Tech Week In Review: Facebook API and Desktop, Swine Flu, 4Chan, and Phishing

Facebook API

First, Facebook starts copying features from FriendFeed and Twitter. Now, they have decided that copying features isn’t enough to stay on top and they’ve decided to open up their API to developers. The only problem there is that Facebook isn’t as open as we first thought. It’s so-called open API is just a tease, nowhere near as useful as what Twitter, FriendFeed and many other services have to offer.

Facebook Desktop

On the heels of their API announcement, Facebook also dropped a desktop client based on Adobe AIR (the same technology used for Tweetdeck, Seesmic Desktop, etc.). Since all it does is Facebook, it’s not all that useful at this point, but the Seesmic folks say they’ll be dropping something better shortly.

Swine Flu

An epidemic recently spread across the blogosphere and the twittersphere. Everyone is talking about swine flu (which you actually can’t get by eating pork or kissing pigs). If you want to find out where the actual flu is spreading, you can check Google Maps. Want to avoid the flu? Well, there’s an app for that too.

“Moot” Most Influential Person in the World

Christopher Poole , aka Moot, is the founder of the 4chan online hacker forum. He was recently voted the most influential person in the world by Time Magazine’s online poll for the Time 100. How did this happen? Probably something to do with the part I said about 4chan being a hacker forum. Defeated, Time just threw up their hands and let it be.

More Phishing Scams

I’m not sure why this stuff keeps happening, but there have actually been two new phishing scams.  This means someone is trying to steal your password by catching you slipping. In this case, it’s your Facebook account the scam is after and it involves the domains fbaction.net and fbstarter.com. To avoid this stuff, don’t login to a site that you didn’t visit by typing in or clicking your own bookmark. Also, look at your location bar before you put in your password, make sure it’s the correct site.