Looking for a book suggestion? Culling information from your Twitter feed and turning that into accurate recommendations is harder than it looks, but Parakweet is looking to use natural language procesing to do just that. Read more »
If you’re looking for the latest video clips from your favorite sports, you might soon find them on Twitter. The social media company has solidified a deal with ESPN that will let users check out the action via Twitter video clips. Read more »
Path is announcing a partnership with Sprint that will make it easier for users to download the app on certain Android phones, potentially giving the social network a needed boost in adding new members. Read more »
Looking for cool new products in home design? Fab is transitioning from a flash sales sites of merchandise from other retailers to encompass a wide variety of home furnishings with an emphasis on design. Read more »
A small startup trying to gain traction in the Windy City, Evzdrop has designed geo-social network that doesn’t connect you to your friends but to strangers wherever you happen to be. Read more »
LinkedIn is launching a standalone Contacts app that will roll out slowly to users in the U.S. But do you really need a second LinkedIn app with only limited professional contacts in it? Read more »
If your town is inundated with paramilitary forces and you’re told to stay put because a madman’s on the loose, Twitter is suddenly your connection to the world beyond. Read more »
It may be a contrary opinion, but I think Facebook should build its own phone — not a smartphone, but a cheap feature phone. I wouldn’t buy it. You wouldn’t buy it. But millions of people would. Here’s why. Read more »
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 »
Life360 is focusing on locating and communicating with members of your family, and has been gaining traction as a family app despite not looking much like Facebook. The company has launched a premium version this week with additional features. Read more »
A malicious hacker group infiltrated the confines of Facebook’s corporate network last month, the company revealed on Friday. Facebook said that the threat was contained and there is no evidence of any user data being compromised. Read more »
Nextdoor wants to pick up on the community surrounding a neighborhood and create a high-tech combo of Craigslist, police tips, local messaging, and safety information. With more than $21 million in new funding, they’re on track to keep growing. Read more »
Did you get a mysterious email from Facebook about a lawsuit? You’re eligible for some money but, alas, chances are the lawyers and privacy groups will keep it instead. Here’s the odds. Read more »
A child protection scandal and failure to innovate have left Habbo Hotel — once one of the most popular virtual worlds — reeling. Now with the departure of CEO Paul LaFontaine, it’s feeling increasingly like the Finnish company faces a do or die moment. Read more »
A new Facebook prank making the rounds lets you turn someone’s account into a memorial page by sending along an email address and a fake obituary. Read more »
Cooking inspiration is already one of Pinterest users’ biggest reasons for using the popular social network, and Pinterest has decided to make the most of that trend. Its first acquisition is recipe aggregator and culinary inspiration portal Punchfork. Read more »
Pave, a New York-based startup, on Wednesday said it’s piloting its crowdfunding platform that matches up students and other young people pursuing new careers with established professionals who invest money and time in exchange for a share of future earnings. Read more »
Who has the right to use platforms like Facebook and Twitter? On Thursday, a federal judge emphatically sided with Facebook against an adware company that wanted to use the site for its own ends. Read more »
Facebook is proposing integrating user data with Instagram user data, and abolishing a voting system that allowed users to weigh in on potential changes to the site. The changes bring some privacy concerns for users, but come from Facebook’s desire to monetize and streamline user data. Read more »
Some prominent users of Facebook such as billionaire sports-team owner Mark Cuban are complaining that the social network wants to charge them to reach their users with marketing messages — but shouldn’t it be fairly obvious that this was part of Facebook’s plan all along? Read more »
Mobile technology and social networks aren’t just disruptive to existing industries like communications and media, they are also helping the change the way that students learn and how education is delivered both in North America and around the world. And the disruption is just beginning. Read more »
Path is finally expanding to the iPad, America’s most popular tablet and a natural place for Path’s family-oriented users to head next. In landscape mode, the iPad app allows users to see popular posts of the day, including posts from friends on music, books and movies. Read more »
Facebook reported third-quarter earnings Tuesday, posting revenue of $1.26 billion and earnings of $0.12 per share, which were slightly above analyst expectations. The company said 14 perent of its advertising revenue in the quarter came from mobile. Read more »
NetZero is giving each of its customers 1 GB of free bonus data each month. You can’t use that yourself, though. You have to give it to other NetZero customers in 200 MB increments, but there’s nothing to stop your friends from returning the favor. Read more »
With 2m members, science startup ResearchGate isn’t just talking big when it says it wants to start a revolution: it’s actually changing the way scientists work. Co-founder Ijad Madisch explains his vision — and how he’d like to change Germany’s clone-heavy culture along the way. Read more »
On Thursday, Facebook is announcing that its new real-time bidding platform, the Facebook Exchange, is coming out of beta. While it’s still early days, the social network’s advertising partners give the new platform high marks. Read more »
A year after opening its API, Mendeley — the document manager and social network for scientists — has seen a blossoming of apps that hook into its system… often in innovative ways. Now it’s looking to the future. Read more »
Most critics of Dalton Caldwell’s App.net project seem to see it as a replacement for Twitter, only with users paying for the service rather than advertisers. But what the service really wants to be is a central messaging bus and open ecosystem for the social web. Read more »
Facebook is stepping in to support a deputy sheriff who was fired for “Liking” his boss’s rival. The case, which will determine whether a “Like” is like a bumper sticker, is helping to define free speech in the age of social media. Read more »
Facebook wants a court to approve a deal that will see it pay $20 million to settle the ‘sponsored stories’ controversy. But now, as groups file objections, the judge is questioning whether the settlement’s blacked out financial figures can remain secret. Read more »
Quora launched a new feature that essentially takes away the option of reading anonymously (unless you opt-out) on its platform. This is part of the growing trend of passive sharing involving what one is reading on the web. And it’s not necessarily a good thing. Read more »
Twitter’s decision to suspend the account of a British journalist raises a host of questions about the company’s behavior, but one of the important ones is to what extent Twitter’s filtering and curation features could make it legally liable for the content flowing through the network. Read more »
An Indian operation copied the website of ExploreB2B so closely that the original code still showed, but backed down after little more than a challenging email. Read more »
Are you a member of the exclusive social network ASmallWorld? Say hello to a new iPhone app that will let you connect and meet up with like-minded members when you’re on the go. Read more »
According to the New York Times, Apple has had discussions with Twitter about making a substantial investment in the real-time network. A closer relationship between the two — which has been rumored in the past — would make some sense for both companies. Read more »
Facebook’s shutdown of the Face.com API and Twitter’s increasing clampdown on its API reinforce the lesson that “open” APIs can be very appealing, but they can also become a lot less open over time — and developers and users can get trapped in the middle. Read more »
Path announced today that it has integrated with the Nike+ FuelBand, allowing users to track their movement throughout the day and receive motivation from friends using Path. The connection marks an important mainstream partnership for Path, which has struggled to gain widespread adoption from users. Read more »
Note-taking service Springpad wants access to your Facebook profile. Why? It wants to scrape all of those random “likes” of movies, music, restaurants and TV shows scattered throughout your Timeline and organize them into notebooks, which you and your friends can search and share. Read more »
Pinpuff, an India-based startup that measures influence on Pinterest, is Los Angeles-bound. Startup studio Science announced Tuesday that it is acquiring the young startup and moving its founder to its California office. Read more »
It might take a trip to the local post office to get started with the social network Nextdoor, but the startup is seeing success by taking an old-school, privacy-based approach to creating online communities for neighborhoods. Read more »
