Facebook 'Like' Button to Morph into 'Read,' 'Watch,' 'Listen'?

Facebook 'Like' Button to Morph into 'Read,' 'Watch,' 'Listen'?

Facebook's "Read, Watch, Listen" theme of its f8 developer event on Thursday apparently now involves altering the "Like" button to specific actions.

In other words, "read," "watch" and "listen" will be applied to the "Like" button. The result? Buttons that will allow you to indicated that you have "Read" books or articles, "Listened," to music, or "Watched" videos or other content.

So far, multiple reports have confirmed the "Read, Watch, Listen" theme, including TechCrunch, AllThingsD, and others. One industry source has also confirmed the theme to PCMag.com, although the source said he wasn't sure if that was going to be an official motto, or just the substance of the talk.

TechCrunch is the source of the reports that claim that the buttons will be rebranded, however. A "Want" button might also appear. The New York Times has also reported reported that the site will launch a media-sharing service for movies, music, and other content at the F8 developer conference.

Facebook has already confirmed that it is rolling out a real-time ticker and an updated News feed, which will surface more relevant content to the user. You'll see the top photos and statuses that were added in your absence, marked by a blue "Top Story" corner on the top left. If you sign in more frequently, the news feed will feature most recent stories first. Photos will also be bigger.

Facebook also confirmed three speakers for an F8 session on digital music: Bob Pittman, the chairman of Clear Channel, Daniel Ek, the chief executive of Spotify, and Troy Carter, the chairman and chief executive of Atom Factory, which represents artists like Lady Gaga, among others. That appears to confirm the reports of the so-called "Facebook Music" portion of the platform, which companies like Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody and others are participating in.

While Facebook hasn't tipped the products it will launch at the show, it will be answering questions on "Location and Events," "Photos," News Feed," "Distribution," "Profile," "Pages," "Social Plugins," and "Credits," according to an agenda of the show.

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Google+ Opened to All, Gets Search, Better Hangouts

Google+ Opened to All, Gets Search, Better Hangouts

Google Sept. 20 opened Google+ to beta, meaning any user can join. The company also rolled out a raft of product improvements, including search and mobile Hangouts.

Google+ has moved from limited field-testing to beta in less than 90 days, and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) celebrated the graduation by launching several new features for the social network, including search and improved Hangouts.

The graduation from field test to beta means users no longer need an invitation to join Google+, the search-engine provider's alternative network to Facebook for information-sharing among friends, family, colleagues and complete strangers. Any user 18 and over may join the network here.

Google+ for the first time has search capabilities to let users tap into Google search to find interesting topics, posts, people and even information from the external Web. Users may simply type what they're looking for into the Google+ search box to see relevant content.

For any searches conducted on Google+, results will only include items that a user sees, said Vic Gundotra, Google's senior vice president of engineering.

The most improvements to Google+ come via Hangouts, the popular group Web conferencing application that lets up to 10 users hold court at once in the same browser-based video chat session.

Hangouts On Air is a hangout that lets users broadcast and record their session. When a user is "on air," up to nine other people can join the Hangout, though anyone can tune in to the live broadcast. The idea was likely inspired by early Google+ adopters such as Daria Musk, who performed her songs at set times on Hangouts.

For the time being, Google is beginning Hangouts On Air with a limited number of broadcasters. The company is hosting its first On Air hangout with Blackeyed Peas frontman will.i.am Sept. 21.

To encourage additional information-sharing via Hangouts, Google has also added screen-sharing, sketchpad for group doodling, named Hangouts, for users who want to create public Hangouts around a specific topic, and the ability to create Google Docs from Hangouts. These features are accessible by clicking the "Try Hangouts with extras" button in the Hangouts green room.

Google has also enabled Hangouts via users' mobile phones, which they can access by finding an active hangout in the Stream and tapping "join. "

Available in the Android Market here, Google+ Hangouts currently only supports Android 2.3 "Gingerbread" and newer devices with front-facing cameras.

The app will likely play well on the large screens of the 4.3-inch Motorola Droid Bionic and Samsung Epic 4G Touch, which boasts a 4.52-inch display. Support for Hangouts via Apple's iPhone is coming soon, said Punit Soni, Google+ mobile product manager, wrote in a blog post.

Users may now edit their profile photo from their Android mobile application, customize their notifications and move the Google+ application to SD storage on Android devices.

Other Google+ mobile improvements include better Short Message Service (SMS) support, allowing users in the U.S. and India to post to Google+, receive notifications and respond to group messages via SMS; improved +mentions support to let +[insert name] inside a post or comment to add users to a conversation; and the ability "to +1" comments from Google+ (for iOS but not yet for Android).

Finally, Google renamed its Huddle mobile group messaging application Messenger and adding photo-sharing.

Google says it launches products only when it feels they are ready for poking and prodding by its beloved consumers, but it wouldn't be a stretch to believe the company wants to remind users about Google+ before Facebook's F8 developer conference Thursday.

Facebook is expected to make several media-related integration announcements that boost information-sharing at its event.

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Windows 8 Tablet Market Might Dodge Apple’s iPad

Windows 8 Tablet Market Might Dodge Apple’s iPad



Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest version of its legendary operating system is already out. The reviews are coming and the PC Magazine notes are showing a lot of them on Twitter. The new suite is “radically different,” according to ABC News, which gave the new program a glowing write-up. Windows 8 is designed to work on desktops, tablets and mobile devices.

Windows 8 Tablet Rival With Apple’s iPad

Some see a major rivalry coming with Apple. Now will the Windows 8 tablet ecosystem have a chance at knocking the iPad out of its tablet-dominant position? Will that mean that Windowswill now see as frequent tinkering and updates to its mobile product line as users have received from Apple? A good question. Professional reviewers are weighing in, too, beyond the question of whether this marks the death of Flash, to take up what the system feels like to use.

Windows 8 Tablet Might Dominate Over iPad

The Tablet might dominate over iPad in the market since Windows 8 can now be run in the tablet. Apple will never tell you that they’ve got a tablet for sale, they’ve got an iPad for sale. As Chris Davies will tell you, not everyone loves the iPad and, believe it or not, some people purchase tablet computers just so they can run Android, even if they have to hack them to get it. US retailer Best Buy is taking tablets seriously with a massive floor setting – Android clearly dominates the floor with sheer numbers.

Windows 8 Tablet Versus Apple’s iPad

The reason the iPad sells well is that people don’t go shopping for a tablet, they go shopping for an iPad. If people realize they can get a tablet version of their PC running Windows and they see this as the easier choice before re-learning another OS, iOS or Android (or maybe even BlackBerry), Microsoft will have a winner on their hands. On the first night that Windows 8 was available for download, a supposed 500,000 downloadswere recorded. Apple does not release information on such numbers, but it is expected since iOS updates are now pushed to devices. Meanwhile we should also consider the following fact for long-term evolution of the platform: Windows 8 supports all apps that have worked in the past for Windows 7. This means, for example, your Windows 8 tablet will be able to run Photoshop without a problem. That said, the Apple App Store has always been in a better position than competitors in regards to app piracy, while PC apps have been pirated rampantly for quite a few years now.


In this article you learned that Windows 8, Microsoft’s latest version of its legendary operating system is already out. Some see a major rivalry coming with Apple. For this reason, Windows 8 tablet might dominate the market more than Apple’s iPad.

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