The expected change in approach is a reaction to the success of rival Facebook, which last month unveiled a similar step to open its network to outside developers. Although it has less than half as many users as MySpace in the US, Facebook's approach has won it strong backing from other consumer internet companies, which hope it will give them an easier way to reach the network's 27m members.

More than 1,000 applications and services are already available, letting users do things like publish slideshows of personal pictures to their Facebook pages, or add a box that keeps track of when their favourite bands are playing concerts nearby.

"The [Facebook] platform is interesting," Mr DeWolfe said in an interview with the Financial Times. He argued MySpace's current technology approach gave its users many of the same benefits but said: "We'll probably offer users the choice of both."

The aim was to attract more online companies to create services for MySpace's users. "We'll be bringing in more developers."

Dulles-based AOL has also launched a new widget that allows bloggers, Web site owners and consumers with social networking profiles to easily and anonymously instant message with site visitors. The widget is directly integrated with the owner's instant-messaging buddy list feature, letting site, blog and social networking profile visitors initiate an instant-messaging conversation when the owner is signed on to AOL's instant-messaging service.

A widget owner's online presence status is indicated with a highlighted icon and screen names, and identities are protected through customized owner and visitor aliases.

The 18 bloggers were invited to join the CNET Blog Network to bring fresh perspectives; CNET will be adding more topics and bloggers in the coming months. These bloggers are expected to uphold the same journalism standards as the CNET editors, so users can expect the same level of editorial quality from contributors to the CNET Blog Network as they do from CNET editors. The Blog Network will comprise 14 new blogs, including:

Cellular Obsession - Popular talk-show host Ronn Owens from San Francisco's KGO Radio has talked so much to his listeners about the latest cell phones that it's become a passionate hobby. Owens offers his opinions on the latest phones with the CNET audience.

Design and Technology - Design enthusiast Jean Aw finds the most incredible things in the most unlikely of places and loves bringing them to the attention of her readers.

(parent.thesis) - Author of a book titled, "Mojo Mom", Amy Tiemann and her husband Michael Tiemann offer the latest news and musings about raising kids in today's hyper-connected, 24/7 world.

Sports Tech - As one of the founders of golf's leading fitness resource, the Titleist Performance Institute, Dave Phillips writes about technology's significant impact on golf today, and the sports gear that is giving today's players an inside edge to every game they play.

Additional blogs include: The open road with Matt Asay, a blog focusing on open source; The digital home with Don Reisinger; The Macalope, a blog focusing on Apple; Politics, Policy, and Technology with Donnie Fowler; Speeds and Feeds, with Kevin Krewell, Peter Glaskowsky, and Jim Handy; Green Tech, with Vinod Khosla, Neal Dikeman, and Martin Tobias; The Web Services Report with Harrison Hoffman; Music and Technology with Matt Rosoff; Media Sphere with Josh Wolf; and Searchlight: an SEO blog with Stephan Spencer. In addition to this original content, CNET plans to syndicate blog content from Marc Andreesen and Mark Cuban.

Instead of doing what everyone else has done and create a blog to leak music to people ahead of release dates illegally, I thought (largely since I work in the industry and people's lack of care or respect for the hard work artists and the people who put out records appals me) I'd create a little blog to post the names, indelible and set out for all to see, of those people who've been given the care of having an early copy of a release and have set that responsibility aside and leaked the record they were entrusted with.

I feel perhaps a bit vindictive doing this, but on the other hand, the lack of care brought to the table by the other parties whose names will be listed here is more than grossly inappropriate.

The guy has a point. It's not terrifically original, and it falls on the side of the greedy music industrialists and copyright law Nazis, and it assumes that mp3 bloggers are some sort of masked supervillains, but it is a point. And it's something to think about, especially if you're us, and you have the access (promos!) and the tools (Interneting!) to share these things: Why do you want to deliberately hurt the artist you love?

Maybe you're tired (read: jealous) of seeing flashy cars and expensive chains on videos, or you're familiar with the way major record labels throw around cash (read: make it rain). It's more likely you wanna hear more music, and you don't always have the dough.

