Facebook Campaign Forces Bank to Reverse Charges

The International bank HSBC has reversed its policy and has refunded student customers as a direct result of a student campaign on Facebook.
With the plans to charge graduating students 9.9% APR on their overdrafts, many students were infuriated with the bank’s decision, stating that having a free overdraft to help them establish themselves with graduation and finding a job was the reason they signed on with HSBC in the first place. The National Union of Students has initiated a campaign on Facebook, threatening to boycott HSBC, and the bank listened. Interest charges for overdrafts up to £1,500 have been frozen, and any interest charged for the month of August will be refunded to students.

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Yahoo's new social job network: Kickstart

Yahoo is looking to change the game with their new social job network, Kickstart. They are currently conducting research surveys among college students to find out what they think of this new service.

Yahoo Kickstart connects college students with alumni at the companies that they are interested in. As you can see in the screenshot above, this student's "in" at Nike is an alumni named Dave Bottoms. Dave has expressed an interest in helping out students and connecting with alumni. He also knows one of your friends, went to your school, and shares a common interest with you. That's a really powerful networking tool. Presenting specific connections like this adds a whole new value to this job network.

As you might also expect, everyone who signs up with Yahoo Kickstart gets their own profile page, where you can build a mini resume and add a quotation to give the profile a more personal feel. Everything here is pretty standard for a social network, but there is a definite professional focus, much like LinkedIn. The personal profile isn't anything revolutionary, but it certainly gets the job done in this situation.

Source : Cnet

Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites

PC Magazine have chosen the top new or under-the-radar sites of 2007.
check it out ...

Playboy Launching Social Network

Playboy is heading back to school to boost the bottom line. Riding a wave of renewed popularity among consumers around the globe, Hugh Hefner's Playboy empire is set to launch a sexy social networking site dedicated solely to college students, its latest online venture as it tries to reinvigorate its stagnant finances.
The launch of Playboy U, which has similar features to those found on Facebook, comes as Playboy's 54-year-old magazine continues to lose money and readers.
Playboy has cozied up to collegians before, featuring parties, promotional events and pictorials of student bodies from across the country. Now, executives hope Playboy U will help build brand loyalty among young consumers.
Backed by a hit cable TV show featuring Hefner's three girlfriends, a Sirius radio channel and the adoration of young Hollywood stars who are again flocking to parties at the Playboy mansion, the company is trying to grow its licensing business and online presence and build an international fan base that includes a surprising legion of female fans.
The site bars nudity but leaves little to the imagination with pictures from the mansion's "Midsummer Night's Dream" party and message topics such as "What Do You Think About Penis Enlargement" and "How Many People Have You Slept With? To Lie or Not to Lie."
The site has instituted a college-only policy, which bars anyone without an e-mail address ending in .edu from joining. And Playboy U says it will boot any university faculty, staff or alumni or other non-students that it discovers on the site.
In many ways its format is similar to Facebook and MySpace — people choose to "friend" each other, can post videos and photos or leave messages on a "wall." But users can also access university-specific pages that list campus events while viewing individual profiles of Playboy U members throughout the Web site.

Source: Yahoo news

Study finds caution with dates online, but not in person

Women who date online are likely to take precautions to protect their personal safety when first meeting a man face-to-face, but often are much less careful about protecting their sexual health once that encounter moves to the next level, a Houston-based study has found.
While the women who were surveyed went to great lengths to screen online acquaintances before meeting them, nearly a third reported having sex on the first date and three-quarters of those said they did not use condoms, according to the study by The University of Texas School of Public Health.
Those behaviors reflect a "virtual intimacy" the women developed with men online before meeting them in person, said the study's author, Paige Padgett.
"They may not think of it as being risky sex," said Padgett, a research associate who specializes in epidemiology and sex research. "They don't see it as a one-night stand, even though it might turn out that way, because they really feel they have a relationship with this man."
Padgett surveyed 740 women who posted personal ads on seven dating Web sites. Some were looking for love, others for sex, she said.
During the five-month survey, which began in July 2002, 568 of the women met face-to-face with at least one man with whom their first contact was online. After taking precautions to ensure their safety during the first in-person encounter, 30 percent of the women reported having sex during that date, and 77 percent of those did not use condoms, Padgett reported.

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Orkut Launching New Design

Orkut is rolling out a new design this morning, starting with a select number of users. It’s a much-needed change to the previously ugly social network that became unintentionally popular in Brazil.

I don't like Orkut , you cant perform profile oriented search : age ,interests ,location etc.I think the Idea behind social networks is meeting new people and the current Orkut search doesn't help.

10 Tips for Approaching Women

What do you do when you see a woman you are attracted to? Do you run and hide? Do you use some canned line that you read on the Internet? Do you stand there in fear trying to think of the right thing to say? What is the right thing to do?
When approaching a woman, most guys make the mistake of thinking too much about what to say. They believe there's one magic line that will work in all situations. They rehearse this magic line, and when they deliver it, they hope the woman will become instantly attracted to them.
Unfortunately, rarely does this approach work -- because most of what you say is irrelevant. To catch a woman's attention, it is all about the confidence you display when approaching her.
Here are 10 surefire ways to intrigue her every time:
1. Observe something. Make a comment about something you observe in the environment. This is especially effective at the grocery store. For example, if she is ordering a turkey sandwich, ask her if the turkey is good here.
2. Smile. This shows her that you are friendly and confident. A genuine smile not only feels good to you, but will put her at ease while creating openness in the interaction -- a requirement for building rapport.
3. Do not hesitate. If you hesitate in your approach, this tells her that you are not feeling confident -- an immediate turn-off. When you see her, walk over to her within a short period of time (the three-second rule). Show her you are a man who knows what he wants and goes after it.

