If you use other people’s photos on your blog, you need to check this out

Bloggers know what I’m talkin’ about: It’s that sticky legal and moral quagmire you encounter when you need an image for a post or page.

You could use Google Images and just grab something from anywhere on the web, sans …

Zynga beats Q1 earnings estimates

Zynga reported first quarter earnings of 6 cents a share, beating analyst estimates for the social game company’s second-ever earnings announcement.

The publisher of social games such as FarmVille reported non-GAAP net income of $47 million on revenues of $321 …

Revealed: How Twitter’s secret offer for Instagram made Facebook pay $1B

The secret details of the $1 billion deal between Facebook and Instagram are more convoluted than anyone thought. VentureBeat has learned that Instagram chief executive and co-founder Kevin Systrom first got an offer and a term sheet from Twitter, then …

Social customer service software Freshdesk grabs $5M

Customer support software in the cloud provider Freshdesk helped itself grab a $5 million in funding, the company reported Thursday.

Freshdesk gets that you’d rather be liking your friend’s drunk vacation photos on Facebook than sitting on the phone with …

Apple creating private eatery so you can’t “OH” its employees on Twitter

Other than the restaurants surrounding Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Silicon Valley has to be one of the best places to eavesdrop. Which is exactly why Apple is building a private, off-campus eatery.

The Cupertino Planning Commission granted Apple permission …

Big data startup Sociocast goes beyond analytics with new SaaS tools (exclusive)

Big data and analysis startup Sociocast has launched two new Software-as-a-Service tools aimed at helping advertising and media companies better understand their customers, the company revealed today.

Sociocast’s software analyzes “big data” sets and delivers predictive real-time audience data to …

EA stock spikes on rumor that Nexon will buy it (not likely)

Shares of Electronic Arts rose today on a rumor that Japan’s Nexon has made a bid to purchase EA. The odd thing is that Nexon doesn’t appear to have enough cash or stock to do that, unless it borrows a …

Hulu co-owner Providence Equity sells its stake for $200M

Providence Equity Partners, the only one of Hulu’s four owners that isn’t a media company, has sold its 10 percent stake in the premium TV streaming video site for $200 million, reports Bloomberg .

Providence was nearing a deadline on …

Redux steps into video distribution, teams up with Humble Bundle for Czech film “Kooky”

Redux is aiming to move beyond the realm of web video aggregation with its new video distribution platform, which will allow artists to directly sell video on the web. The company has teamed up with Humble Bundle, the folks behind …

YC startup SendHub secures $2M for serious SMS (exclusive)

SMS messages sent for practical, group communication rather than just LOLs is serious enough business that investors have handed SendHub a $2 million check.

Recent Y Combinator graduate SendHub, which bills itself as SMS for organizations, is in the business …

Entrepreneurs and investors meet in New York to organize for profit and for revolution

There were two pretty incredible tech events in New York this Tuesday. I only managed to score an invite to one of them, the Lerer Ventures CEO summit at Citi Field. The other was Union Square Ventures more exclusive Hacking …

White House advisers threaten a veto for CISPA, the controversial cyber security bill

White House advisers yesterday said they’ll recommend that President Barack Obama veto the controversial cyber security bill CISPA if it passes a congressional vote in its current form.

CISPA, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (PDF), intends to …

MetaMarkets crunches your big numbers, raises $15M

Big data analytics company MetaMarkets has raised $15 million in a new funding round, the company announced today.

MetaMarkets originally analyzed prices for online ads on mobile and regular websites for media companies in real-time. Now the company has expanded …

Google Drive privacy policies are extremely similar to Dropbox, SkyDrive, & iCloud

After Google Drive finally launched Tuesday, it was only took a day for people to begin prodding Google about just how private stored files would be using the service. However, Google’s policy is quite similar to already established rivals Dropbox, …

Zynga earnings preview: what the analysts think

Zynga’s stock price has been falling in recent days in advance of the company’s first quarter earnings report today. The shares are trading at $9.15 each right now — up slightly but down significantly from a recent high of $15.91 …

‘Magical’ video editor Magisto updates Facebook Timeline app, hopes for Viddy-like user bump

Video editing startup Magisto has upgraded its young Facebook Timeline app with more social features in hopes to attract a flood of new users, the company announced today.

After launching its own Facebook Timeline app, social video sharing startup Viddy …

Chase earns top marks in Forrester’s new mobile banking benchmark

With the rising popularity of mobile banking — reaching 17 percent of U.S. consumers by the end of last year, a figure that’s grown 4X in the past five year — the research firm Forrester has developed a “Mobile Banking …