social networking sites

A new study shows that more than half of teenagers mention drugs, alcohol, sex or violence on their MySpace pages. Yet getting teens to clean up their pages is easier than many might assume, researchers say.

More than 90 percent of adolescents have Internet access, and about half of these use social networking sites, such as MySpace or Facebook, according to the study of 500 18-year-olds in Monday's Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Web 2.0 applications have opened up a lot of communication channels -- and opportunity -- for business professionals. They can, more than ever before, reach out to individuals from across the globe and share content and web applications. Through blogs, wikis, and social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, people are becoming more and more electronically intertwined. "There's a sense of security in a Web 2.0 world where people trust their personal information to others," says Jordan Frank, VP of sales and marketing for Traction Software.

The 2008 contest for the White House may go down in history as the first social media election. How else to explain the unprecedented role the Web played in this year's Presidential contest, an influence scarcely imaginable just four years ago? In 2004 many social networking sites were just getting off the blocks. YouTube, for example, was introduced early the following year. And microblogging sites like Twitter wouldn't emerge until the 2008 Presidential campaign was getting under way.

It took computer safety expert Linda Criddle only nine minutes to snag the phone number of a teenage girl in Nebraska who had posted just a little information about herself on a social networking Web site.

Criddle is a former Microsoft employee who specialized in online safety and is the author of a consumer-safety book, "Look Both Ways: Help Protect Your Family on the Internet."

She spoke at the Economic Crime Conference sponsored by the Utah Attorney General's Office on Thursday -- with a message that would send shivers down any parent's spine.

Computer makers are betting consumers want a product that's more than a smart phone but less than a full-featured laptop. Lenovo, the Chinese company with worldwide headquarters in Morrisville, N.C., is the latest to enter the burgeoning market for netbooks -- also known as Internet PCs. This month, Lenovo announced plans for a 1-inch-thick IdeaPad netbook with a 10-inch screen. Starting price: $399.

Republican or Democrat, most everyone can agree that the online coverage of politics has changed significantly since four years ago. With the political convention season upon us, the impact of social media is hard to overlook.  From online video to Facebook, take a look at some of the new media tools and resources being utilized during this year’s conventions…

Cici confesses on her Web page that she likes to greet everyone by licking their feet. Dolce admits to being a mamma's boy. And Jake and Tycho posted a video that chronicles their adventures of rolling around on their backs. It's not on Facebook or MySpace, but the canine equivalent -- Doggyspace.com.

A crossbreed between MySpace and YouTube, Doggyspace allows dog owners from all over the world to come together, create profiles, and share photos and videos of their pups.

Consumers are rushing Apple stores and mobile-phone outlets from Seattle to Sydney on July 11 in hopes of being among the first to get hold of the iPhone 3G. The long-awaited iPhone upgrade boasts touchscreen tech, navigation tools, and faster Internet downloads than its first iteration.

But one of its biggest selling points became available a day earlier, when Apple flung open the doors of the Apple App Store, an online grab bag of games, books, friend-finder tools, and hundreds of other software applications designed to make the iPhone more fun and useful.

In the latest expansion beyond its main mission of organizing the world's information, Internet search leader Google Inc. hopes to orchestrate more fantasizing on the Web.

The Mountain View-based company unveiled a free service Tuesday in which three-dimensional software enables people to congregate in electronic rooms and other computer-manufactured versions of real life. The service, called "Lively," represents Google's answer to a 5-year-old site, Second Life, where people deploy animated alter egos known as avatars to navigate through virtual reality.