One of the things that really sucks about Facebook is the limit on the number of “friends” users are allowed to have. Facebook limits individual users to 5,000 friends, which is very difficult for me since I’m so incredibly popular. That’s why I was so surprised this weekend when I checked out the profile of Nicole Richie’s ex Adam “DJ AM” Goldstein and saw him listed as having 5,001 friends. DJ AM and I became close personal friends because of our shared love of hip hop and having sex with hot Hollywood starlets.

DJ AM’s extra friend was probably a glitch since on Friday he wrote this message on his wall: “I CANT ADD ANYMORE FRIENDS :(” Today, he’s back down to 5,000 friends. On the other hand, perhaps this is a case of a celebrity receiving unfair VIP treatment from Facebook staff. If Facebook is letting people have extra friends they better get in touch with me because I need more space for all of my other famous buddies.

Yesterday, Facebook users were greeted with an ominous warning that “new Facebook will soon be the only Facebook.” Unlike Vince, I think the new design is a hot mess and it seems like many people agree with me.

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If you’re a Facebook user, you’ve probably noticed the new layout by now. While it has plenty of flaws, overall, it really helps blend the site together properly. A lot of my friends tend to not agree with me and switch back to the old version but soon they’ll be shit out of luck. Come September, Facebook will permanently switch over to the new layout. Says a Facebook exec:

“Around 20% of our users have now migrated to the new platform and it has been received well after people get used to it”

That’s not a good sign, so we’ll see what kind of chaos takes place next month when everyone is struggling to update their status. Personally, I think if you play with the design and UI enough, you’ll enjoy it. At least Facebook has instant messaging down pretty well.

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As far as social networking sites go, Facebook’s popularity is unmatched. It’s a good thing it isn’t real life, otherwise I’d be getting poked all the time. The comedy group “Idiots of Ants” portray what it’d be like if people took social networking features and acted them out in person.

The video goes into detail showing a satirical Facebook chat amongst friends which includes writing on each others wall, accepting or ignoring friendship requests and even tagging photos all in real life.  Can’t wait to see them act out all of those extra apps no one cares about.

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Is there anything Mozilla doesn’t create that facilitates your web surfing experience? Firefox 3 came out back in June, yet Mozilla is still working hard to provide its users with top end interactivity for its interweb softwares. Now, Mozilla wants to take its browser to the next level with instant messaging integrated into your web browsing. It’s called Snowl, that’s Snow and Owl combined for the less observant. Mozilla Labs lists a few key ideas behind their design phase:

• It doesn’t matter where messages originate. Whether they come from traditional email servers, RSS/Atom feeds, web discussion forums, social networks, or other sources, they are all the same.
• Some messages are more important than others, and the best interface for actively reading important messages is different from the best one for casually browsing unimportant ones.
• A search-based interface for message retrieval is more powerful and easier to use than one that makes you organize your messages first to find them later.
• Browser functionality for navigating web content, like tabs, bookmarks, and history, also works well for navigating messages.

As of now, Snowl is still in its prototype phase but is free to download at the link provided below. It supports two sources of messages: RSS/Atom feeds and Twitter. No word on whether or not Ogio will make a Snowl backpack. If they did, I’d rock it. Hit the jump for more information:

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For those not familiar with the Facebook application Cityware, it uses Bluetooth technology to monitor tens of thousands of people around the world via their mobile phone and then dumps the data on Facebook. The best part? None of these people give their consent to be monitored.

You say your boyfriend got the sweats when you asked him how The Dark Knight was? That’s because he never went to see the movie. Instead, he was out sleeping around because he thinks you’re such a bad lay. With Cityware, you can see where that no-good cheatin’ son of a bitch is going out at nights. As long as his Bluetooth is enabled, the freely-available Cityware software will track his movements. The folks behind Cityware claim it’s not a big deal. Stating that no data linking individuals to specific movements is ever recorded. Then again, when there’s a will, there’s a way.

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When Facebook announced that they would be rolling out their new Facebook Chat service, all that was said was that it would be rolled out very gradually to the public. What we didn’t know is that the social networking service was systematically rolling out the new service to their favorite group of Ivy Leaguer’s first.

The first people who were gifted with the new service were members from the Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, Berkeley, Brown, Dartmouth and MIT networks within Facebook, who were all among the first communities to give Facebook a following. We guess allowing those users to get first dibs is there way at giving back to the community. By the way, I’m still banned from requesting new friends, thanks to the “You might know these people” feature, and me, adding 5 people in successive fashion. Come on, Facebook! — Andrew Dobrow

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