Category: Facebook

Apr 24

Facebook News Feeds Load 20-40% Faster Over IPv6

Facebook logoWant to read your Facebook News Feed faster?  Ask your Internet Service Provider (ISP) if you can get IPv6!  That’s one of the key quotes to me in this article published this month on ComputerWorld:

As for the speed boost that may come with IPv6, it’s too early to say whether you’ll see it or not. Facebook says it has seen users’ News Feeds loading 20 percent to 40 percent faster on mobile devices using IPv6. Tests at Time Warner Cable have shown a 15 percent boost.

Now, yes, there is the caveat from Facebook’s Paul Saab that they are “still trying to clarify the data” and understand exactly why IPv6 users are seeing the speed increase. (And Paul explains further starting about 19 minutes into his recent v6 World Congress presentation.)

But to me this is simply a sign of what is coming.

Facebook has been extremely smart about all of this.  As they outlined in a case study last year, they are moving to an IPv6-only network internally. Their developers are already working on an IPv6-only network, as Paul Saab discussed in a presentation last month to the 2015 v6 World Congress. In that presentation he said that 90% of their network was IPv6-only and they expect to move to 100% by the end of this quarter.

They realize that many of the new networks being deployed around the world to bring the next 4 billion people online are going to need to be using IPv6.  And the expansion of mobile networks to accommodate the millions of new devices will need to use IPv6 (as is already happening!).

And the reality is that connections from users on IPv6 networks to services that run over IPv6 are going to be faster than connections to services still on legacy IPv4 networks that have to go through middleboxes such as NAT devices or application-layer gateways (ALGs).

Facebook wants to provide the fastest connectivity to the billions of new users and devices coming on line.  They want to be reached faster than all the other social networks and messaging services.  They’ve already made the move to IPv6 in anticipation of being able to be faster than all their rivals.  Smart on their part!

While we still need to wait for a thorough analysis by Facebook’s team to know exactly why they are seeing the speed increases, the fact is that those increases are happening.

Don’t have IPv6 yet?  Ask your Internet Service Provider (ISP) why not!

And ask yourself this – does your application or service run over IPv6?  Could people perhaps access your services faster if they were available over IPv6?

Visit our Start Here page to learn how you can do more with IPv6. The time is now.

Apr 23

WhatsApp Calling Arrives on iOS – More Telecom Disruption Ahead!

Whatsapp callingAs I checked my AppStore updates on my iPhone this week I was surprised but pleased to see that WhatsApp now includes "WhatsApp Calling". As it says:
"Call your friends and family using WhatsApp for free, even if they're in another country. WhatsApp calls use your phone's Internet connection rather than your cellular plan's voice minutes. Data charges may apply.

How many ways can you spell "disruption"?
(Hint: w - h - a - t - s - a - p - p)

Sure, there have been a zillion mobile apps providing Over-The-Top (OTT) voice services, many of which I've written about here on this site.

But this is WhatsApp!

This is the application that just passed 800 million monthly active users! (Techmeme link) With projections to hit 1 billion monthly active users by the end of the year.

Oh, and it's owned by Facebook! :-)

Now, I personally don't use WhatsApp that much right now. The people who I want to message are primarily using iMessage, Facebook Messenger or Wire. (And every once in a great while I'll fire up Skype on my iPhone.)

But obviously there are 800 million people who do use WhatsApp each month... and they now have free calling! (If they are on Android, iOS or BlackBerry 10... and subject to a staggered rollout, i.e. people will get the actual ability to call over the next while.)

It will be fascinating to see how this plays out.

WhatsApp provides a messaging app with a very simple user experience (UX) that works seamlessly inside the iPhone. Now that same app can be used for calling. And most importantly, WhatsApp has the massive directory of users.

The legacy telcos are going to be saying good bye to even more of their diminishing calling revenue...

Interesting times ahead!

More on this topic:

Mar 13

FriendFeed Finally Fades… Farewell!

FriendfeedFarewell, FriendFeed! Goodbye! Ever since Facebook acquired Friendfeed back in 2009 we wondered what its fate would be... now we know. This past Monday, March 9. 2015, the FriendFeed team posted a simple note that said in part:
We wanted to let you know that FriendFeed will be shutting down soon. We've been maintaining the service since we joined Facebook five years ago, but the number of people using FriendFeed has been steadily declining and the community is now just a fraction of what it once was. Given this, we've decided that it's time to start winding things down.

Beginning today, we will no longer accept new signups. You will be able to view your posts, messages, and photos until April 9th. On April 9th, we'll be shutting down FriendFeed and it will no longer be available.

