Bebo speak: Teenagers create secret language to keep parents and bosses in the dark

By Daily Mail Reporter

Teenagers on social networking site Bebo have created a secret language to stop adults knowing what they are up to (posed by model)


Teenagers on social networking site Bebo have created a secret language to stop adults knowing what they are up to, researchers say.

Youngsters are using slang words to keep parents and employers in the dark about their social activities such as partying and drinking.

Instead of writing they are drunk, teens post 'Getting MWI' - or mad with it.

Being in a relationship is known as 'taken' or 'Ownageeee', and 'Ridneck', a corruption of redneck, means to feel embarrassed.

Meanwhile, girls posting 'Legal' are indicating that they are above 16 and legally allowed to have sex.

Lisa Whittaker, a postgraduate student at the University of Stirling, who studied teens aged 16-18 in Scotland, said the slang had been created to keep their activities private, and cited the example of one young girl who was sacked after bosses found pictures of her drinking on the website.

She said: 'Young people often distort the languages they use by making the pages difficult for those unfamiliar with the distortions and colloquialisms.

'The language used on Bebo seems to go beyond abbreviations that are commonly used in text messaging, such as removing all the vowels.


'This is not just bad spelling, which would suggest literacy issues, but a deliberate attempt to creatively misspell words.


'The creation and use of their own social language may be a deliberate attempt to keep adults from understanding what is written on the page.

'By doing this they are able to communicate with their in-group and conceal the content from the out-group. This further adds to their online identity.'

She said that one reason for encoding their messages was to keep adults in the dark about their drinking or smoking.

One teen she questioned, known as Kelly, was fired when her employer found pictures of her drinking on the website.

Ms Whittaker said: 'Kelly feels very bitter about losing her job over the content of her Bebo page.

'When I ask her to tell me about it she uses the word "judge", which indicates that she feels victimised by her ex-employers.

'This issue here surrounds the fact that Kelly likes to drink at the weekends, even though she is still under the legal age.

'She posted videos of herself drunk on her Bebo page, which led her employers to sack her.

'Kelly feels her personal life is separate from her working life, which may be the case, but by posting videos online her Bebo page has given her employer an insight into behaviour which may have otherwise remained private.

'Young people give each other recognition for going to college and having a job but also engaging in social activities such as drinking and smoking.

'Others may see this as a divergence, for example, a young person is labelled a delinquent for drinking alcohol while underage.

'However, these young people are able to recognise each other for both socially desirable and undesirable behaviours.'

She went on: 'Social networking sites like Bebo provide young people with an opportunity to gain informal positive recognition from their peer group.

'The total number of friends you are connected with indicates your popularity.

'However, in terms of self-presentation and recognition this is not a straightforward process.

'For young people, a low number of friends, for example, less than 500, is a sign that you are not very popular or very well-liked.

'By contrast, having too many friends can also be detrimental to your self-image as you appear desperate.

'The number of friends you have on Bebo must be a carefully monitored.

'It seems young people are creatively developing their internet literacy to keep certain information private from unwanted and unintended audiences while simultaneously gaining recognition and boosting their self-esteem through online interactions with their peers.'

She is due to present her research at a seminar at the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research, Data and Methods in Cardiff tomorrow.


source :dailymail

Chatroulette: Is new teenage website the most disturbing internet craze yet?

By Olivia Lichtenstein

Worried mother: Olivia Lichtenstein was horrified by what daughter Francesca could access online


When writer OLIVIA LICHTENSTEIN's daughter told her about a 'cool' new teen website, she decided to investigate. What she found was the most worrying internet craze to date.

Late on a weekday afternoon and I'm sitting at my computer. On the screen in front of me are two small boxes - little video streams - one above the other. My face is in the bottom box. The face and bare torso of a man is in the one on top. Let's call him Gerry.

Beside Gerry's face is a box into which we can type, so that we can chat to one another. So he types hello and then asks where I come from. I say hello back and tell him I am from London.


Our exchange has lasted barely seconds, but suddenly another message pops up. He's asking me if I will remove my top so he can see my breasts.

He is a complete stranger, and one of the many crude and deviant men I have encountered in the past 30 minutes.
I quickly click a button to have him removed from my screen.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the world of Chatroulette - an internet site that is turning into something of a phenomenon.

It was my 16-year- old daughter who told me about Chatroulette, a 'cool' new site she and her friends recently started using.

It's the fast-growing, latest fad among teenagers - a quick and easy way to communicate online with people from all over the world.

It works literally like roulette. Users log on, press a big button labelled 'Next' and it then randomly connects you to any one of a number of people across the world currently logged on. The gimmick is the fact that all of the users have webcams - so they can 'meet' the random strangers.

It was the idea of 17-year-old Russian schoolboy Andrey Ternovskiy. He launched it in November last year and his business quickly grew virally from 50 users to 50,000 in its first month.

One million people now visit it each day. However, what may have started as the innocent game of a Moscow schoolboy has quickly become a potential tailor-made portal for perverts and paedophiles - proving once again that the internet is putting the lives of our vulnerable teenagers in jeopardy.

And believe me, after you've seen it, you'll never complain about your teen's obsession with texting their friends again.

For this, the latest Frankenstein monster spawned by the internet is, as with so much web-based activity, impossible to monitor, restrict or control.

After my daughter first told me about it a few weeks ago, I decided to investigate the site for myself - and, even for a technophobe like me, the ease with which I was able to access it was terrifying.


Worried mother: Olivia Lichtenstein was horrified by what daughter Francesca could access online


Our exchange has lasted barely seconds, but suddenly another message pops up. He's asking me if I will remove my top so he can see my breasts.

He is a complete stranger, and one of the many crude and deviant men I have encountered in the past 30 minutes.

I quickly click a button to have him removed from my screen.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the world of Chatroulette - an internet site that is turning into something of a phenomenon.

It was my 16-year- old daughter who told me about Chatroulette, a 'cool' new site she and her friends recently started using.

It's the fast-growing, latest fad among teenagers - a quick and easy way to communicate online with people from all over the world.

It works literally like roulette. Users log on, press a big button labelled 'Next' and it then randomly connects you to any one of a number of people across the world currently logged on. The gimmick is the fact that all of the users have webcams - so they can 'meet' the random strangers.

It was the idea of 17-year-old Russian schoolboy Andrey Ternovskiy. He launched it in November last year and his business quickly grew virally from 50 users to 50,000 in its first month.

