MySpace Launches Pan-Asian Game Application Contest

MySpace has launched a game application competition in its Asian markets.The social networking site announced this week that MySpace China, MySpace Japan, MySpace Korea, and MySpace India would host TheGame08, a Pan-Asian competition. Entrants submit applications through the MySpace Developer Platform for a chance to win cash and prizes, media attention, and a trip to the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.

The site will translate the winning game application into English, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and promote it globally on MySpace.The contest launched today at the ChinaJoy Expo in Shanghai. It ends Sept. 14, at 11:59 p.m. in each time zone. MySpace will announce finalists on Sept. 22 and reveal the winner Oct. 9.

Contestants can enter as individuals or as teams with three members of less. They must legally reside in China, India, Japan, or Korea and be at least 18 years old.

Submissions must be completely unique and not yet published or submitted for another contest. They must be translatable into English and text for translations must be provided in a resource file.

The contest prohibits sexually explicit, obscene, pornographic, violent, self-mutilating, discriminatory, illegal, offensive, threatening, profane, or harassing content. Submissions cannot mention or contain content from copyrighted productions or infringe on trademarks, logos, insignias, or other third-party creative property. They cannot contain signs indicating a location and cannot include third parties’ images, voices, or likeness unless without authorization.

Source - http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/social_network/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209100679

Local man’s arrest linked to alleged MySpace threat

A Porterville man with ties to the skinhead movement is suspected of threatening a coastal California man through use of a MySpace account.

Rob Bryn, public information officer with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office, said today that the case against Jeffrey David Lodor, 27, is based on an alleged criminal threats case and includes gang allegations based on Lodor’s suspected ties to white supremacy groups.

Lodor refers to himself as a reverend for the Creator Skinhead Movement but denies he’s a white supremacist.

Bryn said authorities in San Luis Obispo County received a report on Sunday from a man who reported receiving what he considered threats from Lodor on a MySpace account allegedly held by Lodor. Bryn said the man, whose name was not released, took the threat seriously.

“He believed this person may have been spotted in San Luis Obispo County as well,” Bryn said.

Porterville police arrested Lodor without incident on Tuesday. He was later turned over to authorities from San Lus Obispo County.

Bryn said Lodor is being held on suspicion of terrorist threats with a pair of gang enhancements based on Lodor’s alleged affiliations. He said the case remains under investigation, but did not comment further on the scope of the evidence.

“Obviously it was enought to make an arrest in this case,” he said.

Final disposition is pending in a felony assault case against Lodor in Tulare County Superior Court. That case was filed Oct. 27, 2007, and is based on an incident on Oct. 18 during which Lodor allegedly stabbed a Springville man outside The Antlers Bar, in the 30900 block of East Highway 190, near Springville.

Read Full Story at - http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/social_network/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209100679

Spammers target social networking sites

With well over 100 million active users, it was only a matter of time before Facebook and MySpace became targets of spam. A new survey reveals just how common this has become.

Joe LaCavera of San Francisco has been using MySpace for three years. The social networking site allows friends to share personal profiles, blogs, music and even videos.

But Joe noticed something different about MySpace recently, and he doesn’t like it.

“I had more spam messages in my inbox than from my own friends,” said LaCavera.

His experience is becoming more and more common among users of many social networking sites, not just MySpace.

A nationwide poll conducted by Harris Interactive found 83 percent of 1,000 users polled have been spammed on their social or professional network account.

More than a third of those people noticed an increase of spam in the last six months.

The poll was conducted for Cloudmark, a San Francisco-based company that provides spam protection for companies worldwide.

Adam O’Donnell is Cloudmark’s Director of Emerging Technologies. He encourages everyone to install patches and anti-virus software to make sure their computers are clean.

“You want to use a different password at every website you have access to. You don’t want to share account information,” said O’Donnell.

But for Joe, even changing his password numerous times didn’t help. His friends started getting spam from him he didn’t send.

Spammers had someone tap into his friends list, sending out embarrassing messages in his name.

“My friends started sending messages to me saying why are you sending this, what’s going on, and it became a problem,” said LaCavera.

View full story at http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/7_on_your_side&id=6195222

New LGBT Social Networking Site Launches

A new social networking site for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Allied community was launched today in Beta. FriendsYouKnow.com attempts to be a little different: The site will donate 10 percent of subscription fees to organizations that support LGBT interests. (Of course, this also means the site costs money to use.)From BigJocks.com to OurChart.com, there is no shortage of social networking sites for the LGBT (and sometimes allied) community. But FriendsYouKnow.com founder and chief executive Matt Small says that normal social networking sites aren’t enough, and that LGBT sites that are available are generally glorified dating services. The front page of the Beta site assures users that they will be able to network personally and professionally and remain “free from sexual ads or suitors.”

The new site will feature linked-in networking, streaming news content feeds, user-generated blogs, and photo-sharing.

Internet users can register now as Beta testers at FriendsYouKnow.com and receive a 12-month account for $1 (regularly $9.95/mo.).

