AOL completed its acquisition of social networking site Bebo today. You may remember that AOL announced it would buy Bebo for $850 million back in March. According to InformationWeek Bebo will be the center of AOL's new People Network business unit. Heading up this business unit is Joanna Shields who will serve as president. This "People Network" will consist of three AOL services: AIM, ICQ, and now Bebo.

While Bebo is most popular in the UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, AOL is hoping grow this upcoming social network in the US. Silicon Alley Insider seems to think AOL will layoff employees working in the AIM/ICQ division due to the restructuring process.

What do you think? Did AOL make a good decision? Do you think this acquisition puts AIM at risk? Be sure to voice your opinion in the comments!

Disclaimer: AOL is the parent company of Weblogs, Inc. which owns DownloadSquad.

[via InformationWeek]

Automattic, the company behind the WordPress blogging platform, is becoming known for buying up some of the most creative WordPress hacks out there. They've already snapped up the global avatar service, Gravatar, and added a handful of quality themes by Chris Pearson to their selection of default templates. Now Automattic is taking WordPress into the arena of social networking by hiring designer Andy Peatling and acquiring his BuddyPress plugins.

There's a placeholder page at BuddyPress.com right now, with the Automattic logo and a simple description of what BuddyPress does: transforming "a vanilla installation of WordPress MU into a social network platform." For an example of what that might look like, you can check out Peatling's work on chickspeak.com, built on BuddyPress. If you're a designer who likes the power and flexibility of WordPress, but you need to get outside the basic blog and put together a full-on social network, user profiles and all, this could be a great solution.

Twitter users love to gripe that it's too hard to track a topic of conversation as it spreads across the service. Being able to keep up with an interesting piece of news depends on finding the right people to follow, and that's not always easy with the limited search tools Twitter provides. Twemes (it stands for Twitter plus memes) is a site that aims to solve that problem by grouping Twitter tweets according to topic.

Twemes searches Twitter for hashtags, key words marked with the # sign that let you know what each tweet is all about. For example, when you tell everyone on Twitter about how much you enjoyed this post, you can mention #downloadsquad and Twemes will find your tweet, categorize it, and add it to an RSS feed of related tweets. You can find topics on Twemes either by searching or by clicking on words in the tag cloud, which works as an interesting visual display of what Twitter is talking about.

If the idea of hashtags catches on, Twemes could become a useful part of the Twitter experience. Anyone using Twitter's built-in tracking to watch interesting terms via phone or IM already knows how convenient it would be to take those alerts out of your stream and read them on the side. Even though hashtags are used by a fairly small number of Twitterers, they're already a reliable way to follow conversations about the most important events in the global community right now. If you need proof, just check out the feed for Cloverfield.

[Via Mashable]

[via MR MOBILE]

DailyStrength is a collection of communities focused on users supporting each other in whatever hardships they are facing in life. From Lung Cancer to Depression to Parenting: there is a community for everyone. Communities are built around members with sections for posting discussions, recommendations, advice, and news. You can even send each other virtual hugs, which are like Facebook pokes but without the antagonistic feel.

There is even a community for Internet Addicts, which, clearly, is how we find the site in the first place.

Social networks are huge, and Yahoo knows this, that's why they have been working hard to develop the next level of social networks, KickStart.

Yahoo! KickStart is aimed at matching college students with relevant employers. This new service will give users a profile page where they can post a resume similar in style to LinkedIn. The companies listed in the service can then start up groups which users can join, start a discussion and hopefully get hired.

The service is still in a concept only phase, and might never make it to launch. Sounds like it could defiantly be a good way for students to enter the job market, we hope something comes out of this study.

MySpace is entering the fashion space with the launch of MySpace Fashion, a social network and news site that aims to bring in all the latest news in the fashion industry.

MySpace Fashion will start things off with a plethora of video programming with 'MySpace Presents'. The new show lineup will consist of The Fit, MySpace Muse, and InStyle News. The social network will also bring amateur and professional fashion videos online from runway shows, MySpace TV, and the hottest fashion events worldwide. There will be featured designers on the site, each with a profile, video and images. Will it be a success? The kids like fashion and pretty much anything to do with clothes, so why not give it to them. No doubt that this extension of the MySpace brand will grab a lot of attention from teens and tweens worldwide.

Check out the upcoming launch of Paris Hilton's new fashion line at Kitson that will be previewed at MySpace Fashion.

Google has jumped into Facebook land with the release of a new application that lets users search the web, and share results with friends. Is it a useful add? We are not totally sure, its broken!

