[From Online Media Daily]

Microsoft invests $240 million for a 1.6% stake in Facebook -- a deal that values the hot social network at a staggering 15 billion.  Beating out Google, Microsoft also won exclusive global rights to sell third-party banner ads on Facebook.

Realizing that successful social networks grow out of an affinity for a property, brand, or interest,  NBC has managed to make a good thing better by attaching a stylized social network to "The Office."

[From Seattlepi.com]

Web 2.0 Can Help Us Find Out About the Good, the Bad, and The Ugly of a Neighborhood

This article offers a smattering of sites using Web 2.0 to provide hyperlocal information and encourage people to interact with people in their own real-life communities.

[From TechCrunch]

On November 5, Google plans to introduce a new set of APIs that will allow developers to leverage its social graph data. This article speculates that Google's platform may ultimately be more open than that of Facebook - allowing third parties to both push and pull data, into and out of Google and non-Google applications - as part of a strategy to add a social layer over its entire suite of applications.

McLean, Va. -- McLean-based iBelong Networks, the developer of an online platform used for social networks and interactive communities, has raised $1.5 million in its first institutional round of financing.