Cody Barbierri is a contributing writer at VentureBeat and Social Media Manager at Piehead. (None of his posts are about clients or their competitors.) Reach him at cody@venturebeat.com (tips should always be sent to tips@venturebeat.com), or on Twitter at @codybarbierri.

stories by Cody Barbierri

Twitter goes down for more than a hour

Twitter is notorious for going offline, but usually not for more than an hour. Today, however, the site was inaccessible — on the web and through Twitter clients — for just about one hour.

As of 10:20 a.m. Pacific time, …

Backfire: Dropping U.S. citizenship could cost Facebook co-founder Saverin $43M

Talk about a backfire. Controversial Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, who recently renounced his U.S. citizenship and came under fire for supposedly skipping out on U.S. taxes, might actually end up owing more money — an estimated $43 million.

Back in …

Google ponies up $10M for fraud case patents

Patents may not always rise to the top of tech news, but major companies are gobbling them up every chance they get.

That’s exactly what Google just did with a $10 million IP purchase from the now out-of-business TeraHop, a …

Facebook app Bday Gift Finder launches with $2M in funding

Finding the perfect gift for a friend’s birthday can be tricky. Bday today launched the Bday Gift Finder, a Facebook app that scrapes your friends’ profiles to recommend the perfect presents. And the company has already secured the best gift …

Social Q&A service Beepl automatically finds experts for your questions

The Internet has long been a go-to resource for getting a question answered, but oftentimes the answers you get come from less than stellar “experts”. Beepl, a social Q&A service hopes to solve that problem. The site launched out of …

Ebay-owned StubHub acquires Zvents for event listings

Ticketing giant StubHub, owned by eBay, has acquired local event-discovery and promotion service Zvents, according to eBay’s internal employee blog eBayInk. Exact terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Zvents, founded in 2005, lets users to find out what events …

Zaarly employee tries to poach Craigslist advertiser

Is it fair to comb through Craigslist ads looking for people to win over to your own online marketplace?

That’s what Zaarly, an online marketplace for people to post items they need, appears to be doing.

In an email thread …

Group-gifting tool Giftiki lets Facebook friends chip in for a present

For many people, a simple “Happy Birthday” on a friend’s Facebook wall is enough. But a startup called Giftiki is launching a new group gift-giving tool Monday to make a birthdays a bigger deal using Facebook.

The idea behind the …

IM Creator design tool makes everyone a web developer

Though am by no means a web designer or developer, I often wish I could build a website on my own. That’s why I was intrigued by the new website development tool IM Creator, which lets you quickly design a …

Tango video chat heads to Windows PCs

Video-calling application Tango announced on its blog today that it is now available on desktop PCs. The company originally announced the feature back in July, along with a $42 million second round of funding.

The original Tango mobile app allowed …

Workout-tracking app Endomondo hits 5 million downloads, gets $2.3M

What fun is sweating through a tough workout if there’s nobody around to be impressed by it? Endomondo is a mobile fitness-tracking application that not only tracks your workouts, but also shares that information with like-minded fitness buffs for motivation.…

Foursquare celebrates one billion check-ins with updated mobile apps

You know what’s cooler than a million check-ins? A billion. Popular location-based check-in location service Foursquare today announced on its blog that it has reached one billion check-ins, as well as launched updated versions of its popular iPhone and …

Facebook makes a run at YouTube video dominance

What do you do when you’re already the number one website for sharing photos? Go after videos. In a report released today by online measurement firm comScore, Facebook ranked as the third largest website for viewing videos online in the …

LocalResponse checks in to social TV advertising with Philo acquisition

Now businesses can keep an eye on consumers checking in in TV land and the real world at the same time. LocalResponse, a company that helps businesses monitor and respond to check-ins, today announced its acquisition of Philo Media Corporation, …

Read It Later lands $2.5M to access bookmarked content anywhere

Read It Later, the company that lets you bookmark web content and access it on other devices, has secured a first round of funding for $2.5 million, according to a company blog post.

The idea is to let you save …

BuyWithMe acquires loyalty program service Edhance

BuyWithMe, a daily deals service, has just announced the acquisition of Edhance, a company that provides card-linked loyalty programs to merchants. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

With Edhance, BuyWithMe merchants will now be able to create ongoing …

Foursquare finds revenue stream in daily deals partnerships

Popular check-in application Foursquare, which recently reached 10 million global users, today announced on its blog that it will be offering local daily deals from 5 new partners, including LivingSocial, Gilt City, Zozi,  AT&T Interactive and BuyWithMe.

Similar to how …

Foursquare checks in with over half a million businesses

Popular check-in application Foursquare announced today on its blog that as of last week it has more than half a million businesses signed up and offering specials.

Businesses looking to take advantage of customers using Foursquare to check in to …

Loopt lets local business customers request daily deals

Loopt, an early leader in location-based services, today announced the launch of Loopt u-Deals, a feature that allows consumers to request daily deals from local businesses.

The feature will enable any consumer to request that a business launch a daily …