Ilya Zhitomirskiy, along with Dan Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg and Raphael Sofaer, four New York University programming students who last year launched Diaspora, which is designed as an open-source alternative to Facebook. Their intention was to build “an open source personal web server that will put individuals in control of their data.”

Diaspora was created as a response to Facebook’s controversial privacy changes in 2010. The team was able to raise $200,000 on Kickstarter to launch the project.

A commercial alpha version was released November 23, 2010. The group has raised more than $200,000 in donations using a fundraising platform start-up called Kickstarter.

RIP Ilya Zhitomirskiy

“we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”, Google SVP of Social Vic Gundotra said in a blog post.

Google also announced “Direct Connect” from Google search. Google+ Pages will now be found in search results, allowing customers to connect directly to businesses.

Here is what Google had to say about Direct Connect:

People search on Google billions of times a day, and very often, they’re looking for businesses and brands. Today’s launch of Google+ Pages can help people transform their queries into meaningful connections, so we’re rolling out two ways to add pages to circles from Google search. The first is by including Google+ pages in search results, and the second is a new feature called Direct Connect.

Maybe you’re watching a movie trailer, or you just heard that your favorite band is coming to town. In both cases you want to connect with them right now, and Direct Connect makes it easy—even automatic. Just go to Google and search for [+], followed by the page you’re interested in (like +Angry Birds). We’ll take you to their Google+ page, and if you want, we’ll add them to your circles.

This gives huge advantage for Google, since it owns the majority of searches in the world by a huge margin. This gives the company a competitive advantage to provide companies direct access to consumers, in a way that Facebook can’t. There’s only one major problem with that: Google+ is not Facebook. Scrawl those four words on a Post-It and stick it on your monitor or iPad until you memorize them. That’s the first step toward mastering Google+ for marketing.

To get more of an idea of what a Google+ Page for businesses looks like, check out Google’s own page.

Add eNewsz to your Google+ Circles Here

Update:

In a case of major security breach, suspected Pakistani cyberpunks hacked the official website of India’s largest telecom company, BSNL today. The hackers, claiming to be members of “Khantastic haXor”, said that, “Hey Admin: sorry, just logs and database deleted“.

I think BSNL not yet noticed about it. The hacker notice is still available there on the website. The same site was hacked Jul 27 and Aug 28 of this year. This shows that India’s lagest telecom operatoraters secuirity is in utter trouble. Now, this is really getting serious – Not only are Government websites getting continuously hacked, but user data is also getting compromised.

In the previous security breach on Jul 27th, the hackers have managed to get their hands on information of over 10,000 BSNL Users regarding their name, email, phone number and location & BSNL’s internal working of VPN ,detail of circuits and as well as more technical details.

Even after such repeat hack attacks, Indian government agencies are not able to secure their servers and websites. Less than some month back NIC website was hacked by Anonymous group and now BSNL is hacked by PCA.

Even after such repeat hack attacks, Indian government agencies are not able to secure their servers and websites. Less than a month back NIC website was hacked by Annonymous group and now BSNL is hacked by PCA.

Facebook said that its new feature, Timeline would be on the way for everyone sometime in the coming days, which is great and all, for everyone else. Fortunately, enabling Timeline a bit early isn’t too difficult — but it’s not at all straight forward, either.

That’s okay. We can make it happen.

You see, Facebook is enabling Timeline early for open graph developers. You, too, can be an open graph developer — even if you’re just looking to dabble.

Here’s how to enable it:

• Log into Facebook
• Enable developer mode, if you haven’t already. To do this, type “developer” into the Facebook search box, click the first result (it should be an app made by Facebook), and add the app.

• 
• Then goes to the developer app (if Facebook doesn’t put you there automatically, it should be in your left-hand tool bar)
• Create a new app (don’t worry — you wont actually be submitting this for anyone else to see/use). Give your shiny new app any display name and namespace you see fit. Read through and agree to the Platform Privacy agreement. This is the step you need to be verified for.
• Ensure you’re in your new app’s main settings screen. You should see your app’s name near the top of the page
• Look for the “Open Graph” header, and click the “Get Started using open graph” link. Create a test action for your app, like “read” a “book”, or “eat” a “sandwich”

• This should drop you into an action type configuration page. Change a few of the default settings (I changed the past tense of “read” to “redd” — again, only you can see this unless you try and submit your application to the public directory), and click through all three pages of settings
• Wait 2-3 minutes
• Go back to your Facebook homescreen. An invite to try Timeline should be waiting at the top of the page

And you’re done! We’ve seen this work quite a few times now, so it should work without a hitch for just about anyone.

