Even if you hate Facebook, there are some very compelling reasons to have an account. Like, for instance, the fact that most of your friends probably have accounts. It’s tempting to have an account simply so you can see what they’ve been up to and view their photos. But, how can you join Facebook without getting involved? It’s possible.

What we’re aiming to do here is create a Facebook account with minimal information and minimal interaction: Read-only mode. It’s an account used just to look at what other people are up to, not for your own sharing. Even if you don’t intend to create a read-only mode account, read on to see if there are any parts of your Facebook account that are currently more exposed than you’d like.

If you’re looking to make a read-only Facebook account, it may be tempting to use a fake name and birthday with a throw-away email account. While you may get away with this for a while, Facebook also might one day delete your account without warning. My opinion is that it’s best to stick to Facebook’s terms, but to give minimal information outside of that. Also, use an email address you won’t lose access to.

Keep in mind that your name, gender and profile picture will be public no matter what you do. So, perhaps upload a picture of a nice tree as a profile pic to keep your image generic.

When you create your account, Facebook will ask you to sync your email address book with Facebook. If you want privacy and minimal contact, don’t do this. It will be used to suggest friendships to both you and your friends.

Although it’s possible to not enter any information to your timeline, some things are there already, like your email address and birthday. You also generate information for the timeline when you like Pages, updates or photos, and make comments. You may not intend to do any of these things just now, but one day you might. Content is also generated when your friends tag you or write on your Timeline.

There are a number of steps to ensuring your account is really locked down. For starters, head to Privacy Shortcuts > See More Settings. Work through every item and lock things down to “Only Me” or the most private option possible. For instance, “Who can see my stuff?” can be locked down to “Only Me”, while “Who can look me up?” can be locked to “Friends”.

To stop your friends writing on your timeline and tagging you, click on the Timeline And Tagging Settings tab. Change everything to the most limited setting. For instance, “Who can post on your timeline?” can be locked to “Only Me”, and all options to “Review tags” should be ON. If the option for “Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded?” is available to you, limit that as well.

In your settings, click on the Follower Settings tab and ensure Following is turned off (if it is, the headline would be “Turn On Follow”). This will ensure you are not followed by anyone hoping you’ll one day give them some content.

Despite your best intentions, you may find yourself “Liking” content on Facebook, such as photos and comments. These “Likes” are public by default, so you need to change that. Head to your timeline and click on your “About” tab, or head straight to your “Likes“.

Click on the little pencil, choose “Edit Privacy” and then change each item to “Only Me”. You’ll also want to do similar for the rest of the sections, such as Movies, Books, TV Shows, Places, Friends, Photos, Games, Music, Groups, plus each and every little section listed under “About”, including Basic Information, Contact Information, Living, Work & Education. For some of the sections like “Events” and “Groups” you are given the option to “Hide Section”. Do this if you want to keep them private.

If you just want to read what other people have to say, Facebook chat is probably not something you want left on. You can turn it off completely, or you could limit your chat settings to just a few people using their names or a Facebook friends list.

You may be creating a read-only Facebook account specifically to use certain apps, or you may be against them. However, if you are using apps, make sure all of them are set so that any updates they make are restricted to the “Only Me” privacy setting. This can be done when you first authorize the app to access your Facebook account.

Getting Information Out Of Facebook

If you also don’t intend to use Facebook regularly, you might like to use a few tricks to get Facebook information out of its domain and into the real world. For instance, getting Facebook birthdays and Facebook events into your Google Calendar, reading your friends’ updates using your RSS reader, and more.

Deleting Or Hiding Previous Posts

If you have already been using your account socially, you may have a bunch of updates and likes that you want to get rid of. Check out your Activity log to delete everything one-by-one. Otherwise, just limit all your past posts to “Only Me”.

About Read-Only Mode

Yes, this whole idea of read-only mode is not exactly easy. It’s surprising just how many obstacles Facebook has put in the way, despite streamlining their privacy settings. In addition to everything mentioned above, keep in mind that if you’ve had a Facebook account in the past, simple things like the same phone number can provide Facebook with plenty of information, so don’t be surprised if you start getting friends suggestions from your past despite not including any personal information.

