Stories related to: MySpace

LinkedIn will start allowing user-created applications as part of an effort to keep up with social networking competitors like Facebook and MySpace, PC World reports. The professional networking site said today it has redesigned its home page and plans to display relevant BusinessWeek stories on users' profiles, as well as highlighting stories their colleagues are reading. More »

Universal Music Group is the last of the major record label groups, and the largest, to sign a deal with social-networking site Imeem. The site allows users to upload songs to their pages, but not download or store them on computers or iPods, reports the Wall Street Journal. Every time someone plays a track, Imeem will pay Universal a fixed fee, in addition to sharing ad revenues. More »

The iPhone topped Google’s list of fastest-growing search terms this year, reports Reuters. "iPhone, of course, is a word very few people typed in a search box in 2006,” said a Google rep. “It didn’t exist.” The list was dominated by social networking and celebrity terms. iPhone Webkinz TMZ More »

Television ratings giant Nielsen is getting set to take a new role—video piracy cop. The company says its new service, Digital Media Manager, will fingerprint programming to make sure videos can be posted on Internet sites like MySpace and YouTube only if they have owners' permission, reports the Wall Street Journal . More »

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has inked an eight-figure deal to buy Beliefnet, the US' most popular religion website, as a platform to promote the company's religious books and programming, the Wall Street Journal reports. Details of the transaction weren't released, but the site will become a part of News Corp's film and television division, Fox Entertainment Group, rather than the interactive media division. More »

MySpace will host and sell videos of exclusive musical performances on its MySpace Music site, reports the New York Times . Artists will record a series of exclusive videos for the site, and will be able to set their own prices, unlike Apple's iTunes flat-rate prices. The system, called Transmissions, won't require users to leave MySpace, as an earlier, failed system did. More »

No charges will be filed in the cyberbullying case that led a young girl to commit suicide, Wired reports. A Missouri prosecutor found there was not enough evidence to prove criminal intent on the part of mother Lori Drew and others who launched an online bullying campaign against 13-year-old Megan Meier through a hoax MySpace persona called "Josh." More »

A free blog site that pioneered personal web publishing among Russia’s intellectuals has been sold to a pair of entrepreneurs who promise to add cash and expand it globally, Reuters reports. Six Apart said it sold LiveJournal, which claims 14.3 million blog accounts and 20 million visitors a month—in the US, largely among teenage girls—to SUP. Terms were not disclosed. More »

The super-rich are joining the social networking craze, but they're certainly not going to mix with the masses on MySpace. Exclusive sites for millionaires using the same membership criteria as snooty country clubs are appearing on the Web, reports the Wall Street Journal . Invitation-only site aSmallWorld.net has proven popular—some say too popular.      More »

Newspapers readers at an increasing pace are turning to Pluck, a media syndication company, to link their sites to social networks, like MySpace and Facebook, giving them access to 165 million users, Reuters reports. Pluck will use the Facebook programming interface and Google's OpenSocial system to share information between its customer's sites and the most prominent social nets. More »

Aggressive new advertising tactics make Facebook look more evil by the day, but don’t worry, InformationWeek columnist Cory Doctorow writes, because it’s doomed anyway. Sure social networks are “pure crack” for some, but sooner or later everyone gets friended by someone they’d rather avoid, and eventually that awkwardness is too much to bear. More »

Millions of young users of social networking sites are risking identity theft because of information shared online, warns a UK study reported in the Independent today. Britain's privacy watchdog concludes that 4.5 million web users from 14 to 21 years old could be vulnerable to identity fraud, and young users posting personal information on sites also risk damaging educational and business prospects. More »

The two parents who used MySpace to harass a teenage girl so relentlessly that she committed suicide are now the target of internet vigilantes, the Los Angeles Times reports. When prosecutors could not mount a case, angry neighbors posted the family's address, photos, and phone numbers on blogs. Their workplaces have been flooded with calls, protesters gather outside their house, and people shout "Murderer" as they drive by. More »

The made-for-Internet show "quarterlife," created and largely financed by the brains behind "My So-Called Life" and "thirtysomething," will be appearing on TV thanks to a deal with NBC signed this week. The show will most likely hit old-media screens early next year, after all 36 scheduled webisodes have aired. New episodes will continue to debut online before their TV air dates. More »

Police fear a "mob mentality" is brewing in a St. Louis suburb after a 13-year-old girl killed herself, and the hoaxers who allegedly prodded her have gone free. Two adults—parents of the girl's friend—badgered Megan Meier online until she hanged herself in her closet last October. Cops say they've been getting angry calls since the story broke last week, but insist that no law can corral the cyber-bullies. More »

If snail mail is going the way of the dodo, then it looks like, among teenagers, email is going the way of, well, the snail: half of all teens prefer instant messaging to old-fashioned emails; and while overall use increased six percent last year, e-missives among the "Facebook generation" dropped by eight percent, Slate reports. More »

With a new option allowing users to search for advertising pages, Facebook has crept another step closer to a search engine. Will the social networking site take the ultimate plunge in its battle against Google and roll out a full-fledged search engine? VentureBeat 's Doug Sherret explores how this engine would look and how it could succeed. More »

Just as Hollywood writers go on strike, the Emmy-winning creators of "thirtysomething" and "My So-Called Life" are launching their new show, which will air not on TV but online, in eight-minute weekly webisodes. "Quarterlife" will focus on six twentysomething artist friends living in a big city, and characters and fans will be able to interact on quarterlife.com to form a social networking community. More »

MySpace is entering the second phase of its "HyperTargeting" advertising program, meant to use data from member profiles to match up users with the perfect online ads. But CNET blogger Caroline McCarthy became skeptical of how dead-on the targeting is when her profile offered her "a Christian dating service, acne medication, and diet pills." More »

Facebook has matured from an e-frat house where co-eds post pics of their hedonistic exploits to a cyber-cocktail party where the well-heeled gather to display baby pictures and taunt each other like, well, school kids. “I am so telling Rupert,” a columnist teases the Journal’s Matthew Rose, after discovering Mr. Murdoch’s future employee playing Scrabble on the site. More »