What is the appropriate age for using social networking sites? Are there practical ways of verifying the users age? These are the two questioned that pop into a concerned parents head with the rapidly growing trend of socializing on the internet.

The policies at social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace recommend that children that are 13 and older need to get parental permission, and younger than 13 are simply forbidden. How closely is that rule being followed? Surveys say that about 20,000 underage users are removed from Facebook daily. All these kids have to do is lie about their age and they can get an account. There are children under 13 who have accounts on Youtube, Facebook or Myspace. There isn’t much evidence that proves this to be harmful, and most underage kids seem to be using these sites in moderation and positively. As parents, only you can decide if you are willing to taking the risk of exposing your child to the vast world of internet socializing.

If we don’t allow kids on Facebook or MySpace, will family and relatives be attracted to use sites like Club Penguin or Togetherville which were designed for children up to the age of 10?

What do you do when you find out that your child has a user profile on a social networking site without your permission? Do you forbid them to use it again or is it wiser to let them use it on a condition that you will have their password so you can keep an eye on their online activity?

Some issues can not be taken lightly, and the protection of your child is one of those. Their safety is something we have to deal with everyday when they leave our homes. Child molesters are everywhere, so how can you be sure they are not sitting online and trying to be a part of your Childs social circle? Children can be manipulated and scammed easily. Their innocent curiosity can lead them into dangerous situations. Keeping track of their activities online is an added responsibility for the parents of these times. Parental involvement seems to be the best solution until these social networking sites develop more practical ways for verifying the identity and age of their users.

==== About the author ====

Nuur Hasan is professional website developer and a social networking enthusiast. When is not busy with work, he likes to browse Microsoft Office 365.

After Facebook took over the very definition of social networking, MySpace has been on a plummeting downslide. In a desperate attempt to save itself and make some savings, it is laying off over 50% of its staff.

The possibility of this event has already been foreseen by Liz Gannes, who wrote:

Myspacethe long-troubled social networking site turned social entertainment hubis in the midst of planning that could soon result in significant layoffs of its staff, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

That number could be as much as 50 percent of the 1,100 employees at Myspace, largely based in the U.S., but also in international locations.

According to the latest news on this topic, Myspace has already set a final date of 11 January for this event. This layoff figure will include a significant fraction of the international employees of Myspace as well. Liz Gannes has also predicted that with half of its staff gone, Myspace will now look for buyers. There is a huge possibility that Yahoo will buy Myspace.

However, the good news is that Myspace employees were expecting a layoff of at least 70% of the staff. Given that expectation, they are on the better side of the receiving end.

(Source)

Whoever would have thought a few years ago that once the most popular social networking site Myspace would have a tie-up with the current social networking site Facebook. However, it happened today. Myspace and Facebook have announced a collaboration today where MySpace users can import their Facebook likes and interests to Myspace.

In a press release by MySpace, they announced a partnership with Facebook which read:

Today, Myspace announced Mashup with Facebook, a new feature that allows Myspace users to easily create a personalized stream of entertainment content. With a simple one-click set-up, the likes and interests of a user’s Facebook profile are ported over to Myspace, enabling a user’s stream to become immediately populated with the entertainment content they already love. Users also have the ability to program their own streams based on recommendations and trending topics bubbling up on Myspace, while also engaging with other fans that share the same interests and passions in music, celebrities, TV, and movies.

According to the new agreement Myspace users will now have the ability to pull their Facebook likes and interests into Myspace allowing Myspace to fill their stream with entertainment content they like. Mashup with Facebook is an opt-in feature that is quick and easy to set up. Users can visit Myspace.com and click on the Mashup with Facebook button to begin.

Myspace will use a users likes and interests data from Facebook to display relevant Myspace topic pages, profiles and videos among other things. The new recommendations will all work in real-time so that users can discover new content quickly.

Myspace will use the Sync with Facebook feature which allows users to sync their Facebook and Myspace profiles to Mashup their data. As weird as it my sound, it looks like Myspace was in desperate need to piggyback on Facebook’s success to keep themselves up and running.

For more information visit the Myspace press release.

After successful integration with Twitter and Facebook Myspace has rolled out integration with Youtube. Myspace director of Product, Stream Jennifer Ruffner has posted about the integration with Youtube in Myspace Pressroom Official Profile.

