The government of Syria has made the move to block Facebook inside their borders.

Mashable reports that according to sources speaking with Reuters, the official statement from Syrian officials is that they fear “Facebook could become a conduit for Israeli penetration of our youth.” Critics of the government say that it is really to cut off access to the outside world. Other countries have also blocked social networking sites.

Bloggers and international observers have suggested that the real reason for the Facebook ban is that it has been subject to a spam e-mail campaign by anti-Syrian activists.

Via Digg

San Francisco, California - (Website Hosting Directory) - August 17, 2007 - Video ad network for online communities, VideoEgg, Inc., has released its Eggnetwork Advertising Platform (EAP), designed for anyone developing applications for the Facebook utility portal.

The platform was created to allow developers to earn money with the applications they develop for the popular social networking site by leveraging the Eggnetwork’s international sales team and innovative approach to online advertising.

According to the company, VideoEgg was the first to introduce interactive advertising overlays onto online video, an approach that is now being widely adopted by the industry. The Eggnetwork, comprised of more than 80 online communities including fourteen of the top 20 social networks in the world, is a rich-media ad network that creates unobtrusive and engaging advertising experiences in interactive online applications

Application developers such as Rock You, J. Squared Media, Graffitii, Renkoo and Flixster are among the first companies to incorporate EAP into their Facebook applications. The network already includes dozens of popular applications like Movies, Likeness, Emote, Graffiti, MyTV, Fluff Friends, iGift, Zombies, MyAquarium, PuzzleBee, StickyNotes, Scrabulous, Games, and Interests plus. A simple integration process allows developers to garner a portion of the revenue generated from ads served through the Eggnetwork. New advertisers taking advantage of the expanded reach of the network include Discovery Networks, Electronic Arts, Fox Searchlight, FX Channel, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures among others.

Jia Shen, CTO and co-founder of Rock You, Inc., a developer and publisher of Facebook applications and widgets on the web remarked, ”The Eggnetwork ad units work very well with the Facebook platform. RockYou is excited to partner with VideoEgg and share monetization strategies that tap millions of users who access our applications across Facebook.” Read more of this news »

Palo Alto, California - (Website Hosting Directory) - July 27, 2007 - Social utility portal, Facebook, has acquired Parakey, a startup operated by Co-Founders of Mozilla Firefox, an open-source and non-profit web browser. Parakey is Facebook’s first acquisition. Financial terms of the transaction were not released.

Firefox founders Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, will join Facebook’s team to work on the development of Facebook Platform and the company’s website.

Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and CEO of Facebook remarked, ”Blake and Joe built the Firefox web browser and then turned to the developer community to build on top of the foundation they’d established, not unlike what we’ve done with Facebook Platform. The work they’ve done with Firefox and Parakey and their approach to building products fit right in at Facebook.”

Messrs.
Ross and Hewitt are best known as the co-founders of Firefox, which has been downloaded more than 300 million times by people worldwide. Hewitt went on to build popular web development tools such as Firebug. In early 2006, Ross and Hewitt founded Parakey to build a platform bridging the gap between information on the web and the desktop.

Mr. Ross commented, ”Facebook Platform is finally making it easy to share experiences with friends and family over the web, a goal Joe and I have worked toward for years. We are thrilled to join the most innovative technology company in the industry.” Read more of this news »

San Francisco, California - (Website Hosting Directory) - May 29, 2007 - Social utility portal, Facebook, has lent its platform, to Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, to launch a political application, so that it may integrate with the Facebook website and gain access to millions of users.

washingtonpost.com’s ”The Compass” and Slate’s ”Political Futures” applications are now available for Facebook users worldwide who are interested in becoming more engaged in present-day politics. washingtonpost.com’s ”The Compass” allows users to answer several questions that serve to determine where along the political spectrum their views fall. The results are then shared with the person’s Facebook network and they, in turn, are invited to answer.

As the user’s network responds to the questions, s/he is able to see how their answers compare to create a map of political ideology. Slate’s ”Political Futures” application allows users to choose where they would place a bet if they had $500 to wager on the outcome of the 2008 race for the White House. Leveraging Slate’s ”Political Futures” tool, which databases the big three political prediction markets, the application shows where the pretend wager falls in relation to real bets and maps out how other people in a user’s network placed their ”bets.”

Read more of this news »

Boston, Massachusetts - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) - May 16, 2007 - A new search engine marketing study survey, has revealed that almost half of search marketers, place content on social networking web sites, for traffic and brand awareness.

The survey, conducted by JupiterResearch, and sponsored by iProspect, reveals that 48% of search marketers proactively place content on some of the most popular social networking sites, including MySpace, YouTube, and LinkedIn. In addition, the survey revealed that marketers primarily place content on these sites to drive traffic and create brand awareness.

Fielded in February of 2007, JupiterResearch conducted a formal survey of search marketers using questions composed by iProspect. Respondents were targeted by familiarity with their company’s search marketing efforts and screened for involvement with marketing their company’s products. A total of 794 qualified search marketers completed the survey.

Partnering with some of the largest and best known brands in the world, search engine marketing firm iProspect commissioned this survey in an effort to gain insight into the use of ten of the most popular social networking sites as a channel by search marketers. The key findings demonstrate that these sites are already being embraced by a significant percentage of search marketers as vehicles to drive website traffic and create brand awareness in particular, as well as both influence and generate direct sales.

Read more of this news »

OtherEgo has also implemented customizable privacy controls based on multiple options. Users decide if they want to hide their entire profile from the public, or just certain parts of it.

Sacramento, CA (PRWeb) April 10, 2007 — OtherEgo (www.otherego.com), a social network aggregator, has just launched. It lets users share external websites and social networking profiles without having to leave the page. Websites added by users load directly inside their OtherEgo profile. Users can include profiles from Myspace, Friendster, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, and any other websites or blogs.

“Current social network aggregators rely solely on links to share websites and profiles. OtherEgo has the unique ability to display other websites and profiles directly inside of the user’s profile. All social networking activities can be shown from one location, without having to click on links,” said Founder, Enoch Lee. “While OtherEgo is a social network itself, it’s most defining feature is the ability to add your other social network profiles into your OtherEgo account,” stated Mashable.com. Read more of this news »