Read full news at http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2319460,00.asp

MySpace leads NZ social networking – or does it?

MySpace New Zealand is claiming to be one of the country’s most popular social networking websites in 2007 after being named number one by Hitwise at its Social Networking and Forums Awards category this week.

In a press release following the awards night, MySpace New Zealand and Australia vice president Rebekah Horne said, “MySpace has been localised in New Zealand for just over a year and this industry acknowledgement underlines that our broader commitment to MySpace users is working … from exciting global initiatives, including the recent announcement of the new MySpace Music platform to our on-ground presence in New Zealand - where Kiwi MySpace users are treated to truly local content as well as well as a host of free and exclusive offline events across the country.”

But hoopla aside, the MySpace claims don’t tally with other figures released in February.

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, MySpaace ranked third in New Zealand behind Bebo, which both trailed the number-one local favourite, Old Friends - the Trade Me-affiliated social networking website.

The discrepancy highlights the continued confusion that exists over online measurements that many within the industry still have. Not least, those who ought to know better - online business owners and marketers.

But an industry insider m-net spoke to said that by contrast, advertisers know exactly what they want - figures on a site’s unique browsers and page impressions. “Many advertising campaigns use the CPM payment schedule - cost per thousand page impressions,” she said, making CPM and unique browser numbers the language used by online advertisers.

Read Full News at - http://www.itbrief.co.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2297&Itemid=0

Social Networking Website for Travelers Receives “Official Honoree” Distinction for the 12th Annual Webby Awards

a social networking website for travelers, today announced that it has received an “Official Honoree” distinction for the 12th annual Webby awards. Only fourteen sites within the Travel category received the “Official Honoree” distinction.

Hailed as the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Websites. The awards are judged by the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, a global organization that includes David Bowie, Harvey Weinstein, Arianna Huffington, AKQA Global Creative Director Rei Inamoto, Matt Groening, Jamie Oliver, Internet inventor Vinton Cerf, and RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser.

TravBuddy is a social networking website catered exclusively for travelers. Members can share their future travel plans and meet travel buddies who are planning to travel to the same places. Over 2,500 real-life introductions have taken place as a result of TravBuddy, including many large unofficial “meetups,” with dozens of attendees congregating in locations as varied as San Francisco, Amsterdam, and Germany. TravBuddy also contains tens of thousands of travel blogs, travel reviews, and travel photos, all submitted by members of the site.

Read Fulll News at - http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/social-networking-website-for-travelers,377148.shtml

Webby Awards 2007

This week the winners of the 11th annual Webby Awards, billed nowadays as the “Oscars of the Internet”, were announced at a ceremony in New York. Much of the publicity was over the fact that David Bowie was there (Prince attended last year). But other than that, what were the highlights of the Webbys? In this post we’ll review the winners list, and in particular the web 2.0 sites.

All up, there were nearly 70 categories. In the categories focused on web technology and social media, the clear winners were Flickr, LinkedIn and last.fm. Flickr picked up 3 awards (5 including two Peoples Choice ones), for Best Practices, Best Visual Design - Function, and Community. LinkedIn grabbed 2 awards, for Services and Social Networking. And last.fm won the Music category, plus was voted Peoples Choice for Best Practices.

Flickr accepting one of three Webby awards

Web 2.0 highlights

Flickr won the Best Practices award, and last.fm got the Peoples Choice award for the same category. Two Yahoo! properties were nominated here (Flickr and del.icio.us).

Flickr did very well out of the 11th Webbys, also taking the ‘Best Visual Design - Function’ award - beating Gucci.com in that category! - and best ‘Community’ site. They also got Peoples Choice in those last two. Thoroughly deserved! Indeed Flickr’s attitude to community etc can be best summed up in a little thing they did this week, replacing the ‘gamma’ label on their logo with ‘loves you’ (see image to right). I think this may be something to do with a Flickr marriage that occurred last week, where two people met on Flickr and eventually married. It’s the little people-focused things that Flickr does so well, so I’m pleased the Webbys recognized this.

LinkedIn won for ‘Services’ and ‘Social Networking’. Also great to see that innovative online calendar company 30 Boxes was nominated for ‘Services’. Facebook was Peoples Choice winner in Social Networking (no sign of MySpace!).

Last.fm took out the ‘Music’ category (where it was also Peoples Choice). Interestingly, Pandora didn’t even make the nominees.

Other highlights…

• The winner of the best Business Blog was DealBook, a NY Times property. PaidContent and TechDirt, two of my regular reads, were nominated. Now, I have to admit I don’t know a lot about DealBook - but here is a category where a hard-working and innovative blog could’ve been honoured over a big media property…
• guardian unlimited took the award for ‘Newspapers’, beating out NY Times (which was Peoples Choice).
• NPR podcasts won for Best Podcasts.
• Yahoo’s Kevin Sites won for news/documentary/public service.
• The ‘Broadband’ award went to blip.tv.
• Yelp took out the Guides/Ratings/Reviews category, ahead of CNET and others.
• Nike Women took out the ‘Retail’ award, but interesting to see that CafePress got the Peoples Choice award in this category. TheFind was also nominated, which R/WW has covered before.
• A wiki site won for ‘Travel’ - Wikitravel. There is a lot of innovation happening in the travel sector, because Kayak.com and TripAdvisor are also very impressive offerings.
• Zopa won the Banking/Bill Paying category. It is an innovative P2P app that is changing the way loans are done - check out R/WW’s coverage.
• Ask Mobile won the ‘Mobile - listings and updates’ award, ahead of Yahoo (Google and Microsoft weren’t even nominated).

