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A water fight announcement posted on social-networking site Facebook is being blamed for damaging an award-winning public garden in England.

More than 350 people descended on the Millennium Square garden in Leeds on Monday with water guns and buckets, leaving plants trampled, turf torn up, and water features full of foam and debris, according to a report in The Daily Mail, which included before and after photos of the garden. The centerpiece garden won a bronze medal at the 2004 Chelsea Flower Show, according to the report.

Organizers allegedly called the event a "success," but videos posted on … Read more

This post was updated at 11:02 AM PT with comment from MySpace.

Facebook on Thursday reached a user safety agreement with the attorneys general of 49 states and the District of Columbia, much as rival MySpace.com did several months ago.

"We've agreed with 49 states and the District of Columbia to set up principles around Internet safety," Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly explained in an interview with CNET News.com. The agreement is centered on "largely features that (Facebook) has in place already, but that we've committed to continuing and to enhance … Read more

Justin Smith at Inside Facebook has the scoop on Facebook's new profile page design, which will give users more granular controls and application developers some new tricks.

In late May developers will get access to the new code, and users the new interface a few weeks later.

Read Justin's post for all the details

Microsoft, we get it: That Yahoo thing fell through, and picking up the pieces can be messy. But according to Kara Swisher at All Things D, Redmond just won't give up. The company has reportedly put together a Plan B that it refers to as "Project Granola," a name that makes "Zune" sound good.

And part of "Project Granola," Swisher wrote, is exploring the possibility of turning that $240 million stake in Facebook into an outright ownership.

More specifically, Microsoft's bankers have been shooting "subtle signals" in Facebook's direction, … Read more

All gold rushes must come to an end, and according to one new report, Facebook's developer platform is no exception.

Facebook developer Jesse Farmer, creator of developer analytics service Adonomics, did an extensive amount of number-crunching after coming to an odd observation earlier this year: "Something is wrong in the Facebook developer community," Farmer wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "Starting in March I began noticing that the level of activity in the Facebook developers forum was dropping sharply."

Farmer's research confirmed his speculation: activity in the Facebook developer forum, from posts per day … Read more

Facebook has asked tech veteran Marc Andreessen to join its board of directors, according to Kara Swisher at All Things D. The deal isn't finalized, apparently, but Andreessen has "verbally agreed" to the commitment.

The Netscape founder is currently at the helm of his own social-networking site, Ning, which lets Web users create their own branded community sites without technical expertise. Because of its focus on niche communities rather than mass communication, it's not a direct Facebook competitor.

Facebook, meanwhile, has been padding its ranks with seasoned industry leaders as a means of competing with the … Read more

Another prominent Google employee has jumped ship to Facebook.

Elliot Schrage, vice president of global communications and public affairs at Google, has been hired in a similar role at the fast-growing social network, reports Kara Swisher of All Things Digital.

Schrage's role at both companies, founded in a legal rather than marketing background, involves dealing with D.C. lobbyists and policymakers in addition to the press. His move to Facebook follows Sheryl Sandberg, who became chief operating officer at Facebook after a stint as vice president of global sales at Google. Schrage will report to Sandberg, Swisher writes, but … Read more

With Yahoo apparently off the table, it's time to see what Microsoft's back-up plan looks like.

Microsoft has said for some time that it has a strategy with or without Yahoo, but it's a strategy clearly in need of a jump-start.

In search, for example, Microsoft has been trying to take on Google for some time, but it remains a distant third in search queries and also has struggled in the all-important battle of monetizing each search query.

Microsoft outlined two key reasons for buying Yahoo--adding its talented engineers and getting the significant boost in scale that … Read more

Do-it-all communication app Digsby (download) put out an important update yesterday that's made this blogger's life easier. It took Facebook's Web-only chat service and integrated it into a desktop application, something that Gabtastik (which I looked at yesterday) did to a limited degree by loading it in a standalone Webkit-powered mini browser.

While residing outside of people's primary browsers, Gabtastik's efforts were still running the pop-out version of normal FB chat. Digsby's solution is far more powerful. Despite the fact there are no API plugs for chat (for now), you can maintain conversations with … Read more