Social Media News

Facebook to file papers for IPO as soon as Wednesday

The Facebook IPO cometh.

The social network could file papers for its initial public offering as soon as Wednesday, according to sources.

The burgeoning business is exploring a valuation between $75 and $100 billion — numbers that match a smattering of previous reports — and will likely select Morgan Stanley as the lead underwriter for the IPO, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

A VentureBeat source said that the filing is imminent, but did not … Continue Reading

The DeanBeat: Game Dojos accelerator will help foster even more game startups

We’ve seen an explosion in game startups in the past few years. Zynga and Nexon have gone public, an indication that we could be nearing the end of a cycle. Their IPOs raise the question: When will there be enough game companies?

Game Dojos, a brand new San Francisco-based accelerator for game startups, thinks we’re not there yet. The game market will be saturated, not when there are lots of game startups, but when many … Continue Reading

Kabam acquires game studio Fearless Studios led by ex-Star Wars game developers

Kabam, a maker of hardcore social games, has acquired independent game studio Fearless Studios for an undisclosed price.

The deal gives Kabam more development firepower and it is generally part of a wave of acquisitions happening in the game industry as social game makers try to bulk up in order to stay competitive with market leader Zynga. Kabam has raised $125 million — a huge amount of money for a social game publisher — and … Continue Reading

Facebook is on a new mission: to take down clickjackers

Facebook has teamed up with the Washington state Attorney General to put real resources toward getting rid of spam on the social network — starting with a lawsuit.

“Security is an arms race, and that’s why Facebook is committed to constantly improving our consumer safeguards while pursuing and supporting civil and criminal consequences for bad actors,” Facebook general counsel Ted Ullyot said in a statement.

The two have filed lawsuits against affiliate network Adscend Media, … Continue Reading

YouTube makes more changes to support content creators

Like it or not, more change is afoot at Google’s widely successful video site.

YouTube is following its controversial redesign of the home page with another channel-focused update, several video editing goodies, and some small concessions to member indignation Thursday.

In furtherance of its new-found channel-centric vision, YouTube has refreshed its video “browse” page with a new look and design. Should you dive into the categories from the left-hand menu, you’ll now find channels that … Continue Reading

Twitter tap dances around tweet takedown requests

Twitter is becoming quite the tightrope artist with new technology that will help it better walk the thin line between supporting free speech and honoring takedown requests.

The information network has developed a system for withholding tweets from the streams of users in select countries, as opposed to deleting them altogether.

Twitter will now partially remove some tweets at the behest of governmental authorities in countries where individuals are not permitted to speak freely on … Continue Reading

Google+ gives teens some privacy, unless they don’t want it

It’s two in the afternoon, do you know where your kids are? Evidently, they’re on Google+ but don’t worry, Google has put in some privacy policies to police their raucous Internet partying.

“We think the best strategy is to equip teens and parents with the right information to promote safe online behavior, rather than limiting functionality completely,” a Google spokesperson told VentureBeat in an e-mail.

Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president of product for Google+, explained … Continue Reading

Zynga Bingo debuts on Facebook as part of casino suite

Adding to its Zynga Casino suite, Zynga is announcing today it has launched Zynga Bingo in a closed beta test on Facebook.

The game is the newest social game for Zynga, which is moving at a faster and faster pace to launch new games that help the company preserve its dominant position on the world’s biggest social network.

Initially, the game will be available as a closed beta test and it will be available to … Continue Reading

House renting service Airbnb has booked 5M travel reservations

Airbnb, the online marketplace where you can rent out your house or spare room to travelers, announced today it has reached a milestone of five million guest reservations overall. The company also celebrated its strong international growth, with property listings in more than 19,000 cities in 192 countries around the world.

In terms of reservations alone, 2011 was a great year for Airbnb. The company launched in 2008 and it took about three years to … Continue Reading

Contact information app Hello wants to replace your contact list

Evernote chief executive Phil Libin believes alphabetical contact lists are outdated. And even though his contact app Hello took off like a lead balloon, he hopes that updates coming in the next couple of weeks will help it kill the typical contact list and replace it with a mosaic of photos.

