SOCIAL NETWORKS

MUZU.TV, an Irish-based video website which has won plaudits from the music industry for the way it pays artists when their music is played online, has signed a deal with the world's largest label Universal.

MUZU.TV, an Irish-based video Web site which has won plaudits from the music industry for the way it pays artists when their music is played online, has signed a deal with the world's largest label Universal.

Over 90 percent of Apple Inc's British iPhone users accessed mobile media in January including websites, e-mails, social networks and games, far higher than users of other mobile phones, research showed.

Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Carol Bartz said social network sites are a key area of interest for the Internet media company, even as it tries to figure out how to boost its Web search business.

Everybody at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona wanted to be the new best friend of the social networks. From the world's biggest phone maker, Nokia, to tiny Irish semiconductor start-up Movidia.

Amid an unprecedented global economic crisis, The World Economic Forum 2009 taking place in Davos, Switzerland kicks off from Jan 28 to February 1, as thousands of key economic figures come together to discuss and find ways to stabilize and relaunch the global economy.

Dictionary Collins has compiled a list of words to watch for 2009, with the most frequently used one on its way to dictionary addition.

Comcast agreed to purchase Plaxo the first innovative system that developed social networks from address books. With the acquisition of Plaxo, Comcast plans to provide its consumers social network links across all its devices including wireless, TVs and digital video recorders.

Google launched a new application programming interface (API)on Friday that is designed to help developers make use of social networking relationship data.

If you thought finance had nothing to do with angels, think again.

As investors bet on the future of social networks, some of the biggest players in the field are due to unveil this week ways of piping in advertising to the most personal of media formats.

Internet media company Yahoo Inc said on Tuesday it is adding media-playing features, large file transfers, new languages and other tools to its instant messaging service.

Companies will spend a record $31 billion this year to advertise everything from toothpaste to home loans on the Internet, supporting countless news sites, social networks, video exchanges and blogs.

Yahoo Inc said on Sunday it was giving its e-mail users more ways to reach friends and online contacts by allowing them to trade messages with mobile phone users.

Yahoo Inc may be struggling to convince Wall Street of its future prospects, but for the first time its users gave its services overall a better rating than what Google Inc received, according to a study released on Tuesday.

Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, said today that it acquired the media sharing website Twango for an undisclosed price.

Plaxo, which makes software for PC users to keep address books up-to-date, said on Sunday it is helping millions of members open up their online datebooks to build social networks like MySpace or Facebook.

News Corp.-invested MySpace China aims to launch an online messaging service as soon as possible, its CEO said on Wednesday, as the venture fights for a bigger share of the world's second-largest Internet market.

Not all online social networks are the same, according to new research released this week. Internet research firm, comScore Networks, said on Thursday that significant age differences exist between the user bases of these websites.

Significant age differences exist within the user bases of different social networks a new study finds, noting more than half of Myspace.com users are 35 or older.

Friendster Inc. said on Monday it received $10 million in new funding to expand abroad and help its pioneering social-networking site survive in a market dominated by younger successors who stole its thunder.