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When you see people at the office using such Internet sites as Facebook and MySpace, you might suspect those workers are slacking off.

But that’s not the case at the CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency, where bosses are encouraging their staff members to use a new social-networking site designed for the super-secret world of spying.

"It’s every bit Facebook and YouTube for spies, but it’s much, much more," said Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

The program is called A-Space, and it’s a social-networking site for analysts within the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies.

Instead of posting thoughts about the new Avenged Sevenfold album or Jessica Alba movie,CIA analysts could use A-Space to share information and opinion about al Qaeda movements in the Middle East or Russian naval maneuvers in the Black Sea.

The new A-Space site has been undergoing testing for months and launches officially for the nation’s entire intelligence community September 22.

Full story @ cnn.com

Before I start rambling, I’d like to start off by saying that I never really got into the whole microblogging scene. I tried, time and time again, but it just never kept me interested for very long. Maybe that’s why one day I went as far as getting down on my knees and begged God for microblogging to go away so that I wouldn’t have to keep hearing about the latest Twitter outage from all my favourite news sites. As time went by though, I quickly realized that Twitter, and microblogging in general, was here to stay. That’s why today you’re seeing me post my first ever microblogging-related story, and as much as I find the whole ongoing development very interesting, it will probably be my last.
So why do I say that Facebook could kill off Twitter? Well, because it had microblogging before Twitter was a baby (yeah, I know, Twitter still is a damn baby). You can argue day and night that wall-to-wall posts aren’t mini blog posts, but you can’t deny that Status Updates are exactly what Twitter has been doing from the very start. Think about it. Status Updates = Tweets. Don’t believe me? Well, there is one difference between the two, and this is really the key to microblogging’s success. On Twitter, you can follow anyone you would like, without their approval. Facebook just won’t let you do that.

read more @ neowin.net

Microsoft and Facebook strengthened their existing partnership Thursday with the announcement that Microsoft would be powering the social network’s Web search and sponsored links.

The announcement was made at Microsoft’s annual financial analysts meeting in Redmond. Sources indicate the search services will be integrated into Facebook without many changes to the overall site design.

Facebook will begin using an API from Microsoft some time in the fall. The move mirrors a similar deal between Google and MySpace made almost two years ago. The search giant paid $900 million for MySpace’s search box and ads.

Google’s deal extends across all Fox Interactive sites, which include Rottentomatoes.com, Gamespy.com, fox.com, americanidol.com, and others. In addition to search, Google also has rights to advertising on these sites.

The actual monetary value of Thursday’s Facebook deal was not disclosed, although Microsoft previously invested $240 million in the site last October. That deal made Microsoft the exclusive third-party provider for advertising on Facebook.

Facebook today released a new, cleaner and simpler design, along with the opportunity for users to preview and test the next-generation features and functionality. The company is inviting people to use the new design and try out the improved features by navigating back and forth between the new and current versions of the site. Access to the new design will be limited at first and gradually become available to all of Facebook’s more than 80 million users over the coming days. The company has been developing the new design since early this year. Over the past six months, more than 100,000 Facebook users offered constructive suggestions on the layout and features, many of which were included in the final version.
"We’ve made the changes rolling out today in order to highlight the most recent and relevant information that users value, give users even more control and ownership over their profiles and simplify the user experience," said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "Facebook’s new design makes it a lot easier for users to share information, and we encourage them to check it out."

Screenshot: New Facebook Design
View: Full Story on MarketWatch