Facebook.com has over 60 million registered users and is expected to have over 200 million registered users by the end of the year – making Facebook a great resource for social networking; professional networking and people searches.

This YouTube.com video clip is part I of a 60 Minutes TV profile on Facebook and the site’s found Mark Zuckerberg.

MySpace announced today that it has detected and deleted 29,000 convicted sex offenders from the social networking site. The number is over four times numbers previously reported.

From today’s Reuter’s news article –

Popular Internet social network MySpace said on Tuesday it detected and deleted 29,000 convicted sex offenders on its service, more than four times the figure it had initially reported.

The company, owned by media conglomerate News Corp, said in May it had deleted about 7,000 user profiles that belonged to convicted offenders. MySpace attracts about 60 million unique visitors monthly in the United States.

The new information was first revealed by U.S. state authorities after MySpace turned over information on convicted sex offenders it had removed from the service.

Source: MySpace deletes 29,000 sex offenders

Purdue University is planning on including Facebook.com in it’s emergency alert system, in wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech. The Associated Press is reporting that Purdue is planning on using the popular social networking site for college and university students as one of its alert tools for informing students and staff in the event of a university emergency.

According to the article, Purdue has created an emergency notification group on Facebook.com. Facebook is now one of numerous ways that Purdue can alert students about a campus emergency. To date 2600 students have registered for the alert service and 85% of Purdue students use the Facebook site.

Source: Purdue uses Facebook as part of emergency alert system

The latest example of the growing influence and popularity of social networking sites like MySpace.com and FaceBook.com is the announcement by MySpace that they will hold their own presidential primary.

According to the TechCrunch blog MySpace.com has more registered users than the entire population of Mexico and will hold its own presidential primary on January 1st and 2nd of 2008. The TechCrunch post goes on to state that major presidential candidates like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Rudy Guiliani and John McCain already have MySpace profile pages with tens of thousands of “friends”.

Source: MySpace Will Hold Presidential Primary.

This recent post from Blog Critics highlights the importance of using MySpace as a free people search tool for finding old friends –

MySpace offers many ways to search for old friends. Users can simply type a pal’s first and last name in the “Find a Friend” box too see if the friend is a member. If there are too many people with the same name, the user may narrow the search by focusing on a specific geographic area. If it’s old classmates an individual is seeking, he or she may simply use the “Classmate Finder” tool to find other users who went to the same school. There are filters to narrow the search by years of attendance or years of graduation, and still others that find members by clubs, majors, Greek affiliations, and more. All it takes is a little patience and a little time for a user to find a friend or family member he or she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years, and never expected to hear from again.

Unlike Classmates or Reunion — sites that specialize in reuniting old friends — all of the features on Myspace are free. It’s free to register, search, send messages, or post comments. Every feature of the site is 100% free. MySpace currently boasts approximately 50 million members, with people of all ages signing up daily. While it’s true that most members are at the lower end of the age spectrum, it’s not uncommon to find users in their forties, fifties, and beyond.

Source: MySpace: A Place to Find Old Friends

For more free people search ideas, try our published list of people search tips @ Free People Search.

USA Today is reporting on a number of false polices sites that have been posted on MySpace in an effort to mock and defame law enforcement agencies.

From the article –

A new police tool on the Internet has prompted hoax sites on MySpace.com, and the popular networking site is shutting them down.

At least 16 police or sheriffs’ departments appeared to have profile pages on MySpace to seek investigative tips or deter predators, but USA TODAY found that at least six were fakes.

A page that claimed to represent the New York Police Department had racy photos. Another that said it was the Fairfax County Police in Virginia said officers loved donuts and coffee. Officials in both departments said they did not set up the pages and did not know who did.

Asked about those profiles last week, MySpace.com closed them. It also closed pages claiming to represent New Jersey State Police and the Coral Gables Police Department in Florida. Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, says the site is investigating six more profiles that look like police department pages.

“We want law enforcement present on our site, but we don’t want people violating our members’ trust,” says Nigam. He says in the physical world, people recognize police by their uniforms. On its site, however, MySpace needs to verify which are legitimate, Nigam says.

Source: Bogus police sites posted on MySpace

CNET News is reporting on the interesting, behind-the-scenes details involved in the capture of the “MySpace Fugitive” inside a Philadelphia public library.

From the CNET report –

Darren Bates’ capture last week as he was updating his MySpace page at the Philadelphia main library has been widely reported. But exactly how were U.S. Marshals able to capture the man wanted in Georgia and Massachusetts?

