Month: March 2011

Commenting services like Echo and Disqus should look out. Facebook is stomping all over their lawn with their latest comment system roll out. Even if you’re not a Facebook fan, this is serious news for publishers.

One of the biggest drawbacks to commenting on a site is logging in or providing credentials. Facebook completely does away with that. If you’re logged in on Facebook, just add your comment and move on with life.

Because the system is based on Facebook, commenters are forced to use real names. All those trolls, troublemakers, spammers, and straight up cowards can no longer have their way with your comments area.

Besides making it easier for people to engage and comment on your site, there is one major feature Facebook brings to the table that no other system can. When you leave a comment, you can optionally post that comment on your Facebook feed. When people respond to that comment on Facebook, the replies are copied back to the site you commented on.

This deep integration with Facebook is just not possible for anyone but Facebook to do and could be very beneficial for publishers. On the flip side, there are many people who would never comment on your site if Facebook was the only option. Also, commenters who are also publishers now lose that link back to their own sites, instead getting a link back to their Facebook profile.

What do you think about Facebook comments? Awesome or not?

via TechCrunch

The web has been on fire with rumors about Apple will announce at their event tomorrow. Everything from iPhone Nano’s to iPad 2′s and MobileMe redesigns. As Techradar points out, the rumors may overshadow whatever Apple really has up their sleeve.

Apple watchers have been playing a game of “my dad’s bigger than your dad”, with iPads instead of dads. “My iPad 2 will have a retina display!” “Well, my iPad 2 will have an eight-core processor!” “That’s nothing! my iPad 2 will be made of carbon fibre and angel skin, and it will have an attachment that gets stones out of horses’ hooves!”

So, what can we really expect? The iPad 2 will more than likely be faster and thinner. It will bring dual cameras for some Facetime action. While some speculate it could have a high-resolution Retina display like the iPhone 4, John Gruber points out that including such a display would significantly raise the cost of the iPad 2.

Other tidbits we might see launched include iOS 4.3. The most exciting feature here seems to be multitouch gestures, but Apple has already made it clear that this feature won’t go live any time soon.

There has also been talk of a MobileMe redesign. Retail boxes of MobileMe are disappearing and it seems to be moving to an online-only service. It’s doubtful we will see any type of announcement around MobileMe as the service needs a lot of work and Apple’s new data center for managing cloud services will not be open until spring to support MobileMe and iTunes.

One important point to note is how Apple’s new subscription plan will affect the iPad. Originally, the iPad was a savior for publishers, taking only 30% royalties compared to 70% at Amazon. This forced Amazon to make changes in how they did business. Now, things are different.

Then Apple unleashed its in-app subscription service. Far from a savior, the service makes Apple look like a bully kicking a guy when he’s down. “We believe that your new policy smacks of greed,” wrote Rich Ziade of Readability, whose iPad app that aggregates news was recently rejected by Apple. via CIO

What do you think Apple will announce tomorrow?

via iPadDiscounts