Ars Technica reports that it started monitoring Facebook process some three years back. However, even after this long period, Facebook still had to admit that it, “did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site.” According to Ars Technica, even after you delete your pictures off your Facebook page, those pictures can still be access via direct link. So, you might want to think ten times before you post your pictures on Facebook.

Facebook, on its part, said that it is working on a process to ensure that the photos are deleted off its servers within 45 days of request. However, the social networking site did not provide any concrete date as to when the new system is likely to get operational. It may be up and running in a couple of months or as the previous experience suggests, it may drag on for a couple of years. In the meantime, we will advise you to refrain from posting incriminating pictures on Facebook.

Facebook Still Working on Deleting ‘Deleted Photos’ is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

The study was conducted on 205 subjects in Germany. These people were asked to report about their ‘desire’ to visit Facebook and Twitter and whether they were able to resist the urge. They were also asked to quantify their ‘desire’ on a scale ranging from mild to ‘irresistible’. During the span of seven days, total 10,558 responses were collected and out of these, 7,827 responses belonged to ‘desire episodes’.  If you are worried over the results, then you can take solace in study group leader’s statement. Wilhelm Hofmann stated that people succumb to these desire episodes because there is no apparent downside. However, he also warned that ultimately such urges may lead to huge waste of time.

Hofmann stated, “Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist.”

Are You Addicted to Twitter and Facebook? is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Facebook is poised to announced its intention to float on the stock exchange and in turn it will see its founder Mark Zuckerberg pocket upwards of 16 billion dollars for his shares.

The 27-year-old’s social networking website is expected to file the necessary papers as early as tomorrow in order to list the company on the US stock market in the spring.

The company would then be valued at between £48 billion to £64 billion making the founder a mulit-billionaire through the shares he owns. James Montgomery, head of US investment bank Montgomery & Co, said: “The float will be iconic.”

It’s a true story of the American dream for a Zuckerberg, who started the social network in his dorm at Harvard University in 2004. Originally created for students the site took off worldwide and now has 800 million users. The typical member has 130 “friends”. A staggering 250 million photos are uploaded every day. Facebook is thought to have made £640million last year mainly through advertising.

What’s next?

So what does Facebook have planned with its newly found fortune? Well, they are about to move to Silicon Valley’s number one address: 1 Hacker Way.

From humble beginnings in Harvard dorm room, to a rented house in Palo Alto to a series of temporary corporate offices, which it has quickly outgrown. The 8-year-old social networking giant is set to lay down permanent roots just in time for its public offering.

Facebook is the talk of the town in Silicon Valley as its the biggest company set up shop in since Google Inc. Located just south of San Francisco the nine-building complex has room for up to 3,600 employees, with the opportunity to increase the site to accommodate 6,600 subject to approval from Menlo Park.

The social network also bought a 22-acre site for a second campus, which is on the other side of the divided highway that can be reached through an underground crossing that is big enough for car to travel through. Facebook will install a people mover in the crossing to ferry its staffers back and forth to the new campus that it hopes to have ready by 2014. The two campuses will give Facebook room for as many as 9,400 employees.

It’s all part of a grand plan Zuckerberg has to create an urban oasis for all its Silicon staffers, and to put one over on its chief rival Google who are waging a war for the services of top engineers and executives.

Not everyone is convinced, though.

But not everyone is convinced by the sale of Facebook. “There’s way too much hype,” states Peter Leeds, penny stocks analyst and the leading speaker on speculative investments. “We’ve seen it before with blue chips and penny stocks alike – the over-priced, over-hyped IPOs get driven up in price at first, only to come crashing back to earth a few days later.”

“It’s a great company with a lot of value, but not as much as they’re hoping to get. Then with rampant, albeit ill informed demand post-IPO, the shares will be highly over priced. You’ll see exactly what I mean in March when Facebook has to release their financial reports, IPO or not.”

Leeds also suggests that investors trying to be a part of this IPO will end up losing money, as the hype fades away, and the Facebook shares come back down to earth. He also believes that Facebook activity levels are starting to decline, based on the analysis of his penny stocks team.

A bright future in social advertising.

Facebook‘s share of U.S. display ad impressions grew to 27.9 percent during 2011, according to comScore data revealed on Monday. It’s a sizable lift; the Reston, VA-based researcher estimated Facebook’s 2010 share of display ads at 21 percent.

Yahoo’s currently second with 11 percent of the market, comScore says, while Microsoft, Google, and AOL trail with less than 5 percent apiece. ComScore has placed Facebook No. 1 in the display ad impressions category since 2009.

As Facebook has grown to more than 800 million users worldwide, brands have gotten on board with vigor. The Menlo Park, CA-based digital giant has successfully courted Madison Avenue during the last two years in particular.

“Any time a site becomes so influential to the full digital landscape, advertisers are forced to pay attention,” comScore rep Andrew Lipsman told ClickZ News. “There was a time when brands thought of Facebook as a place for kids and teenagers. That’s obviously not the case anymore.”

At the time of writing:  Facebook is expected to file for its first IPO (initial public offering) on Wednesday, with the company expected to raise less than previously expected  - 5 billion – according to a new report.

According to International Financing Review, who are quoting sources close to the deal, the social networking site is planning to raise around half of what was previously expected.

