Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal. If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be $500.00 for a first offense and $1000.00 for each offense after that.
Online Social Network Ad Spending Will Grow in billions of advertising dollars in the next few years, according to a report from eMarketer.
“By 2011, one-half of all online adults and 84 percent of online teens in the
Worldwide spending is expected to top $4 billion by 2011, according to the market research firm.
Disney has acquired iParenting.com, family social networking site geared towards families. Along with information on parenting-related topics, the site offers community forums and blogging tools for its users.
SixApart sold LiveJournal to SUP, which already been running LiveJournal in Russia as part of a licensing agreement.
Many of LiveJournal core audience have moved to other social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, and others, as it failed to add more features.
SUP has plans to revive and invest between $10m-$100m, and have consultants including Brad Fitzpatrick, the founder of LiveJournal.
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.
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.