Zynga wants users to know that it cares about privacy despite what the Facebook mothership is doing. Hence, Zynga has released a new "game" designed to teach users all about how the social gaming company treats user information, where it is stored and how it is used. Say hello to PrivacyVille.

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Essentially, PrivacyVille is a cute guided tour through Zynga's privacy settings. There is not much actual "playing" involved with this game. There is an incentive to learning about Zynga's privacy policy as users can visit RewardVille to get zPoints.

"We think this is an important step in creating a recognizable interface to explain privacy, as opposed to the normal fine-print privacy statements you see on sites today. We want players to understand our policies, have fun while they learn about them, and most importantly, be incented to walk through the tutorial," Zynga wrote in an email.

There is a touch of irony here, of course. Facebook and privacy do not usually occur in the same sentence, unless there is some type of negative connotation. That goes double for when third-party application developers are added to the mix. This is a good move by Zynga to give away game points to teach users about privacy. The entire tour through PrivacyVille takes about five minutes and then there are a couple questions to answer at the end (to make sure you actually read the information in the tour) before sending the user to RewardVille.

What do you think of Zynga's attempt at transparency? Are you going to go get your zPoints by taking the PrivacyVille tour?

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new features at the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. This announcement follows up on Zuckerberg's portent of "something awesome" last week. Skype video chat will be fully embedded into the Facebook ecosystem with an extension that is designed to make it as easy to use as possible. Essentially, video chat within Facebook is two clicks away.

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"Now, Skype is obviously a part of Microsoft, and we have a very longstanding relationship with Microsoft," Zuckerberg said. "I wouldn't under-sell what we have today. The vast majority of video chat is one-on-one chat, and this is going to be something that is rolled out to everybody immediately and can be viewed through the Web. I just think that this is super-awesome. We are really excited by the product that we built."

Zuckerberg's definition of awesome may be different than other people's definition, but it is hard to deny that adding video chat to the Facebook ecosystem is a significant feature. Between Skype and Facebook there are now hundreds of millions of Internet users across the world that can now use video chat.

Facebook also rolled out a group chat feature. It is a way for people in Facebook Groups to chat with each other or for individual users to add multiple people to a chat.

Facebook has now caught up with the video and chat capabilities of Google and makes it easier to set up and install than Google. The reach of Facebook (Zuckerberg confirmed 750 million users on the platform) combined with ease of use could be a thorn in the side of Google as it tries to develop innovative new communications tools through Google Plus.

What do you think? Is group messaging and Skype video chat embedded into Facebook "awesome?" Let us know in the comments.

Late last week when Google Plus began opening up to more and more users, the leaders of the project said they were doing their best to include speakers of more than 40 different languages around the world. How geographically distributed were these first users? I thought I'd ask, on Google Plus itself, just where people were. Users posted their locations and a few short words of feedback on the service, from 2AM PST to 8AM PST July 1st when we hit the 500 comment limit on Plus.

Above, a map made with the help of data visualization guy friend of RWW Michael J. Rubillo. You can click on any of the places on the map and see peoples' reactions, when they posted one. It's just a snapshot, of course, but I think it does communicate two things: Plus is being tested all around the world and most people were feeling very positive about it, at least at the end of last week.

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LinkedIn changed its privacy policy earlier this month to make it easier for users to share content. Doing so will increase the amount of data that LinkedIn has of its users Web activities. The combination of shared content with peer and brand recommendations will be what LinkedIn's personalized ads will be based on.

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As we wrote when LinkedIn went public, the value of its users is in the data it holds on them. That is especially true when it comes to one of the primary uses of the network - job recruitment. It is no coincidence that one of the examples LinkedIn used in its blog post announcing the new ad platform is a job recruitment ad. Take a look.

The second example LinkedIn uses is a self-service platform called LinkedIn Ads. From the blog post; "The ads show how public actions of your network, including product recommendations and the number of followers of that company, can help you decide whether or not you should take the time to learn more about the product or service."

This approach to advertising brings LinkedIn closer to how Facebook utilizes its data to serve pertinent ads based on topics in status updates between friends. In terms of monetization, the prime benefits of platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook are the rich data that they have on their users and being able to bring them relevant information. Whereas Facebook will surface ads "related to this post" on brands or media (like books or movies), LinkedIn will help show relevant job listings or services that may help users with their employment.

