Just noticed that Facebook has added a “Download Your Information” option under Account settings. This is a useful feature which allows Facebook users to easily download a copy of entire information, present on their Facebook profile.

Data that’s included when you Download your Facebook information:

• Your profile information (e.g. your contact information, interests, groups)
• Wall posts and content that you and your friends have posted to your profile
• Photos and videos that you have uploaded to your account
• Your friend list
• Notes you have created
• Events to which you have RSVP’d
• Your sent and received messages
• Any comments that you and your friends have made on your Wall posts, photos, and other profile content

To Download Facebook Information, go to your Account Settings page, click the ‘learn more’ link beside “Download Your Information.” From there, click the ‘Download’ button; a dialog-box will open, click the Download button. Then wait some time!

Unfortunately, there is no way to individually select which data you would like to download. The download is provided as a zip file, within this zip file you will have access to your data in a simple, browseable manner.

Note: Facebook will ask you to verify your identity in order to help protect the security of your account. After making the request, it may take some time to process your request and you will receive an email when your archive is ready for download.

Foursquare is the most popular location based social networking tool, and now it just got better. Foursquare now lets you attach photos to your Checkins, in fact, when you checkin anywhere with your iPhone app now, you’ll be prompted to add photos of that place. Photos can also be attached to tips and venues. Once you have checked in, you can continue to add more photos to your checkin detail page.

Another big feature Foursquare just rolled out is the ability for your friends to post comments on your Checkins. Photos that you upload are visible to your Foursquare friends and your friends at other permitted social networks like Facebook and Twitter, your comments however are only visible to your Foursquare friends. You can also view these photos and comments related to your past checkins on your History page anytime.

With everybody and their grandma creating a social networking service, Foursquare has made the right move to let their service be more interactive with these two features. This will give Foursquare a powerful boost with increased activity and definitely better loyalty of users. These features will also be rolled out to the Android app within next few days and to the Blackberry app early next year.

Do you hate getting invites from friends requesting you to install Facebook applications that are of no interest to you? Would you like to permanently block all those annoying Facebook apps that post messages to your wall without asking?

If you are someone like me who primarily uses Facebook to connect with family members and have little interest in Facebook apps, you can choose to permanently opt-out of the Facebook apps platform. This will make your profile inaccessible to all other apps and you therefore won’t get any invites or wall posts in future.

To disable the Facebook apps platform, log in to your Facebook account, select Privacy Settings under Account and then click “Edit your settings” under the Applications and Websites section. Here you’ll see an option to turn off all the platform applications with a single click.

The above video screencast describes the various steps in detail. It is important to note that when you turn off the Facebook Applications platform, it will also disable the various social plugins that help you ‘like’ stories on other websites.

Here are my top eight picks for Facebook and Twitter add-ons. Many of these solve common user gripes (such as not knowing to what site shortened URLs will bring you on Twitter). Some, like “Facebook Fixer,” enhance the site and allow you to customize it beyond standard options. Do note that most of these scripts require that you first download Greasemonkey, and not all are compatible with every browser, so be sure to check the requirements before you download a script.

1. Facebook Fixer.

This script lets you customize your Facebook account and offers many features that are enabled by default, but can be enabled or disabled independently. Some of these features include: larger profile and album pictures; homepage customization where you can hide independent sections such as pokes, suggestions and “connect with friends”; and calendar integration, which includes a link on each profile that synchs birthdays with Google Calendar, or the option to export a file with all your friends’ birthdays, which can be imported into sites such as Google Calendar, Yahoo, Apple iCal, Microsoft Outlook and more.

2. Facebook Purity.

The Facebook Purity script cleans up your homepage and removes all newsfeed items from third-party games such as Mafia Wars and FarmVille, and zaps announcements on who’s become friend with who, who’s attending a certain event, who joined a group and who became a fan of something. Optional items you can block include: comments on a status, photo, photo album or link; tags in a photo or photo album; and event postings.

3. Unfriend Finder.

Ever wonder if you’ve been dropped by a Facebook friend? Every time you log in, the script checks to see if someone is missing from your friend list. When the script detects someone is no longer your friend, you get a notification and a bubble counter in the Facebook toolbar. There are two types of “unfriends:” Either you removed them from your friend list or they removed you (but they’re still on Facebook), or they deactivated their account and are no longer on Facebook. If they reactivate their account, you’ll also be notified.

4. No Facebook Ads.

If you’re tired of the age-targeted ads Facebook runs, take advantage of this script. Downloading it will remove ads from your Facebook account-including flyer ads, network ads, bumper ads-leaving its appearance a lot cleaner.

5. TinyURL Decoder.

While URL shorteners do save space on Twitter, you’re often clicking at your own risk-phishing scams and spam-laden direct messages are becoming more and more common on the microblogging site. This script decodes the shortened URLs on Twitter’s website and displays the original URL, so you can decide whether or not to click.

6. Nested Twitter Replies.

Twitter’s website still only allows you to view @replies in a list, which can be confusing if you’re trying to follow a conversation. Applying this script automatically displays tweets in a nested conversation format, making it easier to follow.

7. @Troynt’s Twitter Script.

This Twitter script does it all. Among its many features: expansion of Links in tweets; inline inclusion of YouTube videos and Twitpic images; nested tweets; option to save, reply to or retweet a tweet when you hover over it; autocompletion of a username when you begin typing “@” in a tweet and much more.

8. Twitter Old Style RT Emulator.

If you hate Twitter’s retweet button and long for the old method, this script will convert all retweet symbols and user pictures into “RT @username.” Note that this script only works in Safari and Firefox.

Following the steps of Yahoo, Microsoft has also released its thoughts in a statement regarding Google’s new social networking service for Gmail and mobile smartphones, Google Buzz. Echoing the statement by Yahoo, Microsoft says that they also incorporated features from social websites like Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and 75 other services on Hotmail back in 2008.

Here’s the statement by Microsoft regarding Google Buzz:

“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation. We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have [benefited] from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”

It’s strange that Yahoo and Microsoft have come up so fast and criticized Google. Something tells us that these guys are a bit worried, and they have all the right to be. Microsoft has specially a lot more to worry about, considering the company owns a big part of Facebook. Both companies also know that Google has a big audience and fans behind them.

Besides, ever since rumors about Google Buzz surfaced yesterday, many have been calling the social networking service a “Facebook killer.” Many others have expressed that they wish Google Buzz is better than Facebook, which looks like it is, judging from what we have seen so far.

I do have to agree with Microsoft on this one. Do we really need another social networking service? It’s important to take into account that this is the second social service launched by Google, after the search giant announced and slowly rolled out the epic fail [so far] that is Google Wave last year.

What do you readers think?