When it comes to social-networking sites, women are more plugged in than men, according to data analysis by Brian Solis, president of Silicon Valley public-relations firm Future Works.

Mr. Solis used Google (GOOG) Ad Planner to determine the gender breakdown of users signed up for the most popular social-networking sites and found that in most cases, women outnumbered men. “The point of interest that’s worth review and discussion is that in social media, women rule,” he wrote.

For example, the data show that on Facebook, 57 percent of users are women and 43 percent are men, with the same gender breakdown on Twitter and Yelp. On MySpace, it’s a whopping 64 percent female, and on the social-network-creation site Ning, 59 percent of users are women. There’s slightly more equitable gender distribution on YouTube, which is half women and half men, and professional-networking site LinkedIn has the same gender breakdown. On the photo-sharing site Flickr, women make up 55 percent of users, as they also do on FriendFeed.

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When I first I attended the Webby Awards in 2001, I noticed an anthropological paradox: The line to the ladies’ room was nonexistent, the men’s, long.

Where were all the women? Surely they existed in the then-budding Internet industry (I did!). Why weren’t they celebrated at the event CNN then pegged as the “Oscars of the Internet”?

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A year after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, former workers keep in touch with each other on a niche social network called Forever Lehman. Strangely, it was founded by an ex-Bear Stearns employee.

Sanjeev Naraine spent eight years at Bear Stearns, most recently as a global vice president of videoconferencing. After being laid off in October 2007, the 31-year-old decided to create a network for his colleagues on the social-networking-creation site Ning, “almost like a virtual elevator where you can meet and say hi,” he said. He launched Who Killed the Bear? in May 2008.

When Lehman went under, Mr. Naraine figured he might as well create something for its staffers too. “It was more of just a gut feeling that I should just reserve the [Forever Lehman] name, and if things get bad, I could just launch it,” he said. “It was a pretty good guess on my part, anyways. And it only cost me a couple of bucks to buy the Web site.”

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Ning founder Marc Andreessen is already on the record about Microsoft’s proposed takeover of Yahoo: He thinks it will likely go through, and turn out to be a good deal. It’s a remarkably sanguine take for someone who saw Netscape bought and destroyed by AOL. In a thorough analysis for which he dragooned two corporate lawyers, Andreessen elaborates: Yahoo has few defenses, aside from a poison pill, and Microsoft will likely succeed. For all its thoroughness, the analysis is less interesting for what it says about Microsoft-Yahoo than for what it says about Andreessen.

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We have seen extensive press coverage of Microsoft’s pursuit of Yahoo over the last few months. However, I have not seen a detailed analysis of how a full hostile takeover might play out–the kind of analysis that you would be receiving if you were a Microsoft or Yahoo board member. So I asked a pair of expert corporate attorneys–Michael Sullivan and Ed Deibert at Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk and Rabkin in San Francisco–to work up such an analysis.

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When is a social network NOT a social network? When it’s part of Ning’s 200,000 social networks! Give me a break, Gina and Marc! STOP bragging about how many people have clicked and created a network. How come you have NEVER posted anything on: how many networks have five or more people in them? How ’bout 50 people in them? Or 500 people? Bragging about 200,000 networks with one person in them is absurd. And I don’t even care if they’re porno networks or not! But they’re NOT networks if there are less than what? Five? 10? 25 in them? You’re obviously pimping yourself up for a sale. Give us all a break–please!

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If you’re a Web developer or recent computer-science graduate, these are most certainly the best of times. With the groundbreaking launch of Facebook Platform last year, and the subsequent emergence of multiple new [open] social platforms this year–MySpace, Bebo, hi5, Friendster, Ning, Meebo, LinkedIn, etc.–we are experiencing a Geek Renaissance the likes of which the software community has never before seen.

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