Technology, Social Networking | featured news

Since its debut in late June, Google+ has captured much of the tech world's online conversation.

Google’s +1 buttons have only been out for about a month, but they’re already more common than the tweet button on major web destinations.

US President Barack Obama is to face question from Twitter users at a White House "town hall" session to be streamed live online.

Could social networking company Facebook Inc.’s big news on Wednesday be a partnership with Internet video calling firm Skype Limited? That’s the word on the street, according to reports. The partnership would allow friends to chat with each other, and potentially give it an edge over Mountain View-based Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG), which has launched its own Google+ social networking service.

Skype and Facebook have both declined to comment. But an announcement is expected at 10 a.m.

So, based on the buzz, Google+ is the geek-chic social-networking upstart that's going to challenge Facebook, right?

Fox News' political Twitter account was hacked according to reports on FoxNews.com.

The authoritarian government of Belarus blocked access to popular social networking sites on Sunday in an attempt to prevent opposition protests on a national holiday.

This was an enormous week for Google, and everyone who watches them. Just thinking about Google+, Google’s (re)entry into social media, is not thinking big enough. What we saw this week was the first big move of Google in the Larry Page era, bringing forth the first changes and efficiencies he seems to have been seeking when named chief executive last January. And the upshot is an effort to make even the Internet a subset of a Google product. Which may not be a bad thing.

Compared to Groupon, which has enormous administrative costs and is hemorrhaging a lot of money, Zynga is a ruthlessly-run, well-oiled machine.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the social network has plans to “launch something awesome” next week. There’s no official word on what will be announced, but we suspect it’s going to be the new iPhone photo-sharing service that we saw just last week.