If you haven’t heard of it already, Waze is a recent up-and-coming social GPS application that has been the talk of the town in recent months. Essentially, Waze combines the traditional interface of a GPS navigation system with social networking features that allow users to share information with one another. For instance, Waze users can alert each other about speed traps, traffic jams, and other landmarks; it also helps users find the nearest, cheapest gas and can be used to locate fellow friends who also use Waze.

The reason that Waze has recently hit the spotlight is thanks to Facebook, who announced that they were planning to purchase Waze for up to $1 billion; many sources were confirming last month that the deal was essentially done and had been in the works for nearly six months as the two companies negotiated. The main issue was whether to keep Waze in Israel, where the company is primarily located, or to relocate them to the United States.

Eventually, however, the location issue became more than Facebook could handle. Reportedly, Facebook has pulled out of negotiations after Waze’s management repeatedly refused to move from Israel to the United States. Facebook has purchased two previous companies from Israel that were then moved to the United States – Snaptu and Face.com – but both of those were deals of only $50-70 million, nowhere near the billion-dollar value of Waze.

All is not necessary lost for Waze though, even after Facebook has decided to end their negotiations. Before Facebook’s billion-dollar offer, Apple had initially offered the company $400 million, though Waze declined it, believing their company to be worth more than that. It has also been said that upon the announcement that Facebook was going after Waze, Google began trying to outbid them. In any case, it likely won’t be long before this Israeli startup is snatched up and integrated into a larger corporation.

Those without a depth of knowledge regarding social media may wonder where revenue is generated from for these multi-billion dollar companies, considering the services are free for anyone to use and so many people are taking advantage of these networks. Though there are a number of ways these companies generate revenue, the simplest route is through advertisements that are made on the networks from companies and corporations that are trying to get their own names out there through social media.

With social media becoming as prevalent as it is, companies like Facebook and Twitter are trying to get a little bit more creative with the way that advertisements are targeted to their users. For instance, Facebook has recently incorporated a system known as ‘Facebook Exchange’ to the ads in Facebook’s News Feed, which allows Facebook to pull from other websites that the user has visited in the past. Moving those advertisements from the right side of the page to the News Feed itself was major for business prospects, due to the ability to more easily view these advertisements on Facebook’s ever-growing mobile presence.

More recently, Twitter has chosen to take a page from Facebook, as ads from Twitter will appear based on keywords used in a Twitter user’s tweets. Twitter had initially categorized its users based on tweets, so that someone who tweeted about coffee would be put into a ‘coffee lover’ group, but Twitter will now respond directly to certain words in recent tweets and adapt its advertisements to suit the user’s possible interests. The service will even be using ‘natural language processing’ which will allow them to prevent from offering ads for something that someone is tweeting negatively about.

Certain reports have stated that Facebook is planning for yet another step in regards to updating their advertising options. This summer, they may be releasing auto-playing video advertisements. The videos would be 15-second spots that would come with a mighty price tag, supposedly costing $1 million per day per demographic, a move which could ultimately net billions for Facebook. How users react to auto-playing video ads on their Facebook, however, might be another story entirely.

On February 1, Twitter let its users know in a blog post that the social network had been hacked and around 250,000 user accounts had had their information compromised. The hackers were reportedly able to access user names, passwords, and e-mail addresses, and those who were affected by this incident have been e-mailed by Twitter and instructed to reset their passwords to prevent any further tampering with their Twitter accounts. There had been evidence that there may had been a breach up to a week prior, but the company did not know the extent of the security snafu until the day it posted the announcement that the site had been hacked.

Considering Twitter boasts more than 200 million users, a compromise of 250,000 accounts is relatively a small percentage, but the company made sure to remind users of ways to help ensure that one’s accounts wouldn’t be compromised again in the future, such as using strong passwords, refraining from using the same password for multiple accounts, and disabling Java. The Twitter hack came only a few weeks after the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal were reportedly compromised by Chinese hackers, though Twitter did not suggest that their cyberassault was perpetrated by the same people.

