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Today, the battle on the group messaging area has been heated up as Skype announcing on Sunday that they have entered a definitive agreement to purchase GroupMe. With this acquisition, GroupMe will improve Skype’s ability in terms of facilitating text and photo messaging. Skype said in the press release that GroupMe will help them to be the best text-based communication provider.

As the growing importance of messaging field, it is understandable if Skype’s CEO, Tony Bates, said that mobile group messaging is very important for his company. We can see it with multiple deals in the past year, such as when Google purchased Slide on August last year, Facebook with their Group Chat ability after acquired a group messaging app Beluga on March this year, and iMessage from Apple’s iOS 5 last June.

Although Skype has sold a part of themselves to Microsoft for $8.5 billion, the transaction has not been completed yet until now. Furthermore, Skype’s CEO didn’t want to mention the details of the agreement between Skype and GroupMe, which will be closed on Monday.

Only one day after being left by Hewlett-Packard which announced that they will stop developing WebOS, HP found another buyer to bring it back to life. Brandon Watson, the Microsoft’s chief Windows Phone evangelist has tweeted that they will give free phones, dev tools, training, and much more, if the WebOS developers want to work on Windows Phone.

For your information, the latest version of Windows Phone 7, Mango, has reached the release stage and will be available this fall. Mango will bring multitasking and cloud integration to Windows Phone which was considered as an under-achiever so far. Watson also said that you only have to email him (at thephone@microsoft.com if you are interested) and he will connect you to their mobile champs.

Actually, Windows Phone is not a very popular platform today, but some analysts predict that it will be a change in the short future. Gartner predicted that WP7 will double its market share next year to 10%, and then reach 20% in 2015. If that is true, it is a very promising chance for app developers. For Microsoft, I think they won’t leave the platform anytime soon, as they are desperate to gain attention on mobile market.

Madonna is cooperating with Smirnoff to pick a dancer for her next tour. In a Smirnoff promotion, 10 million people from 50 countries will share their nightlife stories in social media. The promotion was titled Smirnoff Nightlife Exchange Project. They ask the fans from around the world to share their nightlife experience on Smirnoff’s Facebook Page. The campaign was created by JWT, an ad agency.

In addition, there will be an event on November 12 when 50 parties will happen simultaneously. What will Madonna do in this campaign? She will attend one of the parties to see the dancers compete. The winner of that competition will be chosen as a dancer on Madonna’s next tour. The submission for this contest will be taken from August 17 to October 10. In order to join this competition, you have to enter a 60-second video about yourself.

For your information, Madonna has almost 6 million fans on her Facebook page. But in the other side, she is still a relatively low profile figure in social media. She hasn’t released an album since the “Hard Candy” on 2008. Guy Oseary, Madonna’s manager, claims that Madonna will start to work on a new album in June.

If you are a laptop thief, I suggest you to make sure whose laptop is it before you steal it. A London teenager wasn’t do this when stealing a laptop during the London riots. He stole a MacBook Pro owned by Greg Martin, an IT security specialist as well as former FBI and NASA employee.

Unfortunately, Martin is one person that should be on your black list when you stole a laptop. The person who runs a blog called InfoSecurity 2.0 had previously installed tracking software in his computer called Prey. The software will allow you to track your phone and laptop every time and will surely help you when it is stolen. Martin wrote on his blog that he was on dinner at Luxembourg when he receive the email saying that the robber had logged on to the laptop.

After watching the thief surfing the Internet for two hours, Martin is able to get the information about the thief’s name, school, IP address, address, ISP, Facebook ID number, and wireless access point. Modern thieves today are actually have a higher risk of being caught with the current technology. A similar thing also happened in June when a MacBook tracked with Hidden app and Tumblr account.

Now, the number one person in the United States has joined Foursquare: President Barack Obama. The White House said on the blog that White House is now joining Foursquare, a location based social media which allow you to be closer with the administration. Now, you will be able to find tips from the White House including the place that Obama has visited, what he did, as well as the historical information.

For your information, there are currently more than 10 million people checking in around the world. The White House said that there will be tips about the president’s visits. There will be also the checkin locations for different events. They have posted their first tip on Monday saying that the President was on a speech at Cannon Falls, Minesota.

Obama joining Foursquare only hours after they unveiled the Tip List. That is a feature for users and brands to bundle and curate the best tips for a better list. I think the White House want to use it to track the president’s journey for the campaign on the reelection. With the President joining the social media, I think Foursquare will grow quickly in a short time.