In order to comply with the RBI Guidelines, all PayPal users in India must:

• Add a Permanent Account Number (PAN) and Purpose Code.

By adding this information, you will continue to receive export-related payments into your PayPal account and your account will not be limited from receiving future payments.

• Add a bank account in India.

This will help us to auto withdraw your PayPal balance out of your PayPal account and transfer your balance to your bank account in India. Note: If you don’t add a bank account in India to your PayPal account then your PayPal account will also be limited from receiving export-related payments.

“Over the past few months, we have received feedback from our merchants in India and shared it with the RBI. We are thankful that the RBI has responded in a positive way and increased the transaction limit to better enable entrepreneurs and small and medium sized businesses to conduct cross-border trade. This is a huge step forward for PayPal and for Indian SMEs who can grow their export business through ecommerce by tapping our 100 million active users in 190 markets across the globe right from the US to the UK to Australia”, Mayur Patel, India Country Manager, PayPal said.

facebook bug bounty

Expose the bugs in security network and get rewarded over $500 for it too, says the social networking site, facebook which has already paid $40,000(over Rs 18 lakh) in the past three weeks to those who done it. Facebook has launched its ‘bug bounty‘ programme a few weeks ago, where it offered to pay for disclosure of security bugs to the company.

“A couple of years ago, we decided to formalise a ‘whitehat’ programme to encourage these researchers to look for bugs and report them to us … A few weeks ago, we took that programme to the next level — we started paying rewards to those who report bugs to us. The bug bounty programme was established as an effort to recognise and reward “these individuals for their good work and encourage others to join.”, Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan said on the official blog.

“The programme has already paid out more than $40,000 in only three weeks and one person has already received more than $7,000 for six different issues flagged. The programme has made the site more secure — by surfacing issues large and small, introducing Facebook to novel attack vectors, and helping it improve lots of corners in its code,” he added.

About 48 geeks have successfully identified problems and have been acknowledged on Facebook’s “whitehat” page. And more over Facebook pays about $ 500 for reporting such issues and increases the reward for specific bugs, the facebook blog said.

Democracy or Hazare? facebook Group

This is a new trend in the largest democratic country in the world, India that the same media, facebook is used by thousands of Youths to kill or save Democracy. As we aware, the main stream media flooded with Anna Hazare news, the new self proclaimed Gandhi with likes and shares from facebook.

But this not an exact picture.  Only Few people in New Delhi and in some metro cities are gathered by social media and the TRP hungry visual media in their ”2nd independence struggle” against corruption. But in the rest of 1200 million strong India most of the people just watch the joke. Many people do not know what is ” LokPal Bill” or ” Jan LokPal Bill”.

“Democracy or Hazare?”, a Facebook campaign, started by some bloggers believes that the method used by the Anna Hazare committee for getting a bill passed is against Indian Democracy. The campaign became a big hit on facebook and massive response is coming to its facebook group. It started just 3 days before, and now it having 1500+ active members.

Jasir Javaz, the man behind this movement says, “If Anna says that the whole India is supporting his LOKPAL than why he is not ready to face elections? If all Indians are supporting him and his candidates then they will definitely vote him… He says that he has no faith on government & on any political parties than why doesn’t he make them own party & face elections?”, He added.

Another guy, Kevin Anderson says that, “The most important thing is of how many Indians are supporting Anna? On July 5, Anna got support of 25000 peoples. How can he make any act for the population of 121 crore on the basis of 25000 people? On facebook, there are more than 2 crore followers but the question is how many of them are 100% pure?”, he asked in the group.

Chethan Ka, another fb user asking to media who aupports Anna, “Dear media, 5 states in INDIA are under water due to floods. People are dying, And u care about a man who refuses to eat?”.

