you are, you might hear anything from Gujarati to Bengali and Tamil to Urdu. If you’re a speaker of these languages and use a feature phone, communicating is about to get a little easier,” says Google.

The 6 new languages supported are Bengali,Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu.

All you have to do is go to your settings and pick which language you want. All 6 new languages should be options as of right now.

“Some 500 million new users from around the world will join the Internet between now and 2015. Since most will experience the web for the first time on a mobile device, it’s important that people everywhere can communicate in the language they know best.” says Google Localization product manager Ian Hill.

Making Gmail access easier to an area with a dense, tech-loving population is smart and beneficial – for both the people speaking the Indic languages and for Google themselves.