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Brazil, the biggest nation in Latin America, has a number of firsts to its name. It's got the world's best football (soccer in the parlance of you Americans), the country is leagues ahead of everybody else on Planet Earth when it comes to alternative energy--and its citizenry have taken over Orkut. I'm still not clear why Brazilians so groove on this particular social network, but "quem sabe?"

So would the same formula, tailored for a North American audience, work the same magic north of the border? I put the question to Joe Kraus, whom I … Read more

Article updated 2/28/08 with new information about Facebook's mobile settings.

The old adage, " 'tis better to give than to receive" should never apply to mobile software, much less to cell phone versions of social networks.

I initially thought BlackBerry's maker, RIM, was the culprit of a unilateral experience using Facebook for BlackBerry that let me push data to friends' Facebook accounts without receiving notice of any messages in return. It's since been pointed out to me that the product isn't so stingy to most, who can and do receive notice of … Read more

CNET News.com reporter Caroline McCarthy co-wrote this article.

Life is getting more difficult for social-networking sites.

At the same time Facebook's traffic appears to have reached a plateau, News.com has learned that Piczo, a networking site that caters to teenage girls and was much written about in 2006, has seen layoffs, executive departures, high employee turnover, and a shrinking audience in the past five months.

Three former Piczo employees described a company grappling with the meteoric rise of competitors Facebook and Bebo and internal squabbles over the direction of the 3-year-old start-up. Piczo has also struggled to … Read more

Kara Swisher has a deliciously speculative piece up Friday about who Mark Zuckerberg should appoint to replace Owen Van Natta as Facebook's No. 2.

Before weighing in, though, I must say that Zuckerberg just made his first business mistake--nothing that he won't recover from, but an error nonetheless. He should have pulled an Andreessen. Instead, he's trying to pull a Gates.

Marc Andreessen was the technological brains behind Netscape. His company thrived--until it was brought down by Microsoft's death ray--because the role of Netscape CEO was entrusted to an experienced business executive named Jim Barksdale.

You … Read more

As Meebo, Pidgin, and Trillian are to instant messaging, Sociagami is to social networking.

Enter your passwords into the brand new Windows application to manage your Facebook and MySpace accounts from the single, nonskinnable interface. Friends are represented by thumbnail images in two columns by default, but a slider enlarges them to fit single file or reduces them to three or four abreast.

There's some nice functionality here--you can retrieve and submit comments and messages, manage friend requests, view buddies' buddies, and flip through photos in a separate slide show pane. You can add contacts too, if you encounter … Read more

Are our friends across the pond getting tired of social-networking sites?

New figures from Nielsen Online, cited by the Guardian in an article Thursday, suggest that they just might be.

Facebook, according to the numbers, experienced a 5 percent drop in U.K. traffic between December and January--as did MySpace.com. Bebo, a smaller presence in the U.S. but wildly popular in the U.K., saw its unique users drop 2 percent in the same period.

If anything, this could mean that after rapid expansion, social networks have reached a saturation point. "It was inevitable that early growth … Read more

This post was updated at 7:06 PM PT to reflect Facebook's comment.

Owen Van Natta, Facebook's chief revenue officer and vice president of operations, has announced his departure from the social network.

Van Natta told All Things D's Kara Swisher in an interview on Tuesday that he plans to seek a CEO position at another company--the identity of which he's not sure of yet. At Facebook, Van Natta had been chief operating officer until an executive reshuffling last summer placed him (some would say it was a demotion) into his present role. He had been … Read more

Steve Rubel wonders if "the Interruption Economy sacks prosperity:" "Conventional wisdom says that technology -- and nowadays the Internet -- will always continue to advance and bring with it productivity gains and prosperity. That's certainly been the case for years. However, historically there are pauses. After the benefits of the Industrial Revolution were fully realized it took awhile for the next big era to begin. I wonder if we're about to enter a similar lull now that the Information Age is arguably almost 30 years old." Rubel demands "we need new tools for … Read more