Two Webby Lifetime Achievement awards were given - to Bowie (whose website has always rocked) and to eBay. YouTube’s golden run continues - YouTube Co-Founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley were named ‘Webby Person of the Year’.

What have we missed? And what did you think of the winners list this year? I thought it was great that Flickr, LinkedIn and last.fm were honoured, but I felt that some of the other categories were not well represented with innovative web sites - e.g. some of the blog choices were too conservative and many of my favorite blogs weren’t there. Tell us what you thought…

Original Source - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/webby_awards_2007.php

MySpace Launches Election Hub

n case you need yet another place to catch up on the campaign trail, MySpace (Social Networking Site) is teaming up with NBC News and msnbc.com to create Decision ‘08, an online hub for everything election-related.

MySpace members can check out recent news, watch videos and contribute to discussions. Members can also contribute their own content.

Decision ‘08 is a component of the MySpace IMPACT Channel that is intended to let users connect with politicians, non-profits and civic groups. The channel is where you can find the official MySpace profiles for the candidates as well as tools for voters.

And you thought it was impossible to be bombarded with more political coverage.

Original Source - http://blog.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2008/04/myspace_launches_election_hub.html?nav=rss_blog

New Mexico girl’s MySpace beau leaves her in Texas

A New Mexico girl who police said ran off to Texas to meet a boy she’d met on MySpace (Social Networking Site) was dumped by her 16-year-old beau after he learned her real age: 12.

The girl, whose identity was not released, told detectives that she left her home in Deming, N.M., with friends who drove her to El Paso on April 14. That’s when her parents reported her missing, said Baytown police Sgt. Shawn Fischer.

The 16-year-old boy she met on MySpace joined her in El Paso. The two then drove back to the boy’s home in the Houston area, Fischer said. Police said the girl told him she was 15.

The boy dropped the girl off at San Jacinto Mall after speaking with her aunt, who told him her niece was only 12.  Fischer said the boy then left the mall for fear of getting into trouble with the law. The girl was found unharmed.

After being questioned, the girl was placed on an airplane and reunited with her family on Friday.

Baytown authorities are still attempting to identify the boy and question him.

Original Source - http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/5719037.html

Beware of hacker attacks via Orkut, Facebook

As per the 2007 Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR) compiled by anti-virus and security solutions major Symantec, social networking sites have become the latest target of hackers to attack home and enterprise computers. “With the web emerging as the seamless medium of communication, information and interaction, online users are prone to get infected by engaging in social networking and browsing frequented websites due to malicious online activity in the form of worms, bots, viruses and Trojans,” Symantec India Managing Director Vishal Dhupar told IANS here.

Some of the popular social networking sites on the worldwide web are Bebo, Facebook (70 million registered users worldwide), Flickr (9.6 million users), MySpace (1.1 billion users) and Orkut.

About six million Indians are actively involved in social networking and spend nearly an hour of their online accessing websites providing such networking activity.

“The use of social networking websites in phishing attacks is symptomatic of the trend towards targeting people rather than their computers or laptops because users are the weakest link in internet security. As a result, personal information, confidential data or corporate dossiers stored insecurely face the risk of being corrupted or stolen,” Dhupar noted, citing the report.

Phishing is an e-mail fraud method by which a hacker sends out legitimate-looking e-mail in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients. Typically, the messages appear to come from well-known and trustworthy websites.

The report found that 65 percent of malicious attacks in India were through computer worms as against 22 percent globally due to lack of a fool-proof security patch or failure to install updates of anti-virus software in time.

High proliferation of viruses in India due to malicious code propagation vectors such as file sharing or executables has made net-surfers or browsers vulnerable to cyber attacks. “Unlike in the past, when netizens became victims by visiting malicious sites or clicking on deceptive e-mail attachments, hackers operating underground economy are targeting popular websites, accessed for a host of interactive services ranging from chat, messaging, e-mail, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging to discussions,” Dhupar pointed out.

“Of late, Indian consumers and enterprises are subjected to savage attacks in the form of phishing and botnets that choke the mailboxes. The study, conducted from July-December 2007, revealed India had a whopping 32,502 bot-infected computers and over 60 command and control servers, which is an increase of 50 percent over the previous study in 2006,” Dhupar recalled.

According to the report, there were 345 phishing URL (Universal Resource Locator) links with IP (Internet Protocol) addresses hosted in India. Even reputable Indian banks were not spared, as about 400 phishing attacks were detected in the second half of last year.

Read Full Story at - http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14653882