Classmates.com had a decade-long head start in the social networking biz before Facebook came along, but with its pay-to-connect model, it blew its chance to dominate. Now, like a teen buying a term paper, it's buying SchoolFeed, an app that connects you to former classmates ... on Facebook.
Credit card rewards are the new social currency. Citibank customers can now use Facebook to pool their rewards points online. The bank on Tuesday launched a Facebook application that lets users team up to use their points, whether it's for charity, a group gift or a personal goal. Citi says it's the first bank to offer such a feature.
Here's yet another reason to watch what you say and do online: Insurance companies are already surfing social media sites to get the scoop about their customers, and what their data-miners find may soon be compiled into a new way to rate you as a risk: a social networking score.
In an attempt to crack down on spam, Facebook has shut down a number of third-party software applications in the past week. The move could signal that the world's most popular social network plans maintain righter control over the apps that run on its site.
Facebook has won the most customer loyalty, by far, out of all social media sites, according to the latest Brand Keys's Customer Loyalty Index. The network easily outperformed News Corp.'s MySpace, Twitter and others.
Have social networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube become the weapons of revolution? Egypt's president shut down the Internet on Friday to try to calm the protests rocking the country. But while the Internet may be an enabler of the demonstrations, it's not the cause of the discontent.
Will a LinkedIn IPO test the waters for public offerings by other social networks? Or is the company just too small to be a real player in the sector?
In a blog post, Facebook says it is redesigning its members' profile pages to better highlight its users' photos. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to detail the changes Sunday on 60 Minutes.
Disney is snapping up social networking games developer Playdom in a deal worth up to $563.2 million, it announced Tuesday. The transaction, will bolster Disney's digital gaming lineup and give it a greater presence on such social networking sites as Facebook and MySpace.
Facebook and other social networking sites have developed an unusual, but perhaps unsurprising, new fan base: divorce attorneys. As more people stray into infidelity via connections made on the Internet, lawyers are profiting from the evidence left behind by all that online over-sharing.
