There’s some serious internet buzz surrounding a new people search engine called Spock.com.

Spock.com hasn’t launched yet and you currently have to request to be included on an invite list to be one of the first people to test this new search engine out, but already the site is generating a lot of interest among web search and people search professionals. Already tech luminaries like Tim O’Reilly ( www.oreilly.com ) and Michael Arrington ( www.techcrunch.com ) have applauded Spock.com’s future entrance into the world of online people search.

The Spock.com web site claims that their people search engine has already indexed over 100 million people profiles and is adding millions more every day. If the Spock group continues to grow their people search engine with personal profiles and people search features, they will take the art of “Googling” people to a whole new level.

To read more about the Spock.com people search engine and it’s features, see Tim O’Reilly’s blog @ Why I’m so excited about Spock.

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

According to a 4/15/2007 Washington Post article, student loan providers with access to a national student database have searched the personal and confidential information for tens of millions of student borrowers in ways that violate federal rules.

The questionable searches on the database have grown so considerable that the Education Department is considering a temporary shutdown of the service.

The database contains confidential and personal information for millions of students, including social security numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, loan balances and other financial information.

Source: Lenders Misusing Student Database.

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.

The TechCrunch blog is reporting on the use of the virtual social networking SecondLife.com by FBI agents to review the online gaming and casinos found in the Second Life virtual world.

From the post –

The FBI has visited Linden Lab and their Second Life casinos in order to figure out just what that giant teddy bear — really a Japanese exchange student — and the fat man in Spokane who looks like a Suicide Girl and calls himself Wendy Wild are doing over at the roulette table.

Source: G-Men Visit Second Life Casinos, Stay for the Brothels.