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AOL Reviewing Assets, Will Likely Keep Bebo AOL, which is in the process of being spun off from Time Warner, is reviewing assets it could sell or divest, but will likely keep its social networking site Bebo, CEO Tim Armstrong said. Murdoch Not Interested in Twitter and Won't Sell MySpace News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch says his company is not interested in buying messaging site Twitter since there is no way for the site to make money. At the same time, Murdoch says he does not plan on selling social network site MySpace. Facebook Gets Big Numbers in Coverage of Jackson Memorial Facebook, which claims to have more than 200 million users, played a central role in interactive Web communications during the event at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The social networking site reported some impressive traffic-related statistics shortly after the 2-hour-long event ended. OffiSync to Celebrate Google Docs-Microsoft Office Wedding in the Enterprise The OffiSync plug-in, which marries Google Apps, Docs and search engine functionality with Microsoft Office documents, is coming to enterprise users. For $10 per user, per year, businesses will be able to bring Microsoft Office documents into the cloud, saving them for collaboration in Google Apps. The tool comes as vendors grapple with how to expose more on-premises users to cloud computing. Google Apps Exits Beta, Poaches Fairchild Semiconductor from IBM Google Gmail, Docs, Calendar and Talk exit beta for Google Apps, potentially removing a major barrier to the adoption of Google Apps in the enterprise as a messaging and collaboration platform. Also, Fairchild Semiconductor dumps Lotus Notes for Google Apps. With these moves, Google hopes more business customers will choose its pay-for GAPE service over suites from Microsoft, IBM, Cisco and others. Facebook Will Make $500M Revenue in 2009, Says Andreessen Facebook will generate $500 million in revenue in 2009, says Netscape founder Marc Andreessen, who serves on the social networking site's board. With its growing base of 225 million users, Facebook has publicly suggested that its primary focus will be on expanding its community as opposed to figuring out the most ideal models for revenue generation. Andreessen also says he believes that Facebook has the potential to generate billions of dollars in revenue in coming years. Google Apps Opens Up Contacts to Socialize the Enterprise Google makes it easier for users to find contacts within an enterprise, a move that mirrors some of the functionality in existing enterprise social software providers such as IBM, Socialtext and Jive. In-box socialization is table stakes for software makers that want to appeal to new enterprise customers by making it easier for workers to find company colleagues. Cisco Takes a Page from Twitter to Compete in Collaboration Cisco Systems is close to integrating its Jabber instant messaging and collaboration tool into its WebEx Connect SAAS suite. The networking giant is also considering adding a Twitter-like status update tool to the cloud computing suite. Cisco aims to better compete with Microsoft, IBM and Google in the collaboration software space. Zoho Adds Twitter Feature, Visualization Tool to Zoho Projects 2.0 Zoho Projects 2.0 adds messaging and collaboration functionality to the project management suite. The suite is a cloud computing package delivered via the Internet, competing with software from Microsoft, Intuit and startups such as LiquidPlanner and Clarizen at a time when managing projects online has become a popular practice. Google Fixes Glitches in Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook Plug-in Google reports it has fixed its broken Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook plug-in, a messaging and collaboration software module geared to let Microsoft users access their Gmail e-mail, contacts and calendar content through Outlook. The move is a bid to get customers of enterprise applications off of their Exchange servers and stored in Google's cloud computing environment. Wales Denies Censoring Wikipedia over Journalist Rohde's Kidnapping Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales defends the removal of information from Wikipedia to protect The New York Times journalist David Rohde, who was captured by the Taliban last November. One Internet and media expert says the act of censorship may undermine the crowd-sourcing site's credibility. What side of the fence are you on? Colligo Brings File, E-Mail Management to Microsoft SharePoint Colligo Networks, which specializes in making IBM Lotus Notes and Microsoft SharePoint messaging and collaboration suites more efficient, releases Contributor for SharePoint 4.0 with two new applications, one for file management and one for bringing Microsoft Outlook data into SharePoint. Colligo aims to make SharePoint more usable to help Microsoft compete with IBM, Google and Zoho. Michael Jackson's Death Causes Web Traffic Surge Twitter, Facebook, AIM and a number of news sites all experienced slowdowns or loss of certain services as they wrestled with increased online traffic following reports of Michael Jackson’s death on June 25. At its peak, some 3.5 million people in North America were visiting news sites every minute, an astounding number but not enough to take the number-one spot in that category, occupied by Barack Obama's election. White Supremacist Blogger Arrested Federal and state officials claim Internet talk show host and blogger Hal Turner's threatening posts pass beyond the protection of the First Amendment right to free speech. Top U.S. Executives Snub Facebook, Blogs The heads of the top U.S. companies might be engaged in the boardroom, but they're switched off when it comes to social media, according to a new study that said CEOs should be more connected to their customers. How to Help Users Connect with Unified Communications Today's busy IT professionals are burdened by the demands of doing more with less, which is a common impetus for them to champion unified communications across the enterprise. Unified communications can maximize an enterprise's existing infrastructure and communications investments. And, as Knowledge Center contributor Gunjan Bhow explains here, unified communications can also help enterprises save money and valuable IT support resources. Socialtext Responds to Crummy Economy with Freemium Wiki Service Socialtext Free 50 is a free messaging and collaboration option for enterprise users. The mew tool is designed to lure more users to wiki provider Socialtext's enterprise application and keep them from IBM, Jive and MindTouch at a time when companies are struggling to keep costs low. Socialtext also rolls out a public beta of its SocialCalc spreadsheet and boosts Signals, its take on the Twitter microblogging tool. Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint Plug-in Links SAAS, On-Premises Apps Zoho, a maker of SAAS messaging and collaboration and enterprise applications, unveils Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint to let Zoho Office users create documents and save them to SharePoint. The plug-in is Zoho's latest bid to create bridges between SAAS and the on-premises world as the AdventNet subsidiary competes with cloud computing providers Google and Salesforce.com and desktop application providers Oracle and Microsoft. IBM Touts LotusLive Connections Social Cloud at Enterprise 2.0 IBM unveils LotusLive Connections, the SAAS version of its social networking and collaboration suite for businesses, at the Enterprise 2.0 show in Boston. The IBM-hosted service will let employees work on projects together, including share data from enterprise applications. IBM is one of a number of vendors, including Microsoft, Google and startups such as Socialcast and MindTouch, tolling the bell for cloud computing collaboration. Video Software Maker Veodia Buys ScreenToaster Veodia buys video software startup ScreenToaster, whose Web browser-based application lets consumers & burn& or capture Web screens with audio for playback through Adobe Flash media players. Veodia is competing with Google, Cisco and several other vendors offering video capabilities for the Internet.