Digital Media

Social-networking giant MySpace is cutting 300 international jobs--two-thirds of its workforce outside the United States.

The company, which already announced a 30 percent layoff in the States last week, said on Tuesday that it will reduce its overseas staff from 450 to 150 employees and close at least four foreign offices. MySpace also announced proposed restructuring that will narrow its international focus to a "smaller number of territories."

"As we conducted our review of the company, it was clear that internationally, just as in the U.S., MySpace's staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions," CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement.

As part of the restructuring, London, Berlin, and Sydney will become the "primary regional hubs" for the company's overseas business. "All existing offices in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden, and Spain (are) under review for possible restructure," MySpace said.

The company added that MySpace China, which it described as a "locally owned, operated, and managed company," and MySpace's joint venture in Japan won't be affected by the restructuring.

Combining both layoffs, MySpace's is cutting its total workforce from about 1,950 to 1,150--or by about 41 percent.

Facebook and Think Computer have settled a dispute over whether the former actually owns the term "facebook."

Under the settlement announced late Friday, Think has agreed to abandon its efforts to get the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to cancel the trademark issued to Facebook in 2006.

The story behind the dispute between Think and Facebook is a long, convoluted one. But according to the joint statement, Think founder Aaron Greenspan attended Harvard with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg earlier this decade. In 2003, Think released HouseSystem, a Web-based student portal that included a section called "The Universal Face Book" or "The Face Book." At launch, the statement said, HouseSystem didn't include member profiles because of security concerns. Think added profiles after Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004, the statement said.

"Aaron and I studied together at Harvard and I've always admired his entrepreneurial spirit and love of building things," Zuckerberg said in the statement. "I appreciate his hard work and innovation that led to building houseSYSTEM, including the Universal Face Book feature. At school, I was even a member of houseSYSTEM. We are pleased that we've been able to amicably resolve our differences."

Greenspan likewise offered courtesies in the statement. "I am glad that my contributions have been recognized by Facebook. Mark has built a tremendous company at Facebook, and I wish them continued success in the future," he said.

Greenspan, who wrote a self-published book called "Authoritas: One Student's Harvard Admissions and the Founding of the Facebook Era," had contended that the terms "facebook" and "face book" were generic terms that couldn't be trademarked. He wasn't seeking the trademarks himself but wanted them invalidated because of problems advertising his book with Google AdWords. Greenspan has also claimed ownership for the idea behind Facebook.

The amount of the settlement was not released. But last summer, one-time Harvard rival ConnectU settled a dispute with Facebook over whether Zuckerberg stole ConnectU's code and business plans for a social network. That lawsuit, which was particularly messy, apparently was settled for $65 million in cash and Facebook stock.

Facebook originally was started as a social-networking site solely for Harvard students. It is now one of the most popular social-networking sites in the world.

News of the latest settlement comes on the heels of the announcement that a Facebook tell-all book will hit store shelves in July.

In related news about Facebook's corporate side, The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed sources who say Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies wants to invest $200 million in the company "at a $10 billion valuation for the company's preferred stock."

Before this performance in early April, no one had ever heard of Susan Boyle.

(Credit: "Britain's Got Talent")

Update at 6:30 p.m. PDT: Details on the semifinals have been added.

Fans of Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle have been counting down the days to the semifinals of "Britain's Got Talent."

Of course, most of us (yes, I am one of her fans, big time) don't normally try to watch British TV live. After spending a bit of time scouring the Net to figure out how to watch her performance in the semifinals, I found one of her fan sites that pointed to a Justin.tv channel's stream.

On Saturday's show, the judges revealed the 40 semifinalists. Boyle, of course, was among them.

On Sunday, the semifinalists will begin competing. According to the Associated Press, Boyle will be singing on Sunday and her performance will be almost instantly available on the Internet. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. GMT, which translates to 12:30 p.m. PDT.

A single video featuring Boyle's first "Britain's Got Talent" performance has lured more than 59 million views, pushing it into YouTube's top 25 most-viewed videos ever. But her true reach is hard to calculate. As of May 1, which feels like an eon ago, videos of her performance had altogether been viewed 186 million times, according to market researcher Visible Measures.

By the way, if you have any other suggestions for live-streaming "Britain's Got Talent," please share.

Chalk one up for Steven Colbert, kind of.

NASA announced Friday afternoon that astronaut Sunita Williams will appear Tuesday on "The Colbert Report" to unveil the name of the newest node for the International Space Station.

(Credit: NASA)

From everything NASA has indicated, the node probably won't be named for the comedian. It likely will be dubbed "Serenity," based on the official voting results on NASA's site.

NASA ran an online contest earlier this year to name the node. The agency's official suggestions: Earthrise, Serenity, Venture, and Legacy. But NASA also (naively, perhaps) stated that the public could offer write-in votes.

Colbert is known for using his show's wildly dedicated fanbase and online social media to rally support for such acts as repeatedly altering Wikipedia's entry on elephants and running for president. And he decided to rally his fans to name the node for him.

Write-in votes for Colbert eclipsed all others, which NASA does acknowledge. But his entry falls under only the Top 10 suggestions list.

"We received more than a million entries, in large part because social media Web sites and television programs, such as 'The Colbert Report,' took an interest. This spread overall awareness of the International Space Station," Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for space operations at NASA headquarters, said in a statement.

"I certainly hope NASA does the right thing," Colbert has said. "Just kidding, I hope they name it after me."