Are you planning on having your Facebook account set to read-only mode? Do you think it’s worth it, or is it better to just not have an account at all?

 

In an effort to inject Facebook into more public conversations, the company on Wednesday introduced embeddable posts that will let blogs and news organizations include status updates, videos and photos in stories.

The posts work in the same way as embeds from Twitter and YouTube. Once your account is enabled, you will have the option to "Embed post." That will produce a code you can cut and paste into a blog entry or HTML file.

For a post to be embeddable, it must be set to public. In its announcement, Facebook used a status update from the British Monarchy about the recent royal birth as an example:

 

Though an estimated 72% of Facebook users set their posts to private, the company has lately been looking to tap its public posts for added commentary and color on topical issues.

With this in mind, Facebook introduced hashtags in June so users and journalists could track conversations on Facebook about various issues. The new embeds can also include hashtags, which readers can click on to see those discussions.

The intent of such efforts is to provide more inventory to advertisers looking to reach people during live events, like the Super Bowl or the Oscars. Until now, Twitter has offered the lion's share of such ad opportunities, but with 1.1 billion users, 28% of Facebook audience offers a viable alternative.

Remember the mass scare on Facebook a while back where almost everyone changed their status to “I want to stay connected to you PRIVATELY, but you need to uncheck this that and the other”? It has come around again, but this time it’s a meme about Facebook’s “Graphic App”. And guess what? It’s yet another completely pointless pile of rubbish tips that won’t protect anyone from anything. The first giveaway is in the supposed “Graphic App”, which doesn’t actually exist. From there on it just gets more and more silly.

The “Graphic App” Update Spiel

Here’s what it says:

Hello to all of you who are on my list of contacts of Facebook. I would like to ask a favour of you. You may not know that Facebook has changed its privacy configuration once again. Thanks to the new “Graphic app”, any person in Facebook anywhere in the world can see our photos, our “likes” and our “comments”. During the next two weeks, I am going to keep this message posted and I ask you to do the following and comment “DONE”. Those of my friends who do not maintain my information in private will be eliminated from my list of friends, because I want the information I share with you, my friends, to remain among my friends and not be available to the whole world. I want to be able to publish photos of my friends and family without strangers being able to see them which is what happens now when you choose “like” or “comment”. Unfortunately we cannot change this configuration because Facebook has made it like this. So, please, place your cursor over my photo that appears in this box (without clicking) and a window will open. Now move the cursor to the word “Friends”, again without clicking and then on “Settings”. Uncheck “Life Events” and “Comments and Like”. This way my activity with my family and friends will no longer be made public. Now, copy and paste this text on your own wall (do not “share” it!). Once I see it published on your page, I will un-check the same for you. Thanks so much!

Debunking The Spiel

Yes, this is a hoax — another Facebook Myth. It may have been started with good intentions, but in reality it just makes people think that they’re safe when they aren’t. That, and it makes friends jump through a bunch of useless hoops to supposedly protect a friend and maintain their friendship. Let’s walk you through what’s actually going on here.

There is no such thing as the “Graphic App”. They most likely mean to refer to Facebook Graph Search, which has recently been opened up to everyone using the US dictionary. Graph Search makes it easy to search for things that are available for you to view on Facebook. For instance, you could search for “Photos of my friends liked by my friends” in order to view a good collection of the best photos of your friends. This may involve viewing photos uploaded by people you don’t know, but only if that person’s privacy settings allow it.

What Are You Actually Doing By Following These Steps?

The spiel tells you to hover over their photo, then hover over “Friends” and “Settings”, then uncheck “Life Events” and “Comments and Like”. These settings are actually used to change what you see from said friend. So, if I follow these instructions, I will no longer see “Comments and Likes” or “Life Events” from this friend. I’ll still see the other things they post, but I’ve essentially told Facebook that I don’t want to see those particular things from this person. This is what you should do if you are sick of seeing your friend posting about their new job, adding dozens of “Me too” comments or liking everything they see. And yes, you do see these things if you’re watching the ticker feed.

What Are These People Trying To Stop, Exactly?