The Google search application for Facebook, created with Google's AJAX Search API, sounds like a promising add for users of the social network. Search queries are added in the mini feeds of users, which allow for an easy way to share with friends. Normal Google searches can be made, through the application like Web, Images, News, Maps, Blogs, Books, and even YouTube. However, we keep getting this error message when trying to installing the application:

"Errors while loading page from application

There are still a few kinks Facebook and the makers of Google are trying to iron out. We appreciate your patience as we try to fix these issues. Your problem has been logged - if it persists, please come back in a few days. Thanks!"

Looks like a few little bugs popped up in the release causing them to shut it off completely. We'll be on the lookout for a resolution and test this then. In the meantime, if there are any DLS readers that got the chance to test it while it was active, please let us know your thoughts.

UPDATE: Could this be a hoax? We are looking more into it.

[via GoogleOperatingSystem]

Not a lot has been said lately about Google's social network Orkut. Every once a while there is a story or two about government officials trying to shut it down, or about how it's been lacking in development, but Google does have plans for it.

A new design is scheduled, and it looks very fresh. The Orkut design team hasn't stated when it will be completely rolled out, but they have said that randomly selected groups of users will start to see changes. Its about time things started moving at Orkut, Google has a potential (Facebook) goldmine with this, and they have really been letting it slide. Ok, so it's big in Latin America, but what about North America, Europe and the rest of the world?

Like any other good social site out there, Facebook is on the IT's list of websites to block.

The popular social network is getting a lashing at workplaces worldwide as employers recognize how much time employees are spending on it, and the possible phishing attacks that could occur. Like YouTube, IM's and various other time wasting websites, companies are starting to get the fall out from lost productivity and are forced to shut access off to yet another valuable tool. Ok, valuable to the user, but not for most businesses. If Facebook access is not turned off entirely, there are certain restrictions being set by network admins.

A recent study shows that 43% of people were not able to access Facebook, with another 7% only able to access the site with certain restrictions.

DLS asks, if you work in a corporate setting, do you still have access to Facebook?

Teachers are getting their very own space in the social network scene, thanks to Yahoo!

Yahoo! Teachers is the latest entry into the social network space. This social network collaborative space is a peer network put together by teachers and for teachers with the help of Yahoo!. When launched, it will allow teachers to create, modify and share standards based curriculum.

Yahoo! Teachers is free for all teachers, administrators and education specialists. It is not out in the market yet, but there is a beta sign-up form on the website. Teachers do however have access to locate peers across the US by entering their zip code and locating school to register themselves.

UPDATE - It seems that TripAdvisor did not purchase the 'Where Ive been' Facebook application.

So are we officially in a bubble again? TripAdvisor, the travel review site, just dropped $3 million for a Facebook application called "Where I've Been" that plots where people have been on their journies.

Sure its fun to see where friends have been, but was it necessary to buy an application that's built inside another application? Needless to say, TripAdvisor is happy, they not only get instant street cred on the social neworking site of the year, but they get to drop their logo on something that 2.3 million users have installed and are happy to use on an ongoing basis.

Just last month Slide bought a Facebook application called Peeps, a 1.3 million user app that ranks friend popularity, for $60k. Now lets not all run out and create applications for the purpose of selling out please.

So it's another social network, but it's about magic! If you are a skilled player in the magic game but not as good as Criss Angel, David Blaine or Harry Houdini this could be the spot to hone your skills.

This magic lover's social network called YudoMagic uses uploaded videos to teach and share new tricks with aspiring magicians through videos. Brighcove supplies the video technology, with uploaded videos having to be reviewed before they go live. Seems a little on the Web 1.0 side. Nonetheless there is a plethora of great magic videos here to learn from, starting at simple kid tricks to bar tricks, street magic and the traditional card tricks.

UPDATE: Thanks Dmitry. This is a subscription based website.

Virtually all cellphones sold within the past year have a camera and support for video modes, thus opening the marketplace for a solution to organize and share media.

Pickle's crunch lies in the ability to post individual items of content to social networks, blogs, and websites directly from a mobile device. The user can organize and share all types of media in different "channels" from mobile devices and broadcast them to the public.

It's great to see interesting new products come to market and take advantage of phone features to flip them into a social jar, especially if they are a little more crunchy than expected.

Buy.com is jumping on the social network bandwagon with their launch of Garage Sale.

This new shopping service allows users to steer around auctions and sell items directly from a social profile page. Could it steal page views from eBay? It sure could. Who would you buy from first, a friend or stranger? Garage Sale handles the transactions including credit card billing, and PayPal depositing or payment by cheque.

Buy.com's Garage Sale is currently only available for Facebook users, and will be rolled out on other social networks in the future. Buy.com does take a 5% per transaction commission, thankfully there are no other fees.

If you still like the traditional Garage Sale method, check out ZipGarage.