One million people now visit it each day. However, what may have started as the innocent game of a Moscow schoolboy has quickly become a potential tailor-made portal for perverts and paedophiles - proving once again that the internet is putting the lives of our vulnerable teenagers in jeopardy.

And believe me, after you've seen it, you'll never complain about your teen's obsession with texting their friends again.

For this, the latest Frankenstein monster spawned by the internet is, as with so much web-based activity, impossible to monitor, restrict or control.

After my daughter first told me about it a few weeks ago, I decided to investigate the site for myself - and, even for a technophobe like me, the ease with which I was able to access it was terrifying.


Fan: Demi Moore has used Chatroulette in the past


Apart from a sweet but banal conversation with a Spanish student who wanted to improve his English, and a courteous Turkish architect,
most of the encounters I experienced left me feeling that I had become the unwitting participant in a porn film.

The ability to parachute into the lives of strangers is simultaneously addictive and repellent. Just like pornography, it leaves the user feeling dirty and ashamed.

Most of the people I encountered were foreign - and while their English was often poor, they knew the words required to fulfil one purpose: to persuade young girls and women to undress.

Chatroulette may have been invented by a child, but it's clearly not appropriate for children - and it's anything but a game.

But, thanks to celebrity users such as Paris Hilton and Ashton Kutcher, teenagers are flocking to the site.

Indeed, if you swiftly 'next' your way through your matches, you will find that around 50 per cent of users appear to be younger than 20.

The fact that my daughter and her friends are not shocked by the site is shocking in itself - it's a further indication that such aberrant behaviour has been normalised.

'If you don't like something, you just click "next",' my daughter blithely told me.

It saddens me that she has grown up in a society that makes it possible for her to be so worldly and resigned at such a young age.

But she is not alone. Even more depressingly, it seems that - thanks to the internet - such sexualised behaviour is pervading all generations.

Just last week, a newspaper column related the story of a woman who had recently gone on a date with an unnamed parliamentary candidate. Their date went well, but - as the source revealed - the very next day she received an email containing a photograph of his genitals.

Shocking enough, but sadly not a unique occurrence. I have a number of middle-aged friends who are newly divorced or still single and navigating the tricky minefield that is internet dating. They have found that conversations online all too quickly turn vulgar. And increasingly pornographic, too.

One told me of a man who, within minutes of meeting online, tried to engage her in dirty talk. Another had an online suitor who bombarded her with a series of naked pictures.

Of course, my friends did not participate. But one short afternoon on Chatroulette and you will find that there are a number of women who will. So what is it that is attracting so many modern men and women to such disturbing exhibitionism?

Dr Taly Weiss is a Jerusalem-based marketing trends researcher with a PhD in Social Psychology.

She says that internet encounters, be they ones such as on Chatroulette or dating sites, or the sending of explicit photos, are about satisfying the feeling of excitement that comes when we are allowed inside private places and invite people into them too.

Chatroulette, in particular, where you are literally live in front of a total stranger, takes this to extremes.

I fear for what is going to happen next. For, when you think back to the creation of mobile phones, what started as a useful way of communicating quickly turned into sexting (sending explicit text messages).

Now, we face the worrying prospect that a growing number of men find it acceptable to expose themselves to strangers online - and the young girls watching them not only think it's normal, but some even agree to perform sex acts on themselves in return.

Will this soon become the perverted future of courtship?

Just think of the way that Ashley Cole threw away his marriage to Cheryl Cole by texting naked photos of himself to a stranger, before embarking on an alleged affair with her. 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall was raped and murdered by 26-year-old Peter Chapman, a man who had met and groomed her on Facebook.

Let us no longer pretend that this is all a 'bit of fun'. How long will it be before we hear of a similar Chatroulette tragedy?

Sarita Yardi, a PhD candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is studying the role of technology in teenagers' lives.

She says that the idea of showing your face to strangers violates almost all social norms of the offline world.

'If someone walked up to you at a cocktail party, stared at you intensely, then simply walked away, you would feel confused and probably offended,' she says

She advises parents to think carefully about what material is socially appropriate for their child and to weigh up the risks and rewards. 'It's like an online Lord Of The Flies,' she says.

'There are too many unacceptable cultural and moral boundaries that are crossed - like random and unpredictable exposure to nakedness - for it to persist in its present state. This brings up interesting questions of governance.' Indeed it does.

The startling lack of internet controls has been a cause of anxiety for parents for some time.

While users of other social networking sites are urged to check the identities of those they talk to, Chatroulette aficionados socially enter into conversation with random strangers who remain entirely anonymous.

Our children live in an age where the internet is all that they've ever known and they have access to all manner of images and information that we, as children, were not exposed to.

According to a recent Home Office report on the Sexualisation of Young People, 99 per cent of eight to 17-year-olds have access to the internet and 60 per cent of 12 to 15-year-olds say that they mostly use it on their own.

The study found that 49 per cent of children aged eight to 17 have an online profile on sites such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook and that girls report being under increasing pressure to display themselves in their underwear online.

Almost half of them say that their parents set no rules for the use of such sites. Chatroulette has taken social networking to the next level and provides a perfect forum for men to prey on vulnerable girls and women.

The images I encountered were shockingly pornographic, and it disturbs me profoundly to think that my 16-year-old has been exposed to them, even if she does have the street smarts to move swiftly on if she encounters anything unseemly.

The site is little more than a haven for exhibitionists and voyeurs.

It's not a game, it's porn, and pornography is addictive, corrosive and promotes unhealthy sexual stereotypes and behaviour for girls and boys. It undermines dignity and respect for others by making sexual intimacy into little more than a spectator sport without love, commitment or responsibility.

Depressingly, the business world has been quick to exploit the opportunities of this viral site, now worth an estimated £30 million, which has spread like bushfire around the world.

Fred Wilson, a New York-based venture capitalist with Union Square Ventures who has invested in dozens of dotcom companies, including Twitter, states on his blog: 'The internet is this huge network with over a billion people worldwide on it.

'Chatroulette feels like a cool way to take a quick trip around that network, meeting people and talking to them.'

But while the site's founder claims he built it so he and his friends could start doing things together online, like watching movies or making things, those aims have quickly been subverted.