Facebook is expected to start with a conservative base before deciding whether to increase. From there, the company will sell shares from May onwards with Morgan Stanley leading the effort – although Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and JP Morgan are also included on the list.

Facebook IPO: What It Means For Facebook’s Future is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Google also downplayed its controversial naming policy. Google’s VP of Product Bradley Horowitz said that only about 0.1 percent of Google+ users had issues with its initial policy. Out of these people, 60 percent wanted the ability to add nicknames, while 20 percent were interested in using pseudonyms. Remaining 20 percent were interested in setting up profile page for their businesses.

Google will be rolling out the new functionality starting this week. It will support names in non-roman languages, nick names and maiden names. It will also let you add an alternate name. All you have to do is to click ‘edit profile’ tab, select your name and click ‘more options’. In certain cases you may be required to establish your identity via official documents such as driving license or online presence.

Google+ to Allow Pseudonyms and Nicknames is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Tricia Parks of Parks Associates said, “Women are frequently the product buyers – and once she owns a CE product, she becomes a heavy user, most particularly for devices that allow sharing and uploading content and downloading TV programs.” The report also suggests that due to this trend, tech companies are now focusing their attention to female populations, and hence the surge in tech products in vibrant colors.

The report also stated that female surpass in the purchase of most of the consumer electronics products. Women also tend to make better use of the products they buy. The report suggests that women value ease of use and simplicity. They are more interested in the efficiency of the products than the ‘it’ factor. Women are also making their presence felt in hitherto male-dominated areas such as video games. They are also more engaged in online social networking. The study was conducted by Parks Associates for HSN.

Female Surpass Men in Buying Hot Tech Toys is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Google is also doing its best to promote its network. The company is sitting on massive cash pile and it is sparing no expense. Google is also claiming that ever since network’s inception, it has added a new feature every day. Google also gloated over the fact that the site also has high engagement factor as over 60 percent of users log in daily while 80 percent log in at least once weekly.

Google has been under fire for some of its under tablet tactics for increasing the user base of Google+. The internet search giant recently started integrating Google+ results into its usual search results. Rival networks such as Twitter have insinuated that Google is using its clout for promoting its website. But despite the criticism, Google is going ahead with its tight integration process. Google+ is now also tied closely with Gmail and the company is making it mandatory for users to sign up for Google+ in order to use other Google products such as Calendar and Mail.

Google Claims to have 90 Million Google+ Users is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

The report has also listed the various ways in which the social networking site has been used by warring couples. The top three reasons are inappropriate messages to members of the opposite sex”, “separated spouses posting comments about each other”, and “Facebook friends reporting spouse’s behaviour”. Ironically, another social networking site Twitter was mentioned only in 0.4 percent of the divorce cases filed in e011.

The stats highlight the need of moderate disclosure of your personal life on internet boards. Mark Keenan of Divorce-Online, said, “People need to be careful what they put on Facebook as the courts are now seeing a lot more evidence being introduced from people’s walls and posts in disputes over finances and children.” The survey was conducted using 5,000 divorce petitions.

Downside of Facebook: Cited in One-Third Divorce Cases in UK is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

Facebook held the top spot in ‘Top 10 US Social Networks & Blogs’ list. Twitter has been placed third, while Blogger is sandwiched between these two. Social networking site of yore, Myspace.com, also managed to make it to top 5, while LinkdeIn has been placed sixth. Google+ holds eighth position.

The ‘Top 5 Smartphone Manufacturers’ list also contains usual suspects. The top honor goes to Apple, with e9 percent market share, while HTC, with e1 percent share of the pie occupied second spot. RIM BlackBerry, despite its recent setbacks, came third, with 17 percent market share. Samsung and Motorola, filled fourth and fifth spot with 11 percent market share each.

Nielsen Presents “Tops of 2011” list: Facebook, Google Take Top Spots is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

The Electoral Commission is now employing the same social networking site for creating awareness among teenagers about their electoral rights and duties. A spokesperson for Commission said, “The low voter-registration rate among young people is very concerning. Our own research, published earlier this month, showed that only 56% of 19-e4-year-olds and 55% of 17- and 18-year-olds are on the electoral register.”

During 2011, 520,000 18-year-olds registered for voting, down three percent from 2010. Electoral Commission runs annual campaigns for raising awareness among teenagers as “Young people are an important group to target which is why social media has become an increasingly important platform for these campaigns.”

The report also highlights the importance of new technologies. Jonathan Westley, managing director with Experian said, “It is also vital to educate this demographic on the importance of registering to vote and explore how social media engagement could be part of this.”

Teens More Interested in Facebook than in Getting Registered for Voting is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com

If the trend continues, then the site is likely to have 100 million users by February 25th and 200 million users by August next year. Paul Allen also believes that 2012 will prove to be a good year for Google+ and it may end the year with 400 million users.

If these projections turn out to be true, then it would be a great boost for the fledgling social networking company. Its rival Facebook had taken seven years to reach 800 million user mark. According to Allen, “It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 sign-ups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks.”

Google+ Crosses 62 Million User Mark: May Touch 400 Million Milestone in 2012 is a post from: UK Gadget and Tech News, Reviews and Shopping Site - Gaj-It.com