Bates, 35, was arrested Thursday morning at the main branch of the Philadelphia public library. He had been on the run since escaping from the Hancock County Jail in Georgia in June while being held on charges of auto theft. Bates is also a suspect in the beating of an 88-year-old Georgia woman in her home. And he was also wanted on sexual assault charges in New Bedford, Mass.

“We received information from officers in Massachusetts that he (Bates) had a continuing pattern of going to the library at a certain time to log in to his MySpace page,” said John Patrignani, supervisory deputy of the U.S. Marshals Service Violent Crimes Fugitive Task Force.

Patrignani said his team was given that leading information from Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Charette, who was tracking Bates.

“We were able to work in conjunction with MySpace to determine that he was utilizing a city of Philadelphia computer to log into his MySpace account. After gathering that info, I was able to work with the city of Philadelphia to determine what library branch computer he was using,” said Charette.

Charette was able to determine where and when Bates was logging on to MySpace.com. Plain clothes officers were then placed in that location and waited for Bates’ next visit to the library.

Source: Behind the ‘MySpace fugitive’ capture

In yet another strange story of social networks and video sharing, The Associated Press is reporting that Norwegian police investigated, tracked and then fined a young motorist, who filmed his own high-speed driving and then posted the video on YouTube.

Police took up pursuit in cyberspace after a young Norwegian posted on the Internet video of his wild car driving. Following an electronic trail that he left online, police caught him and slapped him with real-life fine $1,300.

The Norwegian, identified only as a man in his early 20s, posted the video called “Driving in Norway” on Google Inc.’s popular video-sharing site YouTube. The recording showed the car’s speedometer hitting up to 150 miles — 240 kilometers — per hour on a public highway near Oslo.

“We’re touching 240,” a voice could be heard saying. “We know it will do it. This is a little nice.”

The video was removed from the Web site after it made national news in Norway last week.

Police said they could prove only that the man had driven an average of 86 miles per hour and based the fine, which the motorist accepted, on that speed. Norway’s speed limit is as high as 62 miles per hour, though lower on most roads.

“It is disturbing that young people test high speeds on highways like that, and then, on top of it, use the Net to boast about the misdeed afterward,” said Morten Hassel of the district police’s traffic unit.

Source: Yahoo! News

A recent study by the Digital Future Project found that nearly half of Americans view their online social ties as important as real-world contacts.

This percentage is likely to increase as more and more people communicate and socialize through online communities and social networks like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn.

From CNET News -

For many people, membership in virtual communities can be just as important as real-world social ties, according to a new study.

An estimated 43 percent of Americans who belong to online communities say they feel just as strongly about their virtual worlds as their real-world counterparts, according to the USC Annenberg Digital Future Project, which released Wednesday its sixth annual report examining the Web’s impact on society.

The findings seem to be in accordance with the ease of meeting new friends online. According to people polled by researchers at the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School, they met an average of 1.6 new friends per year in real-world settings after originally meeting online. Those surveyed also made an average of 4.65 friends who remained virtual pals only.

In addition, more than 40 percent of Internet users said that the Web helps them stay in touch with more friends and family.

Jeffrey Cole, director of the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, said the findings are a testament to the Web’s growing importance for social purposes.

“More than a decade after the portals of the (Web) opened to the public, we are now witnessing the true emergence of the Internet as the powerful personal and social phenomenon we knew it would become,” Cole said in a statement.

Source: CNET News

An investigation by Which? magazine has uncovered more than 280 YouTube videos that show users how to pick locks and break into houses. Some experts fear that the videos, one of which has been viewed over 60,000 times, will result in an increase in burglaries.

From thisislondon.co.uk –

Householders were warned today to check their security in an alert sparked by video website YouTube.

Hundreds of videos are available on the site showing users how to pick locks, which experts fear will result in a spate of burglaries.

The films were uncovered in an investigation by Which? magazine and sparked calls for YouTube to remove them from the site.

Which? researchers found that a search for “lock-picking” on the site brings up more than 280 videos showing how different types of lock can be picked and what tools are needed.

One film, which shows how to make the tools needed to pick locks, has been viewed more than 60,000 times.

Jeff Turner of the Master Locksmiths Association said: “We wouldn’t want to cause undue worry but some of the techniques should not be in the public domain because of the risk they’ll be used by thieves.

“We see cases where people have been burgled but there’s no sign of a forced entry. The police say a key was used. The householder says that no keys are missing but even then the insurance company refuses to pay out.” Videos appear to have been put on the site by teenagers.

Some are accompanied by comments from people saying they have followed the instructions to successfully pick locks of neighbours.

Source: Anger at YouTube videos that show how to break into houses