Among location based social networks, Foursquare is arguably the most popular so a move like what it did at the Mobile World Congress will surely be noticed and talked about.

In the said event, Foursquare not only announced that it will start using predictive technology to offer suggestions to its Foursquare members but that it will also explore new corporate partnerships as it tries to strengthen its hold on the location market. One of these new partnerships was announced in the event. FourSquare announced that it will stop using Google Maps and will instead start using OpenStreetMaps. More →

One sign of a service’s popularity is the proliferation apps related to that service. Take for example Twitter. The microblogging social service is so hugely popular that many companies have developed their own apps that will allow users to access their own Twitter accounts and read others.

But even if Twitter apps for mobile devices are very convenient to use, the whole user experience is still quite different from using Twitter in its original environment – your browser. One of the best reasons to use Twitter using your browser is the personalization you can apply to your Twitter page. If mobile devices have apps for accessing Twitter. The desktop PC also has online services that allow the user to personalize his Twitter page. More →

Zynga is very intent on strengthening its already secure position as the top provider of casual games in the world. The company, who makes highly popular games like Words With Friends, has announced that it has recently bought four different mobile game companies over the last few months.

The acquisitions Zynga made, as told to Reuters, include Gamedoctors, a German company and the maker of the hit game ZombieSmash. Zynga also said that it has bought Astro Ape Studios, a New York based company. More →

Mobile phones bring a lot of conveniences for everyone. Gone are the days when you have to desperately look around for a phone booth (you still remember those?) if you need to call someone. Mobile phones allow people to reach us wherever we are. It’s a great benefit, but also one that has become a great annoyance, as attested by anyone who has attended a dinner party and everyone’s more busy playing with their phones than talking with the people in the same room. More →

Twitter is arguably one of the biggest and most successful social networking services on the planet. The ability to microblog, be heard by potentially millions of people and find out what other people are doing, thinking or sharing – whether they’re famous or not – is a winning combination.

If you’ve been a Twitter user chances are you don’t use any of the Twitter applications for the desktop PC, mobile devices or tablets. Majority of Twitter users still use the Twitter web site to access their accounts. Anyone who’s used Twitter online knows how drab the Twitter site is. It’s a very Spartan affair. It may reflect the Twitter philosophy of “less is more” but it would be cool to actually personalize your personal Twitter page. More →

Yahoo might have scored big time with its recent deal with Zynga, the company responsible for popular Facebook games such as Farmville and Mafia Wars. The two companies have reached an agreement that will see the integration of Zynga’s social games through Yahoo’s global network.

For Zynga, this could be a viable alternative to its Facebook presence, especially since Yahoo claims of more than 600 million users worldwide across all Yahoo sites. But the question is would users be open to the idea of getting their game on via the Yahoo platform?

Most of those users who play Farmville and Mafia Wars are into these games while at the same time maintaining their social networking profiles and connections on Facebook. Most of them play these games to while away time as they wait for their friends to go online, post updates and links. In short, Zynga games on Facebook are added functionalities for a site which has social networking as the main purpose.

Comparing these to Yahoo which doesn’t have a social networking site. Users go to Yahoo to find/search for information not to socialize. So, I don’t really see these Zynga games easily fitting into the demographics of  Yahoo users.

Still, Yahoo is pretty positive that this deal would be both beneficial to both companies. Hilary Schneider, Yahoo America’s Executive Vice President tells us:

“Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates. Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users.”

And with this deal, Yahoo have finally laid down its social strategy and adds up to its previous partnership with both Facebook and Twitter. Would this finally bring some good tidings to Yahoo as a whole? That we will have to wait and see.

Sometime in November last year, LinkedIn started rolling out some Twitter integration features. If you’re one of those LinkedIn members who integrated your LinkedIn accounts with Twitter, you might also want to go deeper into these integration and install the Tweets app.

This new LinkedIn feature lets you easily find and keep track of your LinkedIn connections on both LinkedIn and Twitter. Once you’ve installed that Tweet app, you can access this from your Profile page by clicking on the “more” tab which you can find at the top of your LinkedIn profile page. Clicking on that “more” tab will display your Twitter public timeline including tweets from people you follow. From that page, you can post tweet to your account.