At Myspace, we love content. It’s the content created, curated, and enjoyed by our passionate community that drives discovery and interaction on Myspace.
That’s why today we’re rolling out  Sync with YouTube, a new functionality that enables YouTube users to automatically distribute YouTube video content to Myspace’s global community via an integration with Google.

Initially it is a one-way sync from Youtube to Myspace i.e whenever a user likes, uploads or comments on a video in Youtube, the activity will be posted on his (linked) Myspace stream.

To enable this sync on your Myspace account, login to your Myspace account and go to My Account. Now go to the Sync and add Youtube by visiting the link Get Synced beside Youtube.

To enable sharing on Youtube login to your Youtube account, open your Account and go to the option Activity Sharing. You will find a new entry Myspace there. Press the Connect Accounts link beside it.

If you still care about MySpace, there is some exciting news for you. The social networking giant, which has been struggling to stay relevant, is currently testing a redesigned profile page.

We’re testing a new look and feel of our site among users and the response so far has been positive”, a MySpace representative confirmed to Mashable.

Among other things the new profile page offers improved navigation and more focused social stream. The screenshot obtained by Mashable suggests that the new profile page also includes a module to promote profiles on other social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

To be honest, the new profile page appears really slick and is definitely a significant improvement. However, is this a case of doing too little, too late?

All the rumors and speculations about Real-Time search results from Twitter , Facebook and etc. to be integrated into Google search has finally come true. Google has just launched Real-Time Search , which is integrated seamlessly into its normal search result pages.

Google logo

Results from around the web , like live Tweets , Yahoo answers , latest news articles and most recent web pages , are streamed along with the regular search results , as and when they appear and are updated , for the search query that you type in Google.

Earlier , Google had announced search deal with twitter , so the integration of live Tweets along with search results in Google , was the most anticipated and expected feature to be rolled out by Google. But Google has gone one step ahead and struck a deal with Facebook and Myspace , to pull in data from their social networks , in Real-Time.

The Real-Time search feature in Google might not be available to everyone now , but it will be available to everyone within few coming days. Until this feature becomes available to everyone , you can view a demo video of this feature, provided by Google .
Update: First Screenshots of Real-Time Search in Google

Real-Time Search in Google

Real-Time Search in Google

We , at Techie Buzz , will be publishing more details about this feature , as and when it becomes available to everyone , so keep reading.

We came across a very interesting photograph of what twitter is according to Google on Digg, though that was pretty interesting we decided to check for other interesting terms that Google comes up with through Google Suggest for the other social networking sites, and before we go ahead let us tell you that this is funny :)

Social Networking Is?

Social Networking Users Are?

Inspiration for this query came from here.

Social Networking How To?

Does Social Networking?

Hope you enjoyed the social networking meanings according to Google, we will try and add to the list once we come up with some good queries, in the meantime stop ROFL :-).

So we use social networking quite a lot, and we use to promote our brands and websites, however how many times are the social networking brands themselves mentioned by websites or blogs.

Here is a simple statistics for the number of times Twitter, Facebook and MySpace has been mentioned in websites or blogs over a certain period of time.

Please note the stats are just for fun, we decided to do this just to see, how many people are mentioning brands they so often use to communicate with people.

Twitter Brand Mention Statistics

In the last hour Twitter was mentioned 4,976 times

In last 12 hours Twitter was mentioned over 1 million times.

In the last 24 hours Twitter was mentioned over 2.2 million times

In the last one week Twitter was mentioned over 22 million times

In the last one month Twitter was mentioned over 70 million times

Facebook Brand Mentions Statistics

In the last hour Facebook was mentioned 5,139 times

In last 12 hours Facebook was mentioned over half a million times.

In the last 24 hours Facebook was mentioned over 2.2 million times

In the last one week Facebook was mentioned over 20 million times

In the last one month Facebook was mentioned around 69 million times

MySpace Brand Mentions Statistics

In the last hour MySpace was mentioned 3,246 times

In last 12 hours MySpace was mentioned a little over 72K times.

In the last 24 hours MySpace was mentioned over 1.6 million times

In the last one week MySpace was mentioned over 5.1 million times

In the last one month MySpace was mentioned over 14.6 million times

More Interesting Stats

Taking a look at popular sites that write about technology and social networking, here are some more stats about TechCrunch and Mashable mentioning these social networking brands.

