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As part of the its commitment to data portability, Microsoft Live has teamed up with 5 top social networks to facilitate and make it easier for members of those social networks who are also using the Windows Live Messenger to import their address book from their social networking profiles into the Windows Live contacts list.

Using Windows Live Contacts API, members of Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, Tagged and Hi5 can logged in to these social networks and see which of their friends are using the Windows Live Contacts API. LinkedIn, Tagged and Hi5 users will have to wait a little while though as it is currently available for Facebook and Bebo users only.

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AOL announced its intention to purchase social networking site Bebo for $850 million making many wonder what exactly was Microsoft thinking buying a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 million.  Using some advanced math skills, that puts the suspected value of Facebook at $15 billion.  But is that fair?

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I must confess to being surprised by the Computing Which? magazine’s finding that Bebo is better than Facebook and MySpace for a number of factors, including ease of set up. I am not surprised by MySpace, I don’t think anybody actually thinks it is designed well or easy to use, but Facebook seems to the most frequently quoted so I just sort of assumed that it would be seen as the best. So much for assumptions…

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Answer: they’re the most searched terms in Google.com and Google News respectively.

Some interesting keywords make up 2006’s most popular searches from Google Zeitgeist. On the Google.com searches, it’s interesting to note that quite a few of them are social networking type sites, such as MySpace, MetaCafe, RadioBlog and Bebo (I must have really put a huge sign in my brain to these things considering the number coming up every day on the internet, since I’ve only heard of MySpace). Rounding up the top ten are the usual information sources such as Wikipedia, the world cup (Forza Italia!) and torrent/movie related queries such as Mininova.

While on the Google News searches, surprise surprise, Paris Hilton came up as the top search of 2006, with Orlando Bloom coming in second and Martina Hingis rounding up the searches about actual people. Hurricane Katrina of course makes the news due to the devastation it caused, as well as cancer and autism on the health related queries. It also seems that pod casting is gaining some popularity as people are trying to understand how it can impact their lives. Maybe these are the people who are seeking news about bankruptcy (also top 10 news searches) and trying to find another potential career choice?

Overall, can’t really say I’m surprised with the results. These social networking sites (or some evolution of them) are popping up at a ridiculous rate, be it relating to video, personals, radio, or business; probably due to the success of YouTube, Friendster, MySpace and a few others, many people are trying to cash in through it. My next question is this: why does Paris Hilton attract so much attention? I mean, aren’t there any more interesting news subjects than Hilton’s heiress?

Read [Google Zeitgeist]