A new app from the founders of Tapjoy is emerging to combine mobile and social commerce on iOS and Android devices. The app, called Karma, makes gifting to friends a breeze, by integrating with a user's social graph on Facebook and suggesting gifts for them.…
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Mountain Lion threatens Facebook and Microsoft
Rapid adoption of OS X Mountain Lion would clearly threaten Microsoft. But after digging into Apple's new operating system, Edward Aten of Swift.fm thinks it poses a threat to another, less obvious, company — the current leader in the consumer cloud, Facebook.…
Read MoreFacebook plans to release a new premium ads product Feb. 29
Facebook is planning to upgrade its premium ads on February 29, with the goal of boosting performance by 40 to 80 percent, according to documents obtained by iStrategyLabs' Peter Corbett.…
Read MoreSky News joins the anti-social media brigade
A new policy from Sky News bars reporters from posting anything other than work-related content on Twitter, and even forbids them from retweeting anything that doesn't come from a Sky account. As with so many other similar policies, this completely misses the point of social media.…
Read MoreFacebook filling the gaping hole in its mobile strategy
It looks like Facebook wants to address the big weaknesses in its mobile business model before it has to deal with nagging questions of its investors. According to FT, Facebook plans in March to include sponsored posts in its mobile news feeds.…
Read MorePoll: The older you are, the more you hate Facebook Timeline
Facebook is in the process of converting all user profiles to the Timeline design. But according to a poll, the majority of people aren't so keen on the new look. Seventy percent of all respondents disapproved of Timeline, as did 90 percent of people over 65.…
Read MoreFacebook just revealed its Kryptonite: mobile
In its IPO filing Facebook mentions the word "mobile" 123 times but didn't use the term in positive ways. In fact, Facebook’s S-1 filing is one big warning to investors: Its growth is being driven by user behavior that it has so far failed to monetize.…
Read MoreFacebook has nothing to fear, except itself
According to Edward Aten, founder of Swift.fm, Facebook is recreating and competing with nearly every significant Internet product of the last few years. It's an unprecedented pivot that threatens Facebook's core products and may eventually benefit the very same startups Facebook is trying to crush.…
Read MoreFacebook wants to rewire the way the world works
In the letter to shareholders included in Facebook's IPO filing, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes it clear his vision goes beyond just a social network. He wants to fundamentally rewire the way the world works, from interpersonal interactions to commerce to even government.…
Read MoreIt’s here: Facebook files for $5 billion IPO
The most highly anticipated initial public offering in today's tech world is officially happening. Facebook filed S-1 documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission Wednesday afternoon to raise a maximum of $5 billion. According to the filing, Facebook made $3.7 billion in revenue in 2011.…
Read MoreTwitter begins larger rollout of enhanced brand pages
Twitter on Wednesday switched on enhanced brand pages for accounts owned by National Public Radio, NBC News, Volkswagen, and others. This is the first batch of premium Twitter pages from companies other than the handful of launch partners who unveiled enhanced brand pages in December.…
Read MoreIs Facebook’s IPO the start of something, or the end?
As everyone awaits the $100-billion Facebook IPO, the biggest question hanging over the offering is whether it marks the beginning of a new era for Facebook -- or if it's just a massive cashing-out exercise, a sign that this generation's version of AOL has peaked?…
Read MoreStudy: Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Google+, nearly on par with Twitter
It's clear that Pinterest is really hot, but a new study shows just how powerful the virtual pinboard company has become. Pinterest is now driving more referral traffic on the web than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined, according to Shareaholic's January 2012 Referral Traffic Report.…
Read MoreSocialFolders plugs into Evernote to be your social media diary
SocialFolders, a freemium application that launched last month to let you store and manage any file created on the social web, rolled out an integration with Evernote on Tuesday that lets users drag-and-drop content such as Tweets, Facebook updates, Instagram photos into their Evernote accounts.…
Read MoreHow much should we trust our new information overlords?
The news that Twitter will be censoring tweets has reinforced for many the fact that our freedoms exist at the mercy of the companies whose networks we are using -- and being used by. How much trust should we have in these new information gatekeepers?…
Read MoreUberpaper aims to kill the echo chamber of social news
Personalized algorithms and social recommendations are great for a lot of things. But when it comes to getting news, these technologies can create an echo chamber, where our existing beliefs are reflected back to us. Uberpaper, a new site from Dmitry Shapiro, wants to combat that.…
Read More1000memories integrates with Facebook to fill Timeline with old photos
San Francisco startup 1000memories has integrated its ShoeBox app for scanning and sharing old physical photos online with Facebook's Timeline user interface. This means that people will be able to easily fill in the gaps on their Timeline between their birthdates and when they joined Facebook.…
Read MoreWikiOrgCharts crowdsources company relationships
Work boundaries have blurred and so has our understanding of who knows what in a given company. WikiOrgCharts uses the power of crowdsourcing to bring that information into focus. Having a clear picture of roles within an organization makes it easier for partnering companies to collaborate.…
Read More5 music-focused iTunes alternatives for Mac
iTunes may be great for syncing your iOS devices, or buying songs, movies, apps and books, but it's not exactly the most nimble music player anymore. Here are five great Mac-compatible alternatives that focus on the music, without the bloat that iTunes brings.…
Read MoreFacebook data: Thousands of journalists now have a Subscribe button
According to Facebook, reporters have been especially receptive to the Subscribe button feature launched in Sept. 2011. The number of journalists who have enabled the subscribe button is now in the thousands, and the average journalist has seen a 320-percent boost in subscribers since November.…
Read MoreFacebook starts converting all profiles to Timeline
Facebook said Tuesday it will convert all users' profiles to the new Timeline interface over the next few weeks. Soon Timeline, which shows each user's life over an expandable Timeline that dates all the way back to his or her birth, will be the only design available to all Facebook users.…
Read MoreHow Codecademy got so hot, so fast
Codecademy, which teaches users how to program for free with an interactive and social web application, has garnered more than 1 million users in less than five months. We talked to co-founder and CEO Zach Sims about how Codecademy started and where it's going.…
Read MoreFacebook picks fight with Google over who is more evil
A team of developers led by Facebook's Blake Ross has launched a browser plugin called "Don't be evil" they claim presents Google's search more fairly -- but is this a war Facebook can win, or just a chance to make cheap PR points against Google?…
Read MoreNews.me, Percolate vie for Summify users after Twitter buy
Summify's sale to Twitter this week was good news for the startup, but bad news for many of its users, who expressed frustration that the news aggregation service would be mothballed post-deal. But startups News.me and Percolate are now vying to take on Summify's users.…
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