And, as I discovered during my short venture into that world, it's yet another example of the pernicious sexual culture that threatens to corrupt the fibre of our children's innocence.


source: dailymail

She's done it! Christine Bleakley in tears as she battle high winds and choppy waves to complete waterski challenge

By Charlotte Spratt

Joy: Christine Bleakley punches the air after making it across The English Channel in just one hour 40 minutes this morning on a jetski


A triumphant Christine Bleakley shed tears of relief as she completed her daunting bid to waterski across the world's busiest shipping lane this morning.

Braving a choppy ocean and high winds the One Show presenter travelled 22 miles across The English Channel in just one hour 40 minutes.

Falling eight times into the chilly 4C sea, plucky Christine overcame the elements to complete the challenge which she started at 7.46am this morning.

She said: 'I can't believe I've actually done it! It took me 100 minutes to waterski the Channel and I only fell in 8 times.


Taking the plunge: The presenter, seen here at the start of the challenge, shed tears of relief as she completed a 22 mile waterski across the world's busiest shipping lane for Sport Relief from Dover to Sangatte


'It was really tough though the water was freezing and having to get up after every fall was exhausting.

'Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me along the way, it really kept me going out there.'

Christine, was good spirits when she set off for the French Coast this morning supported by co-host Adrian Chiles.


Getting ready: She is strapped into her pair of jetskis


In the water: The One show host gives as final waves as she begins the mission

Facing the brisk winds and choppy seas, she was determined to complete her challenge whatever the weather.

'I've talked about it, I've trained for it. Now I've got to do it,' she said as set off across 22 miles of very cold water and large waves.

And complete it she did - in just 100 minutes - arriving on the shore at 9.26am.

A spokesman for Sport Relief said: 'Weather conditions were far from ideal for a water ski crossing with the wind chill temperature below freezing and strong winds making Christine’s challenge extremely difficult.


Go: Christine is pulled along by the boat and starts to get into an upright position


And she's off! She left at 7.46am across the world's busiest shipping lane, the English Channel

'But thanks to her physical and mental determination she fought the elements to stay afloat, only falling off her skis eight times, and managing to stay upright for a maximum 15 minutes in one go.

The bid, which has already raised more than £250,000 for Sport Relief, faced numerous setbacks including gale force winds which forced the attempt to be cancelled twice.

She clung on at approximately 20mph for the entire stretch to France – across the world’s busiest shipping lane.


Farewell to the white cliffs: Christine leaves Dover at the start of her challenge - just another 22 miles left to go...

A spokeswoman for Sport Relief admitted this morning that the conditions were 'so choppy' they did not know if she could make it.

Shortly after starting off, she was forced into the water to wait for a huge tanker to pass.

At around 8.10am, she had completed three miles of the channel and those on the support boat described conditions as 'very cold, very choppy'.

Seven miles in, the hardy Northern Irish girl had fallen seven times and by 9am, she was half way.


Leaving the beach: It was another hour and forty minutes before she reached dry land and the French coast


Support: Adrian Chiles, her co-presenter on The One Show, was encouraging her on from the support boat with a loud hailer


Christine will no doubt celebrate later with boyfriend, Chelsea footballer Frank Lampard

Ten minutes later, she fell for the eighth, and last, time. The sensation of falling off at that speed, and in those conditions, is compared to hitting a brick wall.

But tweets from the Sport Relief crew during the trial said: 'Despite everything Christine can still manage a smile.

'A sunnier disposition it would be hard to find.'

Co-host Adrian Chiles is supporting her through the attempt on the boat with a loud hailer.

Although he jokingly shout through his hailer: 'We've got some make-up waiting on the beach because you're looking s***.'

Christine said she was moved to undertake the challenge following a trip to Uganda with Sport Relief in 2008, where she met young people who are living incredibly tough lives.

She said: 'It’s so easy to come home from a trip like that and forget about what you’ve seen and keep going about your everyday life.

'I didn’t want to do that.


What am I doing? Christine appears to realise the size of her challenge before she sets off


'I’ll never forget the people that I met and I want to do something to help them.

Please support me by making a donation as it really will help change lives.'

Yesterday, after the bid was cancelled a second time, the presenter spent a girly day with her bank manager sister, Nicola, who was carrying a Chelsea calendar.

They laughed and smiled as they made their way from Bleakley's house to visit Lampard in West London, emerging later with the Chelsea gift before going for a coffee and a natter.

To donate to Sport Relief for Christine, you can make a donation at www.sportrelief.com/christine.


source: dailymail

Feeling down? Don't log on, it could make things worse

By Jenny Hope

Dependent? Researchers found that the longer people spent on websites, the more unhappy they were


Surfing the internet can expose a 'dark side' of the soul, with online addicts more likely to be depressed, claim psychologists.

They found the longer people spent on websites, the more unhappy they were.

Those worst affected are both depressed and addicted, possibly because they are substituting the net for normal social activities.

Research leader Dr Catriona Morrison, from the University of Leeds, said: 'The internet plays a huge part in modern life, but its benefits are accompanied by a darker side.'

Researchers questioned 1,319 people aged from 16 to 51 to assess levels of internet dependency and depression.

In general, the longer people spent online the more depressed they tended to be, reported the journal Psychopathology.

Dr Morrison said: 'There was a high correspondence between the amount of time spent on the internet and levels of depression.

'If you look at how dependent people feel they are on the internet, that is likely to correspond with how happy or sad they feel.'

The research team identified 18 hard-core internet users who spent many hours online each day and were classed as 'internet addicted'.

Their average depression score was more than five times higher than that of non-addicted users, and they were more likely to be moderately or severely depressed.

The addicts spent more time browsing pornography sites, gaming sites and online communities. They also tended to be young, having an average age of 21.

Dr Morrison added: 'Our research indicates that excessive internet use is associated with depression, but what we don't know is which comes first - are depressed people drawn to the internet or does the internet cause depression?'



source: dailymail

Facebook, Twitter crooks just a click away

By Stephanie Chen, CNN

(CNN) -- (CNN) -- If you're on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site, you could be the next victim.

Experts say cybercrooks are lurking just a mouse click away on popular social networking sites.

That's because more cyberthieves are targeting increasingly popular social networking sites that provide a gold mine of personal information, according to the FBI. Since 2006, nearly 3,200 account hijacking cases have been reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

It starts with a friend updating his or her status or sending you a message with an innocent link or video. Maybe your friend is in distress abroad and needs some help.

