Baidu retreats from China's booming microblogging market.

Microsoft researcher and Harvard Berkman Center fellow Danah Boyd didn't mince any words.

As Google+ grows in popularity--now with more than 20 million users--the new social network is triggering a number of questions with legal implications from businesses about potential policy changes, data retention issues and more, according to Joshua Kubicki, senior director of legal and corporate practices at Applied Discovery, an e-discovery provider that works with corporations preparing for and responding to legal actions.

Google's social network has elements of both Facebook and Twitter. But will that versatility be powerful or confusing?

After Google pulls invites to its social network, spammers seize the moment.

U.S. residents have significantly increased their online social-networking activities via their mobile phones, making these sites and applications one of the hottest in the mobile space, according to comScore.

Marketers in the U.S. significantly increased their spending on online display ads in the first quarter, as social networking leader Facebook served up the most impressions of this type of ad, according to comScore.

Google hopes to help users manage the increasingly large amount of social networking information they get.

While the computer industry in the 1990s thrived as corporations re-engineered business processes to incorporate IT, this decade has seen technology truly become part of mainstream culture and commerce via the Internet and ever-cheaper and smaller computing devices. Yes, the Internet revolution began in the '90s, but it was not until this decade that 14-year-olds raced ahead of professionals in figuring out how to tap social networks with hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of contacts. Here, in not-quite chronological order, are the top technology stories of the decade, selected by the IDG News Service for their singular impact on the industry as well as their emblematic status as examples of the trends that shaped the course of IT.

Social networking site Facebook has been blocked in Iran since Saturday, according to the country's opposition, as opposition voters increasingly turn to online tools like social networking to promote their candidates.

Europe's top Internet security agency, ENISA, called Tuesday for new legislation to police social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

Belatedly recognizing the importance of social networking, Google this week will unleash its strongest response yet to the rising threat and skyrocketing popularity of MySpace and Facebook.

Facebook Inc. will sell a US$240 million minority stake to Microsoft Corp., which as part of the deal will also expand the advertising services it provides to the social networking phenom, the companies said Wednesday in a statement.

Mozilla Corp.'s barebones R&D operation has unveiled a technology prototype that would add social networking features to Firefox.

A legfrissebb internetes trend a social networking, azaz olyan hálózatok, melyek baráti, ismerősi csoportokat kötnek össze. Az eddigi piacvezető MySpace, valamint a további szereplők mellé most a Microsoft is szeretne felzárkózni, sőt, jóval nagyobb tervei is vannak.