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I just got an odd email from facebook. It is surprisingly brief providing no explanation of any kind, which makes it appear remarkably like a run of the mill SPAM email IMHO…

Unfortunately, the settings that control which email notifications get sent to you were lost. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.

To reset your email notification settings, go to:

http://www.facebook.com/editaccount.php?notifications

Thanks,
The Facebook Team

Now I get the usual stack of spam every day and I would normally just hit the report spam button gmail kindly supplies, but this message appears to be genuine (unlike this facebook spam). What I’m wondering is if this applies to my personal account only, or has there been a stuff up affecting other users too. If you have a facebook account I’d be very interested to know if you received this also.

If you look at the email header you will find that the email comes directly from facebook.com as Facebook Insider explains, so it is genuine. On the surface the fact that it’s genuine would seem to be a good thing, and it is, but the fact that people are confusing it with spam isn’t good. Over the years I must have received thousands of very genuine looking emails from scammers and I’ve come close to being fooled myself but now Facebook is sending genuine emails that appear to be spam!

Update: Alex reports that he received the same email in the comments below but I have spoken to others who still have not received the message.  This just makes it more suspicious for the casual observer, and it seems I’m not the only one that thinks so.

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I just received this on my Facebook Superwall titled “Facebook is going to clear facebook accounts if ..”

We all know that Facebook is an extraordinary social network where you can talk to friends, find old friends, and so much more.
The Facebook team is well aware that Facebook is getting over populated due to the fact that registrations have increased 50% since February 15 2008. At their signing in database, it shows that more than a quarter of the members of Facebook havn’t logged into their accounts in over a month.
So where is this leading to you may ask. Facebook is clearing their entire data base and deleting users who have not sent this message to their friends. If you are one of the these people, you will get your user account wiped and would have to re add all your friends. So send this message to as many of your friends as you can, I know you don’t want to start all over from scratch so send away, show your pride for members Facebook!

- Irin rayiz

Update: It seems this is making the rounds again as Tom has pointed out below. It originally appeared after Facebook announced they were rolling out “new facebook” which some users were not happy about. I think the author was trying to add fuel to the fire of discontent in the hope of forcing Facebook to abandon their rollout plans, but that’s just my opinion. Rest assured though, it is definitely a hoax.

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Many sites are reporting user discontent over the forced introduction of New Facebook, with gearfuse describing it as horrible, atrocious and completely cluttered. Based the response to the discontinuation of network pages I’m not surprised. There’s even a “Petition Against the New Facebook” which currently has 478,670 1,610,451 members and can be signed here. 

The new facebook profile design will be rolling out next week whether users like it or not, according to Facebook’s Program Manger Josh Elman who writes on the Facebook Developer Blog:

We’re nearing the time where we’ll switch over remaining users by default. We expect most of this to take place over the next week.

Some users are already getting a message that the change over is imminent when they log into their account, stating “New Facebook will soon be the only Facebook”.

The mere fact that a special Design Integration Guide exists suggests that at least some things will break when the changeover is complete (assuming it goes ahead). Only time will tell how smoothly  the change over goes.

Numerous sites are reporting that Facebook Chief Technology Officer Adam D’Angelo is leaving Facebook. Yesterday I speculated about the actual reasons behind the announcement to discontinue Network Pages and less than 24 hours later comes the news of the departure of the co-founder and CTO. According to All Things Digital the loss of their CTO is not exactly on good terms:

…according to sources close to the company, D’Angelo felt his responsibilities no longer fit well with his skills and interests.

In other words the company has changed into something D’Angelo no longer want to be part of. I feel this confirms my suspicion that there was something more behind the odd announcement to discontinue a popular and useful feature. The more I read about Facebook the more I think there are strong political machinations occurring at the highest management level and again, only time will tell if this is a good or a bad thing for the company.

Facebook networks are great way to connect with people in your city, country, area, or topic of interest, and C|net is reporting that Facebook will be discontinuing network pages soon. I have confirmed that this is indeed true as the following message now appears on my facebook account…

Network Pages will be discontinued soon
Facebook will soon be removing Network Pages from the site. Please keep this in mind when communicating with others on the Wall and on the discussion board. You can use Groups to connect with the people around you.

This announcement by Facebook is a little hard to understand but must be a very good reason for it, at least in Facebooks eyes (pun intended:). I’m more than curious to know exactly what the reason is, because it’s hard to imagine why they would remove such a useful and popular feature from their network.

The reason for the change may simply be to consolidate the now separate networks and groups, making the new groups communication system even larger and more powerful. But the skeptic in my says there is something else behind the move but only time will tell.

In the meantime, here’s a Facebook parody from sketch group Idiots Of Ants, definitely worth a look if you need a laugh…