links for 2009-05-13

Over the last couple of days, rumors have been swirling about a possible Facebook Platform payments system launching over the course of the next few weeks. Tonight, we have confirmation from Facebook that while it isn’t planning on launching a new payment service for applications in the short term, it is planning on starting an alpha test to let users spend Facebook credits in Facebook applications in the next few weeks.

Yes, I believe Twitter has just become even less useful. In a very vague statement today that I guess Twitter doesn’t expect us to understand, Twitter removed, without warning or feedback from users it would seem, any and all Tweets in your stream that include @replies to people you are not following. Previously this was an option you could turn on or off, but Biz Stone, founder of Twitter, says in this “small settings update” that “receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.”