You can think of it as TV on Cliff's Notes. Each 'minisode' is three to five minutes long, but Sony and MySpace have assured skeptical viewers that the story arc of the original TV episode remains intact.

On the Minisode Network, you can now watch three shaved-down episodes from a total of 15 TV shows. Many of them, like Starsky & Hutch and Charlie's Angels, predate the average young MySpace user, but a few, like Dilbert, are a bit newer. According to a release from MySpace, new ones will be added each week and more than 500 total will be online by the end of 2007. It's not clear whether this means that new shows will be added as well or if the 'minisodes' will remain restricted to the current 15.

PlayStation.Blog is a bit of work in progress, we see it as a place where we can share with you our company's collective insights, opinions and perspectives on all things related to SCEA, PlayStation and the industry we play in.

At the moment, we're thinking about sharing all sorts of things here, ranging from product news and title announcements to developer updates and industry opinion posts - all of which will come straight from the people here inside SCEA who are working, thinking and playing with this stuff every day. Look to the categories on the sidebar for some initial thoughts we have on future post themes.

Now, what we've learned, perhaps the hard way, is that a blog like this is really about you and the things you want to hear, share and discuss with us. With that in mind, you'll notice that comments are enabled - and encouraged - so tell us what you want to see here and we'll do our best to make it happen. And yes, like most blogs, we have a comment policy, please just keep this in mind when you're leaving a comment.

We imagine it may take us a short while to find our pace with this, but bear with us as we get underway and we promise we'll quickly make this blog a valuable stop in your daily info hunt for PlayStation news.

Fans of MySpace and Facebook are divided by much more than which music they like, suggests a study.

A six-month research project has revealed a sharp division along class lines among the American teenagers flocking to the social network sites.

The research suggests those using Facebook come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college.

By contrast, MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education.

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we'd call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.

MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn't go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.

Most teens who exclusively use Facebook are familiar with and have an opinion about MySpace. These teens are very aware of MySpace and they often have a negative opinion about it. They see it as gaudy, immature, and "so middle school." They prefer the "clean" look of Facebook, noting that it is more mature and that MySpace is "so lame." What hegemonic teens call gaudy can also be labeled as "glitzy" or "bling" or "fly" (or what my generation would call "phat") by subaltern teens. Terms like "bling" come out of hip-hop culture where showy, sparkly, brash visual displays are acceptable and valued. The look and feel of MySpace resonates far better with subaltern communities than it does with the upwardly mobile hegemonic teens. This is even clear in the blogosphere where people talk about how gauche MySpace is while commending Facebook on its aesthetics. I'm sure that a visual analyst would be able to explain how classed aesthetics are, but aesthetics are more than simply the "eye of the beholder" - they are culturally narrated and replicated. That "clean" or "modern" look of Facebook is akin to West Elm or Pottery Barn or any poshy Scandinavian design house (that I admit I'm drawn to) while the more flashy look of MySpace resembles the Las Vegas imagery that attracts millions every year. I suspect that lifestyles have aesthetic values and that these are being reproduced on MySpace and Facebook.

On June 13, Michael O. Leavitt, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, convened a leadership forum on pandemic preparedness, which brought together highly influential leaders from the business, faith, civic and health care sectors to discuss how best to help Americans become more prepared for a possible influenza pandemic. The Department is hosting this five-week blog to expand the conversation as part of an ongoing effort by the Department to help Americans become more prepared. HHS does not edit blog postings and cannot ensure that all included links are functioning. We apologize for any inconvenience.

"Blog", "netiquette", "cookie" and "wiki" have been voted among the most irritating words spawned by the Internet, according to the results of a poll published Thursday.

Topping the list of words most likely to make web users "wince, shudder or want to bang your head on the keyboard" was folksonomy, a term for a web classification system.

"Blogosphere", the collective name for blogs or online journals, was second; "blog" itself was third; "netiquette", or Internet etiquette, came fourth and "blook", a book based on a blog, was fifth.

"Cookie", a file sent to a user's computer after they visit a website, came in ninth, while "wiki", a collaborative website edited by its readers, was tenth.