An active political activist Abhimanyu Tyagi asking us to put Mahathma gandhi’s pic as fb profile pic to spread the word. The group shows the minds of Anna hazare’s old friends by a video, Mahesh Batt, Digvijay Singh, Vijay Mallya, Tushar Gandhi, Nandan Nilekani are against him, and like to express their love to democracy, not to Anna.

Another shows his angry mind, he louded, “Anna is trying to create a rebellion.. Yes., i think he can do it… Many young people mistakenly joined his side…. Media s make him a ‘super man’ . Social networking sites doing their best to spread the spirit….

But no one has the dare to look at the back stage of this drama, if you have a brain then think about his aim. He is trying to create a parallel government. Plan to distroy indian judiciary… Not in the direct way, but indirectly..” he said.

We like to quote an interesting comment related to a corruption case against him, “Wait 1 minute, before supporting Hazzare… How many indians can spend more than 1000 Rs to his birthday. I think more than 50% Indians can never do it. U know Hazzare spend more than 2 lakhs to his birthday. Who is Gandian? Our constitution and parliament is one of the strong and biggest one n the world. Dont allow any one to break our democracy. SAVE INDIA.”

Gmail updates Its Sign-in page

After the big launch of Google+, Google is now concentrating on the appearance of all the Google services. Search giant is overhauling the login page of Gmail to conform to its “design improvement” of its products.

Already Google.com and Gmail Interface got the Google+ look or the dense look, now the Gmail Login page got the new look of Google+.

The Gmail logo with a stylized “M” resembling an envelope, which users had been familiar with since 2004, has been replaced with a plain-text “Gmail.” Instead of the message “Sign in with your Google Account,” the right side of the page now has the message “Sign in,” beside a Google logo. Links to “Send feedback” and the old sign-in page can be found at the bottom of the new login page.

Last June, Chris Wiggins, digital creative director of Google said Google was working on a project to bring a “new and improved” Google experience. The new Google.com, which was overhauled as well, now a smaller logo and links moved to the top and bottom edges of the browser for a cleaner look.

The new sign in page looks cool and clean and I absolutely love the new look and feel. Have our other readers obtained access to the new preview page?

Happy 20th birthday World Wide Web!

It was twenty years ago today on 6 August 1991, Tim Berners-Lee presented a project for organizing information in what later became the World Wide Web. Yes so called internet celebrating its 20th Brithday today.

By marking a significant day in the progress of the Internet. On 6 August 1991, Tim Berners-Lee, published the first Web page, making the WorldWideWeb available publicly.

Berners-Lee first ever website was http://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html. He proposed the World Wide Web project in 1989 and the main reason of this project was to share data, news, and text among the scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Now after two decades a lot of sites and blogs are around us that continues the good work of Berners-Lee.

The motive of Berners-Lee about WWW was: “The WWW project aims to allow all links to be made to any information anywhere.”

We wish a very warm Happy Birthday to the web and especial thanks to Berners-Lee for his creative and innovative work!

SocietPlus: Get More Twitter Followers, Facebook Fans & Google +1 Clicks

SocietPlus is a remarkably innovative mechanism to get you more Twitter followers, Facebook page fans, Youtube viewers and Google +1′s. SocietPlus is a point-based;  When you follow others you earn points from them, which you can offer as an incentive for others to follow you and promote your profile. You can also set number of points you are offering per follow and whom you want to follow.

How SocietPlus works?

SocietPlus is a free service that will help you to grow up your Twitter, Facebook pages, YouTube, Google Plus one and Websites visitor for FREE. Before getting followers or fans you need to earn Points, how will you get them..

• Register: Register with username and password and get 50 points.
• Follow Twitter users, like Facebook pages, watch Youtube videos, and +1 others pages..Choose users with points higher than what your are offering to maintain a high ratio of followers to friends.
• Refer people to SocietPlus and get 50 free points per referral. Tweet your referral-link or place it on your website -As I’m doing here- and passively earn points while sleeping
• finally, you may also purchase points..They don’t sell Followers, Views, +1′s or Hits.

Register Here to Get your Free Points

I Hope this review was useful to you.. If you have any other tricks about growing your Twitter followings or Facebook likes, let’s hear it in the comments.