I saw some reminiscing on Hacker News and within FriendFeed itself... but I think we all knew this day was coming.

Before today I hadn't logged into the site for quite a long time. I only have recent content posted there due to the fact that TypePad is still set to post articles (such as this one) over to FriendFeed. But for most of us the conversations left the site... off to other venues and places. (But I've seen that there are still some very strong communities that have been thriving within FriendFeed to this day.)

FriendFeed was remarkable to me at the time for it's ability to aggregate feeds of all sorts of different services into one place. For quite some time http://friendfeed.com/danyork was the link I gave people to find "all of my writing in one place". Sometime after the Facebook acquisition I realized it may not be around and so I wound up building my own aggregation site - https://danyork.me/ - but it was FriendFeed that first brought that idea to me.

It was also a great place for group discussions. For quite some time it was the home of the For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast listener community and we would all discuss episodes and other topics there. That's all moved to the FIR Community on Google+ ... which hopefully will last a bit longer! :-)

The Wikipedia entry on FriendFeed has some good background. It was a great service back in its prime!

Farewell, FriendFeed!

P.S. If you'd like to export your data out of FriendFeed, there is a script available from Claudio Cicali on Github that may help.

An audio commentary is available:

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Feb 17

How To Turn Off Sounds In The Facebook iPhone / iPad App

Do you want to turn off / disable the sounds that Facebook just added to the latest version of their iOS app for iPhone and iPad? If you are like me and find these kind of sounds associated with actions (such as "keyboard clicks") annoying, here's what you need to do.

1. Go Into The Settings Inside The App - First you need to tap on "More" in the lower right corner of the app and then tap on "Settings":

Facebook ios settings

2. Go Into "Sounds" - Next tap on "Sounds":

Facebook ios sounds setting

3. Turn Off "In-App Sound" - Finally, just tap the slider to turn off the sounds.

Facebook in app sound

Now, maybe you like these kind of sounds... but I personally don't. I'm the guy who turns off "keyboard clicks" because I do NOT want to hear a sound whenever I tap a key.

I don't want aural feedback.

Some of you may... and that's fine. I don't.

Someone at Facebook seemed to think that we all wanted this and so they added it in to one of the recent releases and... ta da... as soon as we updated the Facebook app on our iPhone or iPad we started getting clicks and swishes and other sounds.

This points to one of the larger issues with our new world of mobile "apps":

We are at the mercy of whatever the app developer wants to do.

If this were a browser-based "app" (a set of web pages), we could typically configure the browser to not play any sounds - and then all web pages would be subject to the settings in the web browser.

But we've left that land where the web browser serves as our window to content. Instead we have custom-designed apps where we have to figure out where the settings are in each of the different apps.

For instance, when the sounds first started in the Facebook app, I went into the generic "Settings" app in iOS to try to find out how to turn them off. I looked under:

  • Facebook
  • Sounds
  • Notifications

and couldn't any settings in any of those places to turn it off. Only then did I tap on the "More" inside the Facebook app to see if there were any settings there.

Now... the good news is that at least Facebook gave us a control to turn the sounds off! They didn't have to and could have just made that a mandated part of the app.

But that's back to the point... for the convenience and simplicity of using a mobile app, we've surrendered control to the whims of the application developers.

I'm personally not really thrilled about that evolution of the mobile Internet, but it's hard to see how we walk back to a different path...

An audio commentary on this topic is also available:

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Dec 16

Facebook’s iOS Apps Now Work On IPv6-Only Networks

Facebook iOS app iconsFacebook continues to demonstrate their commitment to making sure that people can access Facebook from whatever networks they may be on – and particularly new IPv6-based networks. Not only is Facebook moving to an IPv6-only internal network, but now comes word that their iOS mobile applications, both the regular Facebook app and also the Facebook Messenger app, can work perfectly fine on an IPv6-only network.

The information was relayed by Facebook’s Paul Saab in, of course, the IPv6 Group on Facebook. Back on December 2, Paul wrote:

The most recent release of the Facebook iOS app works on IPv6-only networks. The interesting thing in making this all work, is the example Reachability code that apple released really only showed how to implement it for IPv4 or hostnames, but using a hostname was broken if you were on an IPv4 only network and the hostname was dual stacked. Anyway, the main app is now fixed and our Messenger application will be updated soon to also have the fix.

