The Internet is driving greater transparency of information but has also created more risk for corporations drowning in customer data, according to two legal experts.

All sorts of businesses are revisiting IT service delivery as traditional internecine rivalries give way to a push towards a future built around a common infrastructure with mutually understood metrics.

In the past two months alone, Twitter and Google+ have added company pages, following in Facebook's footsteps. The usefulness of each service depends on your company's needs, but to help you prioritize your efforts, here's what each has social network has to offer companies looking to engage with the public.

Google revealed its Google+ Pages for business this week. While they are a must for any business playing in the online space, however, they still leave a lot to be desired when stacked up against arch-nemesis Facebook Pages. We are only seeing the first stages of Google+ and the network may develop over time into something more useful for business, but for now the service doesn't even come close to the services that Facebook offers business.

Facebook was recently invaded by a robot army created by four researchers to demonstrate the ease at which online social networks can be maliciously exploited by the unscrupulous.

With more than 80 million users worldwide, LinkedIn has established itself as the premier social networking site for professionals. If you're job searching, looking to broaden your network or hunting for new partnerships, these 10 tips and tricks will propel you toward success.

Question-and-answer sites like Yahoo Answers may offer a quick way to ask questions and get answers, but they tend to be plagued by wisecracks, poor spelling, and generally low quality. On the other hand, a new site targeting this niche, Quora, is going to great lengths to keep quality high.

If you own a small or medium business, a good reputation--online and offline--is clearly key to your success.

Pandora and Rosetta Stone have embraced social business tools and the Cloud to cut costs, increase productivity and improve collaboration. Learn how these two companies overcame security concerns, gained executive buy-in and more.

Our LinkedIn guide delivers expert advice on the site's features, step-by-step how-to instructions, details on its apps and proper LinkedIn etiquette. Also included: tips and tricks for your job search and company analysis.

Google+ just opened its doors to the world by enabling open signups and moving to the beta, testing phase. The nascent social network is still thin on features and ways for businesses to properly use it, but its minimalist approach has gained Google+ millions of users in a very short period.

Things just keep getting worse for MySpace. The former social networking hub recently announced it would cut nearly half of its global workforce as part of a restructuring effort.   As many as five hundred MySpace employees worldwide will soon be looking for work as the site continues to redefine itself from a social network to an entertainment content site with social networking features.

Eight percent of online Americans may use Twitter, as the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported on Thursday. But does that mean your small business should use the service in its marketing and communications efforts?