AOL Brings in Outside Help With Homepage Redesign

Integration will boost traffic on both sites, they hope

(NEWSER) - Yahoo is finally getting seriously social in a new partnership that will integrate Facebook Connect into its many properties. Yahoo users will be able monitor their Facebook feed on Yahoo, and vice versa. The integration will be done “on a deep level,” a Yahoo exec tells Kara Swisher, who finds it ironic in light of the fact that Yahoo almost managed to acquire Facebook for just over $1 billion several years ago. More»

They object in principle but end up using it by proxy

(NEWSER) - The Washington Post today profiles an increasingly rare breed: people in their 20s and 30s who don't use Facebook or other such sites. And though the “refuseniks” interviewed have different rationales—privacy, “morals and beliefs,” being “old-school in the personal touch way,” many share something in common that speaks to the pervasiveness of social networking: They use Facebook by proxy. More»

Users with no brand loyalty are a shaky foundation to build a long-lasting business on

(NEWSER) - These are rosy times for Facebook, but there's no guarantee the social networking juggernaut will even be around 5 years from now, Gary Andrew Poole writes for True/Slant. The newly profitable site is riding high, with 300 million users. But as fallen giants like AOL and veterans of the dot.com implosion attest, "our expectations have changed," Poole writes. "Brand loyalty has diminished and companies tend to go bust much more quickly." More»

Social networking degrades friendship, can lead to suicide

(NEWSER) - Facebook and MySpace are degrading our ability to relate to one another and pushing young people to suicide, the head of the Catholic Church in England tells the Telegraph. Archbishop Vincent Nichols is concerned that social-networking websites encourage teens to form only “transient relationships,” which can leave them feeling hopeless when they dissipate. More»

(NEWSER) - Sacha Baron Cohen has partnered up with MySpace to promote his new film, Bruno, in a move that could help revive the struggling social networking site, Advertising Age reports. MySpace is hosting a movie site for the gay Austrian fashionista—MeinSpace—and the parent site has started running an unrestricted trailer. Cohen was convinced to strike the deal because Bruno could plausibly be into MySpace. More»