LinkedIn's new privacy policy is a long document. The company says that it is focused on making sure that users have as much control over their information as possible. That does not mean it will not sell ads against that data if at all possible. LinkedIn allows users to opt out of personalized ads.

One of the newest kid-friendly sites is MiniMonos, a New Zealand-based company that, just six months after its launch, already has over 250,000 users. That's dwarfed, of course, by the popular Disney-owned Club Penguin, with over 6 million monthly active users. And while MiniMonos is similar to Club Penguin and other virtual sites with its emphasis on fun avatars, games, and virtual goods, MiniMonos, which means "little monkeys" in Spanish, is unique in a couple of ways.

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Although MiniMonos isn't an educational site per se, smart content is integrated throughout the virtual world, much of it focused on caring about the planet. WIth their monkey avatars, kids engage in a number of sustainability games and lessons. For example, kids play recycling games that keep their treehouses tidy and cloud collection games that help generate wind power. Moreoever, they learn the environmental consequences when they don't keep up on these tasks (Messy house, no power). Kids can also play TicTacPoo... because, well, they're monkeys, and poo is hilarious (and compost helpful).

Flinging poo may be a game that appeals to young boys more than young girls, and MiniMonos certainly seems to be aiming at that demographic more than some of the other fashion-focused virtual worlds.

But what makes MiniMonos different may well be its commitment to linking the online world with the offline world. The site hopes to demonstrate that sustainability isn't just about maintaining the virtual environment, and in-world actions on MiniMonos lead to real-world results. MiniMonos has partnered with a number of environmental groups: supplying clear water in India, adopting two orangutans through Orangutan Outreach, and supporting WWF's international Tiger Initiative.

It isn't simply linking gaming with a social cause - that's pretty common for kids' and adults' sites. MiniMonos also has launched an "EcoMonkey" program that provides kids with in-world rewards for their real-world eco-actions, such as setting up recycling programs at their schools.

Although there are plenty of other sites that have environmental science education components or that encourage kids to get involved socially, MIniMonos integrates this eco-sensibility throughout the gameplay and it ties kids' actions offline to their online presence. That commitment to offline activism is crucial to the startup's founders, many of whom, including CEO Melissa Clark-Reynolds, have been trained as Ambassador for Al Gore's Climate Project.

MiniMonos recently announced that it has been accepted into the Springboard accelerator program in Cambridge, England.

That's the sense that Christofer Karltorp had when he and Taaniel Jakobs were looking to build and scale their Web development work. It was hard to find good people and it was challenging to confirm who people were and if they had the skills they boasted. And so the two have founded Zerply, a new site that is, in Karltorp's words, "still professional, but more playful and creative."

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Gone are the rather drab profiles that you can find on LinkedIn. Gone are the admonitions that you've only filled out your profile 63% because you don't have a college degree, for example. Instead, Zerply lets you build a more personalized profile, one that looks rather reminiscent of the personal splash pages on About.me.

The site also recognizes that you aren't going to necessarily duplicate your portfolio on a professional social network. Rather, you can link your various social media profiles to your Zerply profile, so that people can view your Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Forrst, Quora, GitHub profiles, and so on.

Kaltorp says that he feels as though LinkedIn is very much about the "six degrees of separation" model of networks. Instead, Zerply wants to provide more of a discovery aspect so that you aren't just reliant on locating people based on job titles or company names or colleague-of-a-colleague type introductions. You can connect with people professionally by interests, not just by employment history. "The Web is becoming a more social place," says Kaltorp, noting that a site like Twitter has really lowered the barriers for people being able to communicate with, say, an executive of a particular company.

Zerply is also building out its peer-to-peer endorsement system to give the "thumbs up" to those whose skills you can verify.

It's a big challenge to take on a company like LinkedIn, and Zerply is just getting started, having only left beta last week. The company is one of the participants in the latest round of 500 Startups' accelerator program.

The Ustream integration will let Ning users embed both live and recorded video into their sites. In addition to the video content, the new feature will also make available live chats so that people watching the event can also participate.