The new Tweet app also has a new module called – “connection to follow.” What this module does is to give you recommendations on new people to follow which are your LinkedIn contacts.

Another nice feature of the Tweet app is the “connections” category which list down your LinkedIn connections who have already installed the Tweet app. From there you can see their Twitter information, follow or unfollow them and see a sample of their last tweets.

If you’re into Twitter lists, the new LinkedIn Tweet app also lets you create a dynamic Twitter list consisting of your LinkedIn connections. This list displays tweets of your LinkedIn contacts and are updated real-time. It’s like your usual Twitter list built into your LinkedIn accounts.

Alright, enough of this blabber. If you’re into LinkedIn and Twitter, might as well integrate these two accounts.  You may install the LinkedIn Tweet app from this link.

You know MSN, right? It’s Microsoft’s equivalent of the Yahoo content network. If you’re a Microsoft fan and an Internet Explorer user, this must be your browser’s start-up page.  For the past couple of months, MSN announced that it was redesigning its homepage and so the site is finally being rolled out to U.S. MSN users.

And what does the new MSN homepage brings to the table? Here’s a quick rundown of its new features:

• It’s all about Bing – the Bing search box is now larger and is located front and center of your MSN homepage to let you search as quickly as possible. The new homepage also gives you popular topics and an increased prominence of Popular searches. There’s also a new TrendWatch feature which highlights the day’s top movers on Twitter. And finally, an increased focus on editorial programming of search-related content such as videos and images.
• MSN Local Edition – MSN also has a localized version which gives you specific information depending on your local area. The new homepage now lets you personalize MSN Local and save up to 3 cities to follow.  The new feauture also brings in HyperLocal tweets which uses Bing search to power up local tweets. And MSN Local Edition now offers 3,000 news video clips a week across 36 local markets.
• More HD videos on the homepage – in-line HD video is now being offered on the MSN homepage with minimal buffering.
• Social networking on the homepage – Check your Hotmail, Messenger, Facebook, Twitter and Windows Live accounts on the MSN homepage.

And so LinkedIn continues to improve on its site features and functionality. The popular business-oriented social networking sites has just improved on one of its most useful network-building feature called “People You May Know,” a powerful way of finding long lost business contacts as well as for building your professional identity. LinkedIn has combined this feature with another great feature called “faceted search.”

With these two useful LinkedIn features integrated, it is now easier to sort through the list of people your may know by companies and schools. You will now be able to easily page through all of your suggestions on the landing page and quickly sort through them by company or school as well as find out which connections you have in common with other LinkedIn members.

From the landing page of the filtered “People You May Know” suggestions, you can filter the results further by various ways to help you find the business contacts that you may have been looking for or possibly chanced upon somebody which you didn’t think you can reconnect to again.

To see the list of people on LinkedIn that you may know, simply click on the “See More” link on the People You May Know box on your LinkedIn profile page. From there you can start scouring through the list and hopefully gets to find contacts and continue building your LinkedIn network.

For awhile I thought Lunchwalla which we featured not so long ago was related to Gowalla. So, It was quite surprising to know that the site which lets you organize everyday social events like breakfast, lunch, dinner, movies and more has integrated with Foursquare. So this means that aside from voting in on what to do, you can now check-in when you get to the events you helped organized.

If you’re a regular Foursquare user and have also used Lunchwalla before, this integration would complement each other now. Meaning, all the check-ins you make on the events you organized or helped organized through Lunchwalla will be counted to your quest for mayorship of the place where the event was held. This is in addition to the fact that your check-in appears on your Foursquare profile which you can also display as an update to your Facebook profile. It’s like hitting three social networking sites with one check-in.

Best of all, if you’ve got hooked into Lunchwalla since we’ve featured it on this blog, you must be earning Lunchwalla points right now.  Of course, you still remember that those Lunchwalla points can earn you some schwags from participating merchants, right?

And while we’re at it, the Foursquare – Lunchwalla integration also lets you import your Foursquare friends into your Lunchwalla contacts list. So, planning events and coordinating them with your friends is now easier.

Incidentally, Lunchwalla is holding a gig right now which might earn you free tickets to see Iron Man 2. So, if you haven’t checked Lunchwalla yet, this gig might entice you to start using Lunchwalla.