San Francisco - Google (NASD: GOOG) has launched a preview of its Friend Connect service, which, like the recently announced Facebook Connect and MySpace Data Availability, will enable social media functions to be added to websites without programming knowledge, CNET News.com reported.

Palo Alto, Calif. - Online social network Facebook on Thursday introduced a number of new privacy protections intended to safeguard younger users from sexual predators and cyberbullies, the Associated Press reported.

Los Angeles - Serious Business, a developer of social media applications such as the "Friends for Sale" game on Facebook, has raised $4 million in a first round of financing from Lightspeed Venture Partners, the Inside Facebook blog reported.

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace on Thursday announced the public launch of its Application Gallery, which features more than 1,000 approved applications for the service developed using the Developer Platform the company launched in February. MySpace rival Facebook has been offering a developers' platform since last May, while Google announced its OpenSocial social media development platform in November.

Facebook has had an update feature similar to Twitter for a while. Now Facebook has a feature that lets users add feeds from other web services like Flickr and del.icio.us — just like FriendFeed. From a technology perspective, Twitter and FriendFeed are now reducable to Facebook features. Even if those two apps are currently more robust than their equivalent Facebook features, there’s nothing to stop Facebook from copying them in their entirety.

New York - Online social network Facebook is finalizing the settlement of several lawsuits with ConnectU, whose founders claim that Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for a company when they were all Harvard undergraduates, The New York Times reported. Citing a person briefed on the status of the lawsuits, The Times reports that all motions in Facebook's countersuit against ConnectU, which claim unfair business practices, have been terminated, while motions to dismiss all of the pending litigation between the companies are expected to be filed "within weeks."

Palo Alto, Calif. - Online social network Facebook this weekend quietly launched a new chat feature, which the company plans to roll out gradually to its 69 million users this week. The IM application at launch does not support third-party services like AIM, Yahoo IM or Google Talk, but the company plans to integrate members' notifications into the Chat bar, and Mini-Feed activity will also appear in IM conversations as it occurs.

Hong Kong - Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong billionaire and chairman of Hutchison Whampoa who invested $60 million in the Facebook social network back in November, has raised his investment to more than $100 million, and may sink even more of his fortune into the company, MarketWatch reported.

Leesburg, Va. - Loladex, a local search start-up founded by two former executives from AOL, said on Wednesday that it has launched its first product on social networking site Facebook. The company said that its application puts a new spin on search, helping users find local businesses based on recommendations from their friends and other sources. The service also allows people to see picks from third-party partners such as OpenTable.com and ServiceMagic.com, as well as Washingtonian magazine. The company said that it plans to release versions for other social networks in the coming months.

Following on from last week's post, Is Facebook on the decline in the UK?, I thought that this chart might be of interest. Facebook's market share of UK Internet visits last week (w/e 22 March 2008) was equal to its previous record high of 2.16% during the Christmas week (w/e 29 December 2007).

Palo Alto, Calif. - Facebook is implementing changes to its social network that will allow users to control what their friends, and friends of friends see on their profiles, Reuters reported. Members will be able to create up to 100 "friends lists," where each list is allowed different levels of access to their profile information. The company also confirmed that it will introduce a new Web-based chat feature in a couple of weeks.

Boulder, Colo. - Fuser.com on Monday introduced its application that allows MySpace users to view Facebook messages and wall photos from their MySpace page. The company said its application is one of the first 200 accepted by MySpace under its new application development platform. Fuser otherwise offers a service that lets users check all their e-mail and social networking accounts from one Web-based inbox.

Palo Alto, CA - The popular social networking site Facebook has been testing a new instant messaging service and will be launching it to the public soon, perhaps in the next week, according to TechCrunch:

The South By Southwest conferences and festivals in Austin, Texas, have already kicked off and will go on through most of this week. On Sunday the conference buzz was about a keynote interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in which the interviewer, BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy, was heckled for rambling non-questions. For those of you that are going, DMW is happy to once again bring you the hottest list of buzz bands and parties, courtesy of music publicist Fiona Bloom:

Palo Alto, Calif. - Online social network Facebook on Tuesday named former Google (NASD: GOOG) executive Sheryl Sandberg as its new COO, effective March 24. Sandberg for the past six years served as Google's vice president of global online sales and operations, building and managing the company's online sales channels for both AdWords and AdSense. At Facebook, she will attempt to scale the company's operations and expand its presence globally. Earlier in her career, Sandberg was the chief of staff to the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Clinton.