Social networking giant, Facebook has indicated that it is planning to take over a Israel-based GPS mobile navigation app Waze in a deal valued at US$ 1 billion.

Some reports suggest that discussions are taking place between the companies but no deal has been finalised as yet. Waze has more than 40 million users and its integration with Facebook will allow the social networking giant to expand into the new field of navigation and possibly add a new source of income for the company looking to create avenues of generatingrevenues.

China's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba has agreed to acquire a 18 per cent stake in Sina Corporation's Weibo allowing the company to enter social media in the country.

Alibaba has said that it will invest $586 million for acquiring stake in China's most popular micro-blogging service. The acquisition of stake in Weibo will allow the company to gain access to the large user base including tens of millions of active users.

According to a new survey, overwhelming majority of the respondents said that they do not wish to have their bosses on their friends list on social networking site, Facebook.

The survey showed that about 81 per cent of the respondents did not wish to connect to their boss on the social networking platform. The survey by poll site SodaHead and feedback site YouTell also showed that women were more hesitant in adding their bosses to the contact list on the social network than their male counterparts.

In an apparent indication that `mobile' is one of the key agendas of Facebook at present, the social network recently announced a major upgrade which will bring its Open Graph app and games infrastructure to mobile devices. The upgrade, according to Facebook, underscores "the next evolution of Facebook Platform for mobile."

New Delhi, April 18 : IT and telecommunications minister Kapil Sibal Thursday reiterated that the government doesn't want to control social media but stressed the need for some regulations.

Sibal, who has been labelled in some sections of media as an enemy of social media, said social media is the most powerful tool but can also be very dangerous.

"It is not about control but how to have some regulations. We don't want to control the social media," said Sibal on the sidelines of the launch of enewspaper of India.

New Delhi, April 17 : The Facebook page of Yash Raj Films (YRF), one of the most prestigious banners in Bollywood, recently crossed 1 million fans on the social-networking site.

It has over 1,005,561 fans and is said to be the fastest growing fan base with an addition of more than 3,000 likes everyday, said a statement.

The page reflects a new theme every month. The current theme is 'YRF dance dhamaka', which showcases all the dance tracks from YRF films.

Radio and television personality, Ryan Seacrest has confirmed the existence of the new music app on the micro blogging site, Twitter.

Seacrest, who uses @RyanSeacrest on Twitter, wrote on the site that he used the music app. Seacrest is best known as the host of reality music show, American Idol.

Washington, April 12 : Scientists have reported that rampant use of social networking, texting and chatting on mobile phone can result in lower grades and poor performance of students, says a study.

The widespread use of media among college students -- from texting, chatting on mobile phones to posting status updates on Facebook -- may be affecting their academic performance, say researchers at the Miriam Hospital's Centres for Behavioural and Preventive Medicine in the US.

The study showed that freshmen women spend nearly half their day - 12 hours - engaged in some form of media use, particularly texting, music, the internet and social networking.

In a move which, according to Facebook, is aimed at stopping the users of the popular social networking from sending unsolicited messages to celebrities and people they are not friends with, Facebook users in the UK are now being charged up to £10 for sending messages to other users outside their circle of friends.

On Thursday, business-focused social network LinkedIn commenced the roll out of a new feature which will allow the users to mention as well as hyperlink other LinkedIn users and companies in status updates and conversations.

The new feature - which is quite similar to the services that are already available on popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter - will chiefly facilitate the LinkedIn users to start conversations with their peers on the LinkedIn site.

It is believed that social micro blogging site, Twitter is likely to generate as much as $1 billion in ad revenue during the coming one year mostly due to an increase in advertising in mobile devices as an increasing number of users access the site form their mobile handsets.

During the course of a conversation for CBS’ 60 Minutes show, for a segment which was telecast on Sunday, popular microblogging site Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey said that he hopes to run for mayor of New York City.

Going by a CNN report, Dorsey – who also talked about his favorite place to go to think, as well as his greatest weakness – is apparently mulling plans to leave San Francisco home and shift to New York City.

Washington, March 8 : Social networking giant Facebook has announced a major overhaul of its homepage known as News Feed, unveiling a more visually stimulating stream of photos, videos and comments posted by friends that will also let users see more of the topics they are most interested in.

"We want to give everyone in the world the best personalized newspaper we can," said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg Thursday at a news conference announcing the changes.

Washington, Mar 7 : Facebook users are unwittingly sharing more personal information online than ever, according to a study.

The seven-year study from Carnegie Mellon University found people were more likely to share additional private information with friends and a group the researchers call the "silent listeners", which include Facebook, third-party app developers and advertisers, reports ABC News.

The researchers used data from 5,076 Facebook users in the university''s network to study how privacy and disclosure evolved from 2005 until 2011.

Sydney, Mar 7 : Facebook will reportedly launch a new News Feed on Thursday. The News Feed is believed to include separate feeds for different types of content such as music, images and video; and users can switch between feeds by selecting buttons at the top, reports News. com. au.

The music feed will reportedly contain information about nearby concerts and updates from various musicians as well as updates about what friends are listening to.

The changes are designed to give users more control over the content that appears on their News Feed.

Sydney, Mar 1 : A new less-known social network, Pheed, has become the most downloaded free app in the App Store.

In fact, Pheed is the number one most downloaded free app under the social networking category, outranking both Facebook and Twitter.

It is a social network that works much the same way as Facebook or Instagram, News. com. au reports.

A user needs to sign up, either with an email address or a Facebook or Twitter login.

Washington, Feb 27 : Scientists have discovered the secret to becoming popular on micro-blogging site Twitter. C. J. Hutto and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta examined the content and retweeting fate of tweets sent by 500 non-celebrities over a 15-month period.

They looked for 2800 terms that convey positive and negative emotions, including slang and swear words, a set of emoticons and common acronyms, like LOL.

The keys to success, they found, were to tweet positive messages, write clearly and retweet interesting titbits of news. People who tweeted mostly about themselves didn''t fare so well.

Sydney, Feb 25 : Australian police are investigating a Facebook ''party page'' after five teenagers had to be treated for alcohol-related injuries at the party promoted on the social networking site.

The party was promoted on a Facebook page described as the ''official'' page to post and promote open events and house parties in the Brisbane area.

Up to 1000 people converged on Tamborine Memorial Hall at Mount Tamborine on the Gold Coast from 7 pm for a party dubbed ''Yo-Yo''s Round 2'', reports News. com. au.

Washington, Feb 21 : A 104-year-old woman in Michigan, Marguerite Joseph, can be forgiven for lying about her age on Facebook, due to a problem on the social networking site that is making her lie about her real age.

Joseph's granddaughter Gail Marlow said that her grandmother was unable to list her real age.

According to Fox News, Marlow said that when she tries inputting her grandmother's birth year as 1908, Facebook changed it to 1928.

So for the past two years, the centenarian has remained 99 online, anyway.

London, Feb 21 : Scientists from the University of Arizona have claimed that if people want to keep their brain sharp in their old age they should join social networking site Facebook.

They found that over 65s who use Facebook performed better in cognitive tests than those who simply surfed the internet or didn't use it all, the Daily Mail reported.

It's believed that the ever-changing nature of the site - like constantly rolling updates - may actually boost mental acuity.