The website is still responsible for the vast majority of social network activity . . . → Read More: Has Facebook reached it’s peak?]]> It might be that the saturation point of Facebook in the UK has been reached as its usage in the UK has started to fall. This is not great news for the company who are expecting to make their initial public offering this year.

The website is still responsible for the vast majority of social network activity in the UK, with over 50 percent of social network users using the site.

Last December however the share was closer to 60 percent and since then it has fallen consistently. There have also been reports that competitors to the social network are beginning to gain ground.

James Murray who is a research analyst for Experian has stated, “The growth of Facebook is beginning to level off. It has a large share of the market which is simply something that is very hard to maintain over the long-term. It is possible that we have seen the website reach its maximum growth.”

The initial public offering of the company has been expected for a long time and many people expect the initial offering will be the biggest in technologies history at around $100 billion.

YouTube, the video website operated by Google has seen a contrast to this with its traffic growing nearly 50 percent in the last year alone. It is responsible for around 25 percent of all activity on social networks in the UK. Mr Murray continued, “We are expecting that video will become a much more influential part of marketing and the growth of YouTube will continue.”

Other major social networks, including Yahoo Answers and Twitter, also made gains but they still represent a very small amount of the market, both with around 2.5 percent. The social network from Google has not made gains but the company still continues to dominate the search engine market.

With proper policing, a new online crime-fighting database could help reduce the amount of lesser offences that are committed in London, including theft and shoplifting.  The system was first used in order to track down bag thieves that were targeting patrons of aLondonwine bar, and now is being offered for free to British businesses in an . . . → Read More: New online crime-fighting database]]>  

With proper policing, a new online crime-fighting database could help reduce the amount of lesser offences that are committed in London, including theft and shoplifting.  The system was first used in order to track down bag thieves that were targeting patrons of aLondonwine bar, and now is being offered for free to British businesses in an attempt to reduce the amount of petty crime that occurs.

The new database allows victims of crimes to instantly report theft over the internet to the police.  This allows theft victims in bars, shops, and businesses to instantly report crimes and make statements while the details of the theft are still fresh and more accurate. Then images of possible suspects can be instantly flashed to all surrounding bars or stores to help notify others they may be at risk and to help the police track down the criminal.

The aptly named Facewatch project has already been picked up for use by about 400 retailers located throughout central London including many hotels and Starbucks.  When the Facewatch Project was trialed in Westminster it was found to reduce about two hours of officer time per crime and promoted a 73% increase in detection rates.

The founders decided to release the software for non-profit use and the system has been backed fully by both the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Met.  Already, at least eight serial thieves have been apprehended and theft has fallen in the areas that have it in place.

It is capable of storing bookmarks as well as opening multiple . . . → Read More: Android smartphones now able to download the Chrome Internet browser]]> Android smartphones are just now able to download the Chrome Internet browser from Google. The device is also going to be able to run on tablet computers running the Android operating system. The Internet browser is known as Chrome for Android and was released last Tuesday.

It is capable of storing bookmarks as well as opening multiple tabs and being synchronised with desktop versions of the software. The browser is currently in beta testing and is only available to devices running the latest Android operating system.

The head of Google Chrome is Sundar Pichai who has commented, “This is a brand-new browser that has been designed exclusively for mobile devices. We have reinvented the interface so that it fits much better on a smaller screen but also works well on a tablet. It is possible to swipe between different tabs by using gestures that are intuitive and each one opens a new portal to the Internet.”

With the release of Chrome for Android this means that both of the most popular desktop browsers that are open source are now available to smartphones, the other prominent browser is Firefox from Mozilla. Since the release of Firefox last year the operating system has been revised several times.

The new browser from Google has a great amount of synchronisation meaning that people can share bookmarks between their computer and the mobile device. It is also possible to open tabs that are shared between both devices as long as the user is signed into their Google account on both machines. Firefox offers similar functionality to these features seen in chrome. Neither of the browsers supports Flash.

The synchronisation on the new browser from Google takes things a little bit further than that available from Firefox as the auto complete options are also synchronised. It also comes with the private browsing mode that is seen on the desktop version, incognito. The browser is being praised for its innovative nature.

The father of the girl cannot be named for legal reasons but he found the coach, Nicholas Lovell, to be making sexual advances to his daughter who was just 15 years . . . → Read More: Child sexual advances on the internet]]> A man who was spying on his teenage daughter found out that she was having sex with a hockey coach who was nearly 40 years old.

The father of the girl cannot be named for legal reasons but he found the coach, Nicholas Lovell, to be making sexual advances to his daughter who was just 15 years old. He discovered the sexual advances were being made after he installed monitoring software on his daughter’s computer.

Mr Lovell was jailed for over four years in 2008 and he has recently been released. The father said that he installed the software on his daughter’s computer after she started acting strangely. Mr Lovell met the teenager in 2006 in Berkshire after a significant amount of contact with the young girl through e-mail and Microsoft messenger.

The girl told her parents that she was going to stay with a friend while she was actually going to visit Mr Lovell. The police were alerted after the parents discovered the conversation and Mr Lovell was given a warning. The police said that he was using several different names on the Internet to evade detection.

