Social sites battle for new users

MySpace is running out of breath, while Bebo and Facebook are fast catching up. That’s the message from the latest figures on social networking in Britain.

MySpace has long been the leading site for young networkers who want to run their social lives online.

But research firm Nielsen/NetRatings says May saw a drop in UK traffic to MySpace, while Bebo and Facebook continued to attract new users.

Facebook, once largely confined to American colleges, has grown its audience by more than 500% in the last six months – making it more popular in Britain than in the US.

Nielsen says 10% of UK internet users visited Facebook in May, compared to 9% of US online users.

Alex Burmaster of Nielsen/NetRatings says: “If the April to May growth rates were to remain consistent, both Bebo and Facebook would catch MySpace in September this year.”

Number crunch
MySpace is still well in the lead with 6.5 million UK users, compared with 4 million for Bebo and 3.2 million on Facebook.

But the figures also show that MySpace is proving much less compulsive for its users than the other two sites.

Its users spent an average of 96 minutes on the site in May, while Bebo users were there for 152 minutes and “Facebookers” spent 143 minutes on their site.

There was also evidence that there is plenty of promiscuity amongst the social networkers – at least when it comes to visiting the various sites. Around half a million British users visited all three services in May.

But the battle to win the loyalty of this fickle crowd is hotting up.

In the last few weeks, Facebook has opened its doors to a crowd of outside applications and Bebo has announced plans to run its own TV mini-series on the site.

Rupert Murdoch, who bought MySpace in 2005, has already expressed concern about the growth of Facebook. His executives will now be under even more pressure to find ways of making MySpace fashionable again.

GPL 3 officially released

After four drafts, broad discussion, and extensive public review, the FSF has finally published the official, much-anticipated GPL revision 3 (GPL 3). The new version aims to clarify aspects of the previous version, strengthen unencumbered redistribution by imposing new patent licensing requirements, and protect the user’s right to modify GPL software on embedded systems.

The GPL is the most popular open-source software license, and it is used by many high-profile open-source software projects, including the Linux kernel. Unlike proprietary software licenses, the GPL explicitly guarantees users the right to modify, repurpose, and redistribute software. “Since we founded the free software movement, over 23 years ago, the free software community has developed thousands of useful programs that respect the user’s freedom,” says FSF president Richard Stallman in a statement. “Most of these programs use the GNU GPL to guarantee every user the freedom to run, study, adapt, improve, and redistribute the program.”

Many contentious issues addressed in the GPL 3 caused controversy and debate throughout the draft process. An unexpected patent agreement between Microsoft and Novell compelled the FSF to revise the patent licensing language in a late GPL 3 draft in an effort to block similar deals in the future.

Despite the controversy and debate, the highly transparent draft process has ensured that the GPL 3 is the product of broad consensus. “By hearing from so many different groups in a public drafting process, we have been able to write a license that successfully addresses a broad spectrum of concerns,” says FSF executive director Peter Brown in a statement. “But even more importantly, these different groups have had an opportunity to find common ground on important issues facing the free software community today, such as patents, tivoization, and Treacherous Computing.”

Now that the GPL 3 has been released, it is likely that it will be broadly adopted within the open-source software community. Although Linux kernel creator Linus Torvalds initially rejected the possibility of migrating the kernel from the GPL 2 to the GPL 3, the developer has recently stated that the possibility is once again under consideration.

MySpace likely to open platform to 3rd party developers

MySpace is likely to change its technology strategy to allow other online companies to “plug” their web services directly into its social networking site, according to Chris DeWolfe, one of its founders.

The move would mark a new step in the evolution of social networks into fully fledged internet platforms, while opening a new front in the battle for audience share among the web’s fastest-growing companies.

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.”

The race to lure other internet companies to build services on top of their networks reflects an attempt by the social networks to consolidate their recent audience gains and become central parts of the online landscape.

Many internet companies, from Google to Ebay, have started making parts of their platforms available to outside developers, although Facebook’s gambit marks a more radical attempt to turn itself into an “open” service.

However, the strategy raises sensitive financial issues that have yet to be resolved. Facebook has said any company that builds services on its network is free to make money from them, for instance through advertising.

