Google makes social networking power move -- finally
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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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Plaxo, Google, and Facebook now have members in the relatively new consortium to promote social-networking interoperability. Don't expect to see immediate results any time soon, though.
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TechWeb - The popular social networking site is taking steps to protect its young users.
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CHICAGO _ The Internet's booming social-networking trend has reached a new milestone: Web sites are beginning to pay for content.
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Social networking site offers profiles to search engines and gives users chance to opt out.
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Blog: Bloggers report that Google and Yahoo are creating new social networks to try to get back in the game since their existing services haven't gained widespread adoption
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Google has unveiled the second version of Google Groups, which is designed to make it easier to follow online chat groups. Enhanced tools allow fast searches of the company&#39;s Usenet database of online forums, which it bought in 2001.
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Google's new API is expected to make data created by users of social networks easily available.
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The social networking site will supply APIs and test apps to support integrated widgets.
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Members of social networking services  like Facebook will soon be able to update their profiles by  simply making a phone call, instead of having to type on a  computer keyboard.
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Another set-to over social networking is centered on Google this week, as users testing the "share" feature in Google Reader find they're sharing a lot more widely than they might have wished to do. Atlas-like, Google shrugged, but says it may make minor tweaks at some point.
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It joins the battle for mobile users with Google.
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MySpace has an impressive lead today, but things can change quickly in the fluid world of mass-market social networking sites. Just ask Friendster.
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Google gets into the Web registration business.
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The search engine giant has made it easier to navigate different media. It's also setting itself up nicely for video ads
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Like rival lovers, Google and Microsoft are intensely courting Facebook as the social-networking upstart picks petals off a flower -- &quot;she loves me, she loves me not&quot; -- and tries to decide which of the two will be allowed to buy a minority stake in the company, according to press reports.The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post reported Wednesday that Facebook will likely make a decision within a day or two, and that the chosen company will also get a deal to provide ads for the social network&#39;s sites outside of the U.S.Google, Facebook, and Microsoft all declined to comment when contacted by IDG News Service.Founded in 2004, Facebook&#39;s popularity has skyrocketed during the past year or so. Its user ranks have increased to about 47 million active users today from 12 million in December. More than half of its active members return to the site daily.As such, it is perceived as an attractive vehicle for online advertising, although some industry experts question how effective social-networking sites are for advertisers.In a social-networking site, particularly one as restricted as Facebook, people mostly visit the pages of their acquaintances, to see their latest comments, photos, and videos.For Facebook, MySpace, and other social sites like YouTube and Flickr, it&#39;s still unclear whether enough advertisers will feel comfortable running their ads on pages with potentially objectionable material whose creation is largely unregulated and created by millions of individuals.Facebook will likely share ideas for revving up its advertising business on Nov. 6, when it holds an event in New York to which it has invited what it calls &quot;its closest advertisers.&quot;&quot;As part of [the event], Facebook executives will discuss new approaches for advertising online,&quot; a Facebook spokeswoman said. &quot;We are not sharing any further details.&quot;In addition to the advertising questions, Facebook, MySpace, and others are in the crosshairs of law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad because sexual predators use social-networking sites to stalk and victimize people, in particular minors.Still, Facebook is the Internet company with the loudest buzz now, and the anonymous sources for the Journal and the Post articles suggest that the price of the minority stake in play gives Facebook a total valuation of between $10 billion and $15 billion.Both newspapers reported that in addition to Google or Microsoft, other investors might be involved in the acquisition of the ownership stake.The Journal first reported Google&#39;s and Microsoft&#39;s pursuit of the Facebook investment a month ago.
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By Leslie Brooks Suzukamo, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.  Feb. 10--Google. MySpace. Facebook. YouTube. They're not just insanely popular phenomena: They also are businesses that require superpowerful computers distributing mountains of data in microseconds to eager users.