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Social networking has a dark side for a younger audience.

NEW allegations of sexual predators raping and abusing minors found on social networks raise an elemental question: can any such service be made safe for kids?

This week, The New York Times reported that three under-age users of the San Francisco dating app Skout were allegedly sexually assaulted by adult men in recent weeks.

Skout added its teen-only section last year after realising that kids were using the app, the Times reported. It included additional safeguards, including parental controls, but clearly it wasn't enough. The incidents suggest a dating service for teens is tantamount to a honey pot for paedophiles, whatever the precautions.

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On Tuesday, Britain's Channel Four posted a scathing report on Habbo Hotel, a children's game site owned by Finnish company Sulake. A producer for the station posing as a young girl said users immediately tried to steer her onto webcams and urged her to strip.

More troubling, the station found that two paedophiles had been convicted for ''sexually abusing dozens of kids who they befriended'' on Habbo. One was jailed for seven years after persuading children to expose themselves on webcams in exchange for gifts. He then used those images to blackmail them into committing additional sexual acts on camera.

Predators have long used the internet to find young victims, but online safety experts say social networks and mobile apps that roughly indicate the location of users simplify the task.

''It just makes it easier for the predator to make contact, to be undetected by law enforcement and to get information,'' said Donna Rice Hughes, chief executive of Enough is Enough, which offers parents information about keeping children safe online. James Steyer, chief executive of California's Common Sense Media stressed that the lesson applies to Facebook, too. The Menlo Park social-networking giant has steadily dropped its age requirements and recently acknowledged exploring ways to make its network available to children under 13.

''They don't understand this market well enough to create an age-appropriate experience, nor can they provide the protections that teens and children need,'' Steyer said.

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Stalkers casting an evil net for children

At first, social networking was a novelty, a fun thing you did for your social life.

Then businesses came on board, seeing how everything from Facebook-like interactivity to Twitter-y updates could help get their messages out.

Now, social networking has become so much the norm that businesses are trying to figure out how best to use it within their own companies and networks to drive results.

Indeed, social networking for businesses is seen as a next big thing.

"It's going to be something like email that's going to be ubiquitous and that people are going to expect to use in combination with a lot of different applications," said Rob Helm, an analyst with the independent research firm Directions on Microsoft.

Look no further than Yammer, a San Francisco-based company that offers social-networking and content-collaboration tools for businesses. It's one of several such companies, including Jive and Socialtext.

Microsoft is reportedly in talks to acquire Yammer for $1.2 billion, according to several media accounts.

Microsoft declined to comment and Yammer did as well.

Though seen as a next big thing, Microsoft "has missed the market" in terms of providing easy-to-use Facebook-like features as part of its business-collaboration offerings, said Kevin Conroy, president of Blue Rooster, a Seattle-based tech and consulting firm that specializes in building collaborative social-business websites for corporations.

Collaborative tool

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Yammer acquisition would boost Microsoft's social-business tools

LONDON--(Marketwire -06/15/12)- New research by mobile interaction specialist tyntec has found that 66 percent of UK mobile phone users aged between 16-24 access Facebook, Twitter and other social networks at least daily via mobile, as opposed to just 37 percent of Americans in the same age bracket. The results, from a survey of 2,000 UK and US mobile users, show the so-called 'millennial' demographic in the UK to be more advanced when it comes to using emerging cloud-based mobile services.

According to the survey conducted by YouGov, UK users are the heaviest users of social networks via mobile devices. 15 percent say that they use these platforms on smartphones more than five times a day, compared with eight percent of Americans. Regardless of nationality, all users named SMS as the most-used smartphone feature besides voice calls, outpacing apps and mobile email.

Untapped potential for messaging services such as WhatsAppThe study also revealed an untapped potential for OTT (over-the-top) messaging services such as WhatsApp, with 27 percent of UK and 40 percent of US millennial consumers unaware that such applications even exist. A high proportion of the younger UK (52 percent) and US (61 percent) users were also interested in having SMS integrated into social networks.

The 2012 YouGov survey, sponsored by tyntec, quizzed more than 2,000 UK and US respondents across various regions about SMS adoption, smartphone usage, mobile social networking and free/low cost calling and SMS alternatives.

tyntec CEO Michael Kowalzik said, "It is interesting to note that for both UK and US users the results show that a good proportion would use SMS if integrated into social networks. This indicates a trust level and familiarity with SMS which presents huge opportunities for Internet players and operators alike."

SMS offers huge opportunities for Internet players and operatorstyntec's tt.One solution allows carriers and Internet companies to deploy OTT services quickly and easily, allowing both to capitalise on new revenue streams. The solution bridges the telecoms and web worlds with mobile phone numbers, enabling seamless communication with SMS and voice across several platforms, systems and apps.

For further survey figures please click here.

About tyntec

tyntec is a mobile interaction specialist, enabling businesses to integrate mobile services for a wide range of uses -- from mission-critical applications to internet services. We reduce the complexity involved in accessing the closed and complex telecoms world by providing a high quality, easy-to-integrate and global offering using universal services such as SMS, voice and numbers. Our products serve a broad range of business requirements are all backed up by an advanced and reliable infrastructure. Founded in 2002, and with more than 150 staff in five offices around the globe, tyntec works with 500+ businesses including mobile service providers, enterprises and internet companies. tyntec is a global mobile interaction service provider, offering high-quality mobile messaging and information services to mobile network operators, enterprises, mobile service providers and internet companies.

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Pan-Atlantic Survey Finds UK Youngsters Embrace Mobile Social Networking More Than US Counterparts

While much attention overseas has been focused on the ups and downs (mostly downs) of Facebook's recent initial public offering, the Japanese media have been subjecting online gaming and social networks to increasingly critical scrutiny. The issues raised range from complaints over lax privacy safeguards and exploitation of minors by predatory businesses to reputed ties to organized crime.

"I don't wanna become a Facebook fool," rants Michiyuki Shimizu in Sapio (June 27). The freelance writer cites Facebook's growing reputation as a home wrecker. It seems a survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that 81 percent of attorneys questioned replied that in divorce cases they had handled over the past decade, text messages sent via social-media sites were submitted as a source of evidence, with the trend accelerating over the past five years. (In another survey in the U.K., a review of divorce claims showed that in 5,000 cases, references to Facebook appeared in 33 percent.)

When such a trend becomes conspicuous in other countries, Japan is seldom far behind. Shimizu cites the unhappy tale of a 40-year-old Osaka doctor who was moved to engage an investigative agency when he noticed his spouse appeared suspiciously enthusiastic over Facebook. A computer-savvy private eye managed to hack into her account (her password was her own birthday) and found amorous exchanges between the wife and a female physician. One read, "Let's both dump our hubbies so we can be together." Further probing determined the two women were also engaging in clandestine romantic trysts. Data captured off the screens were submitted as evidence in the divorce suit.

"What really makes Facebook so frightening," writes Shimizu, "is how it blurs the boundaries between public and private. You might disclose something about your company to an intimate friend; that raises the possibility it will be spread to a 'friend of a friend.' "

Yu Arai, a researcher on cyber security, is quoted as saying it's becoming a common practice of industrial spies to tap into SNS relationships as a means of uncovering corporate secrets.

The May 25 issues of Shukan Asahi and Nikkan Gendai both scrutinized the social networking site called "Ameba Pigg," whose users some 1.4 million of whom are estimated to be under age 15 assume the guise of cute little avatars. The avatars hang out in a virtual Shibuya and Roppongi and suavely attired males can befriend females, inviting them to accompany them to a notorious subsite called Pigg H, where private rooms are furnished with beds presumably for a session of cybersex.

Apparently some of the girls enticed to go along by offers of gifts are minors masquerading as adults, so we may be looking at a new form of virtual enjo kosai (teen prostitution). Nor is it entirely safe because it's confined to online. As IT journalist Toshiyuki Inoue explains, "Once the participants become friendly, they can exchange email addresses under their real names and possibly even meet in person."

Complaints over minors running up high charges for online gaming has led the major players in the industry, including such companies as Gree and Mobage (DeNA), to adopt self-imposed restrictions designed to discourage access by minors.

As potentially traumatic as addiction may be for the younger generation, Nikkan Gendai (June 12) notes that even middle-aged salarymen can become hooked on SNSs, which can lead to serious depression.

"The first sign of trouble is insomnia," says psychiatrist Joji Suzuki. "We need to watch out in particular for people who can't walk someplace without constantly checking their smartphone, or who constantly interrupt whatever they're doing to check their phone."

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Social networking, online games in Japan media's sights

(MoneyWatch) Microsoft (MSFT) has agreed to acquire enterprise social networking company Yammer for $1.2 billion, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The move extends Microsoft's reach into corporate information technology and lets it compete more thoroughly against Google (GOOG) by bolstering its cloud computing offerings.

Yammer is one of a group of start-ups that has targeted so-called enterprise social networking, like a combination of Twitter and Facebook aimed at private use by companies. Such technology allows employees to keep abreast of each other's activities, which should promote collaboration and innovation. The only company in this space with an even higher profile is Jive Software, which had $77.3 million in revenue during 2011 and a net loss of $50.8 million.

Yammer raised an $85 million round of funding last quarter, bringing its total to $142 million since 2009. That set an estimated valuation of $500 million to $600 million, so those recent investors will roughly double their money.

[Update: According to information that MoneyWatch received from private company financial analyst firm PrivCo, Yammer's estimated revenue in 2010 was $10 million and $30 million in 2011, which means a year-over-year growth of 200 percent. That would make the deal worth 40 times its 2011 revenue.]

The company claimed 5 million corporate users in the first quarter of 2012 and penetration into more than 85 percent of the Fortune 500. Although the bulk of these users are unpaid, Yammer uses an interesting monetization model.

It allows people within a company to set up a private social network for free. But a company must pay for administrative control over employee use. By encouraging free use, Yammer hoped to create a grassroots movement in companies, build a dependency of usefulness, and eventually encourage revenue streams using a number of pricing models.

One of the company's strategic strengths has been its decision to create an open application programming interface, or API. That allows others to create additional and extensions, like integration into SAP's popular ERP software for running large organizations. In April it announced integration with Microsoft Dynamics, the software giant's customer relationship management platform.

The acquisition adds some important capabilities to Microsoft's software portfolio. The company already has a major collaboration platform in its SharePoint product, but many companies don't make thorough use of it. Yammer gives Microsoft a way to build collaboration and communication and extend its reach. Microsoft could then add administrative and other features to its existing software packages.

Yammer also brings Microsoft some important competitive advantages in cloud computing. It could help extend the capabilities of the cloud versions of Microsoft Office and make its offerings more attractive to companies that otherwise might consider Google's cloud applications and its Google+ social network.

The acquisition could help improve the lot of social network and Internet companies, which have felt a sting in the investment market since the problems of the Facebook (FB) IPO.

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Microsoft buys Yammer for $1.2 billion