Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, invested $60 million in Facebook. Ka-Shing is better known as the chairman of Hutchison Whampoa (the network operator branded as 3 in many countries, including UK). The money is from his investment firm, and he has the option to invest another $60 million.
KickApps, announced the availability of a Single Sign-On (SSO) module that enables a seamless member login experience between Drupal powered sites and KickApps hosted social media sites. Developers and publishers using the widely used open source content management system (CMS) can now easily integrate social media experiences, such as social networking, user-generated content, programmable video players and Widgets for content syndication, with their sites to fuel audience growth and engagement.
“Building on our recent integration with Joomla! and WordPress, we’re excited about the new module, which makes it easier than ever for developers to integrate social media communities with websites of all sizes built using any of these three popular platforms,” said Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps.
The module includes support for versions 6.x, 5.3 and 4.7 of Drupal. When developers enable the KickApps SSO module for their Drupal sites, registered site members will be auto-registered into the site’s KickApps powered community during sign in, requiring no initial user import by the developer. Once logged in and on the community site, the member is brought over to his or her profile page, where they can start uploading video, photos and audio, and manage their media.
Facebook may alter its new “Beacon” marketing feature, which alerts members’ friends when they bought something at certain partner sites.
Since the feature introduction, many users have complained that Beacon is an invasion of privacy, and in some instances has unwittingly alerted members to holiday gift purchases from family or friends.
The public policy group MoveOn.org organized an online petition asking Facebook to turn Beacon into an opt-in feature.
AdBrite has raised $23 million from Sequoia Capital and Artis Management. Originally an ad network for mostly text-based advertising similar to Google AdSense, AdBrite has become a full-service network for third-party publishers, offering display advertising and recently introducing a product for monetizing Facebook applications.
The company, based in Woodland Hills, California, announced its terms for an initial public offering, setting the starting stack at 12 million shares, which it estimates to be valued at $10-12 each. According to a report by Justin Moresco of Red Herring, “the offering will be underwritten by JP Morgan, Deutche Bank Securities, and Goldman Sachs.”
Amway, the father of the multi-level marketing (MLM) industry, is backing Fanista, an online DVD and CD retailer that relies on peer recommendations and social networking.
Fanista will pay users who get their friends to make purchases. Users whose friends buy $100 worth of goods can get up to a 10 % commission.
Syria has blocked access to Facebook.com the social network Web site as part of a crackdown on political activism on the Internet.
According to sources speaking with Reuters, the official statement from officials is that they fear “Facebook could become a conduit for Israeli penetration of our youth”.
MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, announced it is working with Intercasting Corporation, mobile social networking company to develop a mobile social network around MTV Tr3s. The Latino focused mobile social network — to be called Con3xion.
“Young Latinos are highly engaged with media that is relevant to them and have proven to be extremely enthusiastic users of mobile technology. Our audience is looking to MTV Tr3s to provide them with greater opportunities to connect and share and a mobile social network fits their lifestyle perfectly,” said Lucia Ballas-Traynor, Senior Vice President and General Manager of MTV Tr3s.
New research from Northwestern University finds that college students’ choice of social networking sites — including Facebook, MySpace and Xanga — is related to their race, ethnicity and education.
That study finds that Facebook is used most by white students, that Hispanic students prefer MySpace and that Asian and Asian-American students use the less popular social network sites Xanga and Friendster more than students from other ethnic groups.
MySpace has partnered with mobile music distributor Textango on a promotion that will provide a free download of an upcoming album from Epitaph Records artists Pennywise, Adweek reported.
The promotion, which will launch in March alongside the release of the album in stores, requires MySpace users to add Textango as a friend, and in return they will gain access to the free download.