All you have to do is click.

When the message or link is opened, social network users are lured to fake Web sites that trick them into divulging personal details and passwords. The process, known as a phishing attack or malware, can infiltrate users' accounts without their consent.

Once the account is compromised, the thieves can infiltrate the list of friends or contacts and repeat the attack on subsequent victims. Social networking sites show there is ample opportunity to find more victims; the average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site.

"Security is a constant arms race," said Simon Axten, an associate for privacy and public policy at Facebook. "Malicious actors are constantly attacking the site, and what you see is actually a very small percentage of what's attempted."

Social Media Crimes

As some social networking sites experience monstrous growth, they are becoming a new -- and extremely lucrative -- frontier for cybercrime. Facebook says it has 300 million users, nearly the size of the U.S. population, and it continues to attract users outside the college student niche. From February 2008 to February 2009, Twitter, a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages known as tweets, grew 1,382 percent to more than 7 million users.

"They [cybercriminals] are very adept to using social engineering," said Donald DeBold, director of threat research for CA, an Internet security company. "Your friend is in trouble traveling in another country, 'I lost my wallet. I need help.' They exploit the curiosity aspect out of human nature."

A few decades ago, malicious software and viruses were usually the result of a prank, but Internet security experts say today's attacks are profit-driven. A study from the Indiana University in 2005 discovered that phishing attacks on social networks operated with a 70 percent success rate. These users had fallen for the scam, opened the foreign link and released personal information.

Cybercriminals are employing phishing and malware attacks for a number of reasons, including trying to redirect users to sites where profit is fueled by the number of visitors. They also try to elicit private information like passwords and bank account numbers to perform scams.

Early this year,Twitter experienced several phishing attacks in which a Web page that looked identical to the widely recognized light blue Twitter page was a hoax. The company warned users to double-check the URL to ensure they were visiting the correct site.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 72,000 complaints about Internet fraud in 2008 that were referred to law enforcement agencies for further investigation. These cases involved financial losses amounting to $264.6 million, an increase from 2007. Each person lost an average of $931.

"Most of us would want to help a friend in need, but if it's an online friend, and they want you to wire money, you should double-check," FBI spokesman Jason Pack said.

Security experts said it makes sense that cybercriminals are turning to social networking sites. Personal information is abundant on sites like Facebook and MySpace. Each time users give out valuable information like birth dates or addresses, they could be providing hints about their password, security experts say.

The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concern about the information visible through Facebook quizzes and applications.

"They'll have access to all that information, so they can sell it, they can share it, they can do an awful lot with it," Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for privacy-related issues with the ACLU, told CNN.com in September.

Many Internet security experts consider the first virus attack on the PC to have occurred in 1986. By the early 1990s, viruses transmitted on floppy disks became ubiquitous. When the World Wide Web became widely available that same decade, viruses, worms and malware became problems in e-mail accounts, frustrating users who clicked on messages thought to be legitimate.

In the new millennium, the most common form of malware attack has become known as drive-by downloads. While surfing on Google or Yahoo, spyware or a computer virus is automatically and invisibly downloaded on a computer, requiring no user interaction for the computer to be infected.

"We are on the verge from shifting from the Web being the No. 1 victim of infecting to social network," said Mikko H. Hypponen, chief of research technology at F-Secure Corp. His company sells anti-virus software and malware protection programs. "It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

Social networks are fighting the aggressive attacks from cybercriminals. Most sites have information pages dedicated to educating users about the risks of Internet scams. Users can become a fan of "Facebook Security" and receive updates on how to protect their accounts. One of the most common pieces of advice given by security experts is to change passwords frequently.

Facebook has also developed complex automated systems that detect compromised accounts. They spot and freeze accounts that are sending an unusually high number of messages to their friends. Company security officials said Facebook is a closed system, which can be helpful in erasing phony messages from all accounts.

At News Corporation's MySpace.com, the company creates blacklists of phony accounts to prevent people from clicking on a faulty link. Hemanshu Nigam, first chief security officer for MySpace, said the firm warns about suspicious links and educates users about the harm phishing and malware attacks can bring. "We are prepared for them," he said.


source: CNN.com

Defriending can bruise your 'digital ego'

By Breeanna Hare, CNN

(CNN) -- If you harbor a bit of angst over Facebook friend requests gone unanswered, a surprise "defriending" or being deserted by your Twitter followers, you're not alone.

Elaine Fogel has amassed more than 500 connections on LinkedIn, a professional networking Web site, by extending invites to those who appear to fit her wide array of career interests.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, people just say yes," she said.

But then came "this one woman" who Fogel encountered on one of the 40-plus discussion groups she belongs to on LinkedIn. The woman offered interesting opinions, so Fogel sent her an invitation to join her network.

"She sent an e-mail saying, 'I only connect with people I know, and hopefully our paths will cross one day,' " said Fogel, of Phoenix, Arizona, her voice still carrying notes of disbelief. "I read that, and I said, 'Oh, my God, I've been rejected.' "

Fogel echoes other users who have felt the twinge of hurt and surprise from social media rejection. Some may think hers is an overreaction -- it happened online, with a woman she didn't know -- but recent research shows that our "digital egos" can bruise as easily as we do in person. In fact, rejection online may have the potential to sting even more.

"People tend to think that these relationships are trivial and not very deep, but this is what we're moving towards, having a lot of our communications play out over the Internet," Purdue University social psychologist Kip Williams said. "That's the way it's becoming; this is how we interpret our worth. People care how many [online] friends they have."

Or, increasingly, how many Twitter followers they have. This year, a third-party service launched Qwitter, which allows Twitter users to determine who's stopped following them and which tweet may have turned them off.

Experts say rejection on social networks can hurt worse than an in-person snub because people are usually more polite face-to-face than they are online.

"I think the thing that is often clearly worse online is when it's relatively anonymous, and people use that as a cover and are more cruel than they would be otherwise," said Jean Twenge, a San Diego State psychologist who has studied the way social networking affects personality development.

Online rejection also doesn't lessen the physical reaction we have to emotional pain.

"Pain is divided into two components," said Baldwin Way, a UCLA researcher who studies the way human brains respond to social rejection.

"If you put a red-hot poker on your arm, one part of your brain says, 'This pain is on your arm,' and the other part says, 'Ow, that hurts' and is less concerned with where it is and more concerned about the emotional meaning of it," he said. "That [second] part also seems to be activated when someone's left out or excluded and rejected."

