GigaOm's Om Malik considers the implications of Google's OpenSocial platform, comparing the search giant's approach to social networking to that of Facebook. Malik points out that Google's entire business model depends on information being public--search is just a tool used to glean more information about us so the company can serve more targeted advertising. The idea behind OpenSocial is more of the same: provide free tools for (developers in this case) to create free, open software and then help developers monetize their programs through AdSense. Therefore, Google doesn't really have to get into the social networking game. However, Facebook's business …

Gigi Sohn, the president of Public Knowledge, a lobby group advocating free speech and the fair use of copyright, this week proposed a six-step plan to reform copyright laws that technology advocates feel are outdated and harm innovation. At the top of Sohn's list is expanding the scope of incidental and non-commercial fair-use. She says the 1984 Betamax decision that gives users the right to record materials for personal use should become a law covering all digital media; the idea is to limit the number of "spurious" lawsuits handed out by big media for unauthorized use of their content. Sohn …

It's another big week for open software platforms and social media, as today and tomorrow Facebook and MySpace unveil their new targeting advertising systems--while Google, which launched the OpenSocial alliance last week, is said to be preparing a similar open-platform alliance for mobile software that could be unveiled as part of a broader mobile announcement expected later today. These major announcements come at a time when much of the Internet advertising industry is convening in New York for the annual Ad:Tech conference. Of the aforementioned, Fox Interactive is the first to reveal details of its new HyperTargeting product for MySpace. …

Ahead of tomorrow's highly anticipated announcement from Facebook, VentureBeat has a few new details. The new ad platform's code-name is Pandemic, but this report details a new set of group advertising tools called "Mullets." Facebook plans to remove its "sponsored groups" section, replacing it with pages advertises can buy allowing them to upload ads or interactive widgets created by Facebook. Many of these sponsored widgets will compete directly with existing third-party applications; for example, Facebook might encourage users to download an ad-sponsored music app similar to iLike. Advertisers can then pay extra for Mullet actions to appear on friends' news …

Microsoft Chief Steve Ballmer on Monday defended his firm's decision to invest $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Faceook. Some analysts were outspoken in their criticism of the deal, saying it put way too steep a valuation on Facebook, and that the only way the investment would be worth it is if the social network can transform itself into a central hub for Web activity. "We didn't make a mistake," Ballmer told reporters during a conference in Mumbai. "The valuation of Facebook is still to be determined. Certainly today, it's very, very popular. So for a company like …

Fortune blogger Josh Quittner says it's "inevitable" that Facebook will ditch its proprietary software development platform in favor of OpenSocial, the "Everybody-but-Facebook Alliance" unveiled by Google last week. Sources tell Quittner the two sides are already in discussions, while Facebook board member Jim Breyer on Friday told the Silicon Alley Insider the company would be willing to work with Big G. Would such a development give Google the upper hand, Quittner asks? Facebook would certainly be thrusting itself into an environment where Google calls the shots. "If I were Facebook, I wouldn't let Google say, 'We are the Web.' I'd …

Sony Corp. and the PlayStation 3 have now entered the record books, according to BBC News--after a project leveraging the spare processing power within the PS3 was found to help understand the cause of diseases. The network, called folding@home (FAH) enters the Guinness World Records as the world's most powerful distributed computing network. FAH, so named for its ability to perform 3D simulations of protein folding and other molecular dynamics, has now signed up nearly 700,000 PS3s in an attempt to better understand diseases like Alzheimer's. A distributed computing network is able to solve large, complex problems by distributing the …

Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Jon Leibowitz indicated that the organization might be preparing sanctions on the online advertising industry with regard to its user-tracking practices. "When you're surfing the Internet, you never know who is peering over your shoulder or how many marketers are watching," Leibowitz said during an FTC online privacy forum. He added that industry self-regulation has been inadequate. The next step for the organization, he said, could be to create clarity standards for Web sites' privacy policies--pointing to a study revealing that only one percent of those with a high school education can understand the heavy legal …

As Facebook prepares to wow the world with its new social advertising system, BusinessWeek reminds us of a startling reality: "the truth about online ads is that precious few people actually click on them." Worse, the percentage of those who do click on standard banners at highly trafficked destinations like Yahoo shrunk considerably in 2006--from 0.75 percent to just 0.27 percent, according to the advertising services firm Eyeblaster. So how, pray tell, does Facebook plan to reverse the trend? "Data" is the word. Facebook believes the demographic, personal and social history data it collects about its 50 million …

CNBC's David Faber has the scoop (although by now it's not necessarily a surprise) that Time Warner is indeed preparing to split apart some of its properties in order to focus more on its media and movie businesses. Among those to be split is AOL, although Faber says Time Warner only plans to offload "parts" of the Web portal/online services firm. What does "parts" mean? Faber talks very little about AOL, but he does mention the company's dial-up business. What in the world could that be worth? Surely no one wants to buy a money-losing relic of the Internet's past--it …