AOL’s acquisition of lifestreaming service Socialthing has been confirmed, reports Mashable. Financials have not been revealed.
According to their QBase entry, “Simplifying the management of sites and services that you already use like blogs and social networks, socialthing! synchronizes your personal information, content, and friendships so that you can post this information across the social [...]

A startup just launched over the weekend is giving an added voice to the world of social networking.
Arzoola’s Social Call lets you make and receive free VOIP-powered calls through social network-specific apps. What sets it apart from other services is the fact that it lets you do so anonymously: Users give out their phone [...]

Facebook is reaching new heights in the UK — and that means MySpace is slipping.
New analysis out from Hitwise today shows Facebook taking 45 percent of all social network traffic in the UK in June. Both Bebo — now in second place, with 25 percent — and MySpace — in third, with just under [...]

AOL has hired a former Google executive to help head up its Bebo social media network.
Kate Burns — previously managing director of Google — has signed on as vice president and managing director of Bebo Europe. She’ll be in charge of expanding business operations in the UK and across Europe.
Burns was Google’s first non-US-based [...]

Qbox is a new tool that lets you aggregate and play music from a variety of social networking sites like MySpace, Bebo, and YouTube. I was pretty pumped when I read a write-up about the idea over at Mashable, but then I quickly grew disappointed when I decided to try the thing out for [...]

Too little, too late? TechCrunch reports that Facebook is about to open source its platform as developers flee the service for the open source Google led Open Social initiative.
Bebo already licenses access to the Facebook Platform so how it can be done is already visible. Under the new scheme ANY social network will be able [...]

AOL has finalized its acquisition of Bebo. The social networking number three will form the centerpiece of AOL’s newly created People Networks business unit.
Announced today, Bebo’s CEO Joanna Shields will serve as Executive Vice President of AOL and President of People Networks, which combines Bebo, AIM, ICQ and AOL’s other community platforms. Shields will report [...]