To Way's surprise, that neurological reaction holds true even when the rejection comes in a digital form, lacking the real-world body language, vocal intonations and other aspects that can influence the way rejection is perceived and felt.

"If you'd asked me a few years ago if you'd get the same effect online as you would in person, I'd say no way," Way said. "I thought doing something in person would have stronger effects than doing something online, but interesting data has come out in the last few years that show mental representations are just as powerful as the real thing."

These data include Williams' "cyberball" studies, which ask a participant to play a virtual ball-tossing game with two other icons. In one study group, the participant plays the game for the entire six minutes, but in the second group, he or she is included for only a fraction of that time and then ignored. The second group reports feelings of anger and lower levels of self-esteem.

Whether participants believe they're playing with humans doesn't appear to affect their feelings of rejection.

"Even when people get rejected by the computer, they feel bad," Twenge said.

Kenneth Loflin, a student who participated in Williams' study, got so frustrated by his fellow players that he gave the computer screen an offensive gesture.

"I'm a people person, and I like people to like me," he said.

The study also affected the way Loflin interacts online. Out of the 1,200 friends he has on Facebook, 400 of them he doesn't really know, many of them being friends of friends.

"I thought about defriending them, but I didn't want them to feel how I felt" during the "cyberball" game, Loflin said.

By contrast, Bruce Hammond doesn't have a problem giving the rejection slip to Facebook hangers-on.

"For the most part, the people that I'm defriending are the people that I don't have a relationship with: the people I haven't talked to in 15 years," said Hammond, 30, of Chicago, Illinois. "I don't let someone know if I'm going to defriend them. I just do it."

Similarly, Hammond doesn't expect any of his Facebook contacts to let him know before giving him the ax. If someone rejected him in real life, he would ask why the person felt that way, but when the relationship is online, his thinking changes.

"If I come on [Facebook] tomorrow and see I have 425 friends instead of 426, I'm not going to go through my list and see who did it and be upset with them," he said.

Cecilia Sepp, a Washington, D.C.-area consultant, said she avoids the issue entirely by limiting her online network to about 100 friends.

"I don't have a problem with defriending because I don't accumulate [enough] to have a high number," Sepp said.

"When I first heard that defriending was beginning on social networks, it was through a blog post by someone who was shocked that this person had defriended them because they didn't understand why," she said. "The person wanted to know had they done something, had they said something, should they ask, 'What did [I] do?' "

Sepp believes that online "defrienders" should extend the courtesy that Fogel's LinkedIn rejecter gave her: an e-mail explanation.

"You have no facial expression online; you have no tone of voice online; it's very easy to misinterpret phrasing in an e-mail. You have to be very careful about your wording and be more explicit with people when you're making or removing connections," Sepp said. "That's why it's so important to connect with people that you actually know."


source: CNN.com

Compete: Facebook Added 2.4 Million US Uniques in September

While monthly visitor numbers don’t tell the whole story about the health of a social network, in this case it was more of the same for top social networks Facebook and MySpace, and microblogging service Twitter in the US, according to Compete.



Facebook grew relatively slowly in September according to Compete, by 1.93% to 125 million. MySpace, however, fell 9.66 percent to 50.1 million. Twitter, stayed at around 23.5%. None of the sites have seen any serious growth for the last few months according to these numbers, although Facebook and Twitter both grew quickly earlier this year. MySpace had actually been growing through June, when it reached 61.0 million.

Compete’s numbers tend to run on the high side compared to other analytics companies, although similar directional trends are usually visible across multiple results. You can see the same trend for September in Hitwise’s market share results from yesterday. The internal data that Facebook makes publicly available showed an 8.6% increase in September to 88.3 million monthly actives. Neither comScore nor Quantcast have released their September data yet.

Diditz Makes It Easy To Post Facebook Photos To The Web

There are already a number of applications that allow sharing of photos and videos from a Facebook album — including the company’s own widgets. But a new application called Diditz lets you post photos to the web in ways that make them especially accessible.

When you connect to your Facebook page through Diditz, the application automatically picks up your albums and allows you to create pages for them one at a time. You can select which photos from the albums to include on the shared page, add a brief description and searchable key words, then assign your album one of Diditz’s existing categories.



You have the option of sharing the page with only Facebook friends or opening up the page to the public. It’s then accessible from a link that the site provides — and of course you can post the new page to your Facebook news feed. If you choose to allow unlimited access to your page, anyone can find it and view your albums and videos from the Diditz home page. Facebook users that view your pics can even leave comments or post links to your photos in their own news feeds.



The application isn’t fancy, but that’s what makes it appealing. It’s especially useful to businesses trying to reach a web-wide audience. For example, if your album is public, it can be spidered by search engines and so could show up in search results. For those organizations with Facebook pages, there is an option for creating albums intended for pages.

And, for individuals, it’s a great way of sharing select photos and videos with someone that may not have a Facebook account and access to those albums otherwise.

Microbloggers, Meet the Microvideo

There are just some things in life that are better with a visual accompaniment, like business presentations, cooking classes and a film theory seminar.

According to Rey Flemings, chief executive of Particle, status updates posted to Twitter and Facebook should be included on that list. His San Francisco company created a service called Robo.to that allows users to publish 4-second videos that act as visual status updates.

“We already know what I’m doing, but what does that look like?” he said.
The idea behind the platform is simple: In addition to the microvideos, which can be uploaded from a webcam or a mobile phone camera and pushed out via Facebook and Twitter with a few short lines of text, Robo.to is meant to be a digital calling card online or a hub that houses information about an individual’s identity on the Web. That’s what helps separate the service from other microvideo services like 12seconds.

Though the idea is more likely to resonate with Web-savvy users who broadcast every detail of their lives online than say, your mom, the service has won a modest following since it came out of private beta in August, attracting more than 100,000 new members. It doesn’t hurt that pop singer Justin Timberlake, one of the lead investors in the company, is also active on the site, posting multiple video updates daily.

But as Mr. Flemings puts it, “We aren’t trying to create the next big destination on the Web.”

Rather, the idea is to supplement the deluge of messages flowing through social networks, adding context and additional information which can occasionally get lost in the flood, he said.

