VentureBeat

ComScore’s June US numbers: Facebook still gaining on MySpace while blog platforms, news aggregators, niche social networks also grow

Facebook gained nearly two million new US users from May to June of this year, while MySpace lost about a million, according to the latest data from comScore. MySpace is still nearly twice the size, though, at 72.8 million national users versus Facebook’s 37.4 million…. Continue Reading

Roundup: Amazon Web services go down, MySpace to join OpenID and more

Here’s the latest action:

Amazon Web services go down over the weekend — The problems crippled messaging service Twitter and many other sites.

MySpace to join OpenID? — TechCrunch’s sources say the social networking site will join the OpenID initiative, which allows one login to work across multiple sites,… Continue Reading

Roundup: Digg sending more traffic to print media, rogue SF IT admin holds city computers hostage, and more

Hitwise: Digg has been sending more traffic to mainstream media web sites lately — Take a look at the graph below, and read what the web research company has to say, here. Allen Stern at CenterNetworks recently published his own report anecdotally noticing the changes; he… Continue Reading

Germany’s GameDuell raises round for skill-based games

German skill-games site GameDuell has raised $17 million in a second round of funding from Wellington Partners.

The Berlin-based company has more than 10 million registered members and claims to be the No. 1 game community in Germany. It plans to use the money for an… Continue Reading

Roundup: Broadcom backdating, games at work, and more

Former Broadcom executive Henry Samueli to plead guilty in backdating case — The Broadcom flameout saga continues, with former chief technology officer Samueli admitting that he previously lied to SEC investigators about whether or not he had illegally back-dated stock options.  Among Broadcom’s two founding Henrys,… Continue Reading

From MySpace to Facebook to Flickr to LinkedIn, here’s looking at you

Rapleaf, a company that provides people-focused search services to corporate clients, spends a lot of time mining social networking data. It has just released a survey studying the social networking habits of the 49.3 million people it has information about, divided by age. Sample sites… Continue Reading

Minggl ports social networks into your browser

FriendFeed has garnered a lot of popularity within the tech community for its ability to aggregate information across a wide range of social networks, and layer a new conversation on top of that. Minggl is a new service attempting to do something similar, only via… Continue Reading

LinkedIn may — and should — use its new funding to go after the business software market

Over the weekend, we heard that LinkedIn has big news in store, that was likely not an acquisition by the most prominent interested buyer, News Corp. After we published the story on Sunday evening, we heard from two sources that LinkedIn was instead working on… Continue Reading

What’s happening at LinkedIn? Is it getting bought? [Update 3: Or getting funded?]

Updated three times: After I published the initial version of the story last night, two sources have told us they’ve heard that LinkedIn has raised or is raising a new round of funding. Techcrunch now says it has been hearing similarly. More details below.

Something’s up at… Continue Reading

Meeting people is easy, in business: Venture Hacks’ social network, LinkedIn’s company pages

LinkedIn wants to be the center of business networking and data, but can it do everything, or will competing startups carve out their own niches? Latest example: LinkedIn is introducing new pages (LinkedIn’s own, left) that detail information about companies, partially by aggregating information about… Continue Reading

Roundup: Smaller social networks growing, Stage6, Sandvine and more

1. Niche social networks grow, market leaders level off
2. Startup employees headed to big companies?
3. Stage6 had a lot of would-be investors, still has at least one
4. Sprint’s fate unclear
5. Sandvine, a company that helped Comcast block BitTorrent traffic, facing trouble
6. Chatterous: Message all of… Continue Reading

Roundup: Wikileaks judge slaps own wrist, AllPeers unpeers, Saudis developing solar, and more

Here’s the latest action:
1) Wikileaks judge restores restores site, slaps self on wrist
2) AllPeers’ peer-to-peer scheme fails to capture users
3) Chevron, Weyerhaeuser join up for cellulosic ethanol
4) Saudi Arabia and IBM partner to develop green nanotech
5) Akamai wins patent fight, but not happy with ruling
6)… Continue Reading

LinkedIn launches redesign, makes itself easier to use

LinkedIn, the site for professional contacts, has just launched a new homepage designed to make the site more navigable (the full redesign will roll out tomorrow). The company has been has been privately testing the new design since last December — we previewed many of… Continue Reading

LinkedIn to launch new research network

LinkedIn, the businessperson’s social network, is offering a new way for companies to gather valuable background information when they’re making decisions. It’s mining the data in its own network to identify people who are experts on trends, companies and people related to financial markets, and… Continue Reading

Friendster, Bebo, LinkedIn all opening — aren’t waiting for OpenSocial

Friendster and Bebo are joining LinkedIn as the latest large social networks to throw open their web sites to outside developers.

Like Facebook, and a recent effort led by Google to do something similar with its “OpenSocial” project, these sites are letting third parties build applications… Continue Reading

LinkedIn launches platform — a better business social network

updated
LinkedIn has just launched its own developer platform and a new design that promises to make it more useful to its millions of business users.

Earlier this year, many wondered if social network Facebook would overtake LinkedIn as a business network destination. Many professionals have started… Continue Reading

Visible Path said to be bought

updated
Visible Path, a Silicon Valley start-up that offers companies a way for their employees to how their personal contacts are linked to others in their organization and elsewhere, has been bought by a multibillion, international company, according to this CNET article.

Visible Path has remained focused… Continue Reading

Roundup: Silicon Valley hot in mobile, Jaiku, LinkedIn, IAC, more

Here’s the action that you missed over Thanksgiving break:

1. Silicon Valley becoming mobile innovation hub
2. Why Google bought Jaiku
3. LinkedIn drawing suitors?
4. IAC to spend $100M in China
5. NeoEdge launches ad network for casual games
6. Feds may subsidize broadband access

Silicon Valley becoming mobile innovation hub… Continue Reading

Xing releases new features, in challenge to LinkedIn

Two days ago, we reported that LinkedIn had finally added profile pictures to their features list. Now a competitor, Xing, is announcing a slew of new features.

Xing already had profile images. Its users will now have the ability to include more personal information on their… Continue Reading

LinkedIn finally adds user photos

On Friday, the social network for professionals, LinkedIn, will go live with its newest feature: User photos.

Why did it take four years to add a feature already offered by every other social network? LinkedIn claims recent user requests for the feature drove the decision. However,… Continue Reading