A new study from the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) suggests that Internet threats faced by minors are overblown. According to the study, Internet and social networking sites aren’t as dangerous as we all think they are. Clearly Chris Hansen from NBC’s To Catch a Predator needs to give them a call.read more

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From the outset Facebook was a bit more grownup than MySpace, which has been, at least according to Internet legend, the teen realm. But as of the end of 2008, grownups have pretty much raided all of the social networks. Recently, one teen I know lamented that his friends at school preferred Facebook. “MySpace is better,” he said. “They let you customize your page and there aren’t as many old people there.” read more

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Independent interactive marketing agency Rosetta released a study today that shows that 59% of 100 leading retailers have fan pages on Facebook. This is a testament to how social media is truly consuming the way businesses market themselves. read more

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Today Facebook announced "custom tags" for developers for use with FBML (Facebook Markup Language) applications. FBML is the language used to create the Facebook apps you have come to know and love. read more

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Mark Zuckerberg might - just maybe - want to start considering how far in advance big entertainment acts need to be booked.  Because, according to new comScore stats, it looks like his social network could be celebrating an important victory over MySpace in about twelve months.read more

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Last week, some fairly devastating unemployment stats renewed comparisons between what we're going through now and the Great Depression.  Fresh reports indicate that at least a few major tech companies are still happily chatting up potential employees, though.read more

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Italian anti-mafia activists are alarmed by the presence of Facebook groups that are glorifying the behavior of jailed mafia bosses."Fan clubs" of jailed mafia bosses Bernardo Provenzano, arrested in 2006 after nearly 40 years on the run, and Toto Riina, arrested in 1993 after 24 years at large, have sprung up on the Italian pages of Facebook.read more

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In San Francisco last night, Six Apart (who recently launched data portability initiative Motion) hosted a roundtable to discuss the future of activity stream standards. In attendance were people from Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, Nokia, Plaxo, Comcast, and others. read more

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People are fired in all kinds of rude ways, but they typically don’t make the news. Get fired via Facebook, though, and the world goes “huh?” Crystal Bell, fortunately, wasn’t humiliated via any public communication; her boss sent notice via private message. According to the Calgary Herald, Bell, who’d been employed at a spa only two weeks, skipped a staff meeting on a day she wasn’t scheduled to work. read more

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Less than a month ago, Meebo announced that it would begin including both MySpace and Facebook into its instant messaging and group chat services. These two networks joined AIM, Yahoo, Google, MSN, and others in Meebo's repertoire.read more

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Now here's an interesting approach to social media marketing. Burger King has a new campaign going, which requires interested consumers to install a Facebook App, and then to delete ten of their friends in exchange for a voucher for a free Whopper sandwich.read more

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Steve Ballmer didn't drop many jaws with his keynote speech at CES yesterday; for better or for worse, he didn't confirm or deny rumors about Zune phones, deals with Yahoo, or 15,000 layoffs.  Still, Microsoft's CEO got into some interesting stuff, touching on the subjects of Windows 7, search, and a top social network.read more

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Well, that didn't take long.  On August 26th, Mark Zuckerberg made a post on the Facebook Blog noting that his social network had attracted 100 million users.  Now the CEO's back, saying that Facebook has hit the 150 million-user mark.read more

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You may have heard that there was a possible Facebook Book in the works. "My next book is about the kids who founded Facebook," says author Ben Mezrich. Well, it turns out that there is a book already available about Twitter. It's less of a bio on the founders however, and more of a how-it-can-help-you book for businesses.read more

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This Christmas was a merry one indeed for many social media sites.  Fresh stats from Hitwise show that Facebook and YouTube accomplished some impressive things, while social networks as a group attracted an unprecedented amount of traffic in the UK.read more

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Late last week MySpace responded to notices from the RIAA by banning all ProjectPlaylist widgets from its site. Yesterday Facebook followed suit.read more

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In the spirit of the holiday season, and holiday embarrassment that might come along with it, Facebook is reminding users that they have some privacy settings they can use and potentially save their reputations, or perhaps even their jobs. "Now that the holidays are in full swing, complete with office bashes, ugly sweater parties and New Years soirees, we thought we would take a minute to explain in more detail how you can control access to the content you post on Facebook," says Sasha Rosse on the Facebook Blog. read more

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Instant messaging and group chat provider Meebo is now allowing users to communicate with each other through both MySpace and Facebook IDs as well as all the other ones previously supported, like AIM, Yahoo, Google, MSN, Jabber, ICQ, etc.read more

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Central Europe loves Facebook.  Or parts of it do, anyway.  Although the social network didn't really start releasing versions in different languages until March of this year, new reports put Facebook's growth in two countries in the triple digits.read more

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Facebook has updated its user statistics, which show that its total number of users is up to 140 million. Half of them are outside of college (which is significant considering the network's roots), and the fastest growing demographic is 25 and older. read more

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Yesterday, a new report from Nielsen Online claimed that a lot more online video viewing takes place during business hours on weekdays than just about any time on weekends.  Officials in the tiny country of Montenegro were probably pleased to hear this, as the stats help justify new social media restrictions.read more

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Facebook has found another way to make sure you stay connected with the social network from other sites besides Facebook Connect. They have now launched a feature that keeps you at Facebook, while also navigating other sites you got to from Facebook. When one of your friends posts a link, you can go to it while a Facebook navigation bar will show up on the top of your screen, allowing you to comment while you're at the third-party site.read more

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Dan Levy started at PayPal in October, 2001 as a product manager.  Seven years later, he was with the same company and his business cards read "Head of Risk Management, Europe."  But in what seems like a loss for eBay and a gain for a certain social network, Levy's now gone to work for Facebook.read more

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Google and Facebook have both released new social features for third-party sites recently in Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect respectively. These are not the only kids of their kind on the block, however, as I am reminded by Gigya, the company behind a platform called Socialize. While Socialize has actually been around since September, its relevancy seems pretty significant now with the launches of the services mentioned above.read more

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Ben Mezrich, best selling author of "Bringing Down the House" about a group of MIT students burning Las Vegas casinos by developing a system to win at blackjack, says his next book will be about Facebook.read more

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AOL's Platform-A said Monday that the new AOL.com homepage is bringing advertisers record performance on their homepage advertising and is also driving increased user reach and engagement.Since AOL redesigned its homepage in September, advertising click-through rates on the primary 300 x 250 ad banner increased 30 percent, according to internal tracking.read more

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Recently I dug back through our archives to put together something of a retrospective looking at the year in online video. Now I have done basically the same thing looking at 2008's happenings in online music. read more

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CMS Watch has released a report suggesting that LinkedIn is moving more rapidly to address enterprise social computing needs. While Facebook received much of the buzz in this area a year ago, LinkedIn is more appealing in an enterprise scenario, it implies. read more

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The Better Business Bureau is warning users of social networking sites about a number of common scams that hackers are using to gain access to personal information.read more

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In these uncertain economic times, advertisers need to make their ads count if they don't want to throw away precious dollars on ineffective Internet advertising. Online advertising is still a great way to market your business, as it is highly targeted, and can provide both an unparalleled branding appeal and instant conversion (depending on the nature of the ad). But effective ads must be engaging. They must give a viewer a reason to care. That is a large part of the battle. Caring and Sharing read more

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