For example, after the Kanye West outburst at the MTV Video Music Awards, responses flooded both Twitter and Facebook. But what did those responses look like?

To answer that type of question, the company is unveiling a new feature Monday called “TV Mode” that will allow users to watch all the videos associated with a particular keyword or hashtag. Mr. Flemings described it as a Twitter search, or Twitter’s trending topics, but with microvideos. He hopes that it will help users “watch the conversation unfold in a new way.”

Previously, users could only tune into the short video updates posted by a single user or by the entire community, dubbed the Statusphere, and not hone in on one particular topic.

Although currently the service is available for free, eventually, Mr. Flemings says, the company will consider rolling out paid premium accounts or partnering with companies and marketers who want to host branded contests.

“It’s still very early for us as a service,” he said. “But we’re hoping to introduce a whole new method of short-form video communication.”


source: bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Facebook Starting to Roll Out More Efficient Ads Manager

A few weeks ago, Facebook told us it would start testing a new ads manager and bulk uploader soon. Now, some advertisers are starting to see the new version of the ads manager, which providers much easier campaign management, in-line editing, search, and easier navigation.

As you can see by clicking on the image below, the new interface allows for much more efficient campaign management than the current ads manager. This will be welcome news for advertisers who either manage multiple in-house or client campaigns. Choosing a campaign at left will load all active ads on the right. However, whenever ads are edited, they’ll still need to be reapproved by the Facebook Ads team.

Here’s how the new ads manager looks:



How were advertisers chosen to participate in the test rollouts so far? “A small group of advertisers from our active advertiser base was randomly chosen to participate,” according to Facebook. “We will roll the new Ads Manager out to all advertisers over time.” The FAQ for Facebook’s new ad manager can be found here.

Facebook says it will also soon start testing a new tool for advertisers to bulk upload many ads at once, instead of manually creating them in the standard campaign manager or through third-party scripts. Agencies, app developers, and direct response advertisers who often want to target and test hundreds or thousands of specific creatives will soon be able to do so much more easily.

source: insidefacebook.com

The 20 Fastest Growing Facebook Apps: Mostly Social Games, As Usual

This past week was typical, in terms of which Facebook applications we saw gain the most users. Social games of various genres continued to gain millions of users. Similar to past weeks and months, Zynga’s virtual farming game FarmVille grew by 5.11 million monthly active users to reach 46.0 million, and the company’s role-playing mobster game Mafia Wars grew by 2.05 million to reach 23.2 million. They came in at number two and number four on our top 20 list.

However, number one goes to RockYou’s Birthday Cards, a full-featured virtual card-giving application. It was gradually declining over the last few months, started growing at the end of August, and reached around nine million users as of the first week in this month. Since then, it has for whatever reason found the curve in the hockey stick of growth: The app has gained 5.23 million MAUs in just the past seven days to reach 16.3 million.

Top Gainers This Week




Number four, Your Indian Name!, has seen even sharper growth, and quite abruptly at that. The app translates your name into Hindi, and lets you very easily post that information to your Facebook wall. It grew from 265 users to 4.13 million by the weekend (there may be a problem with the data here). The app’s creator, AppSphere Inc, has 57 total applications by our count.

Seven apps in total gained more than a million users. At number five was My Fishbowl, made by TwoFishes Interactive. The virtual aquatic life game had been slowly growing from nothing in early August, until September 15 when it hit its stride, er, stroke. It grew by 1.57 million to reach 3.30 million MAUs. Keep an eye on this one.

At number six was Causes, one of the only non-game apps on the list. It grew by 1.50 million to reach a stately 30.2 million MAUs. At number seven was Playfish’s Restaurant City, the virtual restaurant game grew 1.29 million to reach 14.4 million.


source: insidefacebook.com

Facebook Settling in to New 150,000 sqft Headquarters

facebook brought all its employees together into one building back in May, after having the various groups that comprise the company scattered throughout downtown Palo Alto. Now, architecture blog ArchDaily has given a glowing review of the new building, highlighting some of the details that make Facebook’s new offices unique.

The 150,000 sq. ft. building was once a high-tech manufacturing facility, and many of the original materials were re-purposed or recycled. The redesign is the first completed under the 2008 Palo Alto Green Building Ordinance. Designers Studio O+A polled employees throughout Facebook and kept everyone updated through photos and posts on the progress of the redesign.



The overall flow of the building is very relaxed and inviting, with executive offices located centrally to provide better access to all employees. The rest of the facility is mostly open work spaces and seating and congregation areas. Employees are encouraged to move furniture as they see fit, write on some walls and add art where needed.



Overall, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that he wants to be careful that the new building doesn’t give employees the feeling that the company has “arrived,” but instead left the new offices relatively plain.

“I want to remind people…we’re way closer to the beginning than the end,” he recently said.


source : www.insidefacebook.com

First Look: Argentinian Developer 3happybytes Reaching 26 Million Facebook Users

As Facebook has grown around the world in the last couple of years, international developers have taken a deeper interest in building applications on its platform. We’ve already covered a big one out of Hong Kong, called 6 Waves, but there are many others. Most notably, we’ve recently discovered a company called 3happybytes out of Argentina — a country that has been seeing a boom in web technology recently.

The company’s suite of applications currently reaches 26.7 million monthly active users, making it the fifth largest Facebook developer by portfolio-summed MAUs, according to our AppData analytics service. Certainly, as with every other developer on the list, some users have installed more than one app made by the company, so its monthly unique visitors is likely lower.

The company was founded earlier this year by Walter Souto, Javier Pelitz, and Fabian Muller. However, its web site only lists an email address.

So, what sort of apps does the company make? Very simple ones, from what we’ve seen. We’ve just started tracking the company, so our historical data is limited. Still, three of the company’s apps are among the fastest growing on the Facebook Platform. One, Friend of the Day, has quickly surged to nearly six million MAUs over the last few days. You simply install the app and it automatically tells you who your top friend is that day — it apparently decides from among your friends at random. Another app, Enemy of the Day, is basically the same concept. Install the app and find out who the company has randomly decided is your top enemy. It has grown from 5.67 million three days ago to 6.56 million today.

A third is called Death’s Time. It rather humorously randomly decides on a date and manner of death for you. Personally, it predicts that I will die on April 18, 2024, at 10:23 am. The cause of my death? “Motorcycle accident while dressed as Elvis.” Sounds plausible. Other people seem to be amused, too. It has grown from 9.9 million MAUs three days ago to 10.9 million today.


