Rumours doing the rounds at a few places claiming FB want to buy Opera software, the people behind the excellent Opera browser. Now, I haven't got a problem with this, however, Opera own Fastmail, a quality paid-for email service, which I am using for email and file storage. If FB get their grubby mitts on Fastmail, my account with them will be closed straight away. Fastmail already have a new beta interface ready (only a couple of years after the latest), looking very Facebook-ish. If the rumours are true, it would be a sad day for the internet in my view. The web is fast becoming Google, Microsoft or Facebook-centric, its getting harder to avoid these 3 big services in any shape or form.
Agreed Once upon a time it was CIX, CompuServe and AOL, I was a member of all three at one time or another, oh how I remember the sound of connecting to CIX on a 9600 baud modem in 1990, the internet in those days was hard to connect to, I remember on CIX there was a submenu on the CIX terminal app that activated TCPIP and associated tools like Telnet and FTP, the first place I ever connected to on the internet was NASA and what a buzz that was Http had not been invented at that time and it was really only all the old Unix protocols that were available but even then X-Windows sessions were available but the remote programs were pretty much all text based and non graphical great times though, the first 9600 baud modem I had cost my pal (my boss) over 1000 quid each if I remember correctly, he bought three of them, main reason was that I lived on the west coast and he lived on the east coast in Edinburgh and at the time I was not mobile so we had to have a way to send the software back and forth. As an aside Scotland had some very good BB (bulletin board) services in those days, they all looked like Cefax but they were great. Anyway the point is that openness is always better than closed systems and while the three biggies will probably dominate the west we should always remember that there is a whole other internet out there in foreign languages that we know almost nothing about, I don't think the net will get locked down forever by these companies. PS I don't use Opera but I do feel uncomfortable with Facebook trying to buy it
I still have my AOL email address from 1997, just can't bring myself to close it even though I get probably 3 useful emails a year. I remember my first internet session via the awful AOL software back in '97, laugh about it now, but back then it was the dogs doolies to computer novices like me. Especially when you had Purdey aka Joanna Lumley welcoming you to AOL and announcing you have email, then wishing you goodbye when you logged out of AOL. All of that on a Windows 95 release 1 486dx 850mb hard drive with 4mb RAM (later upgraded to 8mb!!) By the way, when I was working in Malta on the TV station back in 95, I used input data for the station's ceefax service (not sure what system they had or what it was called) they had over there - spelling mistakes included. Probably a nation of Maltese grown up with bad English spelling because of me! It was a good laugh though. I had no training whatsoever, the management said there's the keyboard, here's how to create pages and content, the rest was up to me...
Cool I got my first big business break via CompuServe in early 1997, I was at the time one of the top UK experts on a programming language called Visual Objects, this was due to a dearth of developers at the time but I had been on the beta for over a year and it was a truly wonderful development language. Anyway I got in contact with a big Scottish Electronics firm via CompuServe and due to my expertise in that language I overnight doubled my turnover, without them I would not have got involved with the Philippines either so the old private BB system was one of the most influential forces in my entire career, entire life to be honest.
Facebook won't put out a closed browser, just something using their own search engine (that they are working on) and cream the ad revenue form off of that! Though one way or another you will find it tough to get beyond big corporate software providers. Though I suspect Firefox will become the underground and cult browser (or another will pop up). Another thing is how Facebook are going to change the search algorithms that the likes of Google and others rely on. Essentially, for websites to hit the top of their search results it will take multiple posts from that website onto Facebook from users, providing a more user generated rating system. Google lists search results using a number of factors, number of links to a website and the quality of the websites linking to that website. Recently they have changed that based upon social relevance and including their own Google+ and other recommendations, though we now hear that they are going to penalise websites with spam links up and down the internet.. So, SEO (search engine optimisation) is changing if not dying. And the Facebook browser is just another link in the evolution of this! Thing is though.. Facebook already have a working browser in development (sshhhh), but they require buy products for a few select reasons. One is to acquire the team behind that product and the other is to get some patents.... Expect a Facebook browser later this year (as I had posted a few weeks back).
