Internet, Social Networking | featured news

Facebook has begun tapping a new revenue stream with the introduction of an internal payments system, a move that might help the fast-growing social networking website achieve profitability while being less reliant on advertising.

Yahoo! is shutting its unloved social networking site, Yahoo! 360, next month.The closure follows the shuttering of services Y! 360 aimed at college graduates and Mash, two other networking efforts opened in 2007 and then quietly closed. Yahoo!

After the social-networking service Twitter announced Monday it was in talks to develop an unscripted series based on the site, two of the service's most prolific users have expressed fear that such a jump would mean an unfair intrusion on their lives.

The online networking sites Facebook and Twitter were back in business for Iranians Tuesday, a day after the government banned the country's access to them, a freelance writer said.

Facebook sells a 1.96% stake to a Russian internet firm, a move that values the social networking website at $10bn.

Twitter is confronting a slew of challenges -- from hiring, to keeping its service up and running, to finding meaningful revenue -- as it deals with sudden stratospheric growth.

Whether you're into baseball or backgammon, Harry Potter or heavy metal, Ning has an online network for you.

Finally, Twitter has a significant use. It allows you to bypass the endless taxi line at the McCarren airport in Vegas so you can lose money quicker!

Tweetmeme is on a tear. According to Compete, the Twitter-centric link tracker went from nowhere in February, 2009 (with 26,000 unique visitors) to more than tenfold increase in March (to 385,000 uniques). Nick Halstead, The CEO of UK-based Fav.or.it, the company behind Tweetmeme, tells me he is tracking closer to 200,000 uniques a month based on yesterday's visitors, but that he is adding 50 percent a week.

The Obama Administration wants to open government with social networks. Privacy advocates worry that gives the government too much access to our lives.