I have never really taken to Facebook to be honest, primarily I think because I don’t really have any old friends that I particularly want to find as I tend to hold the view that if you are true friends you will have kept in touch anyway.

Another reason is pretty well summed up by this article on the Telegraph website, which says:

Users of Facebook and other social networking sites who fear they do not have enough friends are “buying” them to look more popular.

In a bid to attract new users and stem stunted growth, Twitter has created a new ‘Sign-Up’ API (application programming interface) which will make it possible for anyone to create an account when away from the site.

So far the functionality is only live on US local online guide, Citysearch, and has not been released publicly. Businesses with profiles on Citysearch which create Twitter accounts using the new API, will have their tweets appear on their Citysearch business page.

Panic buttons are to be installed on Facebook and other social networking sites to enable children to alert website operators when inappropriate material is posted on the sites.

Am still not a huge user of Facebook primarily because I haven’t figured it out yet!! Was interested to read this article on the (Via Telegraph) site though:

Some 140 firms and other groups have agreed to abide by internet standards drawn up by the government’s adviser on online safety, Tanya Byron.

The makeover is designed to mark World Aids Day, which aims to raise awareness and funds for HIV/Aids projects across the world.

Twitter’s new red livery also contains a link directly through to the Twitter page of Product Red, the HIV/Aids awareness charity founded by U2 singer Bono which hopes to fight the spread of Aids in Africa.

Twitter users are also able to add a virtual red World Aids Day ribbon to their Twitter picture. The virtual ribbon, known as a Twibbon, is displayed on top of a user’s profile picture on all of their tweets.

Bereaved Brits desperate to send a message to their departed loved ones this Christmas could instead simply alert hostile aliens to our tenuous Earthly existence.

The Bereavement Register – a useful service to help bereaved families avoid being deluged with junk mail and cold calls targeted at their dead relatives – is offering the chance to beam into space “a personal message in remembrance of someone who has died”.

The Bereavement Register will forward the messages to “Our broadcast service provider, Deep Space Communications Network (DSCN)… located next to the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, USA”.

Personal and corporate accounts will remain free, but businesses will have the option of signing up to a paid account, which will offer a “special layer of access”, including feedback and statistics. Many big name brands and companies have embraced Twitter as a way of communicating directly with consumers and engaging with customers.

“This takes advantage of some of the commercial use of Twitter we’ve seen from businesses like airlines and big box stores,” said Stone. “We want to present to them a layer of features that allows them to become better at Twitter, show them some of the analytics.”

Speaking today at the event held in London, Mr Fry, who passed the million followers mark at the weekend, complimented the site for changing celebrities’ relationships and reliance upon the media.

The average person who used Facebook in each of the last 12 months has spent 70 hours 26 minutes on the site during that period, according to a spokesman from Nielsen Online, the company which conducted the research. They also calculated that the most addicted users have spent over 125 hours on the site during the last year – the equivalent of more than a whole working week.

Microblogging site Twitter has been offered half a million dollars to feature a single banner advert on its pages for just one day.

Twitter users may soon be posting real-time video tweets in addition to text tweets under plans to modernise the site.

Twitter is trying to raise another $50m, pushing the (self) valuation of the company above a billion dollars, despite lacking an income of any kind.

The world’s first tweeting ferries are sailing across The Solent, thanks to an inventor who took matters into his own hands after becoming frustrated with delays to his commute.