There's just something about gossip that gets people's tongues wagging. So when I ran across two social network-related rumors this morning, I had to do something about it. Obviously, the first thing that came to mind was "spread the news!"

First up, an article in the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Bill Gates has stopped using Facebook. Gasp! Does this mean that Facebook and Bill Gates are... "no longer in a relationship"??? Turns out ol' Bill was spending a half an hour every day on the site, but eventually grew tired of accepting all the friend requests he was getting (up to 8000 a day apparently). Gee, I never knew he was such a popular guy.

The other interesting tidbit of non-authenticated-information floating around the internet today, is that social networking site Bebo definitely may have been acquired by Google for $1 Billion. Of course, there's nothing to substantiate this story besides a "reliable source" who claims it has "definitely happened", but that's what makes it such a great rumor. It's what we don't know that makes us curious after all.

Ok, that's probably enough dirt on the dirt. Everyone get back to work.

In a bid to regain some respect in the ever-fickle web development community, MySpace is about to launch their developer platform. Why should anyone care? Because despite all the hype around FaceBook and its platform, MySpace is still the most popular social networking site on the web by a long shot, that's why.

Of some significance, the MySpace platform is said to be compatible with OpenSocial, Google's social networking developer platform (yes, they have one too). OpenSocial is also supported by Bebo and SixApart, so it seems there's a bit of a cartel forming to compete with FaceBook.

Apparently these platforms are great ways for developers to make money. How exactly? By plastering their embedded applications with ads and/or PayPal donation buttons, or alternatively by selling the "pro" versions of their applications for some coin. It's a win-win scenario I guess: Users get some added functionality and developers get some revenue. Too bad I just removed all my 3rd party apps due to privacy-invasion fears.

In a classic case of "Oops, we didn't think of that!" the fine folks at Facebook have had to do some major back-peddling in response to a huge backlash that resulted shortly after releasing their Beacon ad platform. Because of the way Beacon announces purchases made on participating e-com sites in the Facebook news timeline, friends and family were having their surprises spoilt by this innovative social-advertising model. Imagine logging into your Facebook account and seeing an update that your girlfriend/husband/mom/etc. had just bought a new digital camera at Best Buy - the same one you had hinted at wanting for Xmas. Doh!! Not surprisingly, the public outcry has resulted in a plague-like retreat from the Beacon offering by major advertisers.   read more »

Yesterday Facebook announced a new and ambitious platform called Facebook Ads to leverage the social network to become an ad network in and of itself with tentacles that reach out beyond their own site.   read more »

Not to be outdone by the Facebook/Microsoft partnership that's been slowly but surely forming, Google has just launched a new social network applicaton framework called OpenSocial, and the first big player to sign up is none other than the number 1 social network (in terms of unique visitors) MySpace. Other sites jumping on Google's bandwagon include Bebo, LinkedIn, and of course Orkut which is Google's own social network that is really big in Latin America and Asia but nowhere else for some reason.

OpenSocial seeks to do for other social networking sites what the Facebook Platform has done for Facebook: create an ecology of 3rd party applications that tie in to the social network through API's to enable expanded functionality (either useful or playful) beyond the core suite of tools, and at the same time providing a new outlet to embed Google ads. Pretty clever concept to make it a somewhat universal platform, and it will be interesting to see if it has the same impact that Facebook has had on the web development community.

After days of rumours, the announcement was finally made yesterday: Microsoft has just paid $240 million USD for 1.6 percent of social-networking juggernaut Facebook, which makes Facebook worth $15 billion dollars. This makes Facebook the 5th most valuable US Internet company (Google is #1, followed by eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon).

Google was apparently also in the running for a piece of Facebook, and there is plenty of speculation going around as to why they were snubbed in favour of Microsoft. The simple reason is of course, that Microsoft had already invested significantly in the social-network startup when they bought the exclusive rights to sell FB's advertising inventory, and they had already agreed to work together on future technology and advertising initiatives.