And late last night he posted:

The FB Messenger was released and now supports IPv6-only networks

As the discussion thread indicates, the Android versions of the two apps should also work on IPv6-only networks but there are currently issues with Android devices in general working on IPv6-only networks.

The key point here is that as some network operators are now deploying IPv6-only networks because of a lack of IPv4 addresses. Consider the case of T-Mobile USA.  Facebook’s applications will work fine and give the best possible user experience on those IPv6-only networks.  Some of these new IPv6-only networks, such as those in the mobile space, use technologies such as 464XLAT to enable IPv4-only applications to still work.  BUT… any such translation technologies do add complexity and introduce some degree of latency (which might be quite tiny, but still there).

Facebook is avoiding all of that by making sure that their mobile applications work well in IPv6-only networks.

Those apps will work over native IPv6 networks to connect back to Facebook’s IPv6 data centers.  Without needing to pass through some IPv4 gateway or translation tool, the apps should provide the fastest and simplest connections – which means a better experience for users.

Now, the Facebook applications also work fine in a “dual-stack” mixed IPv6/IPv4 network.  They have for quite a long time now. But Facebook has now tested these apps on networks without IPv4 – and that is a difference.

Congratulations to Paul Saab and the rest of the team there at Facebook for taking this step – and we hope that other mobile application developers will see this and consider testing their applications on IPv6-only networks as well.

As we run out of IPv4 addresses and have to look at IPv6-only networks with some kind of IPv4 translation on the edge…   the best possible user experience is going to be with those applications and services that can avoid all of the IPv4 translation and work completely over IPv6.

P.S. If you would like to get started with moving your application or service to IPv6, please visit our Start Here page for pointers on how to begin!

 

Sep 29

Why I Am NOT Always Okay Being The Product (Re: Facebook and Ello)

Shel holtz productSometimes I'm okay being "the product", sometimes I'm not. I just want the choice... and to know who has access to my data.

Today Shel Holtz published a piece on his blog, "You say I'm the product of services I don't pay for? I'm fine with that.", and after first replying to Shel on Ello and then starting to do so again on Facebook... I realized I needed to just write these thoughts down in somewhere more permanent (and outside the walls of social networks). You know... go "old school" and reply blog-to-blog like we used to do before social networks...

I certainly realize that you are always paying for services in some form, either directly in money or attention (i.e. watching an ad before seeing something) or through information that can then be monetized via some other way such as ads. I also realize there are hybrid services where you are directly paying for part of the cost while advertising (potentially based on your data) is covering the rest of the cost. This has been the model for newspapers and magazines for quite some time (and pre-Internet, of course). It's the model for TV channels now (since in at least the US you are paying for cable TV and being bombarded by ads). It's the model used for a zillion different services we all use every day.

I get that.

TANSTAAFL - There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

I get that. And much of the time I'm perfectly fine with that.

I use Gmail, for free, even though I know that Google is reading my every message and mining that for data to feed into their AdWords advertising machine. Like Shel, I use some "loyalty programs" where I know that I am getting a discount on my purchases in exchange for giving them my data.

Going Too Far?

But... I start to get worried about how that data might be used by others. For instance, Facebook's new "Atlas" advertising platform launches today (see also "Meet the new Atlas") and so now ads based on our Facebook data will be displayed on other websites we visit and also within mobile apps.

To Shel's point... maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we'll see more targeted and helpful ads that we may actually want to purchase.

But... who else is learning about what we are doing and saying inside of Facebook... and are we okay with them doing so?

Maybe I've just spent so many years in information security that I'm wary. I don't expect that advertisers outside of Facebook would learn my exact information... Facebook is far too protective of the actual data (for their OWN reasons, not out of any interest in protecting me). But there are ways that information can leak... or that aggregate information can be discovered. Our web browsers and other devices can leak a great amount of information about what we are doing and what we are seeing.

I'm not 100% okay sharing all that data with others.

I guess I don't necessarily trust Facebook to be careful with my data.

Choosing NOT To Be The Product

Shel mentions network television in his post, and certainly I, too, have seen some amazing shows that came about through the support of advertising. Similarly, I'm been a long-time fan of National Public Radio (NPR) and while it does not have "advertising", per se, it has "underwriting" which to the listener may wind up being similar (just less obnoxious).

But I have chosen to NOT participate in that process much any more. Our family doesn't have commercial TV. We are a "cord-cutter". What "TV" we watch comes at us without commercials through live streaming services. We are paying for a subscription. An impact, of course, is that we don't get some of the latest shows... nor do we get the current sports games... because those are all still ad-funded.

