BBC News writes that “businesses are missing out on the huge potential that social networks present, a leading information technology company has warned.  Researchers for Gartner found that huge opportunities for improving the management of large firms exist.  ‘Businesses which harness how employees use these sites stand to increase savings, productivity and profits,’ said Gartner researcher Jeffrey Mann.  He told the BBC the challenge was how to apply this to the corporate world.”

The Associated Press reveals that “Apple Inc.’s new data synching service got off to a rocky start Thursday, as some users were denied access to their accounts just hours before the next-generation iPhone is slated to go on sale. 

PCMag has an interesting article today discussing whether Facebook has “rewritten the concept of the Internet portal.”

The Mercury News reports that “

[t]he once-mysterious blogger known as ‘Fake Steve Jobs’ is turning off his iPhone for good.  Daniel Lyons, the former Forbes magazine journalist who wrote the blog ‘The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs’ for the last two years, is moving on with his professional life and creative pursuits. In a final entry Wednesday titled, ‘I’m sailing away,’ the author, who is moving to Newsweek as a technology columnist this fall, said he was shutting down the popular parody of the life of the Apple chief executive and starting a new blog under his own name.”

According to a different Mercury News article, “Yahoo will offer free, advertising-supported games to increase revenue. Yahoo will use Double Fusion’s marketing technology and NeoEdge Networks’ ad networks to sell and place video spots in the downloadable games, the company said Thursday. More than 400 ad-supported games will be online by year-end. Games without ads will be available for a fee. The program, targeted at 35- to 54-year-old women, is a way for Yahoo to boost sales and increase its share of the online ad market by putting clients’ spots in front of more potential customers.”