What these instructions don’t do is what they claim to do. These instructions will not stop strangers from seeing the things your friend shared that their friends liked. To be a little less confusing, consider the following scenario:

Fred is worried about his Facebook privacy, as he heard that strangers might be able to see his life events, comments and likes. If Fred hasn’t locked down his privacy settings and isn’t careful about where he comments and what he likes, this may be true. If Fred comments on or likes a public update by Bill, the comment or like may be seen by anyone who has liked Bill’s update, commented on Bill’s update or is friends with Bill. They may see this in their ticker feed, on their home page, on Bill’s Timeline or in the results of a search. Fred should protect his privacy by refraining from commenting on or liking public posts.

Instead, Fred re-posts this fancy spiel about the “Graphic App” and hopes that all his friends follow the instructions, then mumbles to himself about Facebook wanting to expose all of his private data. He hopes he won’t have to un-friend all of his friends in two weeks when he finds they haven’t followed these instructions.

What Should You Do Instead?

For starters, lock down your profile to be “Friends-only” using Facebook’s privacy settings. You can even change all your old posts to follow suit if you like. This step is as much for your privacy as it is for your friends’ (as you’ll see in the next step).

Next, talk to your friends about privacy settings and see if you can convince them to limit their profiles to “Friends-Only”. If they do this, this means that when you comment or like something of theirs it will be viewable to only your friends and their friends.

Read more about Facebook Graph Search and the best Graph Search privacy tips you can make use of. In particular, untag yourself from public photos or photos you don’t like. Check your timeline to see what things you’ve liked in the past and how public those likes are. Everything can be adjusted.

Finally, don’t like or post comments on public updates if you have a problem with people seeing that you’ve done this. Check before you comment on or like something. A public post will have an image of a globe on it. But keep in mind that even friends-locked posts can be made public later if the poster changes their settings. Always be prepared for these things to become more public down the track.

Have you seen a lot of these “Graphic App” updates? Were you tempted to re-post it?

 

Your Twitter header image is an important part of your social media identity, but as always, it’s just one more thing to decide on. After all, your profile picture was hard enough, right? Fortunately for you, there are quite a few sites out there on the Internet available for you to find fantastic looking Twitter header images for your personal usage and for free.

Below are six of these wonderful sites, and each one of them brings something just a little special to the table. Try ‘em out, see which ones you like, and take one of their offerings for a spin. Furthermore, these sites are constantly updating with new images, and like-minded sites are popping up quite often as well. Let’s check them out!

TwitrCovers

TwitrCovers is one of many sites that allows you to download creative, high quality header images for free. What separates it from the rest is the ability to view your desired images as if they were on Twitter using its well-designed demo mode — pretty awesome. The website offers two methods for acquiring these headers. One, you could have the site install it for you via an app (which allows it access to your account), or two, you could manually download the image and upload it yourself.

Read a full review of TwitrCovers for more tips and information.

Social Media Image Maker

Social Media Image Maker, as its name implies, is a site for formatting images to be used on social media sites. Using a very thoroughly designed interface, you can create, crop, color grade, and upload images that are perfectly sized for Twitter. Images are downloadable in JPEG format and can be uploaded by the user. While the link above takes you directly to the Twitter section of the site, Social Media Image Maker provides resources for nearly every social media service available.

Customizing my image felt a bit like Instagram with its many filters and features like “blurring”, but because of this, it also felt slightly limited. Regardless, I appreciated the fact that I could manually download the image without letting the site access my account.

To find out more, read the full review of Social Media Image Maker.

TwitCover

Although it has nearly the same exact name as our first mention, TwitCover is yet another site that brings loads of free header images to the table. The site is stylized with a consistently updated blog format, but it also allows users to create their own header images using its in-browser app. Fancy, fancy, I say.

Unfortunately, here’s the catch: when authorizing TwitCovers to use your Twitter account, it posts a Tweet for you saying where you found your cool new header. Pretty janky… Instead, I recommend saving the image manually using right-click.

