Later today, Google is due to launch a social product that will compete with the currently popular social networks - Facebook


and Twitter. As Wall Street Journal reported, Gmail will get a new module that will stream media and status updates of online friends. This module sounds like a Gmail Labs feature which could be enabled or disabled by account holder’s choice.
However, it’s less likely to be a rival since Google itself has integrated Twitter updates in its search. Maybe Google will bring Orkut updates integration in Gmail - well, that’s just one of the many possibilities. Michael Arrington, TechCrunch CEO, noted that Google’s upcoming social product will go beyond Gmail integration.

Google has already enabled watching YouTube videos in Gmail Chat. Also, YouTube, Flickr and Picasa media previews in mail have been there since a while. Whatever the integration into Gmail would be like, there’s always a kill switch to bring the service back to normal.

If Google’s upcoming social product affects Gmail, the fear of outages and security always persists. Not to forget that this announcement follows Facebook’s homepage redesign and as we know, Google’s online rival Microsoft is one of the stake holders in Facebook. In August 2009, Yahoo had introduced social features in its mail, search and messenger service.

MySpace Music has started testing a new online advertising model in the US that means users have to listen to an ad before they can play songs.

While the ads are 30-seconds long, users will only have to listen to one and are then free to stream an entire album or even a playlist of 100 songs without any further interruption.


This comes after an initial testing of the ad software at the end of last year.

Last August, MySpace itself disabled the auto-play function. It was said that it was running up $10m (£6.4m) a month in streaming fees and this was a means to reduce costs as the company restructured.

Last week, a report by Publicis’ VivaKi stated that the Ad Selector was the best ad model for online video. The system was created by US-based video streaming service Hulu and lets users choose what video ads to watch before streaming content.

2002 — Friendster launches and becomes a social networking force until MySpace and the more buttoned-up LinkedIn hit the scene in 2003 and slowly gain more traction.

2004 — Facebook begins to become a staple of communication for college students. The service opens up to high schoolers in 2005, corporate networks in 2006 and eventually becomes a worldwide phenomenon.

2005 — YouTube, an online video hosting site, launches.

2006 — Twitter, a “microblogging site” that allows 140-character posts, begins and, by decade’s end, becomes one of the fastest-growing social networking sites.

By TAMARA LUSH

Florida’s judges and lawyers should no longer “friend” each other on Facebook, the popular social networking site, according to a ruling from the state’s Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee.

At least one South Florida judge warned her pals with a Facebook status update that they could be “unfriended,” and the ruling has prompted others to do the same. The committee ruled Nov. 17 that online “friendships” could create the impression that lawyers are in a special position to influence their judge friends.

The committee did conclude that a judge can post comments on another judge’s site and that during judicial elections, a judge’s campaign can have “fans” that include lawyers. And the ruling doesn’t single out Facebook.

“Although Facebook has been used as an example in this opinion, the holding of the opinion would apply to any social networking site which requires the member of the site to approve the listing of a ‘friend’ or contact on the member’s site,” the opinion said.

A few on the committee dissented, saying judges should be allowed to have Facebook friends because those relationships are more like “a contact or acquaintance.”

Although only the Florida Supreme Court can actually mandate what judges can do, most will likely follow the ruling out of an abundance of caution, said Craig Waters, spokesman for the Florida Supreme Court.

Judge Thomas McGrady, the chief of the sixth judicial circuit in Pinellas County, said he understands why the committee came to its conclusion: Judges need to appear impartial.

“We as judges can still be good judges and still have friends. Part of our job is to not let that friendship interfere in any way with our decisions,” he said. “But others in the public who see judges listing a lawyer as a friend on facebook, they may think that because they are your friend, they will be treated differently.”

McGrady, who is sending a copy of the ruling to the 69 judges in his circuit, said this potential conflict of interest is why he doesn’t have a Facebook page.

“If somebody’s my friend, I’ll call them on the phone,” he said, chuckling.

Google has begun to show search results that include information from many social networking sites.  The move will present searchers with the ability to obtain information about content on such sites as Facebook and Myspace.

The ability to search for information from social networking sites comes from a new ability of Google to conduct real time searches.  One can search for information about the latest Twitter updates on a popular news item or even a person and have results return from Twitter and other sites.  Google has come under pressure from Microsoft as the big software maker has inked a deal with Yahoo that could erode some of Google’s market share.  Bing already has a social networking search feature through its sub site Bing Twitter.

According to an official Google blog post, the company is reaching further in new ways to improve web searches. The use of dynamic, real time search results will allow users to obtain up to date information from numerous sites as well as opening up the once hidden world of social networking sites.

The social networking sites current being used for search results include Facebook, Myspace, Friendfeed, Jaiku, and identi.ca.