Mediaboss Marketing

SAN FRANCISCO How young is too young to join Facebook?

The Menlo Park, Calif., company currently bans anyone under age 13 from joining the world's most popular social network. Yet an estimated 7.5 million preteens most of them under age 10 are already using the service, many with their parents' approval.

The highly charged debate over privacy and safety in the Internet age picked up steam this week as word leaked that Facebook was considering allowing kids younger than 13 to use the service with parental supervision. Among the options the company is exploring: connecting kids' accounts to their parents' accounts and giving Mom and Dad control over what their children can do on the site, such as who they can "friend" and what apps they can use.

"We have to do something super responsible. We can't afford not to," said a person at Facebook familiar with the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly. "We are tiptoeing into it."

After its troubled start as a publicly traded company, Facebook is under increasing pressure to grow revenue. Facebook's stock Monday fell 82 cents, or 3%, to a new low of $26.90.

Lowering the age limit would help the company tap younger users, who advertisers are eager to reach. Kids are also avid users of games a big moneymaker for Facebook. About 12% of Facebook's $3.7 billion in 2011 revenue came from its share of Zynga games such as"FarmVille" played on Facebook

Still, it's a risky gambit that could expose Facebook to the scrutiny of regulators and the ire of parents. Some fear that kids under age 13 are not ready for the grown-up world of social networking, where even older children can fall prey to online predators or bullies, be exposed to inappropriate content and get bombarded with online ads.

Massachusetts mom and blogger Lori Popkewitz Alper said her three sons, ages 11, 10 and 8, are not allowed on Facebook. And they won't be any time soon, even if the company lowers the age threshold.

"It's shocking to me that Facebook is contemplating doing this," said Popkewitz Alper, editorin chief of the blog Groovy Green Livin. "I feel like I am very aware of the issues and the potential dangers for children, and it really frightens me to think that young kids are potentially going to have access."

But other parents are more sanguine about the prospect of Facebook opening to younger users. Microsoft Research released a study last year that found 36% of parents knew their children joined Facebook before they turned 13, and that many of them helped their kids sign up.

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Giant social network Facebook may give access to children under 13

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire -06/05/12)- Social iQ Networks, Inc., the pioneer in social infrastructure optimization for the enterprise, today announced enhanced capabilities for its SocialPatrol solution with new policy capabilities that govern and audit account access and Social Media Management Systems (SMMS) used by enterprises. Social iQ Networks was selected to demonstrate the new capabilities at today's Launch: Silicon Valley 2012 held at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View.

With the recent acquisitions of SMMS vendors by giants like Oracle and Salesforce.com as well as continued forays into free SMMS tools from Hootsuite, Jive, and others, enterprises clearly continue to increase their social infrastructure sprawl. This makes the evolution to the industry's first cloud-based Enterprise Suite for social governance, announced earlier this year, even timelier. The solution allows organizations to discover, optimize and protect their social networking investments and better help those organizations control and manage their growing social infrastructure while providing better compliance with organizational goals and strategies.

As social channels, networks and accounts multiply across the enterprise, so do the number of individuals and applications accessing them for management, engagement, or collaboration with prospects, customers, partners, influencers, and employees. In many cases, individuals at organizations independently utilize and pay for dozens of different tools, with only a few of them coordinated, authorized, and secure. This explosion in accounts, tools, and fragmented administration activity drives a lack of cohesiveness and efficiency while increasing risk.

Social iQ Networks SocialPatrol solution fills the gaps that create cost and risk for enterprises. Social iQ Networks already allows organizations to discover, organize, and track their social account infrastructure, but has now added enhanced auditing for 3rd party application and content usage, the ability to create policies for managing which users and what applications have access to and can be used on what accounts.

SocialPatrol increases organizations' ability to set security, compliance, and acceptable use content policies across multiple social accounts on disparate social networks, and third-party applications.

The Social iQ Networks Enterprise Suite with these enhancements to SocialPatrol is available today via subscription, including a free trial, which can be registered for at https://iq.socialiqnetworks.com/users/sign_up. Existing users will have access to these enhancements at no cost.

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About Social iQ Networks, Inc.Founded in May of 2011 with Angel funding, Social iQ Networks is focused on enabling businesses to safely and effectively use the Social Web for business. Social iQ Networks helps some of the leading enterprises in Financial Services, Internet Security, Manufacturing, Media & Entertainment, and Retail discover, optimize and protect their infrastructure of social accounts and applications. With multiple provisional patents already in place, Social iQ Networks is pioneering the reality of Social Networks as an evolving and largely externalized communication infrastructure for enterprises.