According to NASA, Node 3 is a "pressurized module that will provide room for many of the space station's life support systems." Those include oxygen generation, temperature and pressure controls, oh-so delightful urine reclamation, and shower and toilet facilities. Node 3 is set to launch in late 2009.

Considering NASA has chosen to unveil the name on Colbert's show, there must be some twist to it all. Comedy Central itself is playing with the idea that NASA will name a space toilet for Colbert.

Robert Scoble

(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)

Robert Scoble, a video blogger and all-around-new-media-phile, has unveiled his latest project, which will focus on creating a content and social networking "community" for people "fanatical about the Internet," TechCrunch reported Saturday.

The project, dubbed Building 43, is being created with his new employer, hosting company Rackspace.

This will be Scoble's fourth job in less than three years. In that time, he's also worked for Microsoft, PodTech, and most recently FastCompany.TV.

"Our content will be available via Creative Commons so you can use our videos or photos or other media on your own sites," he told TechCrunch about Building 43. "You can cut it up, edit it, or claim it as your own."

He explained the origin of the project's name in his blog: "Well, if you visit Google's campus, you'll see that the building that houses their 'master plan' is Building 43 (several of its founders sit in building 43 there too). Microsoft has a building 43, too, which is where many of the developers on Windows and other things sit. I always thought that was funny that both companies had a building 43...Our 'Building 43,' though, is not a place...It's a decentralized community for people fanatical about the Internet. You'll find us on Facebook, on Twitter, on friendfeed, on Ning, and lots of other places too."

Scoble also noted that Building 43 won't focus solely on Rackspace: "We're going to help the entire cloud computing industry get more adoption, users, customers. We'll cover technologies from Rackspace's competitors like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, GoGrid, IBM, and others. Our philosophy on Building 43 is a rising tide lifts all boats, so we're going to look to get you the best advice on both how to build your business better on the Internet as well as have fun, too. We'll also link to the best ideas, videos, demos, blogs, on the Internet."

(Credit: ComScore, via TechCrunch)

With the economy reeling and layoffs piling up, business-networking site LinkedIn has been not-so-surprisingly hopping.

Market researcher ComScore reported that LinkedIn's unique visitors rose to 7.7 million, a 22 percent increase over December, TechCrunch reported Saturday. And not only are more people visiting LinkedIn, but they're hanging around longer as well. Total minutes spent on the site last month more than doubled from December to 96.8 million, according to TechCrunch.

More people are helping out friends looking for jobs as well. Recommendations were up 65 percent last month over December, TechCrunch said.

A British man, suspected of brutally killing a former girlfriend, was found hanged in Manchester, various U.K. newspapers reported.

The body of George Appleton, 40, who was dubbed the "Facebook fugitive" among other nicknames by the British press, was discovered Thursday. The nickname is related to police warnings regarding his use of social-networking sites, including Facebook, to meet women.

Police had been searching for Appleton since his former girlfriend, Clare Wood, was found strangled and burned on February 6, according to the Manchester Evening News. She had recently accused him of sexual assault. He was out on bail.

After her body was found, police issued a list of sites frequented by and computer usernames associated with Appleton and warned women not to meet him, according to The Independent.

Appleton, who had a criminal history related to stalking and violence against women, had served three years earlier this decade for harassment with fear of violence related to another woman and had served six months after breaching a restraining order related to a different woman, according to The Sun.

The chilling details of crimes, both those alleged and ones he was convicted of, can be found here, here and here in the Manchester Evening News.

Update at 5:40 p.m.: Microsoft has confirmed his return.

A prodigal son is returning to Microsoft.

Scott Moore, who left Microsoft four years ago for Yahoo, is returning to Redmond as U.S. executive producer to lead MSN's content and programming strategy, AllThings D reported Friday.

Microsoft confirmed his re-entry in an e-mail Saturday.

Moore, who had been heading Yahoo's media operations, left that job in November. At the time, Yahoo said that Moore was leaving to "pursue other opportunities." During his time-off, AllThingsD reported, Moore worked on a start-up idea and went on safari in Africa.

He will start back at Microsoft in mid-March and will report to Greg Nelson, general manager of MSN's global media group, Microsoft said.

Moore, who worked at Microsoft from 1995 to 2005, was the first publisher of Microsoft's online magazine, Slate, and had also been president of MSNBC.com.

Over the next few days, a picture of holiday sales will begin to materialize.

One of the first reports to surface doesn't sound incredibly painful until specific categories--like electronics--are broken out. And then the hurt becomes obvious.

MasterCard Advisors, a unit of the credit card giant, released on Friday its SpendingPulse analysis of national retail and service sales for the holiday-shopping season.

Overall retail sales year over year (excluding gasoline, which doesn't make a great holiday gift anyway) were down 2 percent in November and down 4 percent from December 1 to 24.

Overall, e-commerce fared relatively well from November 1 to December 24. It was down just 2.3 percent, reflecting the overall national trend. That seems to be in line with Amazon.com's positive report of its own sales.

The electronics and appliance category, however, showed a 26 percent decline over 2007. This category will become more interesting when sales figures for specific types of electronics become available.

So-called luxury sales, including jewelry, were down more than 34 percent year over year. Clothing sales were down about 20 percent.

Michael McNamara, a SpendingPulse vice president, didn't mince words. "A difficult economic environment combined with unfavorable weather during the last week of shopping made 2008 one of the most challenging holiday shopping seasons in decades," he said in a statement.