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