Facebook opens profiles to public
143586
Social networking site offers profiles to search engines and gives users chance to opt out.
658617
Google's new API is expected to make data created by users of social networks easily available.
541290
Facebook announced yesterday that it is taking the unusual step of allowing the public to develop features for the popular social-networking Web site, permitting any software designer to access the company's millions of members.
19306
Social networking sites like Facebook have wooed millions of users with their easy format for keeping in touch but left them navigating the pitfalls of interacting online -- is it really private?
43206
An impending update from Facebook will make it possible for you to make your profile look a whole lot neater by hiding excess applications.
232281
Social network makes it a snap Facebook users who like to control who gets to see your account details, take note: political views, religious back ground and other sensitive details may be wide open to prying eyes even though you've configured your profile so its viewable only to designated friends.â¦
401851
MySpace Wednesday will begin letting programmers pre-register for its developer platform program, which will open for business next week.Interested developers will be able to sign up on the site to receive information about the MySpace Developer Platform, announced in October. Then next Tuesday, the developer site will become fully operational and feature documentation and API tools to build and test applications for MySpace, the world&#39;s most popular social networking service.Although over the years MySpace has allowed, on a case-by-case basis, some external developers to put their widgets on the social networking site, the upcoming program potentially&#160;opens the door to any coder&#160;by providing open APIs and makes it possible for developers to generate revenue from those applications.&quot;This gives developers deeper access to our community through APIs so they&#39;ll be able to build richer applications and also gives them an opportunity to build their business directly on MySpace. It&#39;s a natural step in the evolution of how we&#39;ve worked with third party developers,&quot; said Amit Kapur, who has just been appointed chief operating officer after being in charge of business development for several years.In October, the move was widely seen as a competitive response to rival&#160;Facebook&#39;s successful opening of its platform&#160;to outside developers in May, which has resulted in the creation of about 14,000 applications and widgets for that social networking site.Other social networking companies have also followed suit and decided to let external developers create applications for their sites. Moreover, in November, Google launched its&#160;OpenSocial initiative to promote industry-wide adoption of common APIs for social applications, so that developers can more easily port their applications to different sites. MySpace, along with others, has indicated it supports OpenSocial.As it gears up for the launch of the application development platform, MySpace has taken special care to put safeguards in place to prevent security and privacy breaches from third-party applications, Kapur said.&quot;A key interest we have as we launch this platform is to protect the user experience against things like application spam and security holes, so that&#39;ll be a major part of our launch. We&#39;re extremely committed to safety and security,&quot; he said.Facebook has been dealing with this problem, as some over-eager developers have built self-promotion features into their applications to spur their adoption. Since its platform launch, Facebook has tweaked its tools and APIs several times to address the problem of applications that annoy users with intrusive displays and unsolicited messages, and seems to have the issue well under control now.&#160;
617738
Facebook has launched a licensing program to allow other social networks to use its technology.
481744
To be, or not to be: Now Facebook users can decide.
58323
Fast-growing U.S. social network Web   site Facebook said on Friday it has adopted new privacy   controls following an unprecedented online backlash over a new   feature that let users track their friends online.
49099
A small step for the budding social network's quest to be the anti-Facebook: Plaxo has opened up a portion of its source code dedicated to helping users manage their various social networking identities.
296179
By Abigail Tucker, The Baltimore Sun  Mar. 4--Late on the night before Ash Wednesday, Maura Toomb clicked into her profile on Facebook, her favorite social networking Web site. She took a deep breath and typed:  "I'm giving up Facebook for Lent.
229754
A quirky new social-networking service called Mash lets you customize your friends' profiles. The Yahoo service, in public beta now, gives you the option to leave your profile open to your friends, who can choose glitter text for your page design, or add unicorns and kittens to your profile.
47746
As previously announced, the popular social-networking site joined other sites in opening its platform to outside developers -- and potentially opening it to applications that could reach into enterprises.
463011
Giving into user demand, the networking site LinkedIn will soon start letting its users post photos with their personal profiles.
669370
Match.com, an old standby of online dating, wants to make some new connections among the fast-growing number of Facebook users worldwide.
326401
On the JSLabs blog today, there's a new tutorial showing how you (yes you) can use the Facebook Developer's API to pull information from their systems.   The facebook API allows you to access profiles, friends, photos, and events.  To access the API from an outside server, you need to go through the following steps:  login to your Facebook Account get an account key Get the client library The php 5 library can be found here    He uses the PHP library to make the connection - a simple call to the API (complete with API key, the location of the interface, a secret key, and a session key to provide a unique identifier. The request made logs a user in (much have a valid Facebook account) and grabs: the count of the messages waiting, the number of posts to your wall, and a list of available photo albums.