Online community for soccer fans Footbo.com has now integrated Facebook Connect. This enables users to share information across the two platforms and log-in with their Facebook profile.

The access to Facebook’s activity stream enables Footbo users to connect their accounts to Facebook and share their football blog posts, discussion topics and comments with their friends on Facebook. New users coming to Footbo will be able to log-in with their Facebook account, without having to fully register on Footbo.

Footbo features include:

• Interaction with friends and more than 250,000 football fans from around the globe
• Live scores, fixtures and personalized news
• Blogs and forums
• Prediction Games
• Grading of players’ performances
• Photo and video sharing
• Team and player profiles – created by the Footbo community
• Fan groups of teams and players

Plastic Jungle, the website where you can sell, buy and exchange gift cards, has secured $4.8 million in its Series A Preferred Stock Financing, led by Shasta Ventures with investments from Bay Partners, First Round Capital and Harrison Metal. The financing will allow Plastic Jungle to accelerate its growth through key new hires, as well as increased marketing and business development efforts.

As part of the round, Plastic Jungle will add two new members to its board of directors, including Tod Francis of Shasta Ventures and Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital. Existing board members include Gary Briggs, Plastic Jungle founder and Chief Operating Officer Tina Henson, and St. Bernard Software CEO Lou Ryan.

Redfin, the real estate infustry’s first online brokerage for buying and selling homes, revealed that 51% of people who bought a home through Redfin reported that the company’s online community influenced their decision to work with the brokerage. Prior to making a purchase, over 22% of Redfin buyers had posted a question to the community.

Visits to Redfin’s online community have increased 415% year over year. In that time, Redfin’s revenues have increased by more than 40%, while the company has reduced marketing program expenses 82%; Redfin’s Net Promoter Score, a measure of customer satisfaction, has increased by 5%.

Redfin’s community, powered by Lithium, is one of the only forums for real estate consumers to ask one another about pricing trends, neighborhood guidance, and local best practices The community allows customers to comment on individual agents’ service, and to suggest improvements to Redfin’s website. Community postings appear throughout Redfin’s site, with each agent’s contributions appearing on a profile page that also includes the agent’s entire deal history as well as customer reviews and ratings.

The fate of the nation’s traditional news sources, specifically newspapers and TV news programs, may lie in the hands, eyes and pocketbooks of America’s well-connected, growing network of women age 50-plus. A recent survey by VibrantNation.com among its more than 20,000 members, shows that while Boomer women are now utilizing the Internet as their core news source they remain heavy consumers of “traditional” media outlets with nearly 70% of respondents citing a combination of newspapers, TV, radio and magazines among their primary sources of news. VibrantNation.com is the first online destination created exclusively for women 50+ and a peer-to-peer information exchange populated by smart and passionate women.

With statistics showing that women 50+ are spending more money compared to any other demographic– and more time online than teenagers– understanding this often overlooked yet powerful, advertiser-friendly block of consumers could be key to the survival of “traditional” media such as newspapers and TV news programs. Among these “Vibrant Women,” as dubbed by VibrantNation.com, the survey findings uncovered that:

• Online News Leads the Way: 28% of women 50+ depend on the Internet as their primary news source. Of those who turn to the Web for news, 29% use their Web service homepage (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), 25% log-on to newspaper websites (NYTimes.com, WSJ.com, local newspaper sites, etc.), 25% read news blogs and specialty online news sources (HuffingtonPost.com, Politico.com, DrudgeReport.com, Weather.com, etc.), and 16% rely on online news sites of broadcast media outlets (CNN.com, ABCNews.com, CBSNews.com, etc.).

• “Traditional” Media Still Plays a Central Role: While garnering smaller percentages than the Web on an individual basis, when combined 70% of respondents cite multiple “traditional” print and broadcast media as their primary news source — TV news programs (23%), newspapers (21%), radio (15%) and magazines (11%).

The Knot Inc. announced the acquisition of several registry patents from Felicite.com, as well as the ongoing business of eWish, a web-based service that enables online merchants to easily add online gift registries to their websites.

With Felicite’s patented group gifting technology, wedding guests can pool gift money online to put toward the pricier items on a registry. The patent pending cash substitution technology allows brides and grooms to get more of the gifts and cash they actually want from their registry. These new features will provide couples more options and flexibility when creating and updating their wish lists.

Urban Interns, the website exclusively dedicated to connecting small business owners with people seeking part-time jobs and unpaid internships, announced the launch of a new toolset of products.

Still easy-to-use and elegantly designed, Urban Interns now offers additional features to employers, designed to give greater transparency into choosing the narrow pool of candidates they’d like to connect with.

Urban Interns is also rolling out a premium listing product, with which job seekers will be able to supercharge their listing, differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and get access to career-related content and discounts that will give them an edge as they go through their job search.

Microsoft Corp. announced that more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes from Netflix Inc. are now available to watch instantly on the PC using Windows Media Center on PCs with Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate.

With Windows Media Center, consumers no longer need to jump from website to website to find the TV shows, movies, sports and news they want to watch. Windows Vista customers who are also Netflix members can simply start Windows Media Center on their PC and then select the new Netflix tile under TV+Movies to begin streaming movies and TV episodes instantly. People can also search the entire Netflix library, manage both their instant and DVD Queues, and even filter searches by titles that are available to watch instantly. Windows Media Center takes advantage of the Netflix recommended category lists to make it even easier to quickly find the movies and TV shows that consumers want to watch.

In addition to Windows Media Center users, Xbox 360 system owners already have access to watch movies and TV episodes instantly from Netflix via an Xbox LIVE Gold Membership. The offerings through both platforms allow customers to enjoy more than 12,000 movies and TV episodes.

Fashion Fantasy Game, the online game and social network for young women who are passionate about fashion, has joined the Glam Media network.

The site combines virtual fashion design and retailing with personal profiles, chat, e-mail, blogging, and contests. Developed by fashion industry veteran and successful entrepreneur Nancy Ganz, players of Fashion Fantasy Game design and sell virtual fashions in a competitive online environment that offers them a taste of what it would be like to have their own fashion businesses. Ms. Ganz is recognized for revolutionizing the intimate apparel industry with the invention of shapewear and the creation of Hipslip and the Bodyslimmers line, which she sold to Warnaco. In Fashion Fantasy Game, she combined her previous fashion and business experience to create a virtual world for style-savvy young women.

Writing community Helium announced that its writers have exceeded $1 million in total earnings. The amount, more than half of which was generated over the last six months, is a significant validation of the Helium publishing model. At present, over one thousand Helium writers have earned more than $100, and top earners have made over $5,000 in a matter of months. In addition to the rapid acceleration in earnings, the company has experienced a 70% increase in traffic to Helium.com over the last six months.

Recently named by Writer’s Digest as one of the “101 Best Websites for Writers,” Helium rewards its writers based on merit, including the number of articles purchased through the site’s Freelance Writing Marketplace, winning writing contests and achieving high ratings from fellow writers.

In addition to increasing interest on the consumer side, Helium has benefited from forming partnerships with major media companies. Last fall, the company announced an alliance with Hearst Newspapers, which is leveraging the platform to cost-effectively access premium local and lifestyle editorial content for its newspapers.

MapQuestannounced that Barnes & Noble, Inc.has selected the MapQuest Platform: Enterprise Edition to power its stores and events locator.

The company, which operates 778 bookstores in 50 states, conducts its online business through Barnes & Noble.com. The website’s Stores & Events locator page allows customers to find stores, events and events by author as well as save favorite stores to their My B&N profile.

The MapQuest Platform is a geospatial web services platform and comprehensive toolset that allows customers to build advanced mapping capabilities for a wide spectrum of web, wireless and desktop applications. With the MapQuest Platform: Enterprise Edition, customers have access to the MapQuest Platform as well as the services and support needed to develop rich, engaging mapping applications to help increase operational efficiency and improve revenue.