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Facebook is the largest social media site of its kind and eBay is the biggest online auction site you will find around at the moment.  Therefore, it is not surprising to learn that an agreement between the two has been garnering a lot of interest online in recent days.

According to the latest reports, the best parts of each site are going to come together to provide a more dynamic and user-friendly experience for people who are looking to buy online.  New plug-ins are due to be released for use with Facebook that in turn will make shopping on eBay much easier and more social in some respects.  Instead of simply buying something, you will be able to log into Facebook and share your opinions of the item.  Similarly, sellers on eBay will be able to take advantage of the new social media aspect.  This will enable them to promote whatever they sell to a much bigger audience than they would otherwise be able to reach.

As you can see this looks to be a big story that has great potential for the social commerce world.  It remains to be seen whether the results will be as good as the promise.  Some people question whether social shopping is safe enough to be a success, as it requires the sharing of information – something that not everyone is keen to do.  Nevertheless, this collaboration certainly has promise for the future.

Netflix has been troubled lately.  After announcing their plans to separate DVD and streaming packages (and thus raise prices by 60% for subscribers), the company has suffered a heavy deluge of backlash.  At the same time, attempted deals with cable movie channel Starz fell through so that the Netflix-Starz contract currently in place will expire early next year.  This would have left the movie rental giant with little to offer its streaming customers, since the Starz deal included both Disney and Sony Pictures content.

Now, at least, some of that damage is being restored.  DreamWorks announced, as reported in the New York Times, that it has penned a big money deal with Netflix to allow the streaming powerhouse to show DreamWorks movies online.  The deal is worth an estimated $30 million per movie.

This marks some big changes in Hollywood thinking and it’s no wonder the independent DreamWorks would be the first to see where the industry is going and jump on board.

“We are really starting to see a long-term road map of where the industry is headed,” Jeffrey Katzenberg, DreamWorks CEO, said in an interview. “This is a game-changing deal.”

This deal could also give Netflix a big leg up against emerging competition from big names like Walmart, Apple, Amazon, and more.

The deal with DreamWorks is exclusive, but no one has said how long it’s for.  As Gigaom’s Janko Roettgers says, Netflix has almost literally stolen DreamWorks from HBO, since the deal cuts HBO out of the picture – rumors say that Netflix had been attempting to woo HBO to replace Starz.  This deal basically does an end-run around HBO and takes their best content from them.

With Netflix’ stock down by more than half and investors very unhappy about the company’s direction, this announcement couldn’t come at a better time for CEO Reed Hastings (pictured).

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 will be remembered for a long time as the day that Steve Jobs, founding CEO of Apple Computers, resigned as that company’s leader.  The story of Jobs’ ongoing, long-time medical issues has been pretty public and his lengthy leaves of absence for the past couple of years have caused many to speculate about whether he’d resign for good.  Now, after apparent complications from his liver transplant put him on leave again, Jobs has officially decided to let someone else have the reigns of Apple.

That someone is Tim Cook, who sent an email to employees Thursday morning informing them of his new position as CEO and that he had no major plans for making any changes to the “DNA” of the company’s principles, values, or culture.

For Apple, this change in leadership will not likely mean any heavy changes to the company, as Cook promised.  He is a close ally of Steve Jobs and the two are much alike in terms of style.  It’s interesting to note that in the industry press, only two things seem to dominate with the announcement of the new CEO:

The fact that Cook happens to be gay and whether or not that has any significance (or should even be discussed).
The tidbit that Jobs plans to include this latest development in his upcoming autobiography.

Neither of these is, essentially, really all that important to the news of Apple’s changing of the corporate guard.  Neither has any real impact potential, when you look at them.  What they do say is simple: while the news that Jobs has stepped down and Cook has taken his place is a big headline.. there really isn’t much else to fill in the rest of the news column with.  So reporters have to fish.

That tells you that while the change is big news, it’s hardly a shakeup and that Apple will not likely change in any fundamental way.

GroupMe just celebrated its first year as a startup and now, as a birthday present, the company is getting a buyout from Skype.   Officially, the purchase price wasn’t disclosed, but $50 and $85 million have been reported as the “insider’s” number for the deal.

Skype itself is being purchased by Microsoft, but that deal hasn’t completed yet.  According to TechCrunch, the deal comes right after GroupMe closed another round of financing to the tune of $850,000.  Skype CEO Tony Bates, TC says, reports that he was in talks with GroupMe at about the same time Microsoft approached them about acquisition, so the two have been running in parallel.

Skype will likely keep GroupMe as a stand-alone brand, but integrate it with the Skype service.  The addition of the cell phone grouping for text messaging service might be a great addition to the instant message, video conferencing, etc. giant.

Naysayers, however, like Om Malik at GigaOm, don’t think it’s enough.  Why?  Because Skype is integrated with Facebook and will likely be purchased by Microsoft.  None of those companies offer interactive communication, only traditional back-and-forth amongst those who are already acquainted.

Google, on the other hand, has opened up a whole new field with their inclusion of Hangouts in Google+.  This allows masses of people to get together at the same time, so long as they’re loosely connected, and chat ad hoc.  Something Skype and Facebook aren’t capable of.

So why would Skype pay a reported $85M for GroupMe?  Well, the service is definitely unique and is not something anyone else is offering.  Mobile phones are the future of connecting and some believe that SMS messaging could take the place of email for many of our communiques.

According to the latest reports, the hacking group known as Anonymous are planning a concerted attack on Facebook on November 15^th this year.  In recent days it has come to the attention of many that certain topics regarding the proposed event have been trending on Twitter.  It has become known as Operation Facebook, although it is unknown as to whether such an attack will yet come to fruition.

A video has been made warning of the forthcoming attack, in which an unidentified person says, “Your medium of communication you all so dearly adore will be destroyed.  Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your privacy settings, and deleting your account is impossible.”  The person then goes on to state that even if you decide to delete your account, all the information within it can be recovered at a later date if you wish to change your mind.  This is true, since you will get this message if you decide to leave the site and delete your information.

November 5^th is a long way off yet, so we are yet to see whether the threat is genuine.  But since it comes from Anonymous it is well worth sitting up and taking notice of the potential threat.  Since the main crux of the video message is the safety – or lack of – surrounding the data kept on Facebook, it would be logical to think that this will have something to do with it.  But is this right?

Most people will be aware that MySpace used to be a giant in the world of social networking.  Now it is limping into the sunset and not a lot of people are actually around to watch it go.

But despite that it is still able to make headlines occasionally, as it did the other day.  However the headlines were not good news for the social media site, as you will see by reading what happened.

Apparently the site went down for a short time on Friday 12^th August, and the message that appeared on the home page led many to believe the site had been the victim of malicious hackers.  Would you have thought the same thing?  Judge for yourself by reading the message below:

“We messed up our code so bad that even puppies and kittens may be in danger.  Please turn back… now. Have your pet spayed or neutered.”

Judging by the content it is not surprising that many people believed it had succumbed to a hacker.  But in fact it was nothing of the sort.  Apparently this was an error page used by MySpace that had been around for the past two years.  It makes you wonder why the page has not hit the headlines before if it has been in use for this length of time, but perhaps the right people did not see it.  Evidently they did this time, and they tweeted about it at length on Twitter.  Poor MySpace.