Web designers and other artists who crave a local community and critical social networking opportunities can find it online at a new site called InYoHood.com. This site is designed to connect local artists via a unique community-building platform. It allows them to post samples of their work online and build relationships with other artists in their area.

The power and benefits of live community are often lost in the social media jungle, and InYoHood.com was created to fill this gap. It gives artists the ability to share their work and inspire each other, as well as spark networking opportunities with other locals that can lead to business and collaboration opportunities. Finding local artists on the site is based on zip code, and the site creates a 50 mile radius around the zip code you enter and introduces you to artists within that specific area.

Social networking sites on the internet have previously focused on static or dynamic websites to display and share information between the users. Typically the real time information being shared is done via the written word which is typed out and shared from one user to another. Although much of the information on social networks has focused on images and text, there's now a growing trend to make social networking online more interactive via real time audio and video exchanges.

VoIP, or Voice Over Internet Protocol, has tried to make voice and video chat more accessible for internet users, as its often free or very cheap to use. As social networking consumes most of the time and attention of internet users, there's some possibility that VoIP technology may be integrated in the near future with social networking sites.

It remains for executives at major VoIP companies, such as Vice President Inder Singh who is in charge of Cisco's strategy, to take advantage of this trend. Cisco already has a large customer base of enterprises which use its VoIP services. In recent times, it has moved towards the home market for individual consumers, as demonstrated through its acquisitions of Linksys and Scientific Atlanta. Linksys had major partners such as Yahoo and Skype in order to integrate VoIP services in wireless and cordless phones in the home. Whereas Scientific Atlanta focuses on providing VoIP services to top cable providers like Cablevision and Time Warner.

Cisco is well known for providing VoIP services to business clients, and its shift towards the consumer market for VoIP remains one of its current opportunities. Combining social networking with VoIP could be an avenue for Cisco to tap into so that it cements itself as a leader in VoIP for the home. There are already a number of advantages in Ciscos VoIP telephony that could propel it into the social networking realm too. One advantage is that the company already has a range of Cisco IP Phones and TelePresence multimedia conferencing products. These products are high in quality and provide reliable communication, but they are also cost effective as they make use of internet protocol connectivity. Cisco's IP phones have a number of varied features including some wireless IP phones which are suitable for mobile workers. Some IP phones also easily connect to office PBX systems. On the otherhand, Cisco's Telepresence products raise the bar in high definition, real time voice and video conferencing, which is great for business meetings.

The relevant technology is already available, as seen in the case of Cisco's VoIP technology. There are now ample opportunities to integrate social networking with voice and video IP telephony, but we're only seeing the beginning of this integration today.

Facebook was left red-faced on Thursday after acknowledging it had hired a prominent public relations firm to draw attention to privacy practices at Internet rival Google.
The PR firm, Burson-Marsteller, said meanwhile, that it had taken on an assignment for Facebook on the condition that it will not reveal the name of its client and that it should not have done so.
Facebook's clumsy PR effort was first revealed by the website- The Daily Beast, which said Burson-Marsteller had reached out to a number of U.S. news outlets urging them to look into claims that Google was invading privacy.
Facebook, which has struggled with privacy controversies of its own, said in a statement to AFP that it had hired Burson-Marsteller but insisted that "no 'smear' campaign was authorized or intended."
Facebook said it hired Burson-Marsteller to "focus attention on this issue, using publicly available information that could be independently verified by any media organization or analyst."