Hasbro can now stop worry about a server overload on its Facebook Scrabble application: only two days after disappearing from Facebook, Scrabulous is back, but with a new name (Wordscraper), and minor tweaks to hopefully eliminate any copyright issues.
Obviously the name is a good start in terms of deflecting lawsuits.
On Tuesday, Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada awoke to horror - the shutdown of the extremely popular Scrabulous game, in the wake of a lawsuit filed by Hasbro, the parent company of the official Scrabble game. There shouldn't have been much withdrawal pain, though, since after all, Electronic Arts (EA, which handles the digital rights to Scrabble for Hasbro) had already created a beta version of the official game, right?
Facebook furore as youngster reveals his transfer plan to millions
Don't worry, Rupert (Murdoch); MySpace still outdraws Facebook in terms of unique U.S. visitors. But in terms of worldwide visitors: second place.
Many, perhaps most, Facebook users do not want Microsoft. They were a little upset when they purchased under 3% of the company. If that becomes 50+%, we will likely see a large-scale exodus. Sadly, it would happen right after Facebook passed MySpace on Alexa.
You'll recall that Facebook recently ratcheted up their privacy controls. Apparently they didn't ratchet them tight enough.
Since last week's announcement, Vancouver computer technician Byron Ng has been trying to hack past the privacy controls. Why he was doing this, I'm not sure. I am pretty sure it was for altruistic reasons, since as soon as he discovered the hack, he revealed it to AP, who verified the hack themselves.
You may recall that Chris Avenir, a first-year chemical engineering student at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, faced expulsion after it came to light that he had created a Facebook-based chemistry study group.
In a surprise move, Time-Warner's AOL division on Thursday announced it has acquired Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo claims a global membership of about 40 million users and is the top social networking site in Ireland and New Zealand. It is No. 3 in the United States behind MySpace and Facebook, but it trails badly there.
If you are a member of Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and/or Blogger then you can get free photo scanning from ScanMyPhotos.com. This is normally a paid service, but ScanMyPhotos.com wants to redirect their free campaign, which they also did for the Writers Guild of America members, to the users of these four top social networking sites.
