Launched in August of 2003, MySpace quickly became a popular social networking site. Owned by the News Corporation, which also owns Fox Media; it is the brainchild of Brad Greenspan, Chris DeWolf, Josh Berman and Tom Anderson. By June 2006, MySpace had become the most popular social networking site in the United States. MySpace held onto this spot until April 2008, when Facebook overtook it in popularity and overtook it in the number of accounts. In June of 2008, MySpace laid off 30 percent of its employees.

One of the reasons that MySpace is suffering a decline is the enormous amount of ads on its pages. When MySpace first started, it was a simple way for people to stay in touch with family and friends. It has now developed into a platform for corporations and celebrities to attract customers. When I sign onto my MySpace page, it’s like, “Hey, is that an ad, or it an actual link to something I want to see?” Sometimes it is so hard to tell.

Undoubtedly adding to the privacy concerns surrounding Facebook and its handling of personal information, the social networking site suffered from a glitch late Wednesday when a small number of users were bombarded with e-mail messages that were not meant for them.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the slip-up, Facebook has blamed the glitch on a bug in computer code used to handle messages on the site. That bug somehow allowed some messages to be rerouted to people that were not the intended recipients.

In one particular case, a user received more than 100 messages meant for someone else.

Just a few months ago, Facebook sparked some major privacy concerns when it made changes to the popular social networking site.

A deal has been struck between the existing members of the Beatles, along with the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison, and the internet holding company Metatron Inc. What this means for fans of the Fab Four is that there will be five new Beatles-related video applications that will be available for download in the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad platforms later this spring.

Amongst the titles are "The Journey", which is a look at the band's beginnings; "Big Beat Box", a documentary about the rise of Beatlemania; and a five-part documentary on the history of the band called "The Long & Winding Road." The apps also feature rare footage of John Lennon at work and play, as well as a documentary about George Harrison.

Joe Riehl, Metatron's CEO, said:

"Beatles titles are some of the most popular media available and we are thrilled to be able to release these titles."

It was bound to happen at some point.

Search Giant to Upgrade Gmail to Add Social Media Tools

Today Google will be unveiling some upgrades to its Gmail program that add social media tools that are similar to what is found on Facebook. In addition, they will incorporate video and photo sharing with Gmail and add a new tool for status updates. Google is holding a press conference later on Tuesday to show off the new features, but it's clear that they are now looking to compete with Facebook.

While Google is still the web's most visited website (173 million in December), Facebook is beginning to close the gap (111.8 million in December). Facebook is the fourth most visited site, and are up 105% over the previous year in terms of visitors.

Google clearly realizes that the future of the web heavily involves social aspects, and is making an effort to become more of a player in this arena. Recently, Google added a new social feature that can in part show "results from people in your social circle." In order to participate in this, users must fill out profile information that lists interests, contacts and friends.

Team LiveCLEVELAND! is the winner of season one, Got City GAME! Cleveland (GCGC). www.gotcitygame.tv Kim Sullivan and Alex Hamberger, representing “Team LiveCLEVELAND!” in the city’s first online game-show, proved they have “City GAME!” by collecting the most combined points and votes.

To win, the contestants gained points by competing in 15 location challenges and CitySmart question/rounds. Then, for 12-weeks viewers in over 700 cities around the globe voted for their favorite team. Voting closed Thursday Feb. 4 at midnight. As winners of GCGC, Kim and Alex win Cleveland for a Year!

The “Cleveland for a Year” prize includes a one year free lease at the newly renovated historic Tremont Place Lofts. There are free sports tickets to the Cleveland Cavalier’s, The Lake Erie Monsters, the Gladiators, the Indians and a VIP Tour of a Browns tailgating party courtesy of Peter Chakerian author of “The Browns Fan’s Tailgating Guide” (Gray and Company). They will go to Concerts at the Q, at the House of Blues and The Grog Shop. They get free movies at

China's new weapon against Internet pornography has been revealed - mothers. The Chinese governement hired sixty mothers to form a so-called "Mom-jury" charged with surfing the web for porn sites that are too idecent for young web surfers.

The moms are assigned the task of finding out all the sites that are potentially offensive and accessible to children, and then alert government watchdog agencies to take further action. There are reportedly 200 more mothers ready to join in the hunt for porn sites.

This latest endeavour is a part of China's campaign to "purify the social environment", which began on December 8 and has led to the shut down and blocking of 15,000 web sites. The campaign is expected to wrap up in May.

In a statement released Thursday, the Chinese Supreme People's Court said:

"The flooding lewd information online has seriously harmed the growth of minors, undermined social morality and resulted in crimes."

Yahoo announced Wednesday its plans to sell its online job search website, HotJobs, to one of its rivals - Monster Worldwide (monster.com) - for $225 million in cash.

As a part of the deal, Monster.com will now provide Yahoo with job listings and employment content. Monster hopes to take control of HotJobs between June and October.

Yahoo purchased HotJobs in 2002 for $439 million. The deal announced today reflects the service's diminishing value as the high unemployment rate cuts into the demand for help-wanted advertising.

Last week, we told you about the Google-Apple war. Google fired another shot at Steve Jobs and company today releasing a new application for the iPhone that will allow their blackballed Google Voice app to work on the iPhone. To get by the iPhone gatekeepers, who banned their inatial Google Voice app in the summer, the Google engineers put Google Voice right inside any mobile web browser. Google Voice allows users to text and call using their Google phone number and can bypass using AT&T or other mobile providers all together.

Here is what Google says about their latest update to Google Voice on their blog this morning:

- Quickly call or text any number. Click on the "Call" or "SMS" buttons to easily call or text for free anyone by just typing their name or phone number. Since the extension is connected to your Google address book, you can just type any name from your address book, without having to remember their number. You can also benefit from Google Voice's low rates when calling any international number.

And add:

20 year old George Hotz, who shot to fame for "jailbreaking" the Apple iPhone 3 years ago, says that he has a new conquest. Hotz says that in the last 5 weeks he has set his sights on Sony's Playstation 3 and has managed to crack it. He wrote in a blog post on Friday:

I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I've also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip.

3 years, 2 months, 11 days...thats a pretty secure system

Took 5 weeks, 3 in Boston, 2 here, very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software.

So what will Hotz's work enable users to do? Most likley the PS3 will be able to run the open source operating systems like Linux or Chrome Operating System. Hotz isn't revealing how he managed to crack the device yet saying that he fears that Sony would patch the device but promises more updates in the near future on his blog and on his Twitter account @geohot.

Google, which began as a search engine based out of a garage, has in the past decade grown to encompass far more than just search queries. It's stepped on the toes of Microsoft when it began to create online applications through it's Google Docs program, and it started moving into Apple's territory when it began dabbling in browsers and touchscreen mobile phones. Google also began work on an alternative operating system - Android - and in the future plans to release netbooks with its OS. Wednesday was a day that both Google and Apple without a doubt declared war on eachother -- Apple revealed that they are strongly considering replacing Google search and apps on their iPhone with Microsoft and Bing offerings, and Google announced that they will be entering the online movie rental business.

Apple and Microsoft battled it out in the computer arena in the 1980s. Microsoft clearly came out on top with a large majority of the world now owning personal computers with Microsoft operating systems. Apple, however, remained a popular alternative to Microsoft, and the two companies have remained bitter rivals.