SOCIAL NETWORKS

U.S. online shoppers spent 5 percent more this Cyber Monday than they did last year as more consumers flocked to the Web for holiday shopping but spent slightly less per person, analytics firm comScore Inc said on Wednesday.

Microsoft is plugging social networks into Xbox 360 in an effort to bring more games, entertainment and social experiences all from a single device, the company said on Monday.

Internet users are not as isolated as has been previously reported, but new research shows that it does affect how much married couples or partners rely on each other as confidants.

French company Viadeo, which runs a social networking website aimed at professionals, has acquired Canadian peer Unyk, to become the second-largest firm globally after LinkedIn.

Ask, the search engine owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, unveiled a new service on Tuesday to help consumers seek out coupons for saving money when shopping online.

Ask, the search engine owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, unveiled a new service on Tuesday to help consumers seek out coupons for saving money when shopping online.

Finnish startup Linkotec hopes to create a flourishing business by making consumers' lives easier: its free software links all digital media devices to all key social networks.

Cyber criminals are increasingly focusing their attacks on the hundreds of millions of users of social networks and on loopholes in bank security systems, security software vendors said on Wednesday.

Vodafone launched a Web service meshing social networks, contacts and entertainment in a bid to fend off stiff competition from Apple,, Google and Nokia.

When the 49ers were battling the Cardinals in a National Football League game earlier this year, a Facebook update by stun gun maker Taser proclaimed that the San Francisco-based team's Taser formation could be the tipping factor.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about online networking is the wide range of reactions it stirs up. Some real estate professionals swear by it. Others say it's a diversion at best-and an utter waste of time at worst.

Investors, encouraged by a growing number of acquisitions and public floats in the past few months, are keeping a close eye on a coterie of promising startups in Silicon Valley.

Facebook's vision of becoming a utility that offers activities to keep people online for hours could set it on a collision course with the Web's giants.

Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, said it will buy FriendFeed, netting a group of prized ex-Google engineers in the fast-growing Internet business.

By the time Diane Kimsey called Jeannie Feenick, a sales associate with Weichert Realtors in Warren, N.J., in June 2008, the home owner had already conducted an exhaustive search for a real estate practitioner to list her Martinsville, N.J., home.

What do you do when you're a small online social network trying to compete against a behemoth like Facebook?

The recession-fueled advertising downturn underlines the urgency of using the Web to glean data and target consumers directly, rather than blasting them with a barrage of TV-style ads, media executives say.

Twitter plans a marketing campaign starting in the next few days to educate users, individual and corporate, about ways to make money off the popular microblogging site.

If there's one group of executives at this week's Sun Valley media and technology conference who ought to be in good spirits, it's the handful steering the fleet of Internet social networks.

For the millions of people who spend hours glued to their computer screens chatting on social networks came the good news this year that they could finally get out more often.

Advertising on mobile phones should really take off within two to three years, driven by new applications on smartphones and the growing popularity of social networks such as Facebook.Executives, who attended last week's Cannes Lions 2009 ad festival, told Reuters that emerging economies were also promising though the lack of a global mobile phone standard could be a brake to speedy develo...