We made this choice in large part because we were tired of all the advertising. (And there are some philosophical reasons why I think the fact that our kids are growing up without watching commercials is a beautiful thing, but that's for a different article.) I've given up on most traditional radio, too, including NPR, opting instead to listen to podcasts in my car or use Spotify (which I pay for) or other streaming services in my home office.

Similarly, I have chosen NOT to participate in some "rewards" or "loyalty" programs offered by some stores or services. Oh, sure, I'm in various hotel and airline "frequent traveler" programs because I perceive that there are benefits. I am also in one for my local hardware store because I get a discount and I buy a significant quantity of products to where I'm okay giving up my data for a discount.

But there are other stores where I am NOT comfortable exchanging my data for a discount. Either ones I don't frequent all that often... or just ones that for whatever reason I don't trust.

I don't want to be their product.

Returning To The Topic Of Facebook and Ello

Shel concludes his post saying:

Ultimately, being “the product” doesn’t bother me, and I’m not inclined to abandon a network that works for me for a new one just because it doesn’t have ads.

He is, of course, responding to the Ello Manifesto and one reason Ello is getting a good bit of buzz.

I agree that simply "not having ads" is not a great reason to move from one network to another. And I don't expect that I will abandon Facebook... I still find it useful and enjoyable.

But I find I don't trust Facebook anymore.

Granted, I never really have trusted Facebook since I started using it back in 2007-ish... but maybe it's even more the case today. I just worry about the large-scale data mining.

THAT is a good part of why I'm continuing my explorations with Ello.

I'm looking for a place where I can share information with others - and yet feel that the privacy of my conversations and data are better respected than in other social networks.

P.S. And yes, I do realize the irony that all my Ello conversations are entirely public, which means that all of them can be picked up by that other master of data mining, Google, as well as any other data mining service... very much like all my tweets can be picked up, too. That's okay right now because I'm not yet intending to share anything on Ello that I'm not comfortable being public. But I am interested in what they may be able to do in the future to allow more private conversations.

P.S. And I also realize that I'm probably in a very small minority who care about data privacy and that the VAST majority of people out there don't even remotely care about what is done with their data...

Photo credit: Shel's blog

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Sep 12

Facebook Launches IPv6-Only Data Cluster

If you are a Facebook user and are also interested in using IPv6 wherever possible, Facebook’s Paul Saab just announced yesterday that there is now a special link where you can connect to Facebook’s IPv6-ONLY data cluster. In the IPv6 group on Facebook (of course!) he posted:

Back in March I announced we were working towards having IPv6-only clusters. I’m happy to announce that we’ve successfully launched our latest cluster as IPv6-only. If you want to make sure that you’re using the IPv6-only cluster, we’ve redirected traffic for http://www.v6.facebook.com/ so that it uses it

Just to be 100% clear, you have been able to access Facebook over IPv6 ever since World IPv6 Launch back in 2012 just by going to the regular http://www.facebook.com/ URL.  Users of the IPvFoo/IPvFox browser add-ons have been able to see that we’ve been connecting to Facebook over IPv6.  It’s all worked great.

However, while the connection to the main Facebook page has been over IPv6, that page has also still required some connections over the legacy IPv4 network.

With yesterday’s news from Paul Saab, those of us who want to truly do everything over IPv6 can now do so by connecting to http://www.v6.facebook.com/. Admittedly, this may only be of interest to those of us who are advocates of IPv6, but still, it’s pretty cool to have full access to a major site like Facebook entirely over IPv6!

You may recall that back in March, Paul Saab gave an excellent presentation about how Facebook is moving to entirely using IPv6 within their internal networks.

fb-internal-ipv6

 

His slides are available and you’ll note that on his second to last slide he wrote:

  • Plans for first IPv6 only cluster (no RFC1918) by end of 2014

This news yesterday is the completion of those plans (and well before the end of 2014, too!).

Kudos to Paul and his team at Facebook – it’s great to see this work happening and to have a way we can work with Facebook in pure IPv6-only network. Thanks!

What are you waiting for?  Visit our “Start Here” page to find resources available to help you make the move to IPv6 – and let us know if there is anything more we can do to help you!

Jun 06

Case Study: Facebook Moving To An IPv6-Only Internal Network

At the 2014 v6 World Congress in Paris, Facebook’s Paul Saab outlined how Facebook is well on the path toward moving to an IPv6-only internal network. He makes the point that why should you deal with the headache of maintaining a dual-stack (IPv4/IPv6)? Instead just move your internal network to be IPv6-only and then have dual-stack devices on the edge of the network to interact with the legacy IPv4 Internet.  He also walks through the challenges Facebook faced with regard to vendor equipment, software applications and also with the issue that many developers continued to write IPv4-only code. (A clever solution: simply remove IPv4 from the developer’s machines!)

