A few genius University of Washington students created a new social networking application called Friendbo, and for once, this is an app you might find useful: it password-protects certain user-defined groups of photos using security questions you invent. This means you won't have to worry about potential new bosses examining last weekend's party pics on Myspace or Facebook, but you can still post them for your friends to see--as long as your friends know what you want to name your next dog, or what have you. Alternatively, you could use annoying riddles or Mensa questions. File under "Ways To Alienate People, Perhaps Intentionally." more ›

Zondervan, "a world leader in Christian communications," says it's just bought Mars Hill's social-networking, community-building software The City (we prefer "Christbook"), which was the brainchild of ex-Amazonian Zack Hubert. Now Zondervan will roll the software out to online churched-up types all over, hoping to recreate the Mars Hill experience: "Mars Hill launched The City earlier this year to create a dynamic, engaging interactive online community for its more than 7,000 members. Within two months of launch more than 85% of the church's members had signed up and more than 75% visit the site every single day." That daily Bible reading plan must be a doozy. more ›

The P-I's John Cook reports that Amazon has bought Shelfari. Shelfari is reporting its purchase, too, so it must be true. Wonder if Amazon gets free shipping when it buys an HQ? more ›

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Today John Cook mentioned a new, locally based social networking site in his Venture Blog: ListenToYourWife.com. Howard Ro, the husband in the husband-and-wife team behind the site, explains: Ro, an IT consultant, says that many married women feel as if they are not "being heard." "It's not due to abuse or neglect, but just due to the nature of male dominance in a marriage," he said. "We wanted to create a forum for wives to... more ›

In anticipation of French house DJs Daft Punk's show at WaMu Theatre this Sunday, head to Lower Level at the Capitol Hill Arts Center tonight for a screening of the first film directed by the electro duo: more ›

He's not raking muck for any paper publications currently, but ex-Seattle Weekly all-star Philip Dawdy is still managing to rouse the rabble on the internet. He got noticed by Reddit.com this week after making the jump from reporting to editorializing and dissing Google, MySpace, "Web 2.0" and blogs from, uh, his blog. more ›

--"Who's at the door, honey?" "The Sonics!" "Uh, tell them I gave at the office." more ›

Founder of the social networking news site Newsvine and Seattle resident Mike Davidson got an email from Moda Condominiums last week. Not too big a deal, especially considering he'd given their website his email address for the specific purpose of sending him updates on availability. However, the CC field contained the email addresses of all 1086 recipients. more ›

Today's PI has an article about a new social networking site founded by a couple of ex-Real employees. Shelfari is a place to show off and discuss your favorite books. Founded by former RealNetworks employees Josh Hug and Kevin Beukelman, the three-person company plans today to unveil a Web site that allows people to list book titles, write reviews, recommend books to friends and find like-minded bibliophiles. Shelfari plans to make money by passing leads... more ›

Oh, the kids sure do love their internets. Especially the social networking sites, which are completely youth-driven. With MySpace being the 4th most-visited site in America and the 7th most-visited site in the world, somebody's gotta capitalize on this movement. Somebody besides all the shitty bands who send you random friend requests. Somebody like Train of Thought. more ›

Where do you go to find yummy links? Seattlest goes all over the place, but some of the yummiest links are found at del.icio.us. Huh? What's that? Read on: more ›