Copyright 2012 Social iQ Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Social iQ Networks, its logo, and other marks are registered trademarks of Social iQ Networks. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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Social iQ Networks Releases Social Governance Solution for Admin and SMMS Application Control

Post 13/7 and the Delhi [ Images ] high court blasts, what foxed investigators was the complete absence of telephone conversations that led up to the planning and the execution of these blasts.

Further investigations revealed that the cadres had used social networking websites, and that's how they managed to stay under the investigators' radar. The investigators also found that some cadres of the Indian Mujahideen [ Images ] were trying to conduct recruitments through their Facebook accounts.

The IM has been quick in the use of technology when it came to planning and executing their operations. They started out with the use of email, then moved on to chats and later Skype, a video conferencing application.

However, when the police finally realised, the cadres improvised by using the 'save draft' option and the cache to store their messages in accounts which were accessed through a common username and password.

The planning

IM's elusive chief operative Yasin Bhatkal had extensively used social networking sites to stay in touch with his cadres. Personalised messages were sent out and status updates in coded form were used to communicate his plans which eventually led to two very horrific blasts.

The police say that the cadres had started using social networking websites as far back as 2008, but it was only used as backup.

However, post 2008, because of strict monitoring by investigators; the cadres started using social networking websites extensively.

The first use was visible during the 2010 Varanasi blast, which was orchestrated through this medium. The perpetrators used heavily-coded language to pass on the information. They used a similar modus operandi during the triple blasts in Mumbai [ Images ] and the Delhi HC blasts.

During the planning stage, the IM cadres in India met directly and discussed their plans. They realised that one-on-one meetings left little or no trail. Networking sites were used to communicate with their counterparts in other locations. This, of course, went unnoticed by the police, which helped them execute their plans with a great deal of ease.

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Is IM using social networking sites for recruitment?

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Google is buying Silicon Valley startup Meebo to help expand its social networking service.

The acquisition announced Monday will bring more tools to Google Plus, an alternative to Facebook Inc.'s popular online hangout. Meebo started as a system for connecting people by instant message but has since built other communication features used by an audience of about 100 million Web people in the U.S.

Both companies are based in Mountain View, Calif. Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

"We are always looking for better ways to help users share content and connect with others across the Web, just as they do in real life," Google said in a statement. "With the Meebo team's expertise in social publisher tools, we believe they will be a great fit with the Google Plus team."

Since its debut nearly a year ago, Google Plus has attracted more than 170 million users. Despite that impressive growth, Google so far has had trouble persuading people to visit its social networking website as regularly as Facebook's more than 900 million users frequent its website.

Meebo works with publishers and advertisers to help them connect with Web surfers for longer periods.

"Together with Google, we're super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike," Meebo wrote in a Monday blog post.

Meebo has raised $70 million in venture capital since it was founded in 2005 by Seth Sternberg, Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen. Sternberg, who formerly helped IBM Corp. identify acquisition targets, served as Meebo's CEO.

Google Inc. has spent more than $16 billion buying 140 companies since the end of 2009. That includes the biggest deal in Google's 14-year history, a just-completed $12.5 billion acquisition of cellphone maker Motorola Mobility Holdings.

Google shares fell 59 cents after hours to $578. They ended regular trading up $7.61 at $578.59 before the deal was announced.

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Google buys Meebo to help social networking push

03-06-2012 09:58 Google+ Google has announced today that it has created a new tab on Google+ called Google+Local, which is designed to replace Google Places. According to the search engine giant, Google+ Local will be a simple way to discover and share local information featuring Zagat scores and recommendations from people you trust in Google+. How Google + Local Works Once you access the Local tab on the left, you will be able to search by topic and location. If you click on a restaurant, doctor's office, real estate agent, etc..., you'll be taken to a local Google+ page that includes photos, reviews from people in your circles, Zagat scores and summaries, and other useful information contained in Google Places, like the company address and hours of operation. In addition, G+ Local is also integrated into other Google products, such as search, maps, and their mobile apps. If you have not yet set up a Google+ Brand Page for your business, then click here for an instructional video. Google+ Local | What are Zagat Scores? Google+ Local is utilizing Zagat in an effort to bring you a more balanced scorecard approach to reading reviews. Zagat is designed to summarize thousands of scores and reviews into one simple review. Traditionally, Google Places, as with other review sites, used only a 5 star ratings system. However, Google+ Local wants to provide users with a breakdown of multiple factors. For example, a restaurant will be graded on a scale of 0-3 on the ...

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Google+ Local | Google+ Local to Replace Google Places - Video