A small but vocal minority on Flickr are already staging online protests at the prospect of a Microsoft takeover. Flickr is one of several popular Web 2.0 websites owned by Yahoo that loyal users fear will suffer under Microsoft ownership.

As soon as the news hit the wires that Microsoft is proposing a $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo, Flickr users began posting anti-Microsoft images, satirical "Flickr Live" logos and announcing they will abandon Flickr if it falls into Microsoft hands, fearing such a move would mark the beginning of the end.

"Well then, I'm outta here!" announced one Flickr user who goes by the name Judland.

While Microsoft has established its dominance on the desktop, its web properties lag behind those of Yahoo and others.

When it comes to building or acquiring hip, community-focused websites, Microsoft has fumbled where Yahoo has thrived. Last year, Microsoft tried its hand at a community site to compete with Flickr by adding photo-sharing capability to its Windows Live web service. But Windows Live Spaces doesn't have the cutting-edge user interface or the Web 2.0 cache that Flickr has. It also doesn't have the closely-knit community of passionate users that makes Flickr so successful.

Our social networking services compete with a wide variety of social networking Web sites, including broad social networking Web sites such as MySpace and Facebook; a number of specialty Web sites, including LinkedIn, Reunion.com and Monster.com's Military.com service, that offer similar online social networking services based on school, work or military communities; and an increasing number of schools, employers and associations that maintain their own Internet-based alumni information services.

"StumbleUpon is a great fit within our goal of pioneering new communities based on commerce and sustained by trust," said Michael Buhr, senior director, eBay. "StumbleUpon's downloadable toolbar provides an engaging and unique experience to its users, but it is the similarities in our approaches to the concept of community that make it such a compelling addition to eBay."

Driven by word-of-mouth, the StumbleUpon community has grown 150 percent year over year and delivers approximately five million new recommendations a day to its large, highly engaged user base. StumbleUpon allows people to discover Web sites, people, videos, product information, communities and other online content based on personal interests. By allowing its community to rate the content, StumbleUpon gets smarter as it is used and provides an increasing level of relevance over time.

Said Garrett Camp, chief architect and one of three StumbleUpon founders, "We're excited about joining eBay, as we share the same values around community and we look forward to working with them to accelerate our growth."

Om Malik points out an interesting scenario for the new acquisiton: "By marrying the toolbar to Skype client, eBay can do an end run around Google's dominance of the search business. A simple search box inside Skype client is all it would take." A great observation, because we all know, no matter how many denials we all hear, the number game in Silicon Valley now is: Find a way to do significant business online "without" Google's involvement, and you'll have found the goose that lays the golden eggs.

However, because age is self-reported, as it is at similar sites, adults could simply sign up as minors.

There are tools to verify age, but they work best for porn, wine-sales and other sites meant for adults only.

A credit card, for instance, could demonstrate that a user is of age, notwithstanding a teen's ability to "borrow" a card from Dad's wallet.

More robust techniques like those from IDology and Sentinel Tech Holding's Sentry check addresses, birth dates and other information users provide against public databases, such as voting and property records.

But many social-networking sites cater to both adults and teens -- and teens can be difficult to verify.

MySpace, instead, has been trying to catch minors after the fact.

It has technology to scan for inconsistencies and teams of employees to investigate further. For example, a user who claims to be 18 might mention a sixth-grade class elsewhere in the profile, or feature a photo of a birthday cake with only 13 candles.

MySpace.com wasn't set up as a business site. But it's perfect for meeting new people and promoting oneself. For example, a musician can post a clip of a recent composition. So wouldn't MySpace also be great for publicizing an eBay Store or a group of eBay auction sales? That's what a group of enterprising eBay sellers have been discussing on the PowerSeller message boards and in other community forums. A growing number of sellers have created MySpace "spaces" devoted to their eBay businesses. They say they're benefiting in terms of increased traffic to their eBay Stores, better search placement on sites like Google, and better sales.

One such believer is an eBay seller who goes by the User ID BluKentucky and sells antiques and curios from the Bluegrass State. Not long ago, he spent an hour or so creating a profile that promotes his eBay business. (You'll find it at www.myspace.com/blukentucky). By way of introducing himself, he lists his eBay feedback rating (9,400 at this writing) and mentions that he has been an eBay member since 1999.

500 MB basic email account storage

Video clips

Computer desktop icons

MSN skins and emoticons

Printable calendars

Screen savers

Themed browser designs

Wallpapers

E-cards

Avatars

Mailing lists

America Online, with 28 million members, has assigned a full-time employee to handle next-of-kin requests. Before releasing account information, the company requires a copy of the death certificate and documentation proving the person requesting the e-mail information is the legal beneficiary or the estate representative, said America Online spokesman Nicholas Graham.

MSN Hotmail will provide account contents on CDs or floppy disks to relatives of deceased members after it verifies the legitimacy of the request, said Brooke Richardson, MSN lead product manager, in a statement. ``We have tried to institute a policy that is very focused on privacy, but at the same time honors the requests of bereaved family members.''

After Lance Cpl. Justin Ellsworth of Michigan was killed Nov. 13 while inspecting a bomb in Iraq, his father, John Ellsworth, wanted access to his son's Yahoo email account. But Yahoo, whose policy is to terminate email accounts upon a user's death, would not give him the material until a probate judge ordered the Sunnyvale company to do so.

Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco non-profit that often gets involved in digital-privacy issues, said it's difficult to find the right balance between personal privacy and a family's desire to get all of a loved one's possessions.

``We are sympathetic to the pain families go through,'' he said. ``On the other hand, there are a lot of things people want to keep private from their close relatives. You need to have some way to do that.''

"What these social networks have shown is that you can use the viral capabilities of the Internet to grow a site very quickly, but I'm not even sure that anybody has proven yet that these businesses by themselves are sustainable, stand-alone businesses," said David Card, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

Friendster was the first popular social networking site, which typically offers users ways to create personal pages, post digital pictures, and invite people to link with them on the Website.

Friendster logged 703,000 visitors to its site in April, a 15 percent drop from the year-ago month and the average visitor spent 14 minutes on the site that month, down 65 percent year over year, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. By contrast, MySpace boasted 8.2 million visitors in April, who spent an hour and 23 minutes on the site.

Google's Labs and API were held up as exemplars of a modern internet business, while Yahoo was seen as floundering in a sea of accountants, pop-up ads, and Britney Spears. But Yahoo has learned its lesson. Research.yahoo.com, launched last month, is the same idea as labs.google.com - a showcase for new and interesting projects - but it's better. Unlike Google, Yahoo publishes its papers, names its researchers and says what it is up to. One-nil to Yahoo.