Google races Facebook to simplify its Friend Connect platform
Call it feature envy. Google is simplifying the process for developers to use Friend Connect on their sites, just two days after Facebook essentially did the same for its competing Facebook Connect identity platform.
Instead of uploading files to activate Friend Connect, a developer can now… Continue Reading
Russia’s DST raising stake in Facebook at $6.5 billion valuation
Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies is boosting its stake in Facebook by buying from existing shareholders, Reuters is reporting.
Offering the same $14.77 a share it put forward earlier in July, the Russian investment firm is turning to shareholders who aren’t Facebook employees to raise its holdings… Continue Reading
Is Facebook speeding up while Twitter slows?
On the heels of Twitter’s latest fundraising round valuing it at a reported $1 billion, data suggests the site’s growth may be slowing. Twitter.com’s marketshare of visits peaked in June then declined into this month, according to analytics service HitWise.
The deceleration would also come as… Continue Reading
Facebook: Twitter is “in the rear-view mirror”
Twitter may still be the media darling of the day, getting all kinds of attention amid its huge user growth earlier this year. But Facebook, once considered Twitter’s most fierce competitor because it also wants to let users post bite-sized updates online about their thoughts,… Continue Reading
Incorporating social media: There’s no magic bullet
Searching for help in determining how to incorporate social media into your business can be a frustrating process. A Google search for ‘social media consultant’ returns over 20 million results – and most of them offer very similar, one-size-fits-all suggestions based around the adoption of… Continue Reading
Flock browser beefs up Twitter, Facebook support
Flock version 2.5, released on Tuesday by Redwood City, Calif.-based Flock, is designed to let social network addicts spend their entire day in a single browser window.
Flock, an enhanced version of the open-source Firefox browser, streams status updates from Twitter and Facebook in a sidebar… Continue Reading
Tinker: sanitized Twitter for advertisers, money-maker for micro-bloggers
Popular microblogging services like Twitter, Facebook and Friendfeed will let you find and follow friends, celebrities, and anyone else who interests you. But Glam Media wants to let you follow events, too. It’s just launched Tinker.com, a micro-blogging platform that collects real-time conversations from Twitter… Continue Reading
Appssavvy makes it easier for advertisers to navigate the demographics of social networks
Appssavvy, a sales company that helps advertisers cull through the thousands of social network applications hitting the web to find the right match, is close to releasing a dashboard tool to make the process that much easier. The New York-based company, which we’ve covered before,… Continue Reading
Google-led gang to take on Facebook — Google’s OpenSocial to launch
Updated
A host of Silicon Valley companies led by Google are ganging together to take on Facebook — the social networking company that is the toast of the town right now.
A group of Facebook’s cross-town rival, including Google, LinkedIn, Hi5, Friendster, Plaxo and Ning, are apparently… Continue Reading
Microsoft invests $240M in Facebook, as Facebook develops ad product
Updated
Microsoft has snagged a deal to invest $240 million into popular social network Facebook, valuing the company at $15 billion — a 1.6 percent stake. Microsoft has also agreed to advertise on Facebook in international markets.
We listened in on a well-staged official press conference call… Continue Reading
Facebook didn’t dip: Comscore, Quantcast, Compete all wrong?
When respected traffic measurement company Comscore released data several days ago showing that Facebook’s U.S. visitors dropped more than 9.3 percent last month, it sparked widespread disbelief among bloggers and others. Facebook is hot, and growing. The data must be wrong!
Comscore has just published data… Continue Reading
Myspace to open developer platform — good for web startups
It’s official: MySpace, seeking to defend its status as the leading social network, will open up its platform to third-party developers over the next couple of months.
The news was confirmed tonight at Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, where News Corporation’s Rupert Murdoch and MySpace… Continue Reading
Google’s sneak attack? Adsense for Facebook
Is Google-the-Goliath sneaking into the Facebook building — via the basement?
Google is actively recruiting third-party developers with applications on Facebook to run Adsense ads within applications pages, VentureBeat has learned.
These aren’t just any old Adsense ads, according to our sources — developers have been inserting… Continue Reading
Roundup: Yahoo’s Chinese stake, AT&T spectrum acquisition, Facebook app fund and more
Plenty of moves by big companies in today’s action:
1) Yahoo expands stake in Chinese search portal
2) AT&T buys up $2.5 billion worth of 700mhz spectrum
3) Facebooks FBfund chucks initial applications
4) Twitter’s first attempts to monetize
5) More details on Google’s plans for Orkut
6) E.ON blows another… Continue Reading
Funding Facebook apps, homerun or ho-hum?
On Tuesday, I’ll be moderating a panel about how developers of Facebook applications can get money from venture capitalists.
Venture capitalists are looking for big hits and it’s not easy to please them. This panel features the leading investors in Facebook apps. If you’re going to… Continue Reading
Digg revamps profiles — introduces feeds, copies Facebook
Digg, the popular news-ranking site that is trying to extend its popular beyond its young geek-oriented audience, has significantly revamped its user profile section. The changes are aimed to give the service much more of a community feel, letting you share Digg stories with friends,… Continue Reading
Who founded Facebook? Aaron Greenspan says he came up with the idea first
Harvard student Aaron Greenspan says he came up with the idea for Facebook before Mark Zuckerberg founded the popular company of the same name.
Greenspan’s claims, backed up by emails, are the latest salvo in the controversy surrounding the true origins of the social networking company…. Continue Reading
Facebook’s first acquisition: