Recently, stories about Delicious began appearing that Yahoo is downsizing and looking to either shut down or get rid of Delicious. The news comes one day after Yahoo slashed 4 percent of its workforce or roughly 600 employees. If this happens, I know a lot of delicious users will be in panic mode. But last Friday, Delicious denied that it was shutting down and made a statement that instead it will shop for a home outside of Yahoo. After news spread that Delicious was likely to shut down, Yahoo says the service live on, after all.

The company emphatically says Delicious isn’t closing as what they have posted in their blog.

Is Delicious being shut down? And should I be worried about my data?

- No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.

What is Yahoo! going to do with Delicious?

-          We’re actively thinking about the future of Delicious and we believe there is a home outside the company that would make more sense for the service and our users. We’re in the process of exploring a variety of options and talking to companies right now. And we’ll share our plans with you as soon as we can.

Well, we will just wait and see what will happen next. What will 2011 bring? Stay tuned. We’re almost there.

Recently Facebook have been experiencing many complains about their privacy policy. This raises concern of several business entities about the security of facebook. Since the number of entrepreneurs have created online stores and support on the social media site designed for their consumers.

Facebook is now at its peak and this also means more development for privacy options, additional applications, quick consumer-concern response and additional staff. Many concerns have been raised against facebook—especially in the user privacy options.

Lately, the Business Herald columnist Deborah Hill Cone’s identity was stolen was dreaded on the complex procedure of closing down an account. This was not new to the social media network and for some celebrities which experienced an identity theft.

Another major problem facebook is confronted with, is the cyber bullying issue which is prevalent in many university belts worldwide. Recently, a delinquent student made a pseudo-profile of a 12 year classmate and posted pornographic pictures, sexual references and racial discrimination.

But despite security issues, an Australian Bank owned by New Zealand, ASB Bank established the first virtual branch on Facebook. Which critics consider as not very pleasing to the image of ASB—concerning a social network with security breach.

But to what extent should Facebook imposed user privacy options? Social media is a broad field and regulations should be appropriate and suitable for every different user or else these could harm the progress of the entity. Experts’ advised that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg should initialize regional managers.

Perhaps the future of Facebook relies on the ability of its captains in sailing against the stormy ocean. The business world specifically the internet has a changing nature. The previous years, Myspace was the hottest social media network until Facebook grabbed the spot with its unique applications and social media trends.

The question is? Can Facebook cope with the user privacy demands of its consumers? Or will it be superseded by a more secure social media site.

Nowadays, social media have already increasingly become an essential aspect in the world today. It becomes a vital aspect that resulted most of the businesses around the globe to make it seriously. Since, it becomes necessary aspect for today’s current business world that several of its companies will now eventually be creating social media departments. This might be considered as bit over top the portion but this social media is not anymore considered as fad, selling products and services will eventually determine on how efficient this will be considered. Just a couple years that have passed on, this would now become possible for the company to allocate their mere responsibility of social media towards one person and its been considered that this individual would only required to devote few hours in daily basis upon making on any type of promotion. Especially that those aspects will entirely have some changes and currently it become as quite impossible for just one person to entirely create their most well efficient usage for social media even doing it in full time basis.

This become the mere reason why various huge companies are in the condition of development the entire departments that will solely and merely focuses towards social media. The future of this of online basis advertisement and social media will now become as accountable to be considered as larger chunks of their mere effort. It makes sense and even smaller businesses got amazing results with that involvement of Twitter and Facebook. The great aspect in regards to this kind of promotion is considered as somewhat free and even efficient.  But the only downside of this aspect is the time consumption. Though, there will be no businesses that currently can afford of ignoring on this kind of promotion as to ensure their marketing competition. As of now, most of the consumers would entirely be expecting of being able to interact with business individuals who can sell things and failing on facilitating this expectations will somehow lead on of losing their respective businesses.

The World Wide Web was born in 1995 and two years later, news websites followed suit. But it was not until the mid-2000s that social media sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Digg and a dozen others were the trend. These social media sites are not just source of get-togetherness and hangout pit stops but they are also one’s virtual connection to just about anything under the sun. Think of the tremendous application social media offer.

1. Source of News – In the past, we only regard sites such as CNN.com and usatoday.com as our source of online news. With social media sites such as twitter, we can now get our news all in one page. Just subscribe online news sites and link it to your twitter page and voila! You can have updates every time you click on your twitter page from all of these news sites that you had bookmarked.

2. Doing Business Online – Before 2005, business models were highly traditional. Then came Amazon.com, whose business pattern is imitated by hundreds of online business sites. Then came social media as a platform for businessmen. Simple yet cost-effective. If you don’t have that much capital, all you need to do is link your business site to other websites. You may employ various online methods too to promote your business site. What’s even better is that if you don’t want to buy your own domain, then you may use your blogger or Multiply account as a platform of your business on the Web.

3. Meeting Friends - It’s really a pleasure to meet new friends online, learn and chat with them. But the best and safer way to gain lots of friends online is through social media groups in which you can have access to their real profile. This is practically a group for everyone like for example Facebook; there is a group category for Catholics, Hippies, Russians, Naturist and even UFO existence theorist.

TWITTER started as a mere social network among friends as a place to hang out with and have a break – just like Kitkat. With the immense popularity of Twitter, people have perceived it as a potential business tool which can surely multiply return of investment a hundredfold.

So how does Twitter works as a business tool? Here’s how: Twitter has inked an official agreement with a business-inclined social networking too, LinkedIn. This is the first step. However, Twitter executives have deemed that it is more profitable if the company itself will have its separate business feature. Thus, monetizing a blog post was formed. It is launched just real recently and it is actually still on its beta stage. For Internet suave folks, you may want to use the Twitter business tool in beta as a Contributor.

One such company which is using Twitter as an online advertising tool is Honeywell. Honeywell is a scholarship firm and they advertise their product using Twitter. Other companies which use Twitter as an online business tool are auto parts distributors. These are the ones which are located at the local level.

Word has it that various private companies are slowly catching up with the Contributor feature of Twitter. These companies are the ones which are usually on the verge of collapse with the current economic crisis but thanks to Twitter, they have slowly risen from a potential doom to be even more profitable than they were before the crisis hit America.

As of now, Sony will be incorporating this Facebook to their PlayStation for 3 games that will be consoling in order to join this rival Microsoft upon the addition of this Facebook, for Twitter and as well Last.fm of this Xbox 360. Sony have release on their latest software PlayStation in order to allow several gamers to be able to link on their Facebook accounts for their PS3’s and as well be able to continually share on some updates for their newsfeed that includes trophy upon winning on different games. Aside of that, Sony also keep on promising about the integration of Facebook, but for the meantime this PlayStation owner will now be able to continually check on their updates and even to those their friends who are in the Facebook, Twitter and to some other social media sites that been available by this PS3’s upon building on their browser. With that, the arrival of this Facebook on PS3 will now be following this Microsoft announcing that already been adding this Twitter, Zune, Facebook, and as well Last.fm of this Xbox 360.

In their latest update of Facebook and as well Twitter can entirely be found on this newly added community channeling together their Last.fm of musical channel. The most relevant aspect of this Facebook in Xbox gamers will entirely be able of finding out which of this Facebook friends were been available on this Xbox live. Some other features entirely include this ability of browsing over their photos and as well updating over their status. For this microblogging of Xbox, the gamers will entirely have some access to the entire basic services that will be available on this Twitter that includes searches, for trending topics, and status updates. According to Neil Thompson who is the senior director of this entertainment division of this UK and Ireland and as well the head of Xbox, that this community will be driving on forward and its community will be allowing their pioneer for several ways of connecting on to several individuals through those entertainment that they wanted.

Aside of that, this Last.fm entirely brings on their playlist and as well even personalizing their radio stations towards this Xbox 360 experiences together of building in their Gamer Station especially upon selecting some music towards those Xbox Live community. With this, the Zune gamers will be getting a higher quality of video upon sharing on with those that are already been up to seven friends through voice chatting and as well their avatar integration on this TV screen. For that, Zune will now be joining this Sky Player that already been added to this Xbox. So, one of their first movie treats towards this Xbox owners will now be using this Zune for the chance of watching an exclusive footage from this James Cameron’s that been hotly got some anticipation to their science fiction movie in the Avatar that been available of this day.

LINKEDIN is a social networking site that is especially geared for professionals. That is why LinkedIn is used by millions of professionals and businessmen around the globe. Companies usually direct their workers to create accounts over this free social networking site so they can immediately connect with prospective clients. But with so many professionals and entrepreneurs in the world competing for clients using the same platform (i.e. LinkedIn), one can feel clogged up if one joins LinkedIn for the first time. So here are a few tips on how to accelerate your business with the help of LinkedIn:

1. Find upcoming fund raising events in your area. The good news about LinkedIn is that it is localize. That means one can easily find out fundraising events in your area and immediately link your business page to the page set up by the fund raising organizers over LinkedIn. In that way, you can easily build your social network in the real world.

2. Use the groups feature to promote your cause. The good news is that despite it being a free website, LinkedIn spoonfeeds to its users. You can easily optimize your business site by using the groups feature in LinkedIn. You can either search for groups or create one so that prospective customers themselves will hunt down and search the products and services that you are offering.

3. Answer someone’s question. Don’t take it as spamming. And most importantly, don’t spam. Spam is a bad habit. Answer questions individually, not machine-generated ones. Obviously, the purpose of answering questions is to maximize your social network as more and more prospective customers can see the link of your website when you answer a particular question. And when you do answer a question, give your best shot and don’t blabber so that potential customers will be impressed.

According to Nielsen Online, social media’s growth keeps on increasing. This year 2009, it shows a massive growth in the social web. While, Twitter and Facebook also made a breaking record; in the US alone Twitter reached over 7 million unique visitors in the month of February while Facebook continues to grow compare to MySpace.

Here are the top pick social media trends for 2010 by David Armano, an active practitioner and thinker in the worlds of digital marketing, experience design, and the social web.

• Social media begins to look less social
• Corporations look to scale
• Social business becomes serious play
• Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)
• Mobile becomes a social media lifeline
• Sharing no longer means e-mail

These lists are just the few of those emerging development in social media web. Since social media was created to allow direct collaboration and interaction with peers in the world, let us all look forward for many trendy changes that will possibly happen.

In 2010 Presidential elections in the Philippines will be conducted so expect that huge percentage of politicians will embrace into social media web to attract voters just like what President Obama did.

For the past 12 months since I have engaged in social media, I have had quite a few responses from various page and group requests that have made me ask myself if I did anything wrong or if ever I have offended anyone. Most unpleasant replies to group and fan page suggestions sounded annoyed and irritated and they don’t want to be connected with such groups nor do they want to be connected with me.

Just recently, a contact wrote on my Facebook wall that he’s annoyed with my fan page suggestions and said “Sorry, I have to un-friend ya.” I was startled why it was posted on my Wall and I, being cautious, deleted it immediately. I started thinking over and over again and asked myself, “Where did I go wrong?”

When I engage myself in something like social media, I make sure that I am on the right track so as not to violate the terms and conditions of social networks and not get banned from their sites; and not to be identified as someone who hounds social media and uses networks for shady purposes. That’s why I thought of brushing up on social media ethics so I will be constantly reminded of the dos and don’ts in social media.

The following is a list of basic social media ethics from this site and I have added some of my own thoughts:

1. Honesty: State only what you know to be true – and be clear about opinion or conjecture vs. fact. Honesty is still the best policy; only state facts.

2. Transparency: Be straightforward about who you are – and who you’re representing online. With social media (especially in social media marketing), it’s better to let people know who you really are and what company or product you represent.

3. Respect: Respect for yourself, your peers, and even your adversaries. In order to reap respect, it must be sowed first. If you don’t want others to disrespect you, don’t do anything not worthy of respect.

4. Privacy: Treat the intimate details of others as you would your own personal information. If you don’t want your private details to be divulged, better set limitations on what you share with the world and never share information about others that may put them and yourself at risk.

5. Relevance: Ensure that the content you’re posting is relevant to the audience and the venue where it’s being posted. This is self-explanatory. Don’t post information about tomatoes on potato groups and vice versa.

6. Responsibility: Take ownership of your online activities, the content you’ve created, and any missteps you’ve made along the way. Take responsibility with every action you make. If you have offended anybody, apologize.

The day that bleak message was posted on my Wall, I imagined the monitor eating me up. I was ashamed of that yet I knew I should not linger on that incident. I decided to do better, become more aware of social media ethics and make sure that I’ll enjoy social media networking without a guilty, unethical feeling.

StumbleUpon.com has just released a private beta for their own URL shortener called Su.pr.

Su.pr is a new beta site started by StumbleUpon that allows you to shorten URL’s with advanced stumbleupon features added to the post. Although it is in private beta, StumbleUpon is releasing key codes on their Twitter page. If you follow them and spend some time checking up, they post new codes every once in a while to join. If you take a look at the control panel it seems very straightforward. You can share your links on Twitter or Facebook, and also add a small message with your shortened URL. There are also live tracking from you links which include how many clicks, stumbles, and followers through the links.

If you are into online business, one of the main goal for working so hard is to drive traffic into your site. So here’s for you to try and see if it works.

Check it out yourself and see if there would be any changes in your traffic.