Online search giant Google has launched a new social networking website in its latest attempt to take on Facebook, which now claims more than 500m users.Google+ allows individuals to share photos, messages and comments but also integrates the company's maps and images into the service. It also aims to help users easily organise contacts within groups.But some analysts say Google has simply reproduced features of Facebook while adding a video chat function.Google, which handles roughly two out of every three internet searches in the US, has taken several stabs at Facebook in recent years.But its previous efforts ended in failure, with both Google Wave and Google Buzz proving unpopular with users.

While companies busily high-five each other over implementing social-media plans that have limited strategy around them -- and while the majority of celebs send tweets that make them look like twits -- let's look at a few rules of thumb that I hope can help those jumping into what can be awfully frigid waters. Most importantly -- thanks for adding to the list.

As Venezuela's Hugo Chávez convalesces in a Havana hospital, his condition is shrouded in secrecy. The party line is that he had emergency surgery on June 10 for a pelvic abscess. But he has not been seen in public for more than two weeks and speculation is rampant that he is battling something more serious.His critics ought to be careful what they wish for. While conventional wisdom holds that the demise of Mr. Chávez would set Venezuela free, it may instead make the country more repressive. If there is any justice in the world, he will return to Venezuela to marinate in his own stew—the economic disaster he has created over the past 12 years. A serious illness that takes him out of play would leave Venezuela haunted by the ghost of chavismo much as Peronism has haunted Argentina for the past half-century.

The nice folks at the local McDonald's know me well, but even they were puzzled when I snapped a dozen images of their newly restored interior, which is absolutely beautiful. Like most fast-food places, the management is used to customers but still a bit surprised by dedicated fans like me.I feel vindicated by recent data on this company's hiring in the midst of terrible economic times.The national labor-participation rate has been falling for a decade and is now as low as it was during the 1982 recession. If people were leaving the workplace with wads of cash and every intention of living out their dream of a life of leisure, this might be good news.Sadly, all evidence runs the other direction. People want remunerative work but can't find it, and their situation is getting worse not better, thanks mainly to legal restrictions and artificial burdens borne by institutions that would otherwise be hiring.

One of the frightening things about the U.S. government's war on drugs is that it is being waged by federal bureaucracies. The legend of Elliot Ness notwithstanding, this implies that it is not only fraught with ineptitude but that before it is all over, there are going to be a lot of avoidable deaths.Witness "Operation Fast and Furious," a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms plan that allegedly facilitated the flow of high-powered weapons into Mexico in the hope that it might lead to the take-down of a major cartel. It did not. But it may have fueled a spike in the murder rate and led to the death of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.