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When the Ustream functionality is activiated, there will be a pull-out tab on the side of the Ning social site. A green indicator dot will indicate that the channel is live; a red dot will indicate that there isn't anything being broadcast. Even so, visitors will be able to click on that tab to bring up the pop-up window and watch recorded video content.

Ning boasts over 2 million Ning networks, and the video broadcasting integration is well-suited for many of these, particularly ones associated with education. The Ustream feature is only available, however, to Ning Plus and Pro subscribers (not to the Ning Minis, which are free for educators).

But with the possibility to broadcast tutorials or workshops or discussions, it does seem as though this video integration will make upgrading to a paid subscription very appealing for many users of the social network.

The Ustream integration will let Ning users embed both live and recorded video into their sites. In addition to the video content, the new feature will also make available live chats so that people watching the event can also participate.

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When the Ustream functionality is activiated, there will be a pull-out tab on the side of the Ning social site. A green indicator dot will indicate that the channel is live; a red dot will indicate that there isn't anything being broadcast. Even so, visitors will be able to click on that tab to bring up the pop-up window and watch recorded video content.

Ning boasts over 2 million Ning networks, and the video broadcasting integration is well-suited for many of these, particularly ones associated with education. The Ustream feature is only available, however, to Ning Plus and Pro subscribers (not to the Ning Minis, which are free for educators).

But with the possibility to broadcast tutorials or workshops or discussions, it does seem as though this video integration will make upgrading to a paid subscription very appealing for many users of the social network.

As Ash Rust, Ranking Director at Klout, noted in the company's blog post announcing today's change, sharing and interaction on Facebook is different than that on Twitter. While Twitter influence can be see by the amount of interest and engagement from tweets (and retweets), Facebook users "post many different types of content, view multiple streams and interact with their friends in more complex ways."

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For Klout users that link their Facebook accounts to the service, their Klout Report will note include Facebook data. And their Klout score will increase based on comments, likes, unique commenters, and unique likers.

Klout says this will make your Klout score more accurate. But in some ways, it's hard to compare the sorts of networks people cultivate via Twitter and those made via Facebook. While it might be relatively simple to get a fair number of your high school graduating class to click through a link to the latest amusing Muppets video, you might not have the same sort of sway on Twitter. For many people, these two social networks are still divided between the professional and the personal.

Currently, Klout only assesses your personal Facebook account. For those who operate pages for their businesses or organizations, the score will not look at that information in order to judge reach and influence.

The study was aimed to uncover how the world's online behavior may be shifting, in terms of both consumption and communication. And among the findings were that online consumers in emerging, rapid growth markets are more engaged than those in mature markets, with Egypt and China, for example, having much higher levels of digital engagement than Japan, Denmark, or Finland.

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The Global Rise of Social Networks

In these rapid growth markets, blogging and social networking are becoming increasingly popular. 88% of online users in China and 51% of those in Brazil have their own blog, as compared to only 32% in the U.S. And 92% of those in Thailand, 88% of those in Malaysia and 87% of those online users in Vietnam have uploaded photos to social networks, as compared to only 28% of those in Japan.

The report points to the adoption of mobile technologies as fueling these trends. Mobile users spend more time on social networks, and respondents indicated that they anticipate spending even more time on them in the future.

And on average, across the globe, we are spending more time on social networking sites. The heaviest users of social networking are in Malaysia where people spend 9 hours per week. In Russia, online users spend 8.1 per week on social networking sites, and in Turkey, they spend 7.7 hours a week.

Malaysians Spend the Most Time, Have the Most Friends on Social Networks

Malaysians also have the highest number of friends on these sites - an average of 233. In Brazil, the average is 231. This is compared to countries like Japan, where the average is 29 and South Korea, where the average is 50.

According to TNS Chief Development Officer Matthew Froggatt, "We've seen that in mature markets where people have been online for years and where access is ubiquitous, the Internet has already become a commoditised item that consumers take for granted. However, in rapid growth markets that have seen recent, sustained investment in infrastructure, users are embracing these new channels in much more active ways."

For the complete results, including some very nice infographics, visit the TNS Digital Life site.