Thousands of MySpace sex offender "refugees" booted off Facebook

sex-offenders.jpg

Since last May, Facebook has removed 5,500 registered sex offenders from its social network, many of whom are claimed to be ‘refugees’ from MySpace who themselves have booted 90,000 sex offenders in the last couple of years.

Last year, the Attorney General of the USA forced both sites to implement considerably more stringent safeguards – preventing older users searching profiles of sub-18-year-olds, and finding better ways of age verification.

Facebook relies on using people’s real names, and that helps, but the amount of people I know on Facebook who aren’t using their exact real names makes that reliance rather concerning. There’ll always be sex offenders on the sites, I suppose, and what’s most needed is a bit of common sense, and education, in kids of the dangers.

(via AP and TechCrunch)

Daily Mail Online headline: How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer

internet-addiction.jpg

Do the Daily Mail and it’s online counterpart write these stories to create outrage or to write sensationalist nonsense? Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because it must work both ways. On the one hand, these kinds of stories sell papers/attract traffic and on the other hand it brings them publicity. Well, I’m sitting here writing about it, aren’t I?

So, today’s pile of old toot is about the possible link between social networking and cancer. Oh really. Now, I feel rather sorry for psychologist Dr Aric Sigman who mainly talks about how using Facebook and MySpace causes a decrease in face to face social interaction and how that might lead to socio-psychological issues.

To give the doctor an incredibly generous benefit of the doubt, it might…

Facebook now double the size of MySpace worldwide

facebook-myspace-graph.jpg

“The times, they are a-changin'”, as Bob Dylan once said. We’ve had plenty of ‘X overtakes Y’ news lately, and the latest is that Facebook is now double the size of MySpace worldwide. It represents a powerful victory for usability and good design over the infamous “MySpace page”, which became synonymous with the web’s – how shall I put this – more ‘homely’ side.

I just logged in to MySpace for the first time in about six months, and had to enter *three* different captchas before I could even log in. I guess that means they’re taking the spammer threat seriously, but my god, what a barrier to logging in…

MySpace launching webmail service

myspace-messaging.jpg

Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail will all be a little on the worried side this morning as the news broke overnight that social networking giant MySpace is launching a webmail service.

All MySpace users will be automatically assigned an inbox on the service, guaranteeing the site 125 million active users at launch – more than Gmail and AOL Mail, but fewer than Hotmail or Yahoo Mail. Let’s hope the interface is a little better than the terrible messaging service currently integrated into MySpace.

MySpace (via TechCrunch)

Related posts: MySpace co-founder considering portable music device | MySpace Music launches… just not in the UK

MySpace co-founder considering portable music device

chris-dewolfe.jpg

In an interview the other day, MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe said that he could see MySpace developing and launching a “device for listening to music” in the future, but that they’re currently just focusing on MySpace Music.

Earlier this year, MySpace launched a download store in conjunction with major labels. Building its own MP3 player which ties in to that service, and potentially allows users to stream tracks over wireless, would be an obvious next step for the social networking company. Especially if it starts offering Slacker-like features.

MySpace (via Reuters)

Related posts: MySpace Music | Oasis teasing new album ‘Dig Out Your Soul’ for free via MySpace

UPDATE: Oasis teasing new album 'Dig Out Your Soul' for free via MySpace today

oasis-album-listening-myspace.jpg

Guess what, everyone? MySpace is still going!

And guess what, everyone? Oasis is still going! The two dinosaurs of social networking and 1990s pub rock have teamed up, with the Manchester band dumping the entire content of its new album “Dig Up Your Soul” for listening to on MySpace right now. I am, at this very minute, listening to a turgid reinterpretation of some Beatles songs, much to the anger of everyone within earshot.

The new album’s not officially released for traditional “buying” until next Monday…

UPDATED: MySpace Music launches… just not in the UK

myspace-music.jpg

Licensing sucks. That’s the conclusion that I’ve come to. It means that we in the UK can’t watch any of the music and video-on-demand services from the States, like Pandora and Hulu. Given that most of the players involved operate globally, I’m amazed that global licensing isn’t more commonplace, but this post isn’t about licensing. It’s just that licensing is preventing me from giving you a proper review of MySpace Music – which launched at 8am this morning…

Facebook overtakes MySpace, awaits passive aggressive status update in response

facebooklogo250.jpg

New figures out today suggest that Facebook has supplanted MySpace as the world’s most popular social network, boasting 132m people in June versus MySpace’s 117.5m. A spokesperson for MySpace said in reaction to the news “It’s not fair, everyone hates me, the only person who understands me is Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance. Mood: Sad & Depressed :(“

New viruses pretend to be your Facebook / MySpace friend

Your social networking account is being targetted by destructive new viruses, which sneakily invade your computer by sending messages supposedly from your friends. Or the people you added as ‘friends’ to look more popular.

Win32.Koobecaf.a attacks MySpace users, if there are any left, by sending malicious content to their accounts. Similarly, Win32.Koobecaf.b (they’ll have to come up with more catchy names if they want to make it big) does the same on Facebook, in message format, meaning it’s even more irritating than getting 23 ‘Which Spice Girl are you?’ application requests each week.