In an interview, Blanchard said that she has been on leave for over a year from her job at the IBM in Quebec, Canada. Doctors diagnosed her with major depression.

From that time, Blanchard has been on leave and was receiving full sick-leavebenefits from Manulife, an insurance giant based in Canada.

However, Blanchard was surprised to learn that her benefits have been cut off by her insurance agent after calling Manulife. Her agent said that she was fit to work citing photos of her in Facebook.

One of the photos shown by her agent was at her birthday party at a Chippendales bar show and a few holiday photos of her “having a good time”.

According to her, the Manulife agent claimed that it can be considered as evidence that she is now in a good condition and is no longer depressed.

Blanchard said that her lawyers are now looking on all possible steps to take regarding the case, adding that she will fight to get her benefits reinstated immediately.

Also, the doctors who diagnosed her advised that she should try to have fun every time she had the chance. This includes night outs, getaways, and family get-togethers to help her forget all her problems.

Sought for comment, Manulife decline to further anything about the issue.

But the insurance giant assured Blanchard that the company will not deny or terminate any benefit claims just because of information such as the photos published in her Facebook account.

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Based on the survey, small businesses in the US don’t show any interest in using online networking in interacting with their clients.

Some 76 percent of the 500 respondents interviewed by Citibank said that they do not find social networking to be useful in their businesses while another 86 percent said that the do not even use such websites for their operations.

“Most of the small businesses that we have interviewed said that they do not use blogs, video postings, and other features of websites like Facebook and Youtube to their data gathering,” Citibank said in a statement.

But New York-based marketing executive Hilary Topper said that these businesses have not realized the potential of social networking sites, saying that the Internet is the way for people to communicate in the near future.

“It these companies will not shift to the use of online networking soon, they will lag behind in terms of getting information from their clients,” she added.

Meanwhile, Sara Bruek Nichols echoed Topper’s statement, saying that her company was able to raise more than $20, 000 in over six weeks by just going online. They said that they have utilized the use of social networking media to ask for people’s help in disseminating hope to the schoolchildren in New Orleans.

Nichols said that most of the funding that they have acquired came from solicitation through Facebook and Twitter, adding that they were having difficulties in raising money in the past and social networking has made their tasks easier.

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In its report, analytic firm comScore said that a big chunk of advertising patrons and larege number of viewerships only proved that social networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter remained one of the most prominent online landscapes.

It added that the wide acceptance of the said websites by users made advertisers invest more on these social networks.

Also, the company said that the growing popularity of social networking sites among advertisers increases the competition between them and other already established online companies such as Time Warner Inc’s AOL and Yahoo Inc, which have always been the top destinations for Ads Company.

Based on records, some 21.1 percent of internet displays in the US were posted in social networking websites with MySpace and Facebook getting 80 percent of the advertisements in July.

comScore vice president Jeff Hackett said that the high reach and frequency that social networking can deliver to users are one of the main reasons why advertisers chose to post their ads in the said websites, not to mention the low cost for such investments.

Meanwhile, the top advertisers on social networking websites are Ask Network owned by Experian Interactive and IAC/Interactive Corp and AT&T Inc, comScore said.

In the recent years, social networking in the Internet has boomed into one of the largest and most popular sites. Earlier, some experts even questioned the capability of such websites to capitalize with the business aspect of the Internet.

One of the main reasons why advertisers hesitate on putting their ads on social networking sites is the user generated features, which could lead to racist topics and other offensive statements.

“Users who are reading the ads may sometime be so sensitive to the extent that they will file cases against us even without strong foothold of the charges,” an advertiser said.

However, the low pricing computation of ads placed on social networking sires compared to other websites like Yahoo and AOL is still a very good way to investment money.

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In a statement, Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt directly expressed disappointment over the launch of a new marketing service company called uSocial, which sells Facebook friends by their thousands, saying that the process goes against the social networking site’s policies since it makes it less secured.

“Sending out and giving away privacy to your Facebook account is unacceptable and it goes against the company policies,” Schnitt said in the statement.

Schnitt said that they are now conducting probe on issue, saying that members’ account will automatically be deleted if they were found “guilty” of sharing their passwords with third parties.

But uSocial founder, 24-year-old Leon Hill, said that there nothing wrong with the program, adding that the service that they offer is mostly meant for people and businesses who want to expand their friends list without the burden of time.

He said that people can save energy and time by just simple buying themselves a few thousands of friends compared to the traditional and old-fahioned way of sending friend requests.

Hill said that people can now have an instant network of friends, in their thousands, for a few hundred bucks. He said that for 1, 000 new friends, a person will only have to pay $200 while the maximum allowable friends (5, 000 Facebook friends) would only costs a business company some $727.

The service was launched early this week and would run through mid-September in a promotional rate of $654.30 for the maximum number of friends.

uSocial said that the service will help companies to gather fans in a faster and more affordable manner.

But Schinitt stressed that uSocial’s actions detracts Facebooks’ effort to promote culture of authenticity.

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Operating live, Pornoob was recently launched into a private beta to give the adult entertainment industry a boost in its sales and give porn watchers a place to converge, or even stalk their “prey” of preference.

Dubbed as “a place for porn”, Pornoob offers fans/members to divulge their inner most sex secrets, discovery of new adult videos, talk to porn stars, and connect real time with their network of friends.

You can even arrange your orgy of friends, and discuss the most wanted, most sought after, and the most viewed smut materials on the face of the planet.

To date, the site now has several thousand members ranging from homosexuals, lesbians, to heterosexuals who wanted to connect with people from other places. Although elicit encounters are not encouraged, people will have the option if they want to get in on with the people they want.

According to the site creators, the new social networking site will give budding porn stars a chance to sell their “art work” and get the maximum exposure while film makers and studios can look for new talents for their up and coming films.

The creators also believe that Pornoob will be a hit to the people who loves surfing for porn since the site have everything that they need. Chat, discussions, and bulletins are available too.

To date, Pornoob operates heavily under advertisement revenues. However, site creators said that the long-term plan for the social networking site is to have an online store where people can buy and sell content directly in their respective profiles.

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