Social Networking Watch

Lithium Gets $12 Million Second Round

PAID CONTENT -- June 30 -- Lithium Technologies, a provider of white-label social networking tools, has raised $12m in its second round funding, led by Benchmark Capital. Benchmark joins Emergence Capital and Shasta Ventures, which co-led a $9 million first round in April 2007.  The company, which has been around for almost seven years now, has been working with clients such as AT&T, Comcast, Dell, Sprint and others to power their online community. The technology was originally created as part of online gaming portal Gamers.com. CEO Lyle Fong and his brother Dennis co-founded Gamers.com and its parent, GX Media, which raised $15m from investors including CMGI in 1999. FULL ARTICLE @ WASHINGTON POST

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Lithium Technologies

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Filtrbox Unveils New Media Monitoring Service

PRESS RELEASE -- June 30 -- Filtrbox announced a new media monitoring service designed for business professionals. With Filtrbox users can: 
- Monitor the entire blogosphere, social platforms, and online news with one service
- Discover new articles and sources that might otherwise be missed
- Share articles found by Filtrbox via email, or post them to Facebook, Digg and del.icio.us
- Mashup all of their online content sources into one monitoring service

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Filtrbox

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MySpace Users Struggle To Overcome Cybervandalism

IDG NEWS SERVICE -- June 30 -- MySpace is facing continuing security problems. Hackers, spammers and Internet malcontents have turned many of the "group" sites into cyber-graffiti walls, filled with offensive comments and photographs. Those trashing the group profiles are known as trolls. "So far, we have seen MySpace do very little to address the issues of trolling," said Caroline Dangson, an analyst at IDC. However, a document from a recent court case where MySpace sued a company for spamming peoples' profiles, gives some insight into the evolution of its security department. The security staff has been increased to 30 or 40 employees. MySpace has also hired high-power leadership in April 2006. The site's chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, is a former computer crimes prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. FULL ARTICLE @ PC WORLD

Mark Brooks: Social networking sites are working together to beat scammers, spammers, the obscene, the obnoxious, and community abusers using the iovation service which id's devices, and allows subscribing companies to categorize them as being associated with certain forms of abuse. (Disclosure: iovation is a client of Courtland Brooks)

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Social Network For Families Launches Version 2.0

BUSINESS WIRE -- June 30 -- BabySpot.com, a social network designed for new families, announced the 2.0 version of their website and the launch of their new video network service. BabySpot.com allows customers to create video libraries of their new family. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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BabySpot

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Whrrl Adds Support For Motorola, Samsung And More..

BUSINESS WIRE -- June 30 -- Pelago, creators of the mobile social networking and discovery service, Whrrl, announced new mobile support for the BlackBerry World 8830, multiple Motorola RAZR models including the V3M, v3xx, V9, v9M, and the Samsung M610. The new devices join current Whrrl-supported devices: the BlackBerry Pearl and Curve, the Nokia N95, and soon the Apple iPhone. The Whrrl Web experience now offers the "what's on my map?" feature which provides users with a helpful navigation menu for exploring places and events with the aid of friends.  FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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Pelago

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Vodafone And MySpace Create Mobile Music Platform

GUARDIAN.CO.UK -- June 30 -- Vodafone has struck a deal with MySpace to launch a mobile music platform, called Vodafone Music Reporter, giving fans of its music events the chance to present an MTV online and mobile show. The collaboration, which will see the launch of a interactive profile on MySpace, aims to expand Vodafone's music activity, which includes summer music festivals such as Music Unlimited in Germany and Vodafone TBAs in the UK. FULL ARTICLE @ GUARDIAN.CO.UK

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Grown-Ups Social Network Closes

COMPUTERWORLD -- June 30 -- A year after launching, self-proclaimed kiwi "social networking site for grown-ups" iYomu has closed. iYomu launched in August, promoting itself as aimed at 25-55 year-olds, with those under 18 excluded. FULL ARTICLE @ COMPUTERWORLD

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Social Network Lets Employees Share Salaries

RED ORBIT -- June 30 -- A website launched earlier this month called GlassDoor.com is staking its claim in the social media landscape, aggregating employees' opinions on salaries, bosses and company culture in one place. Founded in 2007 by former president of Hotwire.com Robert Hohman and Expedia founder Rich Barton, the site has been called the "TripAdvisor for the workplace" and is intended to give an uncensored, real-time view of workplaces around the world. Micron and HP have the most entries on GlassDoor. So far Micron has 12 reviews on the site and 16 salaries have been shared. HP has almost 200 reviews and 179 salaries posted. FULL ARTICLE @ RED ORBIT

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Google Quietly Tests Social Network

COMPUTER WORLD -- June 29 -- Google has quietly begun limited testing of several new social features created for its iGoogle personalized start page. The updates include chat, activity streaming and a new interface for the gadgets offered on the start page. Google plans to expand the rollout of the updated start page next month. FULL ARTICLE @ PC WORLD

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Google

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MocoSpace Reports 3 Million Users

TMC NET -- June 27 -- MocoSpace, the mobile phone social network, has passed three million users.  Opera (browser company) ranked MocoSpace as the 3rd most trafficked mobile site in the U.S. after MySpace and Google. The rapid growth of MocoSpace is being fueled by word of mouth mostly from younger consumers. Members can create and browse profiles as well as send messages, upload and share photos, and more. FULL ARTICLE @ TMC NET

