San Francisco - Facebook has suspended third party developer Slide's "Top Friends" application, after an independent programmer found a way to exploit the application so that anyone could view the birthdays, gender and relationship status of any Facebook user, as well as who is in their list of Top Friends, CNET News.com reported. The "Super Wall" application, developed by RockYou, was also found to have a similar exploit, but has already been fixed by Facebook. Before the Top Friends application was suspended, CNET was able to use the exploit on profiles of several Facebook executives, the wife of Google co-founder Larry Page, and one seemingly belonging to Paris Hilton.

Los Angeles - Coldplay's new album "Viva la Vida or Death And All His Friends" sold 288,000 digital copies in its first week in the U.S., some 275,000 of which are thought to have been sold at Apple's (NASD: AAPL) iTunes Store -- breaking the retailer's pre-sale and first-week sales records, Digital Music News reported. Nearly 40% of the 721,000 total albums sold were digital copies.

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace announced on Thursday that it partnered with NBC News (NYSE: GE) and MSNBC.com for a "Decision '08 Convention Contest," which will award two citizen journalists credentials to attend the Republican or Democratic National Conventions in the fall. Five finalists will be chosen by a panel of judges from the organizers based on their two-minute video submission answers to the questions: "Why do you vote?"; "Why are you the best person for this job?"; and "How will you stand out in the crowd and get the scoop no one else can?"

New York - Rolling Stone recently posted an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, and reports that his iPod contains songs from artists including Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Elton John, Earth, Wind and Fire, Jay-Z, Howlin' Wolf, Yo-Yo Ma and Sheryl Crow. "If I had one musical hero, it would have to be Stevie Wonder," Obama told RS. "When I was at that point where you start getting involved in music, Stevie had that run with "Music of My Mind," "Talking Book," "Fulfillingness' First Finale" and "Innervisions," and then "Songs in the Key of Life." Those are as brilliant a set of five albums as we've ever seen."

San Francisco - In his latest effort to control use of his music and likeness on the Internet, recording artist Prince has served a lawsuit on the creators of a 81-track cover song tribute compilation -- made in honor of Prince's 50th birthday on June 7 -- and demanded that all copies be destroyed, The Daily Swarm reported, citing the Norwegian daily Dagbladet.

New York - XM Satellite Radio (NASD: XMSR) announced on Thursday that it has settled a lawsuit brought by EMI Music Publishing over the Pioneer Inno, a portable satellite radio with advanced recording features.

Ithaca, N.Y. - Instinctiv, the developer of an application for Apple's iPhone that recommends songs from a user's own library for listening, has raised $750,000 in seed funding from backers including Cayuga Venture Fund, Rosetech Ventures and a group of strategic angel investors.

San Francisco - RateItAll, a distributed consumer rating Web application that lets users, find, share and solicit opinions on any topic, has raised an undisclosed sum of funding from investors including Accelerator Ventures, JAIC America, Pacific I&T Ventures and Eric Di Benedetto.

Marietta, Ga. - Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) has acquired Marietta, Ga.-based Fabric.com, an online fabric store offering custom measured and cut fabrics, as well as patterns, sewing tools and accessories.

West Hollywood, Calif. - IAC's (NASD: IACI) Ticketmaster announced on Thursday that it has won a default judgment and permanent injunction against RMG Technologies, a company it said was offering software that allowed ticket brokers to improperly access its site.

Mountain View, Calif. - Completing a nearly year-long search, Google (NASD: GOOG) has named Bell Canada executive Patrick Pichette to become its new senior vice president and CFO.

New York - Vitrue, an Atlanta-based provider of social media marketing technology, has acquired UGENmedia, a New York-based social media marketer.

I noticed Michael Arrington's post on Facebook shutting down a Slide.com application and checked Hitwise data to compare Facebook and MySpace clickstream data in particular to Photography websites. The differences are interesting and highlight different interests of users as well as a different profile of user. Facebook sends far less traffic to Photography websites than does MySpace. Last week, 0.67% of downstream visits from Facebook went to Photography websites compared to 4.26% from MySpace.

The CBI has issued a report claiming that clothing retailers have just experienced their worst month for quarter of a century. I can only assume that this fall in sales must be down to an underperforming high street, because the online fashion industry is booming. Our Apparel and Accessories category is currently the fourth largest retail sub sector (behind Auctions, Department Stores, and Rewards and Directories), accounting for almost 1 in every 10 UK Internet visits to an online retailer.