West Nassau High School remained in a heightened state of security Monday after a 17-year-old student allegedly threatened on a Web site to come to school Friday and shoot fellow students. Three West Nassau students reported to high school personnel Thursday that another student’s MySpace Web site included the threat. School administrators contacted the Sheriff’s Office and the student was arrested that night. (more…)

MySpace and TMZ are set to launch a branded channel Wednesday on the social networking site’s TV page. TMZ will contribute two or three clips per week to MySpace TV that have already aired on the celebrity news site’s syndicated Warner Bros. TV program. These videos will be found online exclusively on MySpace for 24 hours after the airing. (more…)

MySpace, the popular social networking portal, is looking to start an online music venture. Called “MySpace Music,” the portal is already talking to major labels getting feedback and testing waters. According to the Associated Press and Reuters, News Corp., the parent to the social networking site, is talking to Universal, Sony, EMI, and Warner. Citing unnamed sources, the AP said that News Corp. is looking to provide a single source for streaming music and downloads. (more…)

The FBI is questioning a high school student for a computer post threatening gunfire on campus. The 15-year-old student who had this warning on his MySpace page has been suspended, but he could be expelled following the investigation. The staff at Dr. Phillips High School took the threat very seriously. Some students showed little concern, but others were scared. (more…)

Instead of going without meat or sweets for Lent, some young Christians are suppressing their appetite for the Internet, forgoing social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and instant-messaging programs for 40 days and 40 nights. For today’s tech-savvy teens and college students, breaking their online habits is a way to make a sacrifice during a season when churches encourage prayer and fasting. (more…)

Thanks to social networking, the world communicates more now that it ever has. People engage in conversations that span the globe, start long-term relationships that never consummate in any way, and live in neat little video-enhanced digital communities that lack borders. Sounds great — on the surface. But what hath social networking actually wrought? Are those of us who engage in it smarter, wiser, better connected? Or are we trading down in our interpersonal communications because speaking face to face can become … well, you know, so messy. (more…)

AOL, the American internet company, is attempting to piece together a deal with Yahoo! designed to help the Silicon Valley-based search engine evade the clutches of Microsoft, the world’s biggest software group. AOL, which is owned by Time Warner, is understood to have held discussions with Yahoo!’s advisers in recent days to see if an agreement between the two sides is workable. AOL’s determination to present itself as the most attractive of the white knights available to Yahoo! follows the formal rejection last week of Microsoft’s $31-a-share offer for Yahoo!. The Microsoft bid valued Yahoo! at more than $42bn, sparking what will be one of the world’s biggest takeover battles this year. (more…)

In one of the first rulings of its kind, a Staten Island judge has said that a teenage girl could be charged with violating a restraining order by using MySpace.com to reach out to people she was told not to contact. (more…)

The new site won’t win any awards for innovation, indeed it looks like a < $100 template buy from Digitalpoint, but ultimately that doesn't make a difference. Casual flash gaming combined with a youngish user base in the millions makes this a no-brainer in terms of going to be a success for MySpace. The only question is whether it will cut into similar sites that also offer flash gaming. It's certainly not in Kongregate territory yet, but there are plenty of smaller players with very similar looking sites and games. (Having said that, the first game offered on the site is Desktop Tower Defense, so maybe it is slightly higher up the tree). (more…)

News Corp., the media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch, reported higher second-quarter profit and raised its annual forecast, citing growth from Fox TV channels and the MySpace Web site. Net income rose 1.2 percent to $832 million, or 27 cents a share, from $822 million, or 26 cents, a year earlier. Revenue increased 9.5 percent to $8.59 billion in the period ended Dec. 31, the company said today in a statement. Sales beat the $8.28 billion average of 15 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. (more…)