Pipe B Blog

This blog will be shutting down indefinitely. There’s a chance that it will be resurrected and revamped in the future though. Bye for now!

This morning (midnight EST) Facebook began allowing its users to have “usernames” whereby you can:

Easily direct friends, family, and coworkers to your profile with a Facebook username.

But who really cares? Out of the 200+ million users of the social networking website, only about 200,000 grabbed a username. The website provides little information as to how useful these usernames would actually be, and the hassle involved (and strictness) is probably the leading factor that is turning people off.

For example, when checking whether a username is available, this message appears:

(USERNAME) is available. Remember, you can’t change your username once you set it. Are you sure you want to set (USERNAME) as your username?

Nobody really cares, and once again, Facebook is taking a step in the wrong direction and trying to do too much, and turning its users off in the process.

While software-maker Microsoft Corp. is trying to convince consumers that its latest operating system Windows 7 is completely new and innovative, its competitor Apple disses it, claiming that it’s just the same old Windows.

During the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), Bertrand Serlet from Apple stated that the Windows 7 had very similar complexities that existed in previous versions of Windows. Serlet even went as far as to say,

Fundamentally, it’s just another version of Windows Vista.

When talking about Apple’s latest Snow Leopard operating system, he took a much different tone. Apparently, he is not only proud of Leopard, but also loves it!

It is becoming ever more theorized that the online social community website Facebook is quietly building a micropayment system to be integrated within its website. This platform is rumored to be similar to a virtual currency, that may fluctuate daily just like any other “real” currency.

According to Facebook spokesman David Swain,

We do not have details to share at the moment because this will be a very small alpha, only a handful of developers, but will likely share more as we evaluate the results of the test.

Do you remember when “Gifts” first became available through Facebook? They offered each item at the price of $1, payable using a credit card. This was later turned into a point-like system, where USD is used to purchase credits, and “Gifts” became priced according to these credits.