Who Needs Another Social Network?

May 5th, 2008 - No Comments »

When it comes to becoming a force in social networks, Google and Yahoo have tried and largely failed. To be sure, Google has Orkut, which is popular in Brazil and the Philippines India, but not the United States. For its part, Yahoo has largely pulled the plug on Yahoo 360. But it is clear that MySpace and Facebook (and Bebo in Britain) remain firmly on top of the social network heap.

So now Google and Yahoo are taking another tack — turning themselves into social sites without building a social network.

“We are not trying to be another social network,” said Yahoo’s president, Susan Decker, on Tuesday, during the company’s earnings conference call. “Rather, by linking users’ favorite destinations and content, with their friends’ families and communities, we can deliver better relevance on a scale that no one else has achieved.” Two days later, the company’s new chief technology officer, Ari Balogh, speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, elaborated a bit on the idea. “We don’t think of social as a destination,” Mr. Balogh said. “We think of social as a dimension.”

What does that mean? It means that Yahoo will try to bring the kinds of features that are common on Facebook and MySpace to its own sites. Users may be able to share photos, videos, news reading habits or calendars with their friends and receive alerts about what friends are up to. Who is a friend might depend on context. For instance, a user’s activities on Yahoo Sports may only be shared with that user’s fantasy sports playmates.

Google has long hinted that it would take a similar approach. Earlier this week, it suggested that users of iGoogle, a personalized home page service, might be able to share activities with friends. And the company has allowed users of Reader, its blog viewing service, to share items with friends.

One challenge both companies face, however, is how to turn the voluminous amounts of data about relationships that they have in their e-mail, calendar and other services, into “social graph,” a set of relationships establishing who is friends with whom. They will have to tread carefully. Google’s efforts to determine who Reader users wanted to share items with was greeted with some alarm. At a lunch with reporters, Mr. Balogh promised that Yahoo wouldn’t force relationships on anyone without their consent.

ZoeCity is a social network for Christians

May 5th, 2008 - No Comments »

Mission: Create a social network for the Christian community.

Safety net: Anyone who logs on is designated “red.” Those who supply a working phone number are “yellow”; a credit-card number will get you designated “green.” This makes all participants accountable — you can create a group for green users only, which will consequently make the social-networking neighborhood more exclusive.

Gates of heaven: ZoeCity invites users to post secular content as long as it doesn’t violate the site’s code of conduct and content policy. But any spiritual content must abide by the Christian faith, with a more thorough scrutiny process than on the “mainstream” social networks. Additionally, the premium service includes real-time monitoring.

Financials: The private company has yet to make a profit, and plans to generate revenue the old-fashioned way: advertising. Additionally, it wants to partner with global Christian groups to drive large numbers of users to the site.

Employees: 20

My holy space: “The most popular social networks treat all friends the same,” Wong said. “If you are a friend, then you get to see the entire user’s personal information. In the real world, we all have friends that are based on context. Your work friends are different from your best friends. They are also different from your family. We allow you to segment your friends to different circles and then assign privacy rights to what they can or cannot see.”

Common courtesy: Wong said the moderating process will not stifle free expression. “There may be a difference about baptism, whether it requires total immersion or just a handful of water over the head,” he said. “We will encourage these healthy discussions, as long as there are no personal attacks.”

Writers wanted for www.womenswebdaily.com Social Network Site for Women

May 5th, 2008 - No Comments »

www.womenswebdaily.com, the online social network for women, has re-launched a new and improved website and is actively looking for writers.

womensWEBdaily.com is the free social networking site created by and for women 25 and older. It began in 1998 as a space for women to share news and ideas.

Women’s Web Daily Magazine is the cornerstone of the site. Women are encouraged to submit their articles, poetry, recipes and short stories.

Join womenswebdaily.com and you can:

• Create a personal profile scrapbook page or make a family scrapbook page
• Publish your poetry, short stories and articles
• Share with your opinions — personal consumer reporting
• Network online with family and friends and make new friends
• Post your photos and videos to share with family and friends
• Fun forums for beauty tips, health, kids, shopping,

“We have always been known as: A screen with a view. A voice of your own,” Amy Jordan, editor, said. “Today we are please to introduce our new social networking software that helps make our neighborhood a home.”

