Tech Week in Review 12-18-09

Vokle Goes Public

We covered Vokle a little while back. It’s a platform by which brands can engage with their communities and fans via live video. I think of it as a Ustream for business. They have just gone public so that everyone can take a peek. They have added a bunch of features since there initial launch, including:

• A super slick ‘Event Planner’ to get you organized
• Twitter Integration (sign in with your email, click ‘edit’ then ‘connect twitter’)
• iCal / Google Calendar Integration
• A hardware setup wizard
• And much more…

Threadsy Updates

While still incubating, Threadsy continues to grow and add new features. Threadsy serves as your all-in-one inbox. All your social media notifications and email in one place. We covered Threadsy just a few months ago. You can now take quick actions on your inbox, switch to small message view to see to see 2x the number of messages, include IMAP accounts, and authenticate using OAuth (one of the things I mentioned in the initial review). One of the coolest features for those who still IM is the integration of Meebo so that you can chat on any service, including Facebook, right from your inbox.

FTC Called In To Check Facebook’s Privacy Changes

Many people are still upset about Facebook’s new privacy changes, but nobody has actually done anything serious about it. Well, that’s changed as a group of ten Internet privacy groups, led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, has filed an official complaint with the FTC. After hearing different points of view on this, I can see where some people might be upset, but it’s mostly in that the changes were made in a somewhat deceptive manner. At least, for the less technically inclined, which is just about everyone.

Facebook Becomes More Diverse…Kinda

Facebook recently released some data showing that more black and hispanic people are using it. This is cool and all, except for the fact that they ascertained race by looking at surnames an comparing those to census data. Of course, they did a lot more analysis of the data from there, but I’m still not sure how reliable these results are. RWW makes an excellent point as to why this type of data, made more public, could be used for social good:

The example we’ve offered most commonly in calling for this data to be released is the history of what’s called real estate redlining. In the 1960s, when both U.S. Census information and real estate mortgage loan information were made available for bulk analysis, it was proven that banks around the U.S. were discriminating against home loan applicants in traditionally African American neighborhoods.

That was a big deal and we suspect that there are patterns of comparable importance, both positive and negative, hiding in Facebook’s huge store of data. [full story]

About the Author
Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
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