Google wants to buy you for $6 billion and you say no

That’s exactly what Groupon did, the leader in local daily deals. To read why, head over to Foture blog →

State of Twitter ecosystem - 600% more apps than last year [INFOGRAPHIC]

We have prepared an info-graphic showing the most interesting applications in Twitter ecosystem. We have also come to some interesting conclusions from this data.

This year already saw a 600% growth in 3rd party Twitter apps. It is most certain because of the Twitter’s introduction of the OAuth authentication, instead of Basic auth, which enabled the users to log into 3rd party apps without the need to give login or password. This move forced developers to sign up their applications, resulting in more accurate application count. Continue reading on Foture →

How companies generate their revenues using social media – case studies

There are a lot of articles teaching you how digital campaign should be designed, planned or managed. But not so many bloggers are writing about real-life case studies, which show how most experienced companies are using social media to boost their revenues. I decided to gather the information I found and give you some idea on how it works.
Read more on Foture blog →

How to debug your HTML/CSS and why Firebug is no longer the obvious web developer tool

Back in the days when I started making webpages, the only way to monitor your progress was a tedious routine of switching between the code editor and the browser, and reloading, reloading, reloading. Luckily nowadays, it’s really easy to check, edit and see the results just in your browser. For example, checking the “Develop menu” in the advanced preferences of Safari 4 enables interesting debugging features. In order have similar tools in Firefox, you have to install the Firebug plug-in. And in Google Chrome or Opera, these tools are available out-of-the-box. But which browser and code inspector should you choose? Continue reading on Foture

Likes, thumbs, stars and what is best to promote your content online

Everyone who at least once published some content online or displayed his work to public knows how crucial the evaluation buttons are. As an author you cannot wait to see how many people liked what you did, how many were disappointed and what kind of comments your audience have. Right after publishing you sit glued to your computer screen, checking every few minutes how many “likes” did you get, how many people shared your content, you are thrilled to answer every comment and when number of likes, shares and comments grow you almost hear the victory tone in your head, cause all this means it worked!!! What exactly worked? The Word Of Mouth marketing! Continue reading on Foture

How to control sharing your Facebook data using friends lists?

Few days ago Facebook launched a new functionality – Friends lists. You may have not even noticed them, which means the functionality is not critical for your Facebook activity. However, if you look deeper into it, then you discover how handy they are. Having multi language posts on your wall may be annoying – Facebook lists are the solution. They make it easy to protect your private data from some friends. A video tutorial at the end of this article will show you how to create lists and handle the privacy settings. Continue reading on Foture

Note to my readers: From now on I will be writing on the Foture blog, about pretty much the same stuff I was covering here on f055.net – I’ll keep posting excerpts of new articles, like this one, for some time, but be sure to subscribe to Foture feed to get the latest posts in your reader. Thanks!

Is your Mac hacked by a Rootkit?

Viruses and trojans are getting into the systems through many holes these days – Windows was particularly hit recently with DLL and EXE hijack vulnerability (although this exploit is a bit exaggerated, the notion of path finding and security concerns was present in the MSDN for years, I remember it back in the days I developed in WinAPI). Anyway, there’s even a nastier thing than the common malware – the rootkits. Did you know Mac have their own rootkits too? And a tool to scan for them.

Did Google just pulled the plug on cloud computing, or the Wave only?

Google recently dropped Wave, its revolutionary collaboration platform I wrote about last year. The general reaction is a surprise, firstly because the Wave was very innovative, though not well packaged, secondly because no longer than a few months ago Google was actively promoting Wave to business partners on the Google IO 2010. And now, they are just stopping the service, just like that. Ok, it’s not the first product they closed, but this time the ecosystem is bigger, and the consequences are higher. And an important question arise – how dependable cloud computing really is?

The curious case of a Mirror app

This is a short story about a general wondering as to how is Apple calculating and displaying app quality ratings. Or, why is an app that has 169 1-star reviews, out of 171 total, having a 4-star rating, using the UK App Store iPhone app (possibly, it’s the same in US Store too).

My Personal Top 10 Free Games for the iPhone

In general, free games for the iPhone and iPod Touch pretty much suck. They are either very stupid, very ugly, very boring or have very bad controls. After using an iPod Touch for almost half a year now, I have pinpointed just a small number of titles worth the place on the dashboard. I really wished for more, but maybe my expectations are too high. One way or another, here is the list of 10 free iPhone games that are not utter rubbish, and should give you more gameplay than the usual start-playonce-remove scheme of most of the free games in the App Store. Enjoy!