INSIDE FACEBOOK — In the frozen void of space, a now derelict mining vessel has had a communications failure. Unfortunately, for engineer Isaac Clarke, the USG Ishimura isn’t quite so derelict after all, as its inhabitants are now the skittering, the lumbering, and the grotesque horrors that hail from the deepest corners of the galaxy. This, of course, is the basic premise behind the sci-fi, survival horror game, Dead Space from Electronic Arts’ studio, Visceral Games. As a popular title among the horror genre, the folks over at Visceral are looking to make the next one even better, as they work to spark up some buzz for their next deep space adventure...

SOCIAL MEDIA EXAMINER — Let’s face it, LinkedIn is a very underutilized social media network. Most people believe that it’s too hard to make connections, and therefore use it more as a résumé site. There is so much more potential with this professional social media network. How many of us have created a LinkedIn account and left it dormant for months? It was my goal recently to attend more LinkedIn webinars and teleseminars to learn more about this mysterious network. I have often thought to myself, "I’m a professional. Why am I not utilizing this site?" I’ve even heard LinkedIn referred to as the "red-headed stepchild" of social media. Here are some interesting facts that I learned about this often misunderstood network...

INSIDE FACEBOOK — RockYou has been running advertising for other applications on Facebook and social networks for years, but the social application developer is increasing its effort in this direction. It’s launching a monetization platform that includes its existing advertising and offers features, along with virtual currency options, local advertising, and more...

THE SOCIAL TIMES — Recently, we noticed that RockYou had been promoting it’s ZooWorld application by using graphic ads on the Meebo chat service. This is certainly another sign of the growth of Facebook games, not only in reach, but in value to advertisers, as they pay to make placements on disparate networks or in this case, chat aggregators. We investigate how other game companies are attracting users to their Facebook games from outside of Facebook...

ALL FACEBOOK — Microsoft gained over 400,000 Facebook fans on their Bing fan page yesterday thanks to a single advertisement in FarmVille. The fan page, which grew by five times in size from around 100,000 users to now above 500,000 users, was part of a promotion by Bing, where Farmville users could gain virtual currency by becoming a fan of the Bing Facebook page. The ad was a clever integration, and users could join the Bing page without interrupting their game...