"Coverage of a recent incident involving a reporter having his media credential revoked at an NCAA championship requires clarification on both why this action was taken as well as current NCAA policy. The reporter's credential was revoked because he continued to blog live play-by-play reports from the press box after being repeatedly asked to stop. Any transmission of live play-by-play information by any entity other than a media rights holder is prohibited.

Following this incident, the NCAA issued incorrect information to credentialed media which stated that in-game updates of any type are prohibited. In fact, in-game updates to include score and time remaining in competition are permissible by any media entity whether credentialed or not.

We apologize for any confusion that may have resulted from the incorrect information."

"The Cards didn't get this kind of pitching in Missouri. If they can pitch like this and keep hitting like they do, whoa."

The video site, owned by Google, has launched nine versions across Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK.

Each site is translated into local languages and has country-specific video rankings and comments.

"Video is universal and allows people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas," said Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder.

At the beginning of 2005, I was Google's lone public policy guy. Today, there's a bigger - and growing - team of us scattered around the world, working on issues like privacy, child online safety, copyright and trademark protection, content regulation, reform of the patent system, and broadband policy. These issues are fundamental to the future of the Internet (and of the individuals it empowers), and are increasingly prominent on the agendas of policymakers worldwide.

We're seeking to do public policy advocacy in a Googley way. Yes, we're a multinational corporation that argues for our positions before officials, legislators, and opinion leaders. At the same time, we want our users to be part of the effort, to know what we're saying and why, and to help us refine and improve our policy positions and advocacy strategies. With input and ideas from our users, we'll surely do a better job of fighting for our common interests.

You may be wondering why it contains two months' worth of posts, given that we're only just now launching. Well, we started the blog internally back in April, to limber up our blogging muscles. Now that we've gone public we thought it'd be fun to share our earlier internal posts. In the weeks and months ahead, expect to hear more from us on issues like net neutrality, censorship, innovation regulation, immigration, R&D, national security, and trade, just to name a few. All of the members of Google's global public policy team will be contributing posts (or else - right, team?).

Stealing some of his material from LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman on the matter, Nye said people will build one profile for their personal life and another for their professional life. The argument, self serving as it is, makes a certain amount of sense. Not good to have a prospective employer stumble on to those photos of you freshman year in Delta Kappa Epsilon.

After the inevitable social net shakeout, Nye says, Facebook and MySpace will remain standing and will compete to supply an outlet for personal self-expression and community. Meanwhile, in the Nye/Hoffman scenario, LinkedIn will dominate the business of business networking - serving as a "productivity tool," used for professional reference checking, recruiting, and to get expert advice.

Granted, LinkedIn's current growth does look promising. With upwards of 11 million members already signed up, the site is now adding 180,000 new members each week, and fully half of these live outside the United States. Thus, Nye professes little fear of would be competitors like the European front-runner Xing.com. "We are clearly going to win the English speaking world and adjacent economies," he said. "And that already is pretty meaningful." In Silicon Valley, he added, "LinkedIn is now so prevalent that you sort of have to join it."

iStockphoto pioneered the concept of micropayment stock imagery and was one of the first social networks in the world to actually pay contributors for the sale of their work. It remains the world leader in micropayment stock and is now the global volume leader in all stock photography sales, whether user-generated or traditional. iStock has more than 1.8 million members and an image or video is downloaded from the site every 2.5 seconds.

"Lise is a great friend, a true artist, and has really set the bar high for the members of our community," said Bruce Livingstone, CEO of iStockphoto. "We work very hard to promote our artists, providing training, business cards, partnerships, and advertising that give all our exclusive contributors maximum worldwide exposure. I believe Lise is the first of many who will achieve this milestone, as we have just barely scratched the surface of the worldwide appetite for imagery. What may be her most astounding accomplishment is that by our calculations, she just may be the most prolific stock photographer on the planet."

iStock artists are paid instantly every time one of their images is downloaded. Exclusive photographers can make 40 percent royalties on each image sold, and 50 percent on extended license agreements. iStock promotes its collection and photographers through aggressive marketing and advertising campaigns worldwide, and has many partnerships internationally that increase channel sales potential for its artists.

