AT&T announced Monday that it is launching its HTC Status smartphone this week on July 17. The phone with a dedicated Facebook share button will go on sale in AT&T stores for just $50. The smartphone is mostly targeted at young consumers who spend a lot of time browsing social networking services.

Social networking leader Facebook is adding Skype video chat to its pages in a move to boost up its appeal while at the same time preparing to diminish competition from Google. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced the agreement which strengthens the relationship between Facebook and Microsoft Corp who is in the process of acquiring Skype. Zuckerberg said Facebook has hit a record 750 million users. The new service, rolling out from Wednesday, could be a huge boost for Skype, which currently has about 145 million regular users.

China is making efforts to grab a $1.2 billion stake in Facebook which would give it a significant role in the largest social networking service in the world. And that may be concerning.

Facebook is about to unveil a new feature next week, most likely in the mobile or tablet sector, said Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of the social networking giant. In a visit to Facebook's Seattle office on Wednesday, Zuckerberg told reporters that the company plans to "launch something awesome" next week. The project has been designed at the 40-person Seattle office, Facebook's only major engineering center outside of its Palo Alto, California, said Zuckerberg.

The European Commission found that only two social networking websites make profiles of young users private by default. In the course of the test of 14 social networks it was found that only Bebo and MySpace have default settings to make minors' profiles more private. The test was meant to check if the sites were complying with the E.U.'s Safer Social Networking Principles, a self-regulatory agreement that they signed up to in 2009.

Business Insider reported this week that Mike Doughty from the band Soul Coughing had encountered a reprimand from Facebook for “liking” too many birthday wishes from his friends. He was shown the following message from the social networking website:   Block! You are engaging in behavior that may be considered annoying or abusive by other users.   You have been blocked from using the like feature because you repeatedly misused this feature.

The business of a social networking giant Facebook is growing much faster than expected several months ago and according to the Wall Street Journal report the company is about to reach $2 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization in 2011. Analysts expected slower growth for Facebook when Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies invested in the social networking company. Goldman's and Digital Sky Technologies' investment was at a share price that implied a $50 billion valuation for Facebook.

In a move to recollect young forces for its reelection Barack Obama made a campaign-style visit to the social networking company Facebook. Democrats believe that the US President will need again the same forces who supported him in his elections. With his visit to Facebook headquarters Obama sought to connect to tens of millions of people who have adopted social media as a prime method of communications.

Investors of Google Inc are increasingly getting concerned over the rising expenses incurred by Larry Page, a current CEO of the Mountain View giant, in a move to boost the revenue growth. Shares of the company declined more than 5% as investors are focused on the rise in expenses to $2.84 billion. Thus, a 29% increase in net revenue lost its significance as the funds are planned to invest in increased hiring, company-wide salary raises, and in everything from marketing to technology.

The social networking company Facebook is looking to hire former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs for a senior post. Once one of President Barack Obama’s closest assistants Gibbs is to help manage communications in advance of an initial public offering planned for early next year. Gibbs, who left his White House job last month after a two-year stint, had planned to help establish Obama's 2012 re-election campaign before moving to the private sector.

European Union plans to adopt a new legislation that obligates social networking websites like Facebook and search engines like Google to keep users’ privacy and in case they fail to obey the rules these companies would face court action, European Union justice chief Viviane Reding said on Wednesday.

In its "Security Threat Report 2011" security vendor Sophos said that there is a significant gap between reports of malware coming from social networking websites and the potential threat perceived by businesses. According to the data for December 2010 malware from the social networking sites hit 40% of users, up from 21.2% in April 2009 and 36% in December of 2009. Phishing is also on the rise, reaching 43% of social networking users in December 2010, up from 21% in April 2009 and 30% in December 2009, the report says.

Evan Williams, a co-founder of the popular microblogging website Twitter, refuted speculations that the company has any plans to raise a large round of funding. Williams told an industry gathering in San Francisco on Wednesday that Twitter has "a lot of money in the bank." He declined to comment on whether the company was in discussions with investment firms about funding.

British researchers launched a study to learn how many Brits have been affected by cyberstalking. Cyberstalking includes everything starting from having your ID stolen or your reputation damaged online, to being tracked by other on social networking sites. The Electronic Communication Harassment Observation (Echo) survey was commissioned by Network for Surviving Stalking to uncover the true figures.

On weekends several reports appeared on the Internet that Facebook is developing its own mobile phone. Among others the rumor was reported by Michael Arrington at TechCrunch, who said that Facebook is working on its own mobile phone, which could conceivably compete with Apple's iPhone and Google's Android. He cited "a person who has knowledge of the project", saying two high-level Facebook employees with "deep operating system experience" are working on the project.