MediaPost reports that Verizon Wireless is being sued by the parents of a Connecticut teen who was assaulted by a man she met after accessing the Web through a cell phone:

"The parents, who purchased four cell phones from Verizon in 2005, allege that their 14-year-old daughter downloaded a program to one of the phones that enabled her to post an online profile and participate in various chat rooms. The following year, she was allegedly assaulted on two occasions by a 30-year-old man she met via mobile social networking."

According to the report, the parents accused Verizon Wireless of manufacturing an unreasonably dangerous product and failing to warn them that users could connect to the Web from the phones. "Unbeknownst to the plaintiffs," they alleged in the suit, "the defendant's cellular service plan allowed any cell phone user to 'self subscribe' to the internet through the cellular telephone." Verizon has declined to comment, saying that they can't discuss pending litigation.

A new Nielsen study on mobile social networking finds that 4.1 million US consumers, or roughly 1.6% of mobile subscribers, accessed a social network site from their phone in December. The UK had the second-highest number of users in the countries studied - 812,000 - but slightly edged out the US in terms of percentage of users connecting to a social network via a mobile device.

With 1.7% of its mobile consumers engaging in mobile social networking, the UK has more than twice the percentage of its mobile subscribers using their phones for social networking than the other European countries surveyed - Italy, Spain, France and Germany.

It's not really surprising that MySpace, the leading social network on the PC, is also the most popular among mobile users in the US. According to Nielsen, MySpace logged 2.8 million unique mobile users in December in the US, followed by Facebook with 1.8 million.

Is the bloom off the rose for Facebook? Hitwise reports that MySpace.com received 73.82% of the market share of U.S. visits in April 2008 among a custom category of 57 of the leading social networking websites, according to MediaPost. Here are some more statistics, quoted from the report:

- The market share of U.S. visits to the social networking custom category increased 3% in April 2008 compared to March 2008, but has decreased 16% year-over-year.

- Among the top 10 social networking websites, Facebook ranked second by the market share of visits with 14.8%, followed by MyYearbook, which received 1.33%.

- MyYearbook experienced the largest gain in market share in April 2008, increasing 475% compared to April 2007.

- Facebook and BlackPlanet followed, increasing 32% and 15%, respectively.

Next2Friends, a mobile social network that has yet to launch commercially, has already made its first acquisition, fellow mobile social start-up BluetoothMeet, in preparation for its launch later this month.

The UK-based Next2Friends has been in beta for four months and has signed up "thousands of members across 129 countries," according to a NetImperative report.

BluetoothMeet founder Luke Rose has joined Next2Friends to head up its proximity-marketing program. As its name suggests, BluetoothMeet is a social service whose network of users keep in touch via Bluetooth.

The corpse of the Microsoft-wants-to-buy-Yahoo deal isn't even cold yet, and the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the software giant has been sniffing around Facebook.

According to the Journal, which cites "a person familiar with the matter," Microsoft's bankers recently approached the social networking service to gauge its interest in being acquired. Reports of the contact first appeared on the Journal's sister site AllThingsD.com.

Microsoft already owns a small stake in Facebook, whose founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been quite vocal about not wanting to sell it.

Facebook would give Microsoft a strong foothold in the increasingly popular mobile social networking scene; last October it launched a mobile version of its Facebook Platform, which lets its more than 80,000 third-party developers extend their Facebook apps to mobile phones.

Ars Technica had a sit-down with Martin May, founder of location-based social networking service Brightkite, a start-up that wants you to find and make friends in your area - and lets you decide just how large that area is.

The Denver company is focused on real-world connections; lets users "check in" at a location, such as work, a coffee shop or a bar; post if anything interesting is happening and see what other Brightkite members are there. All of its services are accessible on the Web, but since it's all about meeting up with people, Brightkite lets users post via SMS and will soon have clients available for a number of mobile phone models.

More details about how the service works and what Brightkite will look like in the future, you can read the complete article here.

CellSpin is a new mobile app company with a single goal, to make it as easy as possible for you to get multimedia content from your phone to Web sites without ever going near a PC.

The company has come out with new clients for Facebook and MySpace that let users upload content to their profile pages with a single click. The software already supports uploads to Blogger, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Live Journal, Live Spaces and even live eBay auctions, with more sites to come.

CellSpin claims that its free app works directly on more than 300 mobile phone models worldwide. It even has an option for folks who have a phone that's not yet supported - they can send pictures, video, voice and text from their phone to their MySpace or Facebook page via SMS, MMS or e-mail.

US mobile users and wireless carriers are warming up to mobile social networking, Frost & Sullivan says in a new report. According to the study, "An Insight into US Mobile Social Networking Markets," revenue from on-deck social networking services will reach $412 million by 2012, with even more money coming from related mobile advertising.

Mobile social networking is driven by the convergence of three main trends: Emergence of popular social networking services on the Internet, increasing penetration of the mobile Web and emergence of mobile advertising, the market researcher explains. Because of this, it "represents an additional monetization opportunity for the mobile communication value chain participants."

The ability to deliver targeted advertising to the mobile social community will require close cooperation between advertising solution providers, social networks and operators - as well as enough consumers willing to divulge personal data to make the model viable, Frost says.

Danish startup Zyb has confirmed TechCrunch's report from last week that it bought mobile social networking startup Imity in a combination of cash and stock.

Imity lets mobile users located each other via—get this—the Bluetooth stack built into their cell phones. Obviously that only works over very short distances, but the idea is that you walk into a room, your phone lights up all the appropriate people, and then your social networking profile connects to theirs.

The report quoted Imity's co-founder Nikolaj Nyholm explaining the idea: "It is not about where, it is about here. What Imity has been focused on is figuring out what is happening around you here and now, not that a movie is playing five miles away from you. It is about sensing the information here and now, and making those connections that would not happen otherwise. For instance, people who were reading each other's blogs but didn't know each other in real life have ended up meeting each other because they are at the same restaurant."

Zyb, meanwhile, began life as a mobile backup solution, but eventually launched a social networking portal because they were sitting on all that user contact data, the article said. Well, that and the fact that nearly everyone else on the planet is launching mobile social networks these days.

Just in time for Cinco de Mayo celebrations, Buzzd, a location-based mobile city guide and social network, has signed Hornitos Premium Tequila as a new advertising partner. The partnership allows Buzzd members to text message tequila drinks to friends, who can redeem the codes they receive for a drink at any of the hundreds of participating bars. This is made possible through a relationship with BuyYourFriendADrink.com.

Buzzd, which has been available in limited beta since February, also just closed its first VC round with financing from Greycroft Partners and Monitor Ventures.