Shocking social network users even further was the announcement on February 15 that stated that Facebook had been the victim of a ‘sophisticated attack’, which apparently had taken place in January when some Facebook employees visited a website that installed harmful malware on their computers. Again, the perpetrators are unknown and are not suggested to necessarily be related to the Chinese hackers that compromised the news websites or the hackers who had gotten through to Twitter. Also, unlike the Twitter hack, Facebook has reported that no user information such as e-mails or passwords was released in its attack.

With this many attacks on major websites and social networks, it’s hard not to wonder how truly secure one’s information is. Many websites have home addresses, phone numbers, and credit card information logged into databases, and clearly even the largest social networks are not immune to the effects of sophisticated hacking. While there haven’t yet been any major incidents where massive amounts of information gathered from hacked websites and social networks were stolen and abused yet, it sure seems to be that things are pointing in that direction.

Considering how much trust is given to these websites and how much potentially damaging information these sites and social networks contain, the fear of being hacked in the future might be something worth worrying about. Facebook and Twitter, however, have made statements that they are working rigorously to prevent further compromises, Facebook stating that they are working with law enforcement officials and other people in the industry to help prevent future attacks.

It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago when social networking websites like MySpace hit the scene and began to surge in increasing popularity; in 2006, MySpace was receiving more visits than Google in the United States, and in 2008, Facebook began to take over as the king of the social networks, surpassing MySpace in the amount of unique worldwide visitors. As these social networks have risen and fallen, one commonality between the majority of these networks has been connectivity with mobile phones.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of the downfalls of MySpace’s relaunching as ‘Myspace’ was that there was no working mobile app released alongside it. Neglecting the many, many people who primarily use their cell phones to access their favorite social networking websites was a fatal mistake that will likely prevent Myspace from reaching the large audience that it’s hoping for. To prove this point further, one must simply look at Facebook trends regarding mobile users.

Currently, the Facebook mobile application is the most-used mobile app in the world, beating out other widespread mobile apps such as Google Maps, YouTube, and Gmail. It’s also the mobile app that people use for the longest; according to recent information, 23% of the time people spend using mobile apps is used with Facebook. Comparatively, second place – Instagram – only uses 3% of that time. Needless to say, mobile apps are very important when it comes to social networking.

In fact, for the first time since the company’s launch, the number of active daily visitors that check Facebook using a mobile app on their cell phones (or tablets or other mobile devices) is higher than the number of people that check their Facebook accounts using a computer connected to the Internet. This is relevant for more reasons other than being displayed as an example of how cell phones and other mobile devices are changing the way we look at the Internet and the world. To Facebook (and presumably other social networks), this is especially relevant because of the potential revenue there is to be made.

Initially, in the months after Facebook’s stock went public in May 2012, the company had claimed that it wasn’t making ‘any meaningful revenue’ from its mobile apps. However, in August, Facebook updated its mobile apps to show ads to mobile users, as well as employing other advertisement methods to encourage users to ‘like’ certain pages for companies on Facebook. Since this change, mobile ad sales have accounted for 23% of Facebook’s advertising revenue, which equals about $306 million. With mobile revenue suddenly becoming very relevant, it should be interesting to see how Facebook and other social networks continue to capitalize on mobile apps in the future.

As the undisputed king of social media, it would seem like Facebook has little room for expansion in the realm of online networking. But the company continues to rollout new innovations to stay ahead of competitors, and recently Facebook has even begun to branch into other industries as well. Nobody knows for sure what the ultimate goal of Mark Zuckerberg and the team at Facebook is—aside from astronomical profits, of course—but industry insiders are now talking of a burgeoning battle between Facebook, Google and Apple for supremacy in the online marketplace and beyond.