You can download a copy of the slides (and view commentary in the IPv6 Group on Facebook) to read all about the process, but here’s the key summary slide 31:

fb-internal-ipv6

Those statistics are:

  • 100% of  hosts they care about respond on IPv6  (Hosts that are not IPv6 ready are going away.)
  • 75% of internal traffic is now IPv6 with a goal to be at 100% by Q3 2014 or earlier
  • 98% of traffic in and out of HHVM is IPv6
  • 100% of our memcache traffic is IPv6
  • A goal of being 100% IPv6-only in 2-3 years

Very impressive to see!  All in all a great document for anyone seeking to understand the challenges that an online service may face when moving to IPv6 – and how to overcome those challenges!

Please visit our IPv6 Case Studies page for more examples of IPv6 deployment. If you would like to get started with IPv6, please visit our IPv6 resources or begin with our “Start Here” page to help find resources most appropriate for your type of organization. If you have an IPv6 case study you think we should consider for inclusion on our site, please contact us – we are always looking for more!

Jun 06

Facebook Moving To An IPv6-Only Internal Network

In a brilliant presentation by Facebook’s Paul Saab at the recent v6 World Congress in Paris, he outlined how Facebook is well on the path toward moving to an IPv6-only internal network. He makes the point that why should you deal with the headache of maintaining a dual-stack (IPv4/IPv6). Instead just move your internal network to be IPv6-only and then have dual-stack devices on the edge of the network to interact with the legacy IPv4 Internet. You can download a copy of the slides (and view commentary in the IPv6 Group on Facebook) to read all about the process, but here’s the key summary slide 31:

fb-internal-ipv6

Those statistics are:

  • 100% of  hosts they care about respond on IPv6  (Hosts that are not IPv6 ready are going away.)
  • 75% of internal traffic is now IPv6 with a goal to be at 100% by Q3 2014 or earlier
  • 98% of traffic in and out of HHVM is IPv6
  • 100% of our memcache traffic is IPv6
  • A goal of being 100% IPv6-only in 2-3 years

Very impressive to see!  Paul’s presentation is worth viewing because he outlines the challenges that Facebook faced from dealing with vendor equipment to getting developers to use IPv6.  It’s a great case study that we’ve added to our IPv6 case studies page.  We wrote about this presentation back in March, but it’s worth repeating today on World IPv6 Launchiversary #2.

Facebook very clearly understands the need to move to the production version of the Internet – and they are taking steps to ensure that their site and services will be available to the next 5 billion people who come online!  They are going to be out in front of most other companies with having made the transition over to IPv6.

What are you waiting for?  Visit our “Start Here” page or  check out our IPv6 resources  – and let us know if there is anything more we can do to help you!

Mar 22

Facebook’s Extremely Impressive Internal Use of IPv6

Wow!  At the v6 World Congress this week in Paris (where Chris and Jan were), Facebook’s Paul Saab gave a very impressive presentation about what Facebook has gone through to convert its internal network over to IPv6.  Paul has now posted his presentation online (in the IPv6 Group on Facebook, of course) and the story he relays with all the bumps and issues is great to see.  Here’s the key slide at the end showing where they are at:

fb-internal-ipv6Those statistics are:

  • 100% of  hosts they care about respond on IPv6  (Hosts that are not IPv6 ready are going away.)
  • 75% of internal traffic is now IPv6 with a goal to be at 100% by Q3 2014 or earlier
  • 98% of traffic in and out of HHVM is IPv6
  • 100% of our memcache traffic is IPv6
  • A goal of being 100% IPv6-only in 2-3 years

VERY impressive!   Paul’s entire presentation is worth a read as he outlines a good number of the challenges they ran into, from vendors equipment not supporting IPv6 to engineers always writing in IPv6 to some of the problems they had with software.  It’s all great info and good to have out there as a case study and for others to learn from.

I love that he ends noting that engineers are asking if they can start writing IPv6-only code today!  (I also enjoy that the “solution” to stopping engineers from writing IPv4-only code was simple: take away IPv4 on development systems! :-) )

So… Facebook is going to be out in front of most other companies with having made the transition over to IPv6. What are you waiting for?  Check out our IPv6 resources and let us know if there is anything more we can do to help you!