social-networking sites

Yahoo is buying a fantasy sports company co-founded by an MIT graduate whose card-counting skills helped him win millions of dollars in blackjack and spawned a film and a best-selling book.

Citizen Sports offers fantasy leagues for sports such as football, soccer and basketball that fans can manage online at social-networking sites and through mobile applications for Apple's iPhone and smart phones running Google Inc.'s Android operating software.

MySpace is attempting to bring back old users and attract new ones with a complete revamp of the social network. The plans to change come after the social network has lost market share against its rivals.

Once considered the household name for social-networking web sites, MySpace lost its top position in the market once Facebook began to attract new users at high rate.

Four out of five adults view Internet access as their fundamental right. So says a new BBC World Service global poll of 27,000 adults across 26 countries.

Conducted by GlobeScan, the poll reveals that 87 percent of survey participants who use the Internet feel web access should be the "fundamental right of all people." Seventy-one percent of non-Internet users agreed with that statement. South Korea, Mexico and China saw the highest percentage of users who feel Net access is a fundamental right.

Nokia launched a new family of devices Tuesday, called the C series. The company said the new series is the "core of the Nokia portfolio" and the devices -- including the first one, the C5 -- will be "optimized for social networking and sharing."

Optimization means the C5 helps the user maintain a continual connection with his or her social circle. This includes direct access to the user's favorite contacts right on the home screen, Facebook status updates visible on the phone, and easy access to social-networking sites.

Four Families of Devices

Nokia launched a new family of devices Tuesday -- the C series. The company said the new series is the "core of the Nokia portfolio" and the devices -- including the first one, the C5 -- will be "optimized for social networking and sharing."

Optimization means the C5 helps the user maintain a continual connection with his or her social circle. This includes direct access to the user's favorite contacts right on the home screen, Facebook status updates visible on the phone, and easy access to social-networking sites.

Four Families of Devices

Nokia launched a new family of devices Tuesday, called the C series. The company said the new series is the "core of the Nokia portfolio" and the devices -- including the first one, the C5 -- will be "optimized for social networking and sharing."

Optimization means the C5 helps the user maintain a continual connection with his or her social circle. This includes direct access to the user's favorite contacts right on the home screen, Facebook status updates visible on the phone, and easy access to social-networking sites.

Four Families of Devices

Cybercriminals are relentlessly attacking Twitter. Over the past few days, Twitter has noticed an increase in phishing attempts and is working feverishly to reset passwords for affected accounts. British politicians are the latest to fall victim to the scams.

Twitter users who have received a direct message or see tweets with phrases like "This you???" or "LOL is this you" followed by a link are warned not to click through because the destination is a crafty phishing site designed to steal personal information.

Fifty million. That's how many tweets Twitter users send every day. It's the latest stat in a micro-blogging growth story that has taken the social-media world by storm. But as corporations and celebrities join the fray, cybercriminals are lying in wait with spam scams.

Kevin Weil of Twitter's analytics team posted a graph on the company's blog that tells the story of how the service has grown over the past three years in number of tweets created per day -- not counting tweets from accounts identified as spam.

A new Zeus botnet has been discovered affecting 75,000 systems in 2,500 organizations around the world. Both corporate and government networks have become victims of the severe cyberattack dubbed the Kneber attack, named after the username linked with the attack.

Facebook and Twitter users are under attack by cybercriminals -- and the incidents are rising, Sophos says in its its 2010 Security Threat Report released Monday. In the past 12 months, Sophos says, cybercriminals have focused more attacks on social-network users. Spam and malware are leading the charge.

Fifty-seven percent of users surveyed reported getting spammed via social-networking sites -- an increase of 70.6 percent from 2008. And 36 percent say they have been sent malware via social-networking sites, a 69.8 percent increase.