In recognition of her achievement, iStock is creating an iStock Wall of Fame, with Lise the first member inducted. She'll be joined by many more of the artists she has inspired during her meteoric rise.

"I love the community aspects of iStock so much and have learned a great deal from all my friends there since 2003," said Lise Gagne. "I fell in love with iStock right away, but never would have dreamt that someday it would be my career. But things have a way of working out: I got fired from my old design agency for spending too much time on iStock, and suddenly found myself with all the time in the world to give to photography. Now I hope to hit a million downloads in half the time it took to reach 500,000."

"Enough about the climate problem. Let's talk climate solutions." Thus begins the new blog by Amory Lovins on Yahoo! Green. Prepare to have your assumptions turned on their heads as the co-author of Natural Capitalism and founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute shows us how "protecting the climate is not costly but profitable."

Mr. Lovins has done pioneering work in the field of radical resource efficiency, which he sees as the first step towards a sustainable world. This YouTube video gives a great overview of the man and his work.

Owen Thomas, the Business 2.0 editor whom we've lured to run Valleywag, is all smiles. But don't be deceived. This Silicon Valley gossip rag, after he takes over in July as managing editor, will remain as obnoxious as ever. You see, Thomas isn't just a veteran of business journalism, with excellent sources in the tech industry (most of which he will burn). The superficially jolly writer was, in an earlier life, one of the contributors to Suck, the legendary site that pioneered web snark. Here's coverage on All Things Digital and Gigaom -- Valleywag snags an editor from Business 2.0. After the jump, for the Valleywag-watchers, the highlights of my own seven months on Valleywag. And, this being a critical site, some lowlights.

The Mahalo Greenhouse is where talented part-time Guides (PTGs) help Mahalo create the best search results on the internet. PTGs create search results in the Mahalo Greenhouse for terms Mahalo has yet to cover, and if our full-time Guides approve the PTGs' search results, those results will be moved from the Mahalo Greenhouse to Mahalo.

Anyone can apply to be a PTG. PTGs are paid $10 to $15 for each search result approved and added to Mahalo.

Kid Cartoonists is a weblog for anyone under the age of 18 to submit and display their cartoons. Visit us daily to look for your artwork, or just stop by to enjoy, and be inspired by wonderful, creative cartoons drawn by other kids!

Iowa State University and "Iowa Farmer Today" team up to launch "Crop Watch Blog" During this growing season extension crop field specialists and farmers will post the latest state wide growing conditions.

Most of the corn is the ground in the Siouxland area. According to Joel DeJoung, an ISU crop field specialist, planting has been timely for most farmers but they still spending most of their time in the field.

"Right now they are not getting together very much because they are spending most of their time out in the field, when they are talking about timeliness of planting,” says DeJoung.

A new blog site sponsored by Iowa State University and Iowa Farmers Today is taking crop conversation and planting it on-line offering Iowa farmers the latest in conditions and possible trouble areas this growing season.

The technology, developed by engineers at YouTube-owner Google, will help content owners like movies and TV studios identify videos uploaded to the site without the copyright owner's permission, the company said on Monday.

The so-called video fingerprinting tools will be available for testing in about a month, a YouTube executive said.

YouTube has also been testing technology to help identify the audio tracks of video clips with major record labels using technology provided by privately held Audible Magic as early as the first two months of 2007, the company said.

NCAA spokesman Bob Williams said Monday that Bennett was asked not to blog about game action before Sunday's game.

"In a nutshell, we asked the blogger repeatedly not to cover it in that manner, because it violates the policy, and he continued, and his credential was revoked," Williams said.

Williams said it didn't matter that the newspaper had blogged at other NCAA events, like the Orange Bowl and NCAA basketball tournament.

"Essentially, we enforce the policy when we learn of violations," Williams said. "So the fact that he may have blogged at a championship before really has no effect on the policy."

The newspaper said the university circulated a memo on the issue from Jeramy Michiaels, the NCAA's manager of broadcasting, before the first super regional game Friday. It said blogs are considered a "live representation of the game" and blogs containing action photos or game reports are prohibited until the game is over.