TwitterHeaders

TwitterHeaders is a site that reminds me just a bit too much of the old MySpace design websites, but that’s just my opinion, I suppose. Either way, it’s home to several interesting (and sometimes childish) Twitter Header designs. Just to be honest with you, I have a feeling that this site would be most visited by teens and preteens. You’ll find quite a few commercialized images incorporated into the headers here, and while I can’t vouch for their legality, I can say they aren’t too bad.

Customization is an option, but only text, clip art styled objects, and corny-looking backgrounds can be added. On the surface, the site also seemingly requires you to allow it access to your Twitter account, but a simple right-click lets you to save your desired image to your desktop. Else, TwitterHeaders will post a Tweet for you saying to visit the site.

TwitterHeader.org

TwitterHeader.org has absolutely nothing to do with the aforementioned TwitterHeaders, but its images may appeal to the about the same crowd. While not heavy on commercial images, TwitterHeader.org features several offerings that may appeal to those from the younger side of life.

Are there a few gems here and there that may work for you? Yes. However, you will have to do quite a bit digging compared to other sites listed here. Creating your own header and customization isn’t available, and the available images can be added to your Twitter account automatically, if you authorize the site to access it, or manually after downloading them. Another nuisance are the occasional watermarks that appear on the images.

(Note: At the time of this writing, it appears that the auto-upload feature is currently having some issues. The manual download should work fine.)

TwitHeaders

TwitHeaders has quite a few quality images that are extremely creative, mostly abstract, and definitely inspiring. In short, I think that anyone looking for a Twitter header image can find something here. Is the site perfect? Not exactly. First of all, it features things primarily in a blog format, and posting dates are not prominently shown. This means you can’t really tell just how recently the site has been updated. Aside from that, you can find a great deal of worthy content on TwitHeaders.

One annoying thing about the site I found was that it says you can “download” the images. Instead, when you click this, the site tries to access your Twitter account like the other sites mentioned. Technically, you could right-click and save the image, but as a user, I felt as though this was rather misleading.

A minor inconvenience is the site’s usage of water-marked images. Regardless of whether you auto-upload or take care of things manually, TwitHeaders’ watermark will remain on the images. Furthermore, allowing the site to access your Twitter account will let it post a “check out TwitHeaders” Tweet for you.

Conclusion

Twitter headers are a great way to express your identity on the web, and you should take advantage of this particular feature as well as you can. It’s more prominent than simple backgrounds, but at the same time, it’s much more subtle than just a profile picture. So which one should you choose? TwitrCovers and Social Media Image Maker should have you covered on all side, and are both good choices. If you don’t like the selection on TwitrCovers, give the rest of them a try, you’re sure to find something!

If you need more ideas on how to use your Twitter header image, check out these tips on how to make the most of your Twitter header image.

With that said, we’d love to know how you find your Twitter images. Do you take photos yourselves? Do you design them? What other websites do you use to download free ones? Have you ever paid for a cool stock image to use on Twitter? Let us know in the comments!

Every one dreams of a happy and lavish life.Here is the list of Top 10 Youngest Billionaires of the world.One day you can also turn rich with your dedicated hard work

10.Sergey Brin

• Country:United States
• Age:39
• Net Worth: $16.7 billion

Sergey Brin is a co-founder of most profitable Internet company, Google. Sergey Brin is only 39 years old and has a net worth of US $16.7 billion. Sergey Brin completed Ph.D in computer science from Stanford University. He is on the top 10 youngest billionaire list having a worth more than any other in this list.

9.Yoshikazu Tanaka

• Country:Japan
• Age:35
• Net Worth: $4.3 billion

Yoshikazu Tanaka is Japanese developer and programmer who started GREE Social Networking Company. GREE is a very popular Japanese social networking website. Yoshikazu Tanaka is only 35 years old and has a net worth of $4.3 billion.

8.Sean Parker

• Country:United States
• Age:32
• Net Worth: $1.9 billion

Sean Parker is also on the top 10 list of youngest billionaire with a net worth of about $1.9 billion. He is a co-founder of Plaxo, Napster and Causes. Plaxo is a social networking service and Napster was a music sharing service. He is also the president of social networking website, Facebook.