At first blush it may not seem like these companies would be in competition with one another, but as the internet, phones, TV and other technologies are combined into a homogenous mix, it’s difficult to tell where one industry ends and another begins. One of the common grounds where all three companies thrive is advertising.

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Much of the media attention surrounding social media sites casts the industry as nefarious plotters hell-bent on peddling your personal information for financial gain. But while marketing is certainly one facet of social media, most of the sites out there have broader expectations for their company than simply turning a profit. During the week of September 20, leaders from aroundthe globe will descend on New York to take part in United Nations Week. Andin an effort to expand the effectiveness of this event, Mashable.com, CNN and several other leaders in the online community will be coordinating their own Social Good Summit, serving as a round-table for discussion on how social media and networks can be utilized to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

In the true spirit of social media, speakers at the event will participate both in person and through video calls on Skype. Among the leading speakers are Chris Hughes, the co-found of Facebook and media tycoon Ted Turner. The event will also be open to any andall who wish to attend, as users will be able to interact online while the Summit is taking place.

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For the last several years, Apple has been a trailblazer when it comes to computers and music players, but the company has recently announced several plans to expand the breadth of their products and services. Earlier this week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled a slew of new software, programs and devices that will be yet another step in the company’s efforts to dabble in all forms of media.

One of the headline innovations is Ping, a social network for music fans that has been integrated into the latest version of iTunes. Much like Twitter, Ping users will be able to follow friends to find out which artists and songs they’re listening to. The new social network will also allow users to receive breaking news from their favorite bands and receive the most up-to-date concert listings. In the same vein as the Genius feature, which was introduced a couple of years ago, Ping will work to help users discover new music that is catered to their tastes.

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Now that details of the potential deal between Google and Verizon have been made public, it doesn’t appear to be the diabolical plan that many made it out to be. But it still has great significance for the ongoing debate on net neutrality. On Monday morning, Google laid out the details of the proposal in a post on their Public Policy Blog.

According to Google, the purpose of the proposal is “to protect the future openness of the internet and encourage the rapid deployment of broadband.” Since both of the companies are monoliths in their respective industries, their proposal for an “open internet” is sure to spark some serious debate. Although the proposal is extensive and complex, you can understand the gist by looking at the companies’ two stated goals:

• Users should choose what content, applications, or devices they use, since openness has been central to the explosive innovation that has made the Internet a transformative medium.
• America must continue to encourage both investment and innovation to support the underlying broadband infrastructure; it is imperative for our global competitiveness.

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One of the most amazing aspects of the internet is that, by and large, all traffic and content is treated equally. This concept is known as net neutrality, and it governs intent usage in the US. Frankly, it’s somewhat baffling that the US government and large corporations haven’t been successful in garnering more power over what takes place on the internet, but courts have been reluctant to rule in favor of regulation. But according to a report today in The New York Times, Google and Verizon have a deal in the pipeline that could change net neutrality as we know it.

The Times reports that Google and Verizon are finalizing a deal to institute a tiered service model, which would allow Verizon to stream content from some companies more quickly—for a price of course. This would allow large sites, those that need lightening-fast speed like Facebook, YouTube, to receive priority treatment. If the deal takes place, it has the potential to lead to higher service costs for internet users.

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It’s an inescapable fact of modern business that the public’s impression of your company will be shaped in large part by what they find about you on the search engines, particularly if you are a small business. A couple of negative reviews or a few people venting on a Ripoff Report can deter customers from your business for months or even years to come. Up until recently, many of the channels for voicing your opinion were catered to the consumer, but Google is looking to even the playing field for those on the business side of things.

This problem has been an acute concern for locally based businesses in particular—such as restaurants and service companies—that pop up in a section of Google Maps known as Place Pages. Essentially, this works as an online directory, complete with directions, reviews and details about the company. Traditionally, customers have been able to post reviews and comments at will, but there has never been a formal avenue for a response from the company. Google recently announced that businesses will be able to respond to these comments, offering an opportunity to manage their public image.

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