Has everyone moved over to Facebook?

I don't have the article saved - because I lost saved articles in my recent computer crash - but my memory is that if you have a Flickr account, or that of other online sites, let's say with your real name, and have a FB account under that name, they will pick up your photos from Flickr and deposit them in your FB acct. Don't trust me since I read about this new plan of theirs about three weeks ago and haven't tried to verify it. If my understanding of what I read is true, I find that infuriating..

Facebook can’t stop people from posting your picture. But there’s a Facebook setting that prevents other users from finding photos tagged with your name. Choose that setting, and other users won’t be able to search for photos of you...If one of your friends on Facebook has already tagged you in a photo, look beneath it for the label “In this photo.” Your own name will have an extra link next to it, “remove tag.” Click it. The tag with your name goes away. Even better, no one else will be able to tag you in that shot again.

Correction: As several readers pointed out, I misunderstood Facebook’s response to my question. There is no way to prevent someone from tagging a photo with either your username, or your name as a tag. What’s possible is you can prevent other users from searching for photos of you.

is that sarcasm? Lack of competency with Google? What?

Once you initially tell it where to look, it will collect everything and tell it to the world.

The goal is to make automatic that which is all too annoying to do manually. If I like an article enough to Digg it, why should I then have to tell all my friends via Facebook or Twitter, as well? The social-media landscape has become disparate enough -- so many start-ups controlling so many different pieces of our lives -- that we need a central place that will organize all of our actions for us. That place is FriendFeed.

So here's a theory: FriendFeed is going to become the companion to Facebook Connect; Facebook Connect pipes Facebook out to other sites, while FriendFeed's technology pipes other sites in.

How do I deduce this? It's reasonable to assume that Facebook won't somehow combine FriendFeed's user database with Facebook's. It's likely all FriendFeeders are Facebookers, and the two networks aren't set up to be compatible. And unlike much of the tech press, I don't believe this acquisition is about real-time search or a competition with Twitter.

Instead, I think this is about social aggregation. Facebook bought FriendFeed so it could become the Huffington Post of your social life.

To understand the allure of this kind of aggregator, one only has to look to successful news aggregators. Take the devilishly popular Huffington Post, for example. For better or worse, the site's mash-up of news from disparate sources has struck a cord among its 7 million monthly visitors. Its home page is a mix of links to blog posts from Huffington Post contributors and links to outside stories from the news media. Rather than hunt and peck through all these other sites, people go to the Huffington Post to be delivered a smattering of links. Aggregators work because they do all the hard work for you.

I'd still love to be able to see all the links I'd ever posted at A2K in one spot.

Facebook is planning name change

Facebook is planning to rebrand itself with a new name focused on the metaverse,
the Verge reported on Tuesday, as the tech giant comes under fire from regulators
around the world over its business practices.

Facebook's parent company Meta lays off more than 11,000 employees

Meta said it was laying off more than 11,000, or about 13 percent of its work force, in what amounted to
the company’s most significant job cuts. The layoffs were made across departments, though some areas,
like recruiting, were affected more than others.

“I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in a
letter to employees. “I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted.”