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MocoSpace

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Familybuilder Reaches 16 Million Profiles

MASHABLE -- June 27 -- Genealogy tool Familybuilder (formerly known as iFamily), has reached an important milestone - 16m profiles built within its network. Having launched a year ago today as a Facebook application, Familybuilder has spread to a number of other networks like Bebo and Orkut. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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Helio Hangs it Up

TECH CRUNCH -- June 27 -- Virgin Mobile purchased Helio today for $39m in equity. Helio is a small MVNO that made its name by selling powerful and high-end telephones aimed at technophiles and, thanks to an investment by South Korea's SK Telecom, Korean-Americans. As part of the deal, Virgin Mobile is also receiving $50m to pay down Helio's debt, as well as an additional revolving credit facility of $60m. Helio had 170,000 subscribers while Virgin Mobile currently has about 5m. The deal will also give Virgin access to a number of technologies owned by Helio including customer management and cellphone deck applications. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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EMI Music Sues Hi5, VideoEgg And Ten Others

TECH CRUNCH -- June 27 -- EMI, which is looking less like a music label and more like a lawsuit label, is at it again. They've  filed a lawsuit alleging "massive and blatant" copyright infringement by Hi5, VideoEgg and ten John Doe defendants to be named later. The core of the suit is over copyrighted EMI content that appears on Hi5, particularly music videos. In the recent past, they've sued or threatened to sue AllofMP3, YouTube, Apple, MP3Tunes, XM Radio, Infospace and even The Beatles. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH

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Going Online With The In-Crowd

BUSINESS WIRE -- June 26 -- The Diamond Lounge claims to bring together a hand-selected group of the most successful, attractive and eligible people on the planet. According to its founder, Arya Marafie Diamond Lounge was inspired by a real-life private members club. "When we created the Diamond Lounge, we started by looking at private clubs rather than dating and networking sites. This lead to our gated application process (which only about 25% of applicants now get through). In addition to interaction, members will soon benefit from access to lavish private events, exclusive products, an online magazine and to a range of other goodies. Access to the Diamond Lounge costs $35 per month. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

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Microsoft Acquiring MobiComp

MASHABLE -- June 26 -- Microsoft has announced its intention to acquire mobile services and solutions specialist MobiComp (HQ in Portugal with bases in UK, Malaysia, Dubai). MobiComp provides the mobile backup and data sharing solution MobileKeeper as well as Active mTicker, a system which delivers automated notifications via information subscriptions. Uses for mTicker can range from basic news alerts to advertising. Financial details have not been disclosed and the deal is officially still pending. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

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MySpace Releases Data Availability API

READ WRITE WEB -- June 26 -- MySpace is releasing a set of APIs that will allow developers to implement protocols for exchanging and synchronizing user profiles between their own applications and MySpace profiles. Users can share their basic profile information, as well as their MySpace photos, videos, and friend list. This is, of course, a direct competitor to Google's Friend Connect and Facebook's Facebook Connect, though there are important differences between these projects. While Friend Connect relies on an iframe to exchange data between sites, the Data Availability APIs makes third-party services request the data from MySpace 'on the fly' and only allows a user's login name to be cached. FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

Mark Brooks: Free, free at last.

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YouTube Continues To Destroy All Competitors

READ WRITE WEB -- June 26 -- YouTube's huge lead in market share over other online video sites continues to get bigger, even as the over all video viewing market continues a decline. According to traffic analysts Hitwise, YouTube now sees 75.43% of traffic to the online video category; that's up 26% from it's May 2007 marketshare of 59.95%. The nearest competitor is still MySpaceTV, which was down a whopping 44% to 9% marketshare.

FULL ARTICLE @ READ WRITE WEB

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YouTube

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Friendster Announces Mobile Text Alerts

PR NEWSWIRE -- June 26 -- Friendster's users in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines will soon be able to subscribe to Friendster Text Alerts, a full suite of alerts covering activityin their Friendster network, sent directly to their mobile devices via SMS text messages. Friendster Text Alerts is Friendster's second mobile offering and complements Friendster's mobile site, m.friendster.com, launched in May 2008. FULL ARTICLE @ THE EARTH TIMES

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Friendster

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XING Introduces Networking For Graduates

PRESS RELEASE -- June 26 -- From tomorrow, students and graduates will have the opportunity to personalise their online profile on XING. The new status option "graduate/student" allows members to prominently showcase their educational backgrounds on their profiles. For recent graduates or even students still at university, these profiles on XING can be vital in meeting and contacting potential employers and alumni around the world. FULL ARTICLE @ XING

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Xing

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Jajah Chosen To Power Gizmo5 VoIP Services

MASHABLE -- June 26 -- After launching a telephony platform and landing Yahoo as one of its first clients, Jajah is well on its way to becoming a dominating force in the world of VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol phone calls. Today, Gizmo5 (formerly SIPphone) has announced its decision to select Jajah 's Managed Services platform to power portions of its own VoIP service. With the Gizmo5 and Jajah partnership, Gizmo5 will be using the Jajah platform to handle all call termination and some other custom services like customer care and billing. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE

Mark Brooks: I find Jajah most useful while traveling.  When I go to a new city/country I pick up a $10 SIM card and then use Jajah to provision calls to the USA.  Works great, although the calls can be pricey, it still beats the international call rates from the cell phone.

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