For all of these apps, and presumably the five others, you are asked to post the results — your top friend, your top enemy, your cause of death — on your wall, as well as on the wall of your friend or enemy. The simple, sensationalistic nature of these apps, combined with the ease of sharing your activities in them with your friends, appears to be driving the company’s growth.

Certainly, these apps are not as elegant as some of the games or utilities coming out on the platform today. They are more reminiscent of the early days, years ago, when nearly every developer was making simple, spammy apps. Still, perhaps the company can convert all of these users into something more sustainable. For now, it appears to be making money from a wide variety of remnant ad networks, quizzes, and the like. Perhaps, one day, it will grow into a more complex gaming company and start doing what many others already are — offering virtual goods that people are willing to pay for.


source: insidefacebook.com

Facebook Settles Beacon Case: No More Beacon, But There’s a $9.5M “Privacy Fund

Facebook tried to create a new form of advertising in 2007 with the launch of Beacon. In conjunction with a number of big-name brands, Beacon automatically tracked Facebook users’ actions on other sites, then displayed that information to their friends back on Facebook. The program is now officially dead.

A class-action lawsuit filed in 2008 has been settled today. There are two parts. One is that Beacon, as it has been, will be fully shut down — only a few accounts are still open and those will be closed. The other part is that Facebook will, from our understanding, fund an independent foundation to the tune of $9.5 million. The foundation will itself fund projects and initiatives that promote privacy, safety, and security causes.


The case was settled, not lost by Facebook. Here’s what a company spokesperson told me when I asked for more detail:

While we don’t admit any wrongdoing in this matter, we did want to get the episode behind us. And, we were particularly interested in an agreement that creates a foundation that has value for all users rather than just a few individuals.

The settlement has not yet been approved by the judge, and the case was just filed. It took place in the Northern District of California part of the US District Court, San Jose Division. We’ll update with a link to the settlement when it becomes available.

The original filing described some elements of Beacon that were particularly troublesome to the plaintiffs, per the original lawsuit. From that filing, via Justia:

Plaintiffs alleged that Defendant Facebook, Inc. and Defendants Facebook Beacon Activated Affiliates (i.e., Blockbuster, Inc., Fandango, Inc., Hotwire, Inc., STA Travel, Inc., Overstock.com, Inc., Zappos.com, Inc. and Gamefly, Inc.) violated their privacy.

More on the original lawsuit, via CNET:

If the user was not a member (of Facebook), Facebook still obtained the notification from the Facebook Beacon Activated Affiliate. Information regarding user activities was sent in real time to a third party Web site–one which was not open or active in the user’s browser, and one which, in many cases, the user may never even have visited or heard of.

Facebook’s side of the story is that the company made a number of adjustments to Beacon in the weeks and months following the launch that met many user demands. This case was filed long after much of the outcry about Beacon had ebbed.

Future plans

I asked about the impact of this ruling on Facebook’s current efforts to share data with third-parties, including Facebook Connect. Here was the response.

Beacon was about our users’ actions on third-party sites. Facebook Connect is about using Facebook infrastructure to give users significant control over how they extend their Facebook identity on the web, and share their experience back to friends on Facebook

More statements, these from Barry Schnitt, Facebook’s Director of Policy Communications.

We learned a great deal from the Beacon experience. For one, it was underscored how critical it is to provide extensive user control over how information is shared. We also learned how to effectively communicate changes that we make to the user experience. The introduction of Facebook Connect – a product that gives users significant control over how they extend their Facebook identity on the Web and share experiences back to friends on Facebook – is an example of this. We look forward to the creation of the foundation and its work to educate Internet users on how best to control their privacy; engage in safe social networking practices; and, generally, enjoy themselves more online by having knowledge that gives them a greater sense of control. We fully expect the foundation to team with other leading online safety and privacy experts and organizations that have been working diligently in these fields.


source: www.insidefacebook.com

Log in to Facebook with Your Username Instead of Your Email Address

This is a very small update, but shows how Facebook is trying to make itself a more central part of people’s lives. You can now log in to the site by entering your username and password instead of your email address and password like before.

Sure, many other sites let you do this. But the more interesting part is that Facebook has been promoting usernames for months, having let people get usernames in vanity URLs earlier this year. For example, my personal profile is now at www.facebook.com/EricEldon. Now, I can log in as EricEldon. The significance, or what there is of it, is that Facebook wants you thinking about using the site on its terms, rather than, say, in terms of the Gmail or Yahoo account you’ve been logging in through in the past.



source: insidefacebook.com

Prepare Yerselves for Pirate Day on Facebook This Saturday

It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the onset of autumn, nor Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday coming up next week. It’s International Talk Like A Pirate Day this Saturday, September 19 — an odd meme from the 1990’s that has found millions of new fans this decade through the internet. If you want
to read Facebook in Pirate English, here’s how.



Facebook has translated its site into Pirate English. Last year, you were able to access the dialect within the normal language chooser available in your account settings. But Pirate English doesn’t appear to be on the list at this point (although maybe Facebook will make it available on Saturday?). For now, if you want to read Pirate, follow this link to Facebook’s ajax language-picker page.

“English (Pirate)” is visible as one of the English dialect options, along with US, UK and “Upside Down” English. Just pick the pirate option and you’ll see Facebook’s masterful site translation go into effect.




source: insidefacebook.com

Facebook in challenge to Google

Facebook has turned up the heat on Google by purchasing content-sharing service FriendFeed, say industry watchers.

Many expected Google or even Twitter to buy the company, which has been praised for its "real-time" search engine.

This type of search is valuable because it lets you know what is happening right now on any given subject.

"Google look out, Facebook knows the real money is in real-time search," said respected blogger Robert Scoble.

"Google is the king of regular search. FriendFeed is the king of real-time search. This makes the coming battle over this issue much more interesting," Mr Scoble told the BBC.

Back in May, Google founder Larry Page admitted that the search giant had fallen behind other services like that of Twitter.

"People really want to do stuff real time and I think they (Twitter) have done a great job.

"We've done a relatively poor job of doing things that work on a per second basis," Mr Page said at the time.

'Warning shot'

Many in Silicon Valley agree that this deal has changed the game.

"Facebook was unable to acquire Twitter so this is the next best option," said Ben Parr, associate editor of Mashable, a news blog covering social media.

