Facebook’s email service has officially launched. The well talked about service has been predicted to be dominate of all email services. The message system is now active.

The ‘New Message’ allows users to text, chat and email together in one simple conversation, according to the site. You just need to click on your ‘messages’ icon to start the activation process.

There have been plenty of changes on Facebook recently. The biggest changes are to the”Business Pages” that now feature photos and let you comment, share and ‘like’ as your business.

Here are some other new options and changes to look for:

Account Settings: The site added two new options to “Account Security” to help secure our browsing. You want to make sure the following are checked.

• Secure Browsing – This allows you to browse Facebook on a secure connection.
• Log in – This notifies you when you account is accessed by a new computer or mobile device.

News Feed: You have the option to select what status updates you want to view. You can select the following by scrolling down to the bottom of your News Feed and clicking on ‘Edit Options.’

• Friends and pages you interact with the most.
• All of your friends and pages (make sure this one is selected).

The social network has also modified the way we view photos. Don’t be shocked to see more alterations to the site in the near future.

Facebook’s email service has officially launched. The well talked about service has been predicted to be dominate of all email services, but only time will tell.

The ‘New Message’ allows users to text, chat and email together in one simple conversation, according to the site.

Click here to sign up and get your @Facebook email account.

After researching artists around the net, I have found that independent artists are not understanding the basics of online marketing. Indie artists are ignoring that fact that they need to purchase their own website domain name. This is imperative for artists, because the link to their site is what they need to employ in order to utilize search engine optimization. The domain name should also direct to the artist’s website page.

To help market their site, the website link needs to be posted on other websites, forums, blogs and message boards. Basically, this is similar to posting flyers all over the cities where they are playing shows. Every flyer seen and picked up is another potential fan that the band attracts.

By applying this method, indie artists are strengthening their page rank status, according to search engines. The artist’s website is more likely to be on the first page of searches when a person types in the artist’s name in a search engine such as Google or Bing.

The site’s content needs to be designed with keywords, so search engine crawlers can efficiently index the site. Of course, more occurs behind the scenes when designing a site to utilize SEO techniques.

An important fact that artists need to realize is that they are free to manage the content that is applied to their site such as: updates, the design and the merchandise being sold. The content is regulated by their own standards, period.

When indie artists use social networks such as Myspace or Facebook (who have their own rules and regulations) as their primary site, their profiles face restrictions. Indie artists need to understand that at any time News Corps. or Facebook can delete a profile if it violates their rules. Meaning, that all the time spent on content for the profile could be lost forever.

The artist’s profile links help their SEO and should be used to develop their online presence. However, the artists need to only use social networking sites as marketing tools and not their primary website in order to develop their online marketing status.

[The Buzz - GigHive]

During a show in Cincinatti, Ohio, Stone Temple Pilots’ front man takes a spill into a hole on stage. The vocals never stop for “Crackerman” as Scott Weiland attempts to get back on stage. (1:25 is when he falls) Weiland continued to play the show last Wed., Aug. 25.

BEWARE: YouTube has become the venue for breaking news and scandal.

Technocel, a leading accessory solution provider with over 11,000 products for the wireless market, is proud to announce Sprint Battery Boost, a portable recharging solution and SD card readerall-in-one for your mobile phone, Bluetooth headset and most micro USB devices.

Sprint Battery Boost features include….

• Built-in Battery – With a 600 mAh lithium ion battery, the Battery Boost provides convenient recharging to your mobile or USB device for up to 1 hour of additional talk time* via the micro-USB connector

• Micro SD card reader – Battery Boost doubles as a micro SD card reader that allows you to store and transfer data files including photos, documents and music files **

• Retractable USB Connector – When Battery Boost is placed within any USB port such as a computer, home or car charger, it will automatically charge its internal battery. You can even charge a battery and your handset at the same time

• Built-in Carabineer Clip – While on the go, use the built in carabineer to clip it on your belt loop, purse, keys, backpack or anywhere else

• Power button & internal battery status indicator – This indicates a low to high battery charge so you can easily see how much juice you have remaining

“Battery Boost consolidates mobile power and media storage into one convenient all-in-one device,” said Rami Rostami, CEO and founder of Technocel. “Perfect for a quick recharge or sharing your latest pictures, movies, and songs, this is one product that you’ll truly never want to leave home without.”

Sprint Battery Boost is available for $29.99 MSRP at Sprint Stores nationwide, Web sales, and 1-800-SPRINT1. For more information on product specifications and availability please visit www.technocel.com.

Did you get a nice new android based phone, but have found your battery draining a bit more than you’d like? You can see what’s been draining your battery by using the Battery Usage Screen (Settings > About Phone > Battery).

Here, you are able to view the cause of your draining problems. Besides downloaded apps draining your battery, there are areas that you can control to save some battery life such as:

• Adjusting Brightness
• Disabling Wi-fi
• Disabling Bluetooth

Full guide at How-To Geek.

We can now control our Facebook privacy settings on our mobile devices. This is pretty handy, especially if you only use the internet on your phone.

Facebook changed their privacy settings options in May, to customize our settings.

This comes after the backlash the social network took after a security specialist was able to create a torrent that crawled the public data on Facebook (BE WARNED: Facebook’s Public Data is Truly Public).

The torrent spidered the site’s online directory and has compiled more than 171 million entries with links to profiles that provides:

• Names
• Addresses
• Phone Numbers

This enhancement should make users more aware of privacy settings and how important they are if you want to limit who views your profile content.

A torrent has revealed how open your public data is on Facebook. Security specialist, Ron Bowes, created a torrent to scan public data throughout Facebook.

The torrent spidered the site’s online directory and has compiled more than 171 million entries with links to profiles that provides:

• Names
• Addresses
• Phone Numbers

Nearly 100 million users’ data is compiled on the torrent and can be download at SkullSecurity.com.

This hack sparks up the question, “Should Facebook set their default search to Friends Only?”

We can change the privacy settings manually, but obviously there are users who either forget or don’t know how to change the settings. There are also users who don’t realize that their data is out there for the world to see!

Your privacy settings should all be set to “Friends Only” if you do not have already have them set. Technically, this will allow only your sphere to see your information. But you information is always vulnerable once it is place on the internet.

Have you changed your privacy settings? Has Facebook’s interface changes confused you about how to change your settings?

Are you ignoring your companies policy and checking your social networking sites at work? A study by Cisco shows that 50% of employees surveyed are checking out their profiles on company issued equipment.

Games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars on Facebook seem to be drawing employees away from work significantly reducing productivity.

Employees are even going out of their way to make sure they can access the blocked sites on they company’s pc. According to the survey, 27% of employees found ways to change their computer settings to get on the sites.

Read more about the survey at Mashable.