A study that looked at more than a billion tweets and the geographic connections between 71 million users across the globe shows how Twitter has changed the way we communicate and helped erase geographical barriers. Read more »
With speculation that Facebook might be launching an RSS reader at its press event next week, it’s important to think about why users loved the Google Reader experience. Hint: it wasn’t because Google Reader was social. Read more »
The needle-and-haystack analogy of finding important insights inside big data certainly applies to tweets, and Dataminr, one service that find the needles in the Twitter firehose, just got more venture funding. Read more »
A survey of journalists in fifteen countries reveals some interesting differences in attitudes to social media. Here are some highlights. Read more at paidContent »
If you were interested in making a purchase on Twitter or Facebook through Chirpify, you might start to see lower prices on the service, as the company replaces PayPal processing with its own system to reduce fees for sellers. Read more »
Digg isn’t a newcomer to the social news scene — in fact, it helped pioneer the concept. But the folks at Betaworks are re-imaginging social news for 2013, and the RSS reader they plan to launch in late June will play an integral role. Read more »
Twitter has signed another global partnership with one of the world’s largest advertising firms, aimed at allowing the company’s clients to target their ads to specific Twitter users based on their behavior on the network. Read more »
Tweetdeck has a new look, bringing it more in line with the rest of Twitter’s apps and brightening the overall visual appearance. Read more »
DataSift is bringing the Twitter firehose, Google+ and other social streams to Tableau Software in a new partnership. The deal could help more people gain insight into connections between business and social media. Read more »
If the media is being disrupted in many of the same ways that the automotive manufacturing industry has been, who would qualify as the most innovative or disruptive force in the media business over the last decade? Read more at paidContent »
Users experienced delays and a downed service from Twitter on Monday as the company experience outages as the result of a routine change. The stakes have grown higher for Twitter in what a fail whale means. Read more »
In announcing its video app’s jump from iOS to Android, Twitter reveals the app has tallied 13 million users since its January introduction. Read more »
Twitter’s long-time director of platform is flying the coop, leaving the company after several years of working with developers and the ecosystem around Twitter. Read more »
HootSuite is rolling out new functions for its enterprise clients to help them avoid getting hacked on Twitter. But the new features do create another question: why can’t Twitter itself take a stronger stand in protecting user accounts? Read more »
Facebook has admitted that it failed to apply its policies about offensive content to some disturbingly misogynistic pages. But is this a victory for the social network’s critics, or just another stop on the slippery slope of censorship? Read more »
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo thinks Apple is his spirit company, news organizations shouldn’t fear Twitter, and that engineers need room to experiment. Read more »
Facebook is rolling out a verification feature for celebrities and prominent public figures, mimicking Twitter’s popular feature that indicates famous users on the site. Read more »
Twitter’s #music app was built in secrecy, but engineers from Spotify and Rdio were involved early on. That’s because Twitter wants its app to become the sharing layer for music subscription services. Read more »
Is there a reason Vine videos are exactly six seconds long? Yes, and it has a lot to do with high profile court cases that almost destroyed hip hop music. Read more »
Twitter is rapidly expanding its “multi-screen” ad offerings through a range of new partnerships with sports, news and other media companies. Read more »
Twitter has finally joined other leading tech companies in offering two factor authentication. The move comes after high profile hacking incidents at the AP and other news outlets. Read more »
Twitter’s latest ad product provides a call to action right inside a tweet — showing the company is finally creating marketing tools closer to the “bottom of the funnel.” Read more »
What are teenagers up to on social media? Twitter use has grown dramatically since 2011, while Facebook stays dominant but shows flat growth. Read more »
There are plenty of reasons why the announced Yahoo Tumblr deal makes sense for those companies. But Marissa Mayer might have seen a much greater payoff from acquiring Pinterest instead. Here’s why. Read more »
Recent events, tragic and triumphant, emphasize the social web’s role as a central source for disseminating breaking news. But getting the facts right continues to be a challenge, and a solution requires cooperation and technical innovation. Read more at paidContent »
A recent survey found that 76 percent of respondents store their digital photos on multiple devices using multiple services.That means ample opportunity exists for companies offering solutions that tackle this “dispersed photo problem.” This report analyzes the aforementioned survey’s results, and also measures 18 different vendors against what respondents value most when it comes to photo-organizing solutions. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With its acquisition of Lucky Sort, Twitter seems to be acknowledging that it’s a data company after all. The plan appears to be building a services that would do for Twitter equivalent to services such as Google Trends and Google Analytics. 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 »
We are used to thinking of a “mass media” market made up of large newspapers and TV networks as the normal state of affairs in media, but what if that was just a historical anomaly? Read more at paidContent »
Twitter will expand its data center footprint in Sacramento, Data Center Knowledge reports. The move would help the social network support traffic spikes and a continually growing user base. Read more »
We caught up with Dave Lester, soon-to-be graduate of UC Berkeley’s School of Information and a web developer who told us about his drone hacking project, the importance of code integration, and his upcoming foray into open source at Twitter. Read more »
Twitter says it doesn’t have any interest in hiring reporters or performing other journalistic functions — but regardless of whether it does so, it is still a powerful media entity and one that grows stronger by the day. Read more at paidContent »
Nicole Wong, a top lawyer with a reputation for standing up for liberty and free expression while at Google and Twitter, is headed to the White House. Read more »
Can a Valley-backed startup help usher in a transition to plant-based proteins dominating the meat counter? Read more »
Spotify has acquired the music app Tunigo, which helps users discover Spotify playlists and browse music and music-related news. Read more »
Whenever a breaking news event leads to errors on Twitter, critics suggest that the service needs some kind of built in correction or editing mechanism — but adding one would not only be complicated, it would also be unwise. Read more »
As the issue of password security and online identity becomes more important than ever, Facebook has re-vamped its password security measures, allowing you to contact friends in case of trouble. Read more »
News site The Root has rolled out a page that shows the most popular tweets and trends among black Americans, who are heavy Twitter users. Read more at paidContent »
Interested in advertising for your business on Twitter? The company is rolling out its self-serve ad platform to all businesses now, it announced Tuesday. Read more »
Hedonometer.org draws on tweets and other sources of textual sentiment to gauge population-level happiness. Read more »