TechCrunch Twitter Mention Stats

• Mentioned Twitter 1 times in last hour.
• Mentioned Twitter 4 times in the last 12 hours.
• Mentioned Twitter 5 times in the last 24 hours.
• Mentioned Twitter 131 times in the last 7 days.
• Mentioned Twitter 446 times in the past 1 month.

TechCrunch Facebook Mention Stats

• Mentioned Facebook 2 times in the last 24 hours.
• Mentioned Facebook 108 times in the last 7 days.
• Mentioned Facebook 385 times in the past 1 month.

TechCrunch MySpace Mention Stats

• Did not mention MySpace in last 24 hours.
• Mentioned MySpace 10 times in the last 7 days.
• Mentioned MySpace 171 times in the past 1 month.

Mashable Twitter Mention Stats

• Mentioned Twitter 5 times in the last 24 hours.
• Mentioned Twitter 140 times in the last 7 days.
• Mentioned Twitter 407 times in the past 1 month.

Mashable Facebook Mention Stats

• Mentioned Facebook 3 times in the last 24 hours.
• Mentioned Facebook 70 times in the last 7 days.
• Mentioned Facebook 304 times in the past 1 month.

Mashable MySpace Mention Stats

• Mentioned MySpace 1 times in the last 12 hours.
• Mentioned MySpace 2 times in the last 24 hours.
• Mentioned MySpace 10 times in the last 7 days.
• Mentioned MySpace 85 times in the past 1 month.

Conclusions

Based on the above stats you will definitely see that MySpace is losing steam when it comes to people mentioning their brand in websites and articles.

Twitter and Facebook however are pretty close and neck to neck, showing that people mention them in a higher percentage of posts that are written these day. We do not have the total number of posts written during this period to compare the %age of posts mentioning either Twitter or Facebook.

However both Twitter & Facebook have been in the news quite a lot for several reasons, which might be why they have so many mentions.

Important Things About The Stats

We did not do this stats to judge the popularity of these social networks among users, these stats are only there to see how many people are writing about them, everything including good publicity and bad publicity is included in the stats, so please do not use them to judge if a particular social networking is good or bad.

We used Google Blog Search to base the mentions, as it is more reliable and up to date and also allowed us to segregate the data according to different mention periods.

Do let us know your opinions about what you think about the stats we put up.

Note: We did not include several other social networking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit etc since they do not fall in the same category as the 3 above, we will do more statistics like these in the future, based on different criteria’s and data.

I enjoy using Facebook. After using Friendster, Tribe, MySpace, and Orkut, Facebook was a breath of fresh air. I have never received Spam, and I’ve only had one or two random people try to “friend” me during the 2 years that I’ve been a member. Since Facebook evolved from a university setting, it lends itself well to interaction (unlike Friendster), it doesn’t assault my senses with horrendous themes or auto-playing multimedia files, and people are usually clothed in their profile pictures. It’s really a very positive experience after using MySpace.

Facebook is getting ready to launch a brand new interface (which you can see at http://www.new.facebook.com), and the changes promise to be for the better. Everyone I know has a mild case of Facebook Application fatigue. For at least two months, I fought my way through Zombie, Pirate, Snowball Fight, and Knighthood requests, just to see if there was any legitimate communication from my friends. Unfortunately, there were far more application referrals and updates going on than anything else, and communication was reduced to a lot of clicking on links and buttons. The new Facebook interface will change this by significantly tightening up application security. Application developers will no longer be allowed to force you to invite your friends in order for you to see the outcome of a quiz, test, or any other information you’ve submitted. This should dramatically reduce the application clutter that everyone is experiencing. Applications that don’t meet certain privacy requirements and applications that continue to force users to promote them will be banned. Maybe this will force the developers to work harder to keep user interest instead of trapping them in an unbreakable invitation loop.

Privacy is also going to be a much bigger priority on Facebook . There have been several complaints, petitions, and requests from the user community for additional privacy controls, information from application developers about how their information is being used, and ways to prevent Facebook itself from distributing their information (remember Beacon anyone?). Facebook is changing all of that by allowing users to try the applications before they allow their information to be shared with the developer. This gives me a little more piece of mind about my application use, and I think it’s a huge step in the right direction. Facebook is learning from their previous privacy mistakes, and these new changes will give them a significant edge over the competition.