BUSINESS WIRE — June 5 — ShoZu can now deliver new Facebook posts directly to the user’s mobiles as well as allow users to change their Facebook status from the ShoZu interface. ShoZu supports photo and video communities ranging from YouTube and Flickr to Photobucket, Google Picasa, Buzznet, Hyves, Kodak EasyShare Gallery and others. Other supported sites include personal blogging sites Google Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, Vox, WordPress and MetaWeblog; online storage sites Box.net, Qipit and Ipernity; citizen-contributed news desks at CNN, the BBC, ITV, Scoopt and NowPublic; global social network Friendster; and the hit micro-blogging service Twitter. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE

CHRISTIAN NEWSWIRE — June 6 — HisHolySpace.com founder Jeff Broderick announced that he has sold the site to Christian.com Media Group and that the site would soon take on the name Christian.com. In the announcement Broderick indicates that he has also joined Christian.com Media Group and will still be helping administrate the site. FULL ARTICLE @ EARNED MEDIA

Social networking sites are on the rise in the UK and ad spending on such sites is expected to reach £285 million ($533 million) by 2012, according to eMarketer’s recently released “UK Social Network Marketing: Ad Spending and Usage” report - MarketingCharts writes.

Some 11 million people, or 30 percent of UK internet users, spent time at sites like Bebo, MySpace and Facebook, eMarketer estimates. Those three sites account for the lion’s share of users in the UK.

Though social sites account for only a tiny portion of UK online ad spending (3.4 percent in 2008), social-network ad spend will rise 77 percent this year to £115 million ($225 million), eMarketer projects. Spending in 2012 will have increased 148 percent over 2008 levels

Social networks have been part of the UK internet landscape for several years, and the UK dominates social-network spending in Western Europe with 68 percent of the market.

eMarketer expects the UK social-network market to enjoy slightly greater ad-spending percentage gains than that of the US; the UK social-network ad market trails that of the US by one to two years.

“Though social network advertising is forecast to grow aggressively this year, it will only do so if social network operators can develop substantial metrics showing the value and performance of the advertising,” said Debra Aho Williamson, author of the report.

Source:www.marketingvox.com

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Chief Executive

Steve Ballmer said Tuesday his company’s interest in Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) hinges on developments in online advertising.”The fundamental driver for us is we’re looking to accelerate our moves to get scale in online advertising,” Ballmer said.

“We do think software technology and the scale of user interactions will be an important part of the way the media and the advertising business shakes out in the future,” he added.

Ballmer predicted that the $550 billion annual advertising industry is “going to get turned on its head, basically, in the next 10 years” as media moves almost exclusively online.

Last month, Microsoft withdrew an offer to purchase Yahoo but the two companies are continuing to talk about possible partnerships.

Microsoft’s initial offer for Yahoo was $31 a share, or $44.6 billion. It boosted the bid to $33 a share before walking away when Yahoo’s co-founders

Jerry Yang and

David Filo said they wanted $37.
Ballmer spoke at the annual AeA Technology for Government Dinner.

-By

Fawn Johnson, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9263; fawn.johnson@dowjones.com