Facebook Opens Email Up A Little; I Want More

Facebook opened up their very closed email platform today by allowing users to add normal email addresses in a message. Previously you could only send messages to Facebook friends. Now you can add in others, too.

This is great news for people who use Facebook for most or all of their emailing. But for those of us that use normal email for our day to day business, getting Facebook messages is more of a problem than a feature. That’s because Facebook makes you log on to the site to read messages/emails from your friends. They’ll send a note to your normal email address when a new message comes in, but they make you log on to Facebook to actually read it.

I rarely do that, and have missed some important messages from people trying to contact me. As a next step, I think Facebook should offer to forward the actual messages to an outside email address (and/or provide a password protected RSS feed). Eventually Facebook should offer full POP or IMAP support for their email. They can still restrict it so that you can only receive messages from friends, but at least you could access it from your desktop or web based mail application.

Own Your Own English Soccer Team: MyFootballClub

UK based MyFootballClub is aiming to take the power of collaborative social membership to the world of English soccer by purchasing a professional English soccer team using user contributions.

The site launched in April and had over $500,000 in contributions within its first 24 hours.

The legal side is fairly simple. Contributors become members of the MyFootballClub Trust for £35 ($69). £27.50 goes towards purchasing a soccer club, buying new players and other club expenditure with the remaining £7.50 going towards administration. The Trust will acquire a soccer club only on the basis that the purchase provides a controlling stake (51%+) of the club and where the club is either debt free or has a manageable level of debt.

Members are then said to have “an equal say in team selection, player transfers and the running of the club.”

MyFootballClub aims to buy a mid-tier English soccer club with an aim of building the club into a future Premier Division side.

At the time of writing MyFootballClub had over 53,000 members and had taken more than £1.375 million ($2.73 million) in member subscriptions. The site is currently in negotiations with four prospective acquisition targets.

West Nile Virus fears spur action in San Jose, Los Gatos

By Patrick May After finding more mosquitoes infected with West Nile virus, South Bay authorities are planning to do another fogging in the Los Gatos/San Jose area Monday evening.
Los Angeles steps up efforts to contain spread of West Nile virus People's Daily Online
Case of West Nile Virus in Scott County WTOK
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review - Cherry Hill Courier Post - CBS 2 - Salem-News.Com
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