Ever since the note-taking startup Evernote launched, it has been on a quest to capture and organize every bit of data from your life. … Continue Reading

State of the Union proves “Spilled Milk” is something to tweet about

When it comes to significant events that are shared across the country (and sometimes the world), Twitter is getting increasingly good at making sense of the real-time data collected from tweets. Take for example last night’s State of the Union address, which racked up 766,681 tweets during the full 95-minute event.

Twitter has previously reported moments of unusually high activity, such as pop singer Beyonce’s pregnancy announcement during MTV Video Music Awards, a tense U.S. … Continue Reading

Privacy’s state of the union: Google follows Facebook down the path of no return

Google made some sweeping changes to its privacy policies yesterday. It let users know it will be combining data from all of its services, from search to email to photos. This will give Google a much more detailed picture of its users, allowing it to deliver more relevant services, and of course, more targeted advertisements.

People have a right to be angry about this. Faye Kakia, a fashion designer who creates virtual clothing to sell … Continue Reading

THQ launches a Margaritaville Online Facebook game

In a major attempt to diversify, traditional video game publisher THQ is launching its Margaritaville Online social game on Facebook today.

Inspired by the Jimmy Buffett song, the game is an escapist fantasy and a major release for Agoura Hills, Calif.-based THQ. The has been making traditional PC and console games for more than a decade, but it’s struggling to set itself apart by creating unique games in a market where it has huge rivals. … Continue Reading

Facebook’s Timeline now available worldwide

As of this morning, anyone in the world can turn on Timeline, the new look and feel for Facebook profiles.

In a Facebook official blog post this morning, Facebooker Paul McDonald writes that while everyone on Facebook will automatically get the new Timeline interface over the next several weeks, anyone who wants to get Timeline now can do so from the network’s Introducing Timeline page.

On that page, you can choose to start using Timeline … Continue Reading

Facebook added $15.3B and 230k jobs to European economy in 2011

Facebook added $15.3 billion in value to the European economy in the past year, COO Sheryl Sandberg said at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich Tuesday.

Sandberg, in her closing keynote on how social media is reshaping opportunities for economic growth, added that the social network added 230,000 jobs in Europe in 2011.

Sandberg cited the findings from a joint study between Facebook and Deloitte, being released today, and also announced that the company … Continue Reading

Founder of Facebook for Russia donates $1M to Wikipedia at DLD

The founder of Russia’s largest social network proclaimed his love and support for Wikipedia today by promising to donate $1 million to the not-for-profit organization while onstage at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich.

Twenty-seven year-old entrepreneur Pavel Durov founded Russian social network VKontakte, or VK for short, five years ago. The site has grown to 33 million daily unique visitors, 17 million monthly active users and a total of 160 million registered users. … Continue Reading

Google+ introduces new Q&A feature for crowdsourcing answers from friends

Google has taken social interaction with your friends to another level. The search engine giant has introduced a new Google+ feature that allows you to ask friends about your search results.

Google is testing the new “Ask on Google+” feature, which pops up at the bottom of your search results. Click the link to ask your friends any question related to restaurants, movies, how to make friends on Google+, or other topics. Your question will … Continue Reading

Online photo editor Aviary hopes to take Picnik’s place

Sad that Google’s online photo editor Picnik is meeting its demise this year? Well, veteran photo editing service Aviary is plotting to take its place. On Monday the company announced it’s bringing its photo editing services to the Web with a new Facebook app.

“We took the best pieces of our original software, made it lightweight, and launched into Facebook. We were founded to try to bring creativity to the masses,” Alexander Taub, Aviary’s lead … Continue Reading

Google+ is now allowing nicknames, pseudonyms & more

Google+ is now allowing users to bring their nicknames, pseudonyms, and other identities onto the social service.

Up until now, Google+ users were supposed to only use their given-by-their-parents-on-a-birth-certificate names, which might have worked well for a lot of normal social-web users accustomed to that policy by Facebook-driven norms.

But the policy didn’t sit well with a lot of others, from artists and developers to the many other types of individuals who commonly use handles … Continue Reading