Read all tips at: Yahoo

New social networks

New intersting social networks:

• PeopleJam - The site will connect users with "life coaches" in areas like health and fitness, relationship, finance, career, and spirituality.
• PMbuzz - Social networking site informs entertainers, clubs, promoters, DJ's, and club-goers of the New York night scene. Subsequent roll-outs are planned in other major U.S. markets over the coming months.
• BigLickU - The social network targets the 50,000 students attending the Roanoke-Blacksburg area colleges, like Radford and Virginia Tech, and is the first attempt by a large metropolitan newspaper to reach into the college market. The site hopes to increase registered users from the current 960 to at least 5,000 by early 2008.
• Zivity - Social network aiming to be a user-generated Playboy Magazine online

Social networking to drive mobile broadband

Social networking, dating and user-generated content sites will push mobile broadband above a billion users worldwide by 2012, Juniper Research has said in a report.
Indeed, the number of people using mobile social networking sites alone will jump from 14 million in 2007 to 600 million in five years, Juniper predicted in its report, "User-Generated Content: Social Networking, Dating and Personal Content Delivery".
Revenues generated from delivering access to dating, social networking and other personal content sites will jump from $527 million this year to over $5.7 billion in 2012. While mobile dating and chatrooms make up 57 per cent of current user-generated revenues, that will fall to 21 per cent by 2012 - and be overtaken by social networking sites, which will rise to over half of generated revenue.

Read full article: ITPro

Simulated online dating offers insight into real-life relationships

Psychologists at the University of Illinois have explored how people manage romantic ties by looking at the choices that people make in simulated online dating relationship.
The online study took participants through a series of scenarios about a relationship with a fictional partner. Each scenario ended with two options, from which the participant chose his or her response.
The researchers found that a participant’s attachment style was a good predictor of the pattern of his or her choices. “People who are highly insecure are more likely to interpret their partners’ actions in a negative way and then choose to respond in kind,” said Vicary, adding that the more secure individuals more often chose the positive, relationship-enhancing options.

Read full artice : Zee news

Nokia launches mobile social network - MOSH by Nokia!

While all the big carriers are working hard to get existing social networks ported to play nice on their networks and handsets, Nokia seems to be taking a completely different approach. They’ve launched the first-ever social network launched by a handset maker - and who better to do it than the the most prolific mobile phone manufacturer on the planet? MOSH by Nokia aims to bridge the gap between the mobile and desktop social networking with their cross-platform design - upload, share, collect, or download various media from your mobile phone as well as your desktop (or laptop).
Recently I hear more and more about new Cross-platform social networks and dating sites - some of them such as MOSH are new and some are well known such as Myspace an Match.
Though mobile social networks are in their early stage and and their usage is still far behind the Internet we are working on exposing Copenda to mobile users. Copenda will enable people to search for friends or their next date directly from their mobile. The results will come from these cross platform social networks and dating sites.

Virtual World Hangouts: So Many To Choose From

The avatars roaming many online virtual communities may be cartoonish and their activities inconsequential, but the recent sale of Club Penguin to Disney for $350 million (with $350 million in earn out) demonstrates that the business of casual immersive worlds, or virtual hangouts, is not entirely child’s play.
Virtual hangouts are where people can engage each other using imaginary characters in imaginary environments. They have been around and popular in Europe and Asia for years. However, they appear to be gaining traction in the United States as of late. Some commentators even believe that the type of experience provided by these destinations could very well become integral to the forthcoming Web 3.0 era.

With so many virtual worlds , The problem is finding your friends or people with similar interests , Copenda will help you do that!!!

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Match.com expands mobile online dating service

Online dating service Match.com recently lunched a new application for cell phones, allowing subscribers to keep track of their paramours while on the go.
MatchMobile will first be made available in the United States, UK and Canadian markets, with plans to extend the service to nine more countries by the end of the year.
The service provides subscribers with text messages to their phones when they have an e-mail from another Match.com subscriber and allows them to search for potential matches from their cell phones.
For an extra fee of about $5 per month, MatchMobile subscribers can receive and answer e-mails from suitors on their mobile phones.
About 3.6 million U.S. cell phones subscribers used a mobile dating service in May this year, according to data from tracking firm M:Metrics that was provided by Match.com. The company also cited forecasts from Frost & Sullivan, which predict that revenue from mobile dating services will grow to $215 million by 2009.

We are really happy that large dating sits and social networks are lunching mobile applications , It will help us when we lunch Copenda Mobile.

Source: Reuters

Kingdom Of The Online Cupids

Millions of people use the Internet to find love. Whether searching for a mate for life or just one night, they are fuelling an industry that rakes in $700-million annually in North America, and is seeing a continuous stream of new players.
Canadian companies -- from Lavalife to plentyoffish.com -- have made a huge mark in this space. Some would argue Canada is the capital of the online dating business, with many of the leading trends in the industry taking shape here first.
The Canadian dating site making the biggest splash at the moment is Plentyoffish.com. The founder and sole operator, 29-year-old Markus Frind, runs the site from his West Vancouver apartment. He hit the jackpot by making his site completely free. Started in 2003, it is now the third-most popular dating site in North America, according to Web traffic tracker Hitwise. The site pulls in more than US$5-million a year from text ads that appear beside user profiles.
Another Canadian dating site attracting its share of attention is Toronto-based Ashley Madison Agency. The site delivers
its customers a dating pool filled with people all looking for the same thing: a relationship outside of the one they are already in. The site's motto is "When monogamy becomes monotony."
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