Monday ORB Roundup

Tension Over Sports Blogging.

Crowdsourcing

Hints of iGoogle Turning into its Own Social Network

Spokeo - A Social Networking Profile Aggregator
The folks at Spokeo call their service a friend tracker; others have called it Spook-eo.
This tool aggregates the activities of your friends from different social networks in one page. Here’s how to get started: You provide your AOL, Gmail, or Yahoo Mail address and password. Spokeo then searches your email contacts (both sent and received). Shortly, a one page listing of your friends’ activities, across over 30 different online applications, will display. Note: The site also only shows information that users have placed publicly on the Internet.
Check out Spokeo's blog for more information.

MySpace agrees to New Protections for Teens and Tools for Parents.



"In a joint effort to increase the safety of teens online, MySpace and Attorneys General in the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking representing 49 states and the District of Columbia today unveiled a Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking Sites Safety (attached) designed for industry-wide adoption. This common set of Principles relates to online safety tools, technology, education and law enforcement cooperation. "

Be a Facebook Fan

The competition between Myspace and Facebook continues. Earlier this month Facebook launched Facebook Pages. This new service allows bands, businesses, celebrities, teams, politicans, etc. to promote themselves on Facebook.
You can be a "fan" to a page, similar to the friend system on Myspace. To date I have not joined any Facebook Pages, but becoming a fan of The Oregonian is on my list.

Is Facebook the next frontier for online news?
Major newspapers and indie start-ups are building applications to reach the social network's audience. A new $10 million fund for developers should encourage more.

Social Networking
I have added the social networking handouts from this morning's training session to ResearchWeb. Extra printed handouts are on the counter next to the research pod.