Join free at www.womenswebdaily.com

For more information, contact editor@womenswebdaily.com

Pulse 87 Launches Its New Website Portal and Updates on New Advertising Clients: Pulse 87.7

May 5th, 2008 - 3 Comments »

Pulse 87 FM a subsidiary of Mega Media Group, Inc., OTCBulletinBoard: MMDA (www.megamediagroup.com). New York’s new Rhythmic Top 40 radio station announced today that it has launched its NEW website portal www.pulse87.com and updates on new advertisers clients on Pulse 87.

www.Pulse87.com has been redesigned and re-launched to appeal directly to our target audience of 18-49; the new portal will give viewers the ability to stream live, get current entertainment news, be updated on events and live broadcasts and participate in the music selection the station plays and offer banner advertising to clients. Live Steaming Statistics for the Month of April increased to 131,264 from 110,105 in March.

Update on Advertising for Pulse 87, for the Month of May we have secured advertising contracts with major brands in our Market, Jive Records Alicia Keys, Ultra Records, JRA Music Group, NY Minute Group, Dr. Dello Russo, NYC Department of Corrections Recruitment, Webster Hall, Major Auto World, Country Lincoln Mercury, Free Style Fever, and more local direct advertisers.

Commenting on the announcement, Mega Media’s CEO Alex Shvarts stated, “We are very excited that Pulse 87 is starting to see increases in audience listening and recognition in our market. As a result of this growing popularity we are starting to see more recognized brands advertise on the station.

About Mega Media Group

Mega Media Group, Inc. is a multimedia entertainment holding company with several subsidiaries that offer a broad range of services.

The divisions include recording, music production and distribution, video production, radio broadcasting, and Pulse 87 a Rhythmic Top 40 Radio station serving the New York Tri State Area.

Safe Harbor Statement: This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Mega Media Group’s beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press release is as of May 5, 2008, and Mega Media Group undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.

PRESS INQUIRIES: Investor Relations 718-947-1100 or IR@megamediagroup.com

Website: http://www.megamediagroup.com/
Website: http://www.pulse87.com/
Pulse 87

Security Service Debuts for Social Networking

May 5th, 2008 - No Comments »

Cloudmark today rolled out one of the first commercial security services designed specifically for social networking providers.

Spammers and phishers are increasingly setting their sights on social networks, which traditionally have deployed homegrown security solutions, says Jamie de Guerre, Cloudmark’s CTO. The sheer size and nature of these networks makes them a prime target for spammers and phishers, he says. “Spammers are looking for new audiences and ways to reach them.”

The new network-level service from Cloudmark filters spam and other unwanted traffic from social network sites’ comments, profiles, blogs, friend requests, and messages, says de Guerre. “There’s nothing out there for end users to protect themselves” on social networking sites today, he says, and security is mainly up to the social networks themselves.

Spammers and phishers are now creating bot-driven member profiles on social networking sites. “There’s no real user behind the profile. At some point, they put the spam or phishing payload on the profile page and just send friend requests to other contacts on the social networking site,” de Guerre says.

And a user doesn’t even have to accept an invitation request to the rogue profile to be infected, he says. “Some social networks let users edit the HTML code behind the page. So we’ve seen attacks from just going to the [rogue profile] page, and then getting taken to a page that says the session has expired and you have to log in again,” he explains. Then the victim gets sent to a site that looks just like his or her social network, but is really the bad guy’s page that steals credentials. The victim’s account then gets used to stage more attacks.

“That can spam all the users you’re connected to,” de Guerre says.

De Guerre says one of the world’s largest social networking sites has deployed the new Cloudmark Authority for Social Networking Providers, although he wouldn’t identify the site.

Cloudmark’s new offering uses its existing fingerprinting algorithms that detect spam and phishing or other malicious types of traffic, including email, images, text, binary, and mobile messages. “It’s based on our distributed collaborative feedback where users can report spam within the site and we use that to [identify] and stop new threats,” he says.

The company is best known for its email and anti-spam security service for service providers, and has customers such as EarthLink, Comcast, Cablevision, and Cox Communications.

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