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Google adds a dose of social networking to its Gmail without rivaling Facebook. Its bet: use the power of its algorithm to recommend contacts and improve the relevance of information from social networks.
Is the third attempted of incursion of Google in the world of social networking the right one? The “social” strategy of the search engine is currently experiencing a rather mixed success: Orkut, its social network launched six years ago, brings together about 100 million users (mainly in Brazil and India), four times less than Facebook . Its Open Social communication protocol, notably used by MySpace and Viadeo, failed to attract the interest of developers, unlike Facebook.
With Buzz, Google takes a decidedly more conservative approach: providing a dose of “social” to the 176 million users of its mail, but without making it a main goal in itself, as is for Facebook. Google also differs from its rival in the way Buzz creates social network, adding automatically the most contacted contacts by email or chat.

Once connected via Buzz, it is possible to monitor real-time flow of activity across its network by clicking the Buzz link located below the Gmail inbox, and share with them messages, Flickr photos or Picasa, YouTube videos and Web links. even though feeds supported by Buzz are still very limited: Twitter, Flickr, Picasa, Google Reader, Blogger, YouTube and Google Chat. A version of Buzz for smartphones, which now supports the iPhone and Android, is also available via an update of Google Maps on the Google Mobile site.
The end of Twitter?
Buzz looks like a feed combined with a virtual social network, within the existing service GMail. If you have a mail account at Google, you can now enjoy it.

Here are five key features of Google Buzz:

- A list of friends created automatically using your GMail email address, automatically adding frequently used contacts..

- The (Rich fast sharing) combines sources like Picasa, Flickr and Twitter into a single stream. No need to have many tabs open at once in your browser.

- You can choose to make your publication to the public or reserved for certain people, and The mobile version of Buzz also allows you to use your voice to create your publications.

Google Buzz already seems to generate a considerable interest among owners of Android phones and iPhones.

By connecting to the Web via WiFi, Buzz allows you to be located on the card if your access point is listed.

Zuckerberg also said that the context of use of Facebook has changed. When the network was created, it was mainly used by students. The networks have then been established: the groups were focused on schools. This feature has helped people quickly find friends with whom they attended the same class or leaving in a nearby building on campus.

These groups have evolved exponentially. Version after version, the service has added more opportunities ; adding groups for cities, regions or entire countries Problem is that as groups contain people, respect of privacy becomes difficult to control, especially since many users are unaware of these settings.

The end of regional networks

A major upgrade of Facebook is coming. We already knew that new interface was in preparation, closer to that chosen by Microsoft for its software Fishbowl, since users could use it randomly for a few hours or days. But the biggest news is that regional networks will simply disappear .

If for example you are in the network “New York”, you have to know that your network will disappear soon . Why? Because according to Mark Zuckerberg, their role has been diluted because of millions of people who belong to that network . This principle is no longer relevant, and these groups are causing a huge number of privacy problems, because the default settings of Facebook can bring unpleasant surprises. And since we are talking about settings related to privacy, another major change in this field is approaching.

The privacy settings for each element of the profile

The global social networking website has reached 300 million subscribed members and is now able to make benefices.

The very famous American social network took a major step by announcing that it has finally become profitable. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and cofounder of Facebook Affirmed that few months ago, facebook expected to achieve a positive cash position in the beginning of 2010. But unlike it was predicted, This has been achieved in the last quarter of 2009. Facebook can’t deny that The economic dimension is very important and crucial, because it allows Facebook i to be an independent entity in the long term.

Five years after its creation , Facebook has solved the economic equation that concerns all of the community websites. Many of them do meet a success, but only few of them can make money out of it . The financial stability will allow Facebook to face the future calmly, showing a preference for the IPO to be redeemed by an Internet giant like Google.

To the eye of observers, Facebook has been able to achieve this result by controlling its costs carefully. Up to 70% compared to 2008, its turnover is very small compared to its size. Facebook, which has just reached the milestone of 300 million active members, would generate only $ 500 million in 2009, according to Mark Andreessen, a member of the Executive’s social network.

For comparison, let’s take its rival MySpace (News Corp).which Had generated nearly one billion dollars in sales with only 115 million unique visitors per month last year. Similarly, Yahoo! generates $ 7 billion per year with 570 million unique visitors per month worldwide.

A very rapid growth.

But maybe from all these ,Facebook is the one that people talk about and use the most .i mean , who doesn’t have aFacebook profile ??? Facebook has during  the past few years been able to establish itself as being an indispensable tool to keep in touch with our friends and relatives , and also make new friends from all around the world .

But I think one of the most impressive things that Facebook has been able to do , is the fact that it has been able to take all our personal information with our own volition , without thinking about how Facebook is going to use it .

Let’s talk first a bit about the concept “Facebook” and how it was created . Facebook or “The Facebook” was founded  on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg , a harvard student that had the amazing idea to create facemash which was inspired from the Harvard university version of hot or not ,a rating site that allows users to rate the attractiveness of photos submitted voluntarily by others. the idea was simple , use pics from hot or not and let facemash users choose the hottest one, but Zuckerberg was then charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy , but this has not discouraged him because soon after,Zuckerman founded Facebook .

we all know what happened after , this social networking website has spread around the world ,gathering people from everywhere , recent statistics announced that More than 175 million active user were connected to it.

But the question is how does Facebook make money from all this ??  Especially when we know that to register to it , you don’t have to pay any fee.

Some say that advertising is how Facebook makes money , you can notice while surfing on Facebook different ads that are selected according to the information you provided to Facebook , for example if you are a girl , you are a potential target to all companies that sell make up .

Others think the Facebook makes money from your personal information which mean that they sell your data to the one that pays the most without worrying , about what the buyer is going to do with it !!!!

Also one of the things that made the people angry about Facebook , is the fact that you didn’t had the possibility to delete your account , you only had the possibility to deactivate it , which means that your information was still used by Facebook even if you didn’t want to .

But recently Facebook changed its account deletion policies on February , allowing users to contact the website to request that their accounts be permanently deleted.

I invite you all to watch this video , to know more about how Facebook works , maybe this video is going to make you want to delete your profile

This morning a friend of mine asked me to visit a website that he found really interesting !!

i generally do not visit any of the websites he ask me to , because i’m sure they will be boring

but this time it was really different

it’s a website called POWER.COM and what it does is simply astonishing , and i decided to write about it

we all for sure use at least two or more social networks ,i personally surf everyday at least on my facebook and myspace profiles , it has become a routine, or maybe an addiction

so what this website actually does , is to gather all the data of theses sites into one and only single user interface , which will allow you to view and interact with  all of your social networks in the same time ( really interesting isn’t it )

at this time , on power.com you can have access to Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Hi5 and few niche networks like YouTube.