SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook says it is testing a service that will charge users $1 to guarantee that messages they send to people they are not connected to arrive in users’ inboxes, rather than in an often-ignored folder called “other.”
Launched in 2011, the “other” folder is where Facebook routes messages it deems less relevant. Not quite spam, these include messages from people who users most likely don’t know, based on Facebook’s reading of users’ social connections. Many users ignore this folder.
Now, users will be able to pay $1 to route their messages to nonfriends. Facebook said last week that it is testing the service with a small percentage of individuals - not businesses - in the U.S.
“For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their Inbox,” Facebook said in an online post.
The company says charging for messages could help discourage spammers.
In October, Facebook unveiled another feature that lets users pay if they want more people to read their updates.
For $7, users can promote a post to their friends, just as advertisers do.
- The Associated PressFree Google Music storage ready
LOS ANGELES - Google has activated a “scan and match” service for Google Music users to store copies of their songs online for free.
The service, which began last week, cuts uploading time for those who want to save their music libraries online. It scans a user’s computer and gives them online access to the songs it finds, as long as they match the songs on its servers. Otherwise, it will upload songs to a user’s online locker.
The service is similar to Apple Inc.’s iTunes Match, which includes online storage for 25,000 songs but costs $25 per year. Google Inc. allows storage for 20,000 songs and allows users to re-download the songs only at the same quality as they were previously. Apple upgrades songs to iTunes quality.
Amazon runs a similar matching and uploading service called Cloud Player. It costs $25 a year for 250,000 songs.
A free version is limited to 250 songs.
According to the NPD Group, Apple accounted for 64 percent of U.S. music sales online, followed by Amazon at 16 percent. Google has no more than 5 percent, according to NPD. Other services make up the rest.
- The Associated PressTwitter starts Tweet archive feature
Twitter Inc. is letting users download an archive of posts to make its site more alluring as competition with Facebook Inc. escalates.
The move is designed to make it easier to view Tweets by month or search for certain words and phrases, the San Francisco-based company said last week on its blog.
Twitter is adding tools to help it win Web surfers and advertising dollars from social-networking rival Facebook.
The archiving feature started a week after the company unveiled color filtering for photos uploaded to applications for Apple’s iPhones and phones using Google’s Android operating system.
Starting last week, some people could request their archive of Tweets by pressing a button in Twitter’s settings.
The option will become available to all users in the coming months, the company said.
Facebook began to encourage its members to relive memories on the social network last year, when it introduced the “Timeline” profile for viewing photos and events from the past.
- Bloomberg NewsBrazilians market non-Apple ‘iPhone’
SAO PAULO - A Brazilian company has begun selling smart phones in Brazil with the iPhone brand after winning the legal right to use the name in Latin America’s biggest country. Adding insult to Apple Inc.’s injury, the phone runs on the Android operating system from Apple’s archrival, Google Inc.
Gradiente SA said in a statement that it filed its request to use the iPhone brand in 2000 when it realized “there would be a technological revolution in the world of cellphones with the convergence of voice and data transmission and reception via mobile Internet.” In 2008, Brazil’s government gave Gradiente the right to use the brand on its cell phones.
Brazilian trademark office spokesman Maratan Marques said Gradiente requested permission to use the brand before Apple did and has the exclusive right to use it through 2018.
Brazil Apple spokesman Maria Parra Rodriguez said the company had no immediate comment. Phone calls and e-mails to Apple Inc.’s headquarters in California went unanswered.
Gradiente said on its website that it started selling its iPhone last week for $300.
- The Associated Press
Business, Pages 20 on 12/24/2012