"It's a real question that we're being deprived of our right to report within the First Amendment from a public facility," Fleischaker said. "Once a player hits a home run, that's a fact. It's on TV. Everybody sees it. [The NCAA] can't copyright that fact."

Multiverse CEO and Co-Founder, Bill Turpin, and the other Multiverse co-founders who are veterans from Netscape's early days, helped create much of the core technology that fueled the growth of the World Wide Web.

"Similar to what we experienced with the Internet in 1995, our vision today is to spark explosive growth of 3D virtual worlds," Turpin said. "As an industry, we're just now beginning to understand this new medium's enormous potential. Empowered by our technology, the next wave of online pioneers will create a wide variety of virtual worlds faster and for less money than ever before."

Losing your job can be devastating. But we, your colleagues at The Chronicle, hope to make it a little less devastating.

The goal of this blog is to share information that will help your transition. For those who lost their job, you might want to provide your contact info so we can reach you (either by posting a comment or sending us an e-mail). This also could be the place for you to ask for help, be it on a personal or professional level.

For those still at The Chronicle, maybe there's something you want to offer, be it job leads, career resources, or simply a friendly voice.

For starters, we in multimedia want to offer you whatever help we can. If you plan to seek a job in journalism, chances are that you're going to be asked about your multimedia expertise. Whether you're a veteran multimedia journalist or someone who still isn't clear on what a podcast is, please feel free to contact us by email or cell. Think of us as your multimedia consultants (minus, of course, any fee).

The blog also warns angry current or ex-employees to leave their critical comments off the site, noting "...the tone of this blog...is to support one another. No doubt there are plenty of people who are angry about this situation -- we ask that you choose another venue to express those feelings. Thanks in advance."

Dead blogs litter the Internet like squashed bugs on a windscreen during a warm Southern evening. Since their christening in 1999, millions of people like Haddock have dabbled with blogs only to abandon them after a few months.

"I think a lot of people started blogs because they got excited; the hype was there, but they really didn't have a purpose," said futurist Jim Carroll, whose clients include the Walt Disney Corp., Nestle and the BBC. "There's only so much you can read about somebody else's life before you get bored with it," he said.

The blog rush has slowed down from 175,000 new blogs posted per day in July 2006 to 120,000 new blogs per day as of March, according to Technorati, a blog tracking company.

Blogs with staying power, Endgaget's techno-blog and Boing Boing's curios-blog, stick around because they have a direct purpose, Carroll says. That, plus paid staff and advertising dollars.

It turns out that success in the new-media world depends on a lot of the same things as in the old-media universe. Just as in Hollywood, becoming a hit takes talent, effort, timing and some luck. Sex appeal is just as valuable online as off. And getting noticed by the "mainstream" press also helps build buzz. With over 900 reviews on Yelp.com, posting reviews online isn't as much about stardom for Megan Wade, it's about talking up local businesses like Weird Fish.

Most important, though, is the way Internet stars exploit the power of the Web. They employ all the social-networking tools available on new-media sites like Google Inc.'s YouTube, inviting fans to comment on their work, link to it and even copy it. And they draw on email, subscriptions and other tools to alert fans about new offerings.

"The most popular are the ones who have really tapped into the social fabric" of the Internet, says Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing at YouTube.

GET IN EARLY

When "Rocketboom" went online in late 2004, the idea of a video blog -- posting commentary and news in video form instead of regular text -- was still novel. Andrew Baron, the program's producer, says that the program had a small but loyal audience of about 700 daily viewers within a few weeks of launching.

Beginning today, Prince columnists debate everything from dodgeball to the French presidential elections to the new basketball coach on the Prince's new blog, The Prox.

Barry Caro '09, Stephen Hsia '08, Soleine Leprince-Ringuet '09 and Jason Sheltzer '08 will post about anything and everything that takes their fancy as they make their ways around campus. If someone at Princeton is talking about it, we hope it'll be discussed on The Prox. We hope you'll share your thoughts as well and look forward to reading your comments.