Facebook to License its Social Networking Platform
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The company will license its tags and APIs to other social networking sites, so they can run apps designed for Facebook.
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Facebook.com on Thursday took the  wraps off its highly anticipated makeover from a members-only  club into what it hopes can allow it to become a software  operating system for all sorts of Internet media.
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InfoWorld - Facebook took a new step into the mobile realm on Thursday, launching a platform for operators designed to make its social networking application work better on portable devices.
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Social-networking site to unveil a set of developer tools for potentially converting existing Facebook applications.
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BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd. announced Wednesday it has launched software that will make it easier for Facebook users to use the popular social networking site.
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The social networking Web site has agreed to include online protections and participate in a working group to develop age-verification technologies, according to an official familiar with the agreement.
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Belatedly recognizing the importance of social networking as an online service and advertising vehicle, Google this week will unleash its strongest response yet to the rising threat and skyrocketing popularity of MySpace and Facebook.On Thursday, Google will announce OpenSocial, an initiative with a set of APIs (application programming interfaces) at its core that is designed &quot;to spread social applications across the Web,&quot; the company said.These common APIs have been designed to let developers create social networking applications that will run on multiple Web sites, simplifying the making and distribution of these programs.Partners supporting OpenSocial include various well-known software developers and social networking sites: Oracle, Salesforce.com, Hi5, iLike, LinkedIn, Slide, Ning, Friendster, and Plaxo. Neither Facebook nor MySpace is on the list of partners at press time.The move is also no doubt intended to dilute the massive&#160;success Facebook has had in attracting external developers&#160;since it opened up its Web site platform to third-party applications in May.About 7,000 such applications have been built for Facebook so far, helping to make the social networking site more attractive to people and thus boosting its usage.&#160;MySpace recently announced it would follow Facebook&#39;s example.By allowing developers to write an application once and have it work in multiple social networking sites, the OpenSocial initiative could, in theory, water down the appeal of Facebook&#39;s ballooning applications catalogue.Once considered a fad of interest mostly to teens and young adults, social networks have significantly broadened their demographic appeal, attracting many people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond.Along the way, social networking sites have been created for other purposes beyond entertainment and staying in touch with friends. For example, there are social networks tailored for specific occupations, such as doctors, and interests, such as sports.Google has had a social networking site named Orkut for several years, but it doesn&#39;t seem to have merited much attention from the company until recently, and only after the popularity and potential of this type of site became evident.Google was reportedly locked in a battle with Microsoft&#160;over which one would be chosen by Facebook to buy a stake in the social networking company and earn a deal to provide advertising to it.Microsoft eventually won, buying a 1.6 percent stake that values Facebook at an eye-popping $15 billion, although the social networking company reportedly will have revenue of just $150 million this year.With about 300 employees now, Facebook expects to have about 700 a year from now, its CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently said. About 250,000 new users register every day at Facebook, which was founded in 2004.In June, MySpace had 114.1 million unique visitors worldwide, ranking first among social networking sites, followed by Facebook with 52.2 million, according to comScore. Hi5 ranked third with 28.2 million, while Friendster was fourth with 24.7 million. Orkut rounded out the top 5 with 24.1 million.More information about OpenSocial and resources for developers will be available in this Web site later this week. There will also be a developer sandbox.
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InfoWorld - Facebook has become such a popular social networking site that some companies are betting their businesses on it.
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Blog: The Internet statistics firm found that the social networking site experienced an 89% growth in traffic, mostly outside of the "collegiate" 18-24 age demographic, when it announced that the once-exclusive service now had open registration.
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If it was created in the course of business Employers could have grounds to demand ownership of employees' social networking profiles, such as those generated on Facebook, MySpace or Bebo, according to a leading intellectual property lawyer.â¦
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Facebook introduces a Spanish version of its popular social networking site, and promises German and French versions soon.
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Firefox co-founders get networking Facebook, the ubiquitous, in-your-face social [cough] networking website, has acquired Parakey, a startup run by the co-founders of Mozilla Firefox.â¦
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InfoWorld - Facebook, the hugely popular social networking site, will kick off an international push on Monday with the launch of a Spanish version.
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Privately held social networking  site Facebook Inc. said on Thursday it has acquired Internet  startup Parakey, run by the co-founders of Web browser Mozilla  Firefox, for an undisclosed sum.
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Social network MySpace is to allow third-party developers to build applications for the site.
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Facebook wants to make its members' profiles portable, get a handle on software developers, launch ad platform.
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Microsoft yesterday announced a $240 million deal with Facebook, giving the technology giant a minority stake in the popular social networking site and the exclusive rights to sell worldwide advertisements that target Facebook's 50 million members.