MySpace has taken a more restrictive attitude, blocking services that have tried to make money by advertising or selling directly to MySpace members.

October launch planned for .asia domain names

Internet addresses ending in “.asia” will be open to governments and trademark owners starting in October, with general registrations coming in 2008.

The initial round, which starts Oct. 9, is limited to governments desiring geographical names such as “china.asia” and those with trademarks applied before March 16, 2004, and actively in use. Registrations for other trademarks and for company names begin Nov. 13.

The Internet’s key oversight agency for domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, approved the “.asia” domain in October.

DotAsia Organization Ltd., an organization made up of groups that run domain names for China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other countries, will operate “.asia,” which it sought as a way to unify businesses and other users in the Asia-Pacific region.

The organization has said it plans to restrict registrations to those in the region, which includes Australia.

Applications for the older, active trademarks will close on Oct. 30, and all other applications in the so-called “sunrise” period will be accepted until Jan. 15. General registrations will come after that, though DotAsia did not specify when.

To discourage automated tools aimed at flooding the system on opening day, DotAsia will scrap the first-come, first-served model during the early registration period. Rather, all applications in a given round will be treated equally, with an auction held when two or more qualified applicants seek the same name.

DotAsia did not say when winning applications could start using the names.

Fees are likely to vary depending on which registration company an applicant chooses to process the name on DotAsia’s behalf.

The “.asia” name joins “.eu” for the European Union and “.cat” for the Catalan language as regional domains, and there have been calls for additional geographic names like “.berlin,” “.nyc” and “.paris.” Normally domain names are assigned globally, such as “.com” for commercial sites, or for a specific country or territory, like as “.fr” for France.”

Demand for the new names has generally been low, compared with old-timers like “.com,” but many foreign businesses consider “.com” primarily a U.S. domain, and latecomers to the Internet have found the best names already taken.

Get paid to wait in line for an iPhone

People with free time and entrepreneurial spirit are posting ads on Craigslist offering to wait to buy iPhones for other people — charging as much as the cost of the iPhone itself.

Craigslist is running ads from people offering to either hold a place in line for iPhone customers, or to buy the phones outright.

Why do they do it? “Money, pure and simple,” said Kim Foster, of Chicago, Ill. “Just bought my first home and money is very tight, as you could imagine. I’ve heard of people doing this for other items, Xbox, etc., and thought it was a very smart idea. So I thought I’d give it a go.”

Line-standers include Brandon Phenix, of Wrigleyville, Chicago. “I’m a fourth-grade teacher and I have nothing to do this week, and I thought this would be good way to earn money,” he said. He made sure to include his profession in the ad, which, he said, makes the ad stand out. “The keywords make people think I’m trustworthy — which I am,” he said.

He said Wednesday he’s gotten five calls in response to his Craigslist posting, and bidding for his services has gone up to $350. He expects to charge $500 when the bidding war is done.

Phenix’s biggest concern: People cutting in line. “I’m specifically looking for a place where there’s less people, and less likelihood of that happening,” Phenix said. He said he called around to see if local stores were planning extra security or giving out numbers to waiting customers, but found they weren’t.

One Las Vegas line-stander has a plan for cutters. “We’re aggressive when it comes to line cutters,” says the ad. “(We will cap any mother** that tries to cut in line ).” Yikes.

Line-standing is a grueling business, requiring specialized skills and equipment and (according to that Las Vegas ad) a killer instinct. Many line-sitters are planning on bringing, appropriately enough, iPods to keep themselves entertained.

Foster quips that she has “top secret” waiting techniques, and may bring her dog.

“Bring a chair, bring lots of food, a book, just make sure you’re comfortable,” said Joshua Palmer, 16, who lives on the east side of San Francisco Bay.

Palmer is charging $400 to hold a place in line for a man who wants to buy the iPhone as a gift for his son’s birthday. Palmer works part-time at Moonstruck, a cafe that sells high-end chocolate. He also has experience buying past high-demand electronic products like the Nintendo Wii and Sony PS3, and selling them at a markup on eBay. That’s not possible with the iPhone, because he’s too young to sign up for the service plan, he said.