"FriendFeed is well known for having some powerful and intelligent technology that allows users to aggregate everything they do online and do it all in real time.

"With this acquisition, Facebook is gunning directly not only at Twitter, but at Google. This is a warning shot to those two companies," Mr Parr told BBC News.

Mr Scoble noted that FriendFeed's real-time search could stretch back 18 months compared to a few days for Twitter.

Silicon Valley commentators have long regarded FriendFeed as an inspiration for many of Facebook's features.

These include the ability for users to import activities from third parties services like YouTube and Flickr to letting users comment or say they "like" something in another user's feed.

"FriendFeed has in effect been the R&D (research & development) department for Facebook for some time now," said Mr Scoble, who is one of the service's most popular users with nearly 46,000 subscribers.

"They have the best community technology out there and Facebook should continue to use them to try out new features and test them out before transferring them over to Facebook."

The deal

The purchase caught many in Silicon Valley by surprise, even though the two companies had been talking on and off for the past two years.

"This is an 11th hour deal," admitted FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor.

Industry commentators had expected Google to make a bid for the company, especially given the fact that its founders all used to work there.

"FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request" is how Mr Taylor described the buyout, in a tongue-in-cheek reference to how Facebook users ask one another to become part of their friend network.

He continued in a similar vein in his blog post.

"As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle.

"Our companies share a common vision. Now we have the opportunity to bring many of the innovations we've developed at FriendFeed to Facebook's 250 million users around the world."

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was equally complimentary.

"Since I first tried FriendFeed, I've admired their team for creating such a simple and elegant service for people to share information.

"As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use."

As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and the company's four founders will be given senior roles on the social networking site's engineering and product teams.

FriendFeed will continue as it is for the moment independently.

"Eventually, one way or another, it's hard to see FriendFeed as it stands now, continuing on," said MG Siegler of Silicon Valley news site Tech Crunch.

"Facebook will begin to take up too much of the FriendFeeders' time, and it will languish. It's sad, but that's the web. Not every service can flourish. There simply aren't enough users with enough time to use all of them."


Source : BBC News

Facebook strips down to Lite site

The world's biggest social networking site has launched a slimmed-down version for people with slow or poor internet connections.

Facebook has said the Lite site will be faster and simpler because it offers fewer services than the main site.

Initially it is meant to support users in developing countries and where bandwidth constraints make the current version too slow to use.

At the moment it is only available in India and the US.

The company said around 70% of its more than 250 million users were from outside America. Countries in Southeast Asia and Europe are seeing a massive increase in growth where fast internet connections are more common.

News that Facebook was testing the Lite site was first leaked in August.

'Twitter-like'

The options on Facebook Lite are limited to letting users write on their wall, post photos and videos, view events and browse other people's profiles. There are no apps or special boxes.

"It appears, at a quick glance, to be a better site for Facebook newbies or for anyone who finds the current site overwhelming and noisy," said Rafe Needleman at technology website Cnet.
"The new layout feels almost Twitter-like."

Terence O'Brien at Switched.com gave the slimmed-down version of what he called "ol' blue" the thumbs-up because it "strips away distractions".

"The simple site loads noticeably faster, is easier to navigate, and is much easier on the eyes thanks to the lack of people sending you 'virtual booze' or asking you to join their 'vampire fraternity'.

"The new layout seems like a direct challenge to Twitter, which can attribute much of its success to is simplicity and portability," said Mr O'Brien.

'Worldwide rollout'

Many industry watchers said they believed that even users with good internet connections might well flock to Facebook Lite because of its new look and ease of use.

"That is what some US users are planning to do," said Eric Eldon of InsideFacebook.com

"Indeed the reaction from US users has prompted Facebook to release it intentionally for US users, something it hadn't previously planned on doing."

Mr Eldon said he believed a "worldwide rollout doesn't seem too far away".

Facebook has acknowledged this is a possibility in a statement on the site which said the firm was "working on translating Lite into other languages".

So far those who have posted comments on Facebook seem to like the company's new Lite approach.

"It's good to see Facebook listening to their users," wrote one user.

Another said: "Facebook Lite should be great for college campuses like mine that are hung up on bandwidth."

Having no third-party apps on the site also garnered a fair amount of support.

"The no-apps thing is killer. There's nothing about them I'll miss," noted one user, while another said: "Whatever you do, please, PLEASE do not allow the quizzes, games, or apps to ruin this pristine version of Facebook."

Anyone who switches to Facebook Lite and does not like it can switch back to the fuller version of the site.


source : BBC News

Facebook grows and makes money

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, San Francisco

The world's largest social networking site just got bigger with the announcement it has 300 million active monthly users from around the globe.

Facebook also revealed that it has started making money ahead of schedule.

The company had not expected to start turning a profit until sometime in 2010.

"This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term," said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

"We are succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. We are just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone.

"We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web," Mr Zuckerberg said in a blog post.

"Milestones"

The news that Facebook had passed these two benchmarks was made at TechCrunch 50 in San Francisco, a conference for start ups.

Facebook hit the 250m user mark back in July. It is estimated that the site is gaining around 5m new users a week or 50m in the last 75 days.

"Passing these milestones to me means we can continue to fund our development and our innovation and be self sustaining as we grow this network," Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's vice president of engineering, told BBC News.

"We think 300m is a just a step on the way to get as much of the entire world on the social network communicating with the friends and family and the people they want to communicate with."

"That Facebook is able to continue this growth and build a "cash flow positive" business is an impressive feat," said Nick O'Neill of AllFacebook.com.

"If the company can cover the cost of scaling to 1 billion users and still manage to break even, there's no doubt that the company will have a great opportunity to rake in billions," added Mr O'Neill.

Facebook's Mr Schroepfer said the company has worked hard to get more money flowing in than out.

"The growth of the network has certainly helped us go cash positive and the engineering team has done a lot of innovation on our ad products as our business is primarily advertising funded.

"As more and more of the world gets on the network, people and advertisers realise the power of sharing information whether its about a movie preview or a car." said Mr Schroepfer.

Look out Twitter said Ben Parr who is associate editor at the social media blog Mashable.com.

"If Facebook continues to open up its platform and adopt Twitter's best features, it could spell trouble for the Twitterverse. The world's largest social network is on the warpath," warned Mr Parr.


source : news.bbc.co.uk