TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran voiced defiance on Saturday in the face of Western condemnation over a new nuclear fuel plant, with a senior official saying the facility would soon be operational and make the “enemies blind.”U.S. President Barack Obama demanded on Friday that Iran come clean about its nuclear program or risk “sanctions that bite” after the disclosure of the new uranium enrichment plant under construction southwest of Tehran.On Saturday, Obama said the discovery of the facility showed a “disturbing pattern” of evasion by Tehran which added urgency to its planned talks with world powers in Geneva on Thursday.The West…
Business
Iran defiant in nuclear row ahead of Geneva talks
Facebook
Live Coverage Of Facebook’s Advertising Announcement
Sheryl Sandberg is speaking today at 11:00 AM EDT. We’ve embedded the stream of the keynote live below. We’re expecting Sheryl to announce “Brand Lift” the company’s new partnership with Nielsen to measure the effectiveness of various advertising campaigns. We actually have some screenshots of Brand Lift in action that we’ll be updating this post with shortly. In the meantime you can watch the stream live below.
[11:06 AM EDT] – We’re still waiting for Sheryl to come on stage. The stream just temporarily posted a shot of the stage however we’re still on stand by.
[11:13] – We’re still…
Business
Crisis fails to topple US as world’s top power: Study
LONDON: The United States was dealt a blow by the financial crisis but remains the world’s main power and can maintain its influence if it works with allies to achieve its goals, a study said on Tuesday. A report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank in London said that despite taking an economic hit, the downturn has highlighted how other states look to Washington for their lead. “The vivid message of the financial crisis… was that America continued to be of vital importance to other countries, including its putative rivals as pre-eminent powers,” the IISS…
Facebook
How To Get Banned From Facebook: Sell Your Status Updates
Yesterday morning Facebook announced changes to their Site Governance documents which as a number of people pointed out removed the ability of users to profit from their status updates. More specifically Facebook states that “you will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain”. While I’m assuming that this is supposed to be straight forward about selling things through your Facebook profile, part of me wonders why Facebook needed to make this explicit statement.
Haters Call It “Selling Out”
Excuse my slang but is there anything wrong with posting updates that generate revenue? While I believe the intention…
Facebook
Chinese Government Shuts Down Facebook
Facebook is being blocked in China over the Urumqi clashes.
Rediya Kadeer, president of the World Uighur Congress, explained “social media is critical to the Uighurs’ cause” in an exclusive AllFacebook interview earlier this week. Facebook wall posts were used to spread news after Twitter shut down in Urumqi, China, AllFacebook reported Sunday.
China’s shutdown of Facebook is part of a larger social media trend where citizens are denied access to Facebook and Twitter as a means of enforcing state control over media. Google was also targeted in dramatic fashion on Chinese TV recently, when Google’s “autosuggest” search functionality was…
Facebook
Hundreds Die In Urumqi. Does The World Care?
According to the latest news reports from Urumqi, a far-flung city in western China, “calm” had returned to the streets as the death toll from Sunday’s protests hit 156, with 800 injured, and 1,434 protestors detained. Officials say most of the dead were Han Chinese, while Uyghur groups report that 90% of those killed were Uyghurs. Though reports about the ethnic background of those killed and accounts of the protest may vary, one thing is clear. The Chinese government has cracked down, enforced curfews, and rounded up protestors in an effort to stop future unrest. Meanwhile, wall posts from Uyghurs,…
Facebook
Signs Point To Launch Of Facebook Profile Fans Feature
There’s a new feature within the email notifications area of Facebook which enables users to receive an email every time somebody “Connects to me as a fan”. We first heard about this new feature last night and were able to confirm it this morning. Just yesterday we wrote about how Facebook Pages have become your friends, which is another step in the merging of profiles and Pages. The combination of profile fans and the new granular publisher controls will help complete the twitterfication of Facebook.
Facebook has been in an all out war with Twitter for the past few months,…
Facebook
Facebook Launches In Persian Earlier Than Expected
Tonight Facebook will be posting on their blog that they’ve launched the Persian translation of the site to help those in Iran communicate more effectively. What’s not as clear is if Iran has unblocked access to Facebook which had been difficult to access from within the country according to numerous sources. This evening Facebook stated that, “because of the sudden increase in activity we decided to launch it sooner than planned.”
With all the buzz surrounding Twitter and Iran and with increasing buzz on Facebook as well about Iran, the company found it important to launch support earlier. Facebook continued…
Facebook
Facebook Enabling Users To Post Updates To Everybody
I was in the process of writing a post today about the new ability that Facebook’s adding for users and Mike Arrington of course beat me to the punch. Mike is calling it the “Everyone Button” and while I can’t confirm that an “Everyone Button” is how it will be implemented, I can confirm that Facebook will be launching a tool to let users post public status updates. I’ve also heard that users will be able to subscribe to the public status feed of users, in a model that’s similar to Twitter.
This is essentially another step in Facebook’s assault…
Facebook
Facebook Starts Testing New Version Of Search, It’s A Huge Upgrade
This evening Facebook has announced that they’ve begun testing out a new version of Facebook search. The latest version of search is a huge upgrade from the previous version. Now, rather than just seeing pages and people for a given search query, Facebook will search through content that’s posted by people, organizations, and public figures. According to Kari Lee, “With the test, you will be able to search your News Feed for the most recent status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you’re a fan.”
This upgrade is nothing…
Facebook
Facebook And Social Platforms Give Control Back To The People
First Facebook and then a number of other sites were being blocked by Iran. It isn’t exactly an atypical action by a regime who has done so before on a number of instances. This time something was different though. Twitter became the unlikely hero of a large group of individuals who were calling for a vote recount and regardless of the outcome were furthering a movement. What’s becoming increasingly clear is the widespread impact that social technology is having on the world.
For the first time it feels as though we are part of something greater and that the people…
Facebook
Facebook Could Help Oust Ahmandinejad From Iran (Updated)
One of the world’s most hardline leaders may soon lose his position as the President of Iran thanks to the increasing level of free public expression, much of which appears to be taking place on Facebook. Only three weeks ago I wrote about Iran blocking Facebook, but within days the site was back up and running. Mirhossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate, and former Prime Minister, has experienced tremendous growth in his Facebook Page from around 5,000 fans just a few weeks ago to almost 40,000 as of today.
While Facebook may not be the primary source of opposition campaigns, it…
