People wondered why Google sold Frommer’s Travel barely nine months after acquiring it in the first place. The answer is that it’s keeping a huge number social media followers from sites like Facebook. Read more at paidContent »
How does a large e-commerce site appeal to a wide variety of shoppers online — and then get them used to the idea of shopping with social? Zappos is working to figure out the answer to social commerce. Read more »
Film critic Roger Ebert talked about how much Twitter meant to him as a form of conversation, and his enthusiastic use of it as a way to connect with readers is a lesson to journalists of all kinds. Read more at paidContent »
The financial company Bloomberg says it will add Twitter to its platforms now that the SEC has given a green light to companies to use social media to announce market moving news. Read more at paidContent »
Looking for more information on other apps for your phone, or looking for more visual content in your Twitter feed? Twitter’s new updates to how third-party developers can create tweets has you potentially covered on both fronts. Read more »
I may disagree with them about the benefits of a hard paywall, or the wisdom of cutting 90 percent of the newspaper’s blogs, but at least the owners of the Orange County Register are putting their money where their mouths are. Read more at paidContent »
Have you checked out Vine recently? Legendary pop artist Prince has, with his record label filing a copyright notice with Twitter regarding videos on Vine. It seems like the general public might be giving Vine a serious look. Read more »
Publishers must now focus on a strategy for effectively licensing digital content. In the latest GigaOM Research Podcast, analyst Paul Sweeting discusses why we need a strategy and how it will impact publishers and others. Read more »
Instagram might be changing the economics of the paparazzi business, but the photo-sharing service and its social media peers can also make celebrities — willing or not — out of ordinary people. Who should pay when digital activity has real-world consequences? Read more »
Can America’s viral site BuzzFeed succeed in a country where sensationalist journalism already thrives? We’ll soon find out. Read more at paidContent »
For better or worse, we all live in glass houses. Yet social media has made it easier and faster than ever before to throw stones, and that’s not always a good thing. Read more »
Massachusetts education staffers are watching Twitter for signs of cheating on the statewide MCAS exams. Read more »
Publishers’ lack of strategic focus on licensing and syndication today is matched by nearly equal indifference from software developers, entrepreneurs, and investors. To change this, they must structure their repositories of content so it can be searched, sorted, customized, repackaged, and accessed in real time via standardized APIs. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Yahoo has acquired Jybe, the personalized recommendation app that aimed to help consumers get recomendations from friends around them, and then also move toward making purchases through the app. The acquisition shows part of Yahoo’s latest social strategy. Read more »
Looking for interesting companies coming out of Founder’s Den, the co-working space and entrepreneur network in San Francisco? Here are our top three picks from Tuesday’s demo day. Read more »
What might the future of Twitter as a second screen for social TV look like? A partnership with a startup called SnappyTV and Turner will give consumers access to short video replays from March Madness, and the rest of us a look at Twitter’s business model. Read more »
Netbreeze promises to bring multi-lingual access and analysis to Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube streams via Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Read more »
Inky is betting that changing how we interact with email is an important technology problem worth solving. CEO David Baggett explained why he thinks the company’s approach is notable. Read more »
The New York Times offers an ad tool that lets brands use its stories in a unique form of content marketing. The tool, which can provide publishers with a new source of long-tail revenue, will soon be used by other publishers like Forbes and Condé Nast. Read more at paidContent »
The biggest challenge for modern etiquette is that we have so many different forms of communication available to us now, but not everyone agrees on how or when it is appropriate to use them. Read more »
Facebook is making changes to its news feed in order to try and filter content better for users, while Twitter continues to provide a largely unfiltered experience. Which one is better? That depends on how you use it. Read more »
Upworthy is attracting attention for its headlines and its viral videos about gay marriage, women’s rights and other social causes. But the site’s real value may be its potential to help the Democrats maintain their lead in social media and big data. Read more at paidContent »
Companies like Johnson & Johnson have long encouraged consumers to spread the word about their products. These marketing campaigns are taking on new twists in the age of social media. Read more »
How to answer women’s questions about digital health, pregnancy, and parenthood on mobile? One entrepreneurial couple decided to tackle these issues with a social approach in Pink Pad, Baby Bump and Kidfolio. Read more »
Just when you thought spam was under control, a new breed of spammers is taking up new methods to infiltrate our inboxes, search results and social media feeds. Data science could make them very effective. Read more »
Brands and publishers are well aware that they need to monitor and manage Twitter and Facebook. VidIQ, which launched today, says they’re overlooking YouTube as a critical social and data platform. Read more »
Optimizing content is crucial as customers migrate from being passive recipients to becoming active contributors. This opportunity presents a fresh set of challenges, not only for those in traditional broadcast industries but also for content managers and enterprise leaders. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
New CEO Marissa Mayer launched a redesigned version of the Yahoo homepage on Wednesday, but the site’s new features seem like a lukewarm rehash of the company’s old portal strategy and imitations of what Facebook offers. Read more »
The Obama administration has shown what is possible when a government becomes a media entity in its own right. But is that good or bad for a free press and for society in general? Read more at paidContent »
The head of the research lab at the New York Times says the newspaper has launched an advertising product called Sparking Stories that allows advertisers to insert ads into specific content that is trending on Twitter. Read more at paidContent »
With a backlog of well over 100,000 registrants, Tempo is far more popular than it ever anticipated. The company has been forced to halt new activations to give its servers some breathing room. Read more »
Burger King got a nasty social media surprise on the President’s Day holiday when someone took over its Twitter account and announced the company had been sold to its rival. Read more »
One thing that Tesla’s’ battle with the New York Times has reinforced is how the balance of power has shifted in media now that everyone — companies included — has the ability to publish their side of a story. Read more at paidContent »
Google Flu Trends significantly overestimated the number of Americans afflicted with flu-like symptoms during the season’s peak a couple months ago, but assuring accuracy is a big part of the puzzle any time we’re talking about web data. Read more »
Do you remember the huge controversy when people claimed Instagram wanted to sell your photos? In a court filing, Instagram reiterated a familiar refrain by social media companies that users can take or leave it when it comes to their policies. Read more »
Tempo AI is the latest startup to emerge from research institute SRI International, and like its virtual assistant predecessors Tempo aims to provide contextual understanding to a common app: the calendar. Read more »
Most of the startups and networks focused on hyperlocal or community news and information try to be as open as possible, but Nextdoor is taking the exact opposite approach and making the barrier to entry for users as high as it can. Read more »
Twitter has officially acquired Bluefin Labs, confirming earlier reports and demonstrating its intent to move into the television and media markets, working to understand how people are interacting with that content on social media. Read more »
In its 17 years, Slate has distinguished itself as a publishing innovator and a home for well-written news and ideas. But, until recently, it has been hampered by a lack of technology and a business model. Is that about to change? Read more at paidContent »
In our age of the dual television and smartphone screen, watching Twitter during live events has become intertwined with the actual watching of the broadcast itself. You can always DVR a show for later, but experiencing the Twitter jokes as they happen is something else entirely. Read more »
