Google Announces Google Buzz

PC World reports that Google announced a new social media tool on Tuesday called Google Buzz that is designed to link people’s Gmail accounts with features found in popular social media tools including Facebook and Twitter. Expected to be fully deployed within one week, Google Buzz allows people to share status updates, photos and videos with their network of friends.

“We focused on building an easy-to-use sharing experience that richly integrates photos, videos and links, and makes it easy to share publicly or privately (so you don’t have to use different tools to share with different audiences),” wrote Gmail and Google Buzz Plus Project Manager Todd Jackson on the Google blog. “Buzz integrates tightly with your existing Gmail inbox, so you’re sure to see the stuff that matters most as it happens in real time.”

However, rivals immediately jumped on Google Buzz as a misguided approach to social networking.

“Busy people don’t want another social network, what they want is the convenience of aggregation,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We’ve done that. Hotmail customers have benefited from Microsoft working with Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and 75 other partners since 2008.”

‘Free the Hikers’ Cause Gets Attention on YouTube

In an effort to put pressure on the Iranian government to free the three American hikers who accidently crossed over the Iranian border six months ago, the “Free the Hikers” group continues to collect petition videos as the 200th day approaches, according to the YouTube Blog Citizen Tube. Led by Alex Fattal, brother of one of the three hikers, the “Free the Hikers” group has collected more than three dozen videos from people around the world including Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu.

Hikers Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal have been detained in Iran since July 31, 2009 for, according to their families, accidently crossing an unmarked border while hiking the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Although Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last week suggested a swap of Iranians in the U.S. prisons for the three American hikers, BBC News reports that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton rejected the proposal saying that, “We believe they [the Iranian government] should unilaterally release our detained citizens.”

To join the important cause and create your own video to be shared on YouTube, please visit freethehikders.org.

Facebook Home Page Undergoes Redesign

PC Magazine reports that leading social media site Facebook has completed a site redesign intended to make it easier for users to immediately access their most important pieces of information and applications. The rollout is being done incrementally, meaning that not all users will immediately see changes to their Facebook layout, but those who do will see differences both subtle and significant.

Among the significant changes is a red bubble in the top left corner of the home page which opens drop-down menus featuring important notifications such as new messages, photos in which the person has been tagged or new posts on a person’s Wall.

In a post on the Facebook blog, engineer Jing Chen said that the intent of the redesign is that “the simplified design of the home page will make it easy for you to stay connected with the people, applications and activities that matter the most to you.”

Manage the Sections on Your LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn has added a new feature to its profile settings that allows users to reorder the section of their profile via drag-and-drop. Users can now highlight specific skills, expertise and/or experiences by simply clicking and dragging the new handles featured on the headers of the “Edit Profile” page.

In a post on the LinkedIn blog, Associate Product Manager at LinkedIn Aaron Bronzan writes, “At LinkedIn we’d like to provide you with all the tools you need to build and maintain a profile that can showcase your unique professional value. Now you’re in complete control over your professional brand.”

According to the blog post, LinkedIn plans to unveil a series of new enhancements to its profile section in the upcoming months.

Golden Tee Golf Players Can Upload Great Shots to YouTube, Facebook

Social media is definitely ubiquitous, even extending to unlikely places like bar video games. One of the most popular games is Golden Tee Golf, which millions of bar patrons play each year. The game is so popular that it has spawned a professional circuit with lucrative tournaments. Now manufacturer Incredible Technologies is giving people a chance to share their best Golden Tee Golf shots with the world by integrating social media technology into the latest version of the game.

According to a press release from Incredible Technologies, players can post videos of their best shots to the YouTube channel or Facebook page directly from the game, with the videos showing up within five minutes of being sent through the system. Players who hit a “Great Shot” such as a hole-in-one are asked if they want to post the replay to YouTube or their Facebook account. From there, it’s a few simple steps to get the video posted and continue playing the game.

While the Facebook integration is new, the ability to upload YouTube videos has existed for the past year. According to Incredible Technologies, more than 70,000 videos have been uploaded in that time and have been viewed more than 1.2 million times.

Malware and Spam Increase 70 percent on Social Networks

Cybercriminals have increasingly focused their attacks on social networking users, with an explosion in the reports of spam and malware in the past 12 months, according to a new report from Sophos, an IT security and data protection company.

According to the report, 57 percent of respondents said they have been spammed via social networking sites in the last 12 months, an increase of 70.6 percent from last year. In addition, 36 percent said they have been sent malware through the same medium, accounting for an increase of 69.8 percent from last year.

“Computer users are spending more time on social networks, sharing sensitive and valuable personal information, and hackers have sniffed out where the money is to be made,” said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos. “The dramatic rise in attacks in the last year tells us that social networks and their millions of users have to do more to protect themselves from organized cybercrime, or risk falling prey to identity theft schemes, scams, and malware attacks.”

When asked which social network they believed posed the biggest security risk, 60 percent said Facebook, while 18 percent said MySpace. Twitter and LinkedIn followed behind with 17 percent and four percent, respectively.

While Cluley acknowledged that Facebook is the largest social networking site “and you’ll find more bad apples in the biggest orchard,” he also noted that the social networking company took a backwards step last year when after rolling out its new recommended privacy settings it encouraged many users to share information with everybody on the Internet.

Social Media Leaders Meet in Switzerland

The Los Angeles Times reports that the heads of the major social media sites are meeting at a conference in Davos, Switzerland to discuss ways to monetize the incredible popularity of social media tools. According to the report, top executives from Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn met with world leaders at the World Economic Summit to share their experiences and try to help other businesses become successful while using social networking tools.

However, this meeting comes at a time when many social media networks themselves are struggling with ways to make money off of their own success.

“What’s important for them is to become indispensable to consumers,” said Augie Ray, a senior analyst for social computing with Forrester Research Inc.

“For Facebook, one of the interesting things is the value of advertising that is super relevant and also increasingly involves the preferences and actions of your friends,” he said.

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