7.Ayman Hariri

• Country:Lebanon
• Age:32
• Net Worth: $1.5 billion

Ayman Hariri is also the son of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri who joined his father’s business after his father’s death in 2005. The worth of Rafik Hariri was divided into his sons. Ayman Hariri has a net worth $1.5 billion and he is among the top 10 youngest billionaire.

6.Fahd Hariri

• Country:Lebanon
• Age:30
• Net Worth: $1.6 Billion

Fahd Hariri is a son of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. He is only about 30 years old and has a net worth $1.6 Billion. He is the youngest son of Rafik Hariri and he inherited his father’s business after his death in 2005.

5.Yang Huiyan

• Country:China
• Net Worth: $7.4 billion

Yang Huiyan is amongst the youngest top 10 billionaire of the world as listed by Forbes because she holds major shares of Country Garden Holdings. She has a net worth of $7.4 billion. Yang Huiyan graduated from The Ohio State University in 2003.

4.Eduardo Luiz Saverin

• Country:United States
• Age:30
• Net Worth: $2 billion

Eduardo Luiz Saverin is a co-founder of Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg. He is listed on the top 10 youngest billionaire and he is only 30 years old now. Eduardo Saverin has a net worth of about $2 billion. He was born in Brazil and he completed his B.S. Economics course from Harvard University in 2006 where he founded Facebook.

3.Albert Maria Lamoral Miguel Johannes Gabriel

• Country:Germany
• Age:29
• Net Worth: $1.5 billion

Albert Maria Lamoral Miguel Johannes Gabriel is prince of Thurn and Taxis in Germany. He is a socialite and he is only 29 years old now. Albert was the youngest billionaire till 2010 and now he is in the top 10 youngest billionaire. He became billionaire after his father’s death in 1990 and he was listed many times as the world’s youngest billionaire by Forbes magazine. He studied economics and theology from University of Edinburgh.

2.Dustin Moskovitz

• Country:United States
• Age:28
• Net Worth: $3.5 billion

Dustin Moskovitz is amongst the top 10 youngest billionaire who was co-founder of Facebook which is number one social networking website. He is now co-founder of Asana (Firm to solve enterprise collaboration) after he left Facebook in 2008. Dustin Moskovitz is now only 28 years old and has a net worth of $3.5 billion. Dustin Moskovitz studied at Harvard University with Mark Zuckerberg where they initially developed Facebook.

1.Mark Zuckerberg

• Country:United States
• Age:28
• Net Worth: $10.2 billion

Mark Zuckerberg started off world’s number one social networking website, Facebook and currently he is the CEO of Facebook. He is dropout student from Harvard University and he has developed the Facebook which is now world’s number one social networking website. Mark Zuckerberg has a net worth $10.2 billion (2012) and he is the number one youngest billionaire. He is now only 28 years old and was awarded with TIME Person of the Year 2012 award. 

American scientists led by Richard Novatson conducted quite an interesting, but also relevant study which involved 4,000 people (50%-50% of men and women) who were directly connected with the Internet activity, and also spent a lot of time on social networks and other online services.

So, the question was: what would you do if Internet access was forbidden in your country?

The results surprised the scientists. About 67% of people would have changed the place of residence, emigrating to another country where there is no problem with Internet access. Patriotism in this case takes a back seat, while staying connected on Facebook, Twitter and other networks is more important.

Some were confused by this question: 14% responded that they would have fallen into anindefinite depressive state.

However, there were also those – 11% – who would love to meet the demise of the web, recognizing their dependence on the World Wide Web. Thus they would spend more time with their family and friends.

True gamers are among the 6% who would replace virtual communication by the virtual world.

2% (78 people) said they would commit suicide! Lack of internet would really destroy them and the further meaning of life would simply cease to exist. It is interesting to note that 64 people from this group of respondents were women.

The results of this research confirm the significance of the rapidly evolving Internet technology in our lives and the possible dangers it brings to us. Medicine is powerless in this case, since it is impossible to diagnose and treat this addiction.

What about you? Can you imagine the world without Internet and what would your life be like if it didn’t exist in your country or at all? Please, share your thoughts below!