The father commented, “My wife and I agreed to install the software on a computer as we tried to keep an eye on her but could not do that without using the computer software. I managed to build evidence against Mr Lovell which eventually led to him going to jail in 2008.”

Mr Lovell has also had to sign the Sex Offenders Register which means he cannot work with children and is subject other restrictions. This Tuesday marks Safer Internet Day 2012, which is a time when people are encouraged to use the Internet more responsibly. Parents are urged by the governments watchdog for child protection, CEOP, to take steps to monitor their children’s activities on the Internet to make sure they are safe.

They encourage people to use parental controls on any device that is connected to the Internet and make sure that appropriate boundaries are set for children. Some Internet sites already have age restrictions in place such as Facebook which prevents anyone under 13 from joining.

There is a link in a post which tells users to go through several steps so that they can change the colour.

It first . . . → Read More: Another scam hits Facebook]]> A new scam has hit the Facebook social network and has tricked its users into thinking that they can change the colour of their Facebook from the normal blue to red, pink or black.

There is a link in a post which tells users to go through several steps so that they can change the colour.

It first starts to look suspicious when it tells you to share the link with your Facebook friends despite their having been no changes to your Facebook colours yet. Once users have done this they are prompted to complete a survey on an external website, this gives the person who has organised the scam income and ultimately no changes are made to your Facebook page.

The internet security company Sophos have stated, “This latest scam is all about people sharing a link on their Facebook page so that more people will take a survey. From this survey the scammer will gain revenue.”

A spokesperson from the social network has commented, “We take security very seriously at Facebook and we want to make sure that people are safe when using our website. Spammers and other cyber criminals are a threat to the internet and we encourage people to make themselves aware of the various scams that might be operated against them.”

The website Reddit reported that the company had shut down its file sharing capabilities and deleted a large number of . . . → Read More: Megaupload and other file sharing services shut down]]> Last week, the file sharing service Megaupload was shut down and several arrests were made of its key people. Since the take down, another company offering a similar service, FileSonic has also stopped users from file sharing.

The website Reddit reported that the company had shut down its file sharing capabilities and deleted a large number of files stored on their servers. It has also been announced that they are looking at ways for blocking IP addresses located in the United States.

On the home page there is a banner that states, “File sharing on this website has been disabled. You are now only able to retrieve files that you have uploaded yourself.” The site is regarded as one of the biggest file sharing sites on the web and there are about 250 million page views of the website each month.

One of the best-known cyber locker services is RapidShare and they have commented that they will not be shutting down their service because file sharing is not against the law. The company stated that they are very careful to make sure that there is no material breaching copyright laws on their servers.

The idea behind all of these websites is that they are a way for people to share files that exceed the limits that can be experienced when sending attachments by e-mail. They are used regularly for legitimate purposes but they are also a way for people to download pirated material without the risk of being monitored by their ISP or the rights holders of the material.

So in addition . . . → Read More: Facebook will have adverts that look like posts]]> The social networking site Facebook has broken the news that they will be putting adverts in the home news feeds of its users. These adverts will be quite surreptitious, as other than the two little words ‘featured content’ at the bottom of the post, they will look identical to regular posts on the feed.

So in addition to finding out what Alistair A and Becky B have been up to, users will get unsolicited adverts promoting products. It seems likely that people will unwittingly click on these adverts, not realizing what they are.

It seems highly likely that advertisers will be keen to buy up these slots to promote their goods and services, so it should be very lucrative for Facebook and the associated shareholders.

In order to ease the concerns of those outraged about privacy issues and general intrusion by the site, Facebook has said that only those adverts for products or services which one’s friend has already ‘liked’. In addition, only one ‘featured content’ post will be allowed per day, and there will not be any on the mobile version of the site.

It is not the first time that Facebook have had adverts in the news feed, as they did the same from 2006 to 2009, calling them ‘sponsored content’, but halted the action, possibly in response to criticism. However they have decided to bring the adverts back, but are changing the name.

The reason that Facebook give for calling the new adverts ‘featured content’ rather than the more transparent ‘sponsored’ was because they want people to see that they have chosen the content they are connected to. This may be inadvertent, but Facebook consider it good enough.

With pressure mounting from their rivals at Google, especially the social network Google+, Facebook need to be careful not to abuse its users. Having agreed to controls forced upon them by the Federal Trade Commission in the USA in response to issues regarding privacy, Facebook may need to spend more time focusing on the user experience. Otherwise they could again face charges of being ‘deceptive and unfair’ to their users.

It is not the only change to come to Facebook’s 800 million users. They have also introduced a Timeline feature that shows the history of the user’s activities on Facebook, as well as a constantly-updating ticker. Shortly after the latest update, a poll discovered that an overwhelming 86% of users that responded hate the update. Extrapolated, that figure means that almost 700 million people think Facebook should return to the old way.

If Facebook is to remain supreme in the social networking wars, then they may need to spend more time looking after their users rather than their advertisers. 91% of teenagers, arguably their biggest target audience, said that Facebook was worse after the site was updated. Not a good sign for one of the largest and biggest sites on the internet, but it is unlikely to be a fatal one.