Social networks are still in the process of becoming the natural hubs of our online activity. This is being further proved with the more recent addition of Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm for Microsoft’s Xbox. But Xbox Live already had limited support for web browsing and a few other native social features. Why is social network integration such a big deal? Because people spend the most of their online life on social networks and if you can bring those services into your gaming platform you can increase playing time. Read more »

PayPal recently has announced its new API for Facebook developers, enabling them to more officially create payment options to work directly within Facebook applications. Many Facebook apps with virtual currency payment options already supported PayPal, but without dedicated support tools from PayPal the potential for glitches or incompatibility were higher.

The decision by PayPal to add support for Facebook through its API is also a nod to the Facebook platform itself, indicating that the power for Facebook to become an influential marketplace for virtual goods is all but a matter of expectation. So where is this all going? Read more »

The virtual goods industry has faced a lot of flack in the past week, as the methods behind certain app publishers are questions arise towards their legitimacy and dedication to good consumer practices. So far the bulk of the game scams have been on Facebook, partially because of the widespread acceptance and use of Facebook’s platform by developers and consumers. While Apple is another platform that can easily be utilized for questionable methods surrounding consumer offerings for virtual goods, Twitter is likely to be the next major frontier for the industry. Read more »

Bebo Games launched recently marking the social network’s entry into a deeper integration of virtual goods. While the games are not a direct approach to the virtual goods industry, the potential for growth around this concept is there.

What is notable about the Bebo Games launch, however, is the level of assimilation games have with the individual user experience. Bebo has weaved its games into several aspects of the user experience, from messages to alerts to in-site chat. What that means is that Bebo’s game partners have improved and increased opportunities to communicate directly with users. It also means that users have more opportunity to communicate directly with each other, around their gaming activity. Read more »

These days our smart phones come GPS-enabled, helping us figure out which direction to head when we’re lost, and where the nearest post office is. Being location-aware can be a pretty social thing as well, considering all of our interactions have a time as well as a place. These two factors can have a great impact on the decisions you make – you’re already on the north side of town and you don’t mind killing another 25 minutes until a local networking event begins. Read more »

Many internet startups have had lofty goals, but perhaps none have been quite as ambitious as Japan based startup LIFEmee. Its co-founders are hoping it will become your personal homepage for tracking all the important information related to every aspect of your life. LIFEmee believes that by helping you organize your life, they can also “help you reach your full potential”. Read more »

Twitter is the high-tech haiku, the latest and greatest in social services that’s really going to change the way we do everything! Seriously! Not like MySpace, or Facebook, or any of the other things that mass media advertised as the end of everything that came before (but turned out to be advertising platforms loaded with preteens and people who illegally like preteens). Unfortunately the fantastic future is again unfounded, as Twitter is falling to the same problem that paralyzed previous popular sites: spambots and idiots. Read more »

Facebook’s social networking platform continues to grow and mimic nearly every great service on the web. Twitter is probably the most victimized out of all services Facebook has copied. Such features include the Facebook news feed and the currently beta update to the Publisher which will allow you to post content that everyone can see and not just your Facebook friends (i.e. much like Twitter profiles). In the past few weeks I’ve found myself spending more and more time on Facebook and I’ve identified a few other features I’d like to see Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook developers incorporate into the popular social network. Read more »

Recently I’ve been using Facebook more and more for my social networking needs. Until now however, there’s really not been a decent Facebook app in the Google Android Market. I had previously been using Facebook Lite which acts more like a wrapper for Facebook than a native Google Android application. Facebook Lite is bulky and runs really slow on my T-Mobile G1. Moreover you can’t access the majority of Facebook’s features using Facebook Lite. Read more »

Given Facebook’s widespread use, I thought it would be helpful create a sort of Facebook guide that includes how to instructions, tips, tricks, and proper etiquette for using Facebook. Facebook is a social networking site that’s become a great resource for keeping track of friends, meeting new people, and promoting your own business, organization, group, and cause. For many individuals Facebook is a great entertainment resource too. Read more »