Facebook has announced the architecture for its developer platform will be made available to other social networking sites.

This move will potentially render moot the criticism that Facebook's strategy is too "closed" -- and possibly deal a huge blow to Google's yet-to-launch OpenSocial initiative.
Facebook senior platform manager Ami Vora wrote in a blog: "[We] want to share the benefits of our work by enabling other social sites to use our platform architecture as a model. In fact, we'll even license the Facebook Platform methods and tags to other platforms."

A developer page stated "the 100,000 developers currently building Facebook applications can make their applications available on other social sites with no extra work".  In the official wording from Facebook, the social network is "making its platform architecture available as a model for other social sites" and sees this as the natural evolution of a constantly changing product.

This announcement comes in the wake of three OpenSocial partners -- Bebo, Friendster and LinkedIn -- all releasing their own developer platform initiatives independent of the Google-run program.  Bebo specifically designed its developer code to be compatible with Facebook's. Bebo is the first major social network to implement this new "open" platform code from Facebook.

A statement from Facebook said: "We're glad to see Bebo take advantage of the work we've put into designing and building a complete, usable platform. Having similar platforms across multiple social sites is good for everyone: developers get more reach for their applications, social sites get more people developing for their site, and users have better experiences no matter where they are on the web."

Vanessa Arellano Doctor
http://conbuzz.com

MLennar has sold land in eight states to Morgan Stanley Real Estate at about 40 cents on the dollar, giving the home builder a $525 million influx in cash as it continues to pare down inventory in the face of the housing crisis.

While analysts noted the deal would result in future charges for the Miami-based builder, investors were heartened by the sale, sending Lennar's stock up more than 5 percent to $16.74 Monday.

Lennar said late Friday it formed a land investment venture with Morgan Stanley Real Estate to acquire, develop, manage and sell residential real estate, with Lennar selling properties valued at $1.3 billion to the venture for $525 million.

The acquired properties include about 11,000 homesites in 32 communities nationally, consisting of raw land and both partially and fully developed homesites in California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada and New Jersey.

As of Sept. 30, the acquired properties had a book value of about $1.3 billion for Lennar, one of the nation's largest home builders. Lennar has said it was working to convert land and new home inventory into cash.

The deal generates immediate cash for Lennar and is a continuation of the company's growing and ambitious strategy of becoming a ''near asset-less home builder'' that builds homes and controls land, but does not own it, Wachovia Capital Markets analyst Carl Reichardt wrote in a Monday report.

''Such business models tend to post higher returns on capital, inventory turns and free cash flow relative to peers,'' the report said.


Vanessa Arellano Doctor
Miami Real Estate Miami Beach

A one-year-old child will be given a second chance at life after officials at the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) were able to locate the child's donor match using the popular networking Internet site, MySpace.

This week, the child, who suffers from a very rare blood disorder, will receive a Tampa woman's peripheral blood stem cells through a collection procedure performed locally by Florida Blood Services.

Shaila Lopez, 24, of Tampa, signed up in 2003 for the NMDP, but when she moved, she did not update her contact information and the NMDP initially could not locate her. "She was the only match," said Katrina Holley with the National Marrow Donor Program. "And at that time, it was difficult to reach her."

After searching for Lopez using information provided by donors during initial consent and registration for the NMDP registry, officials were able to find her using MySpace and they sent her an e-mail.

"I opened it up and the person introduced themselves from the National Marrow Donor Program," Lopez said. "And at that point I knew it wasn't spam because they knew I was signed up. And then I called her and that's how we got the ball rolling." "Had there been a pool of donors that were a match we may not have had to go that far," Holley said. "But in this case, she was that patients only chance."


Vanessa Arellano Doctor
http://conbuzz.com

US search engine giant Google recently announced that it will bid on wireless spectrum in the 700MHz band when the US Federal Communications Commission begins auctioning that resource in late January 2008.

Google has previously expressed interest in the spectrum, which is being made available as US television stations move to all-digital broadcasts by February 2009. Get the latest news on the internet at Broadband Advisor.

Earlier this year, Google joined consumer and public-interest groups in calling for the FCC to impose open-access rules on part of the 62MHz of spectrum to be auctioned. In July, the FCC voted to require open-access rules, which would require the winning bidder to allow outside devices and applications on the network.

"We believe it's important to put our money where our principles are," Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "Consumers deserve more competition and innovation than they have in today's wireless world. No matter which bidder ultimately prevails, the real winners of this auction are American consumers who likely will see more choices than ever before in how they access the Internet."

Google's recently acquired interest in wireless spectrum has led it in several directions. The company launched the Open Handset Alliance, an open-development platform for mobile phones, earlier this month.


Vanessa Arellano Doctor
http://jump2top.com

Steve Latour has lots of friends. Thousands of them. While he values all his friends, with that many he doesn't have time to hang out regularly with most of them. In fact, Latour, 27, has friends he's never even met. "It seems silly to say that many, doesn't it?" said Latour, who is from Carmel.

Welcome to the 21st century definition of friendship, where digital connections are replacing the in-the-flesh kind. It's a world where people use social networking sites such as MySpace (110 million users) and Facebook (50 million) to proclaim who they are through postings, photographs and music -- and find like-minded people to share their lives.

Users, especially teens and 20-somethings, create avatars in virtual landscapes such as Second Life and form real-life bonds with digitized projections of strangers. They use text-messaging, Web chat rooms and e-mail to keep up with pals instead of phone calls and dates.

Instead of buddying up with the kid down the street, young people today are unbound by geography. They can easily communicate across state and national borders. In short, this intersection between youth culture and new technology is altering what it means to say, "We're friends."

The usage of these sites is especially prevalent among teens. A Pew Internet and American Life Project survey earlier this year found that 55 percent of those online ages 12 to 17 use social networking sites.

Although plenty of older people also are using these sites, it's the under-30 crowd that tends to be the heaviest users-logging on hourly, repeatedly changing their profiles and sending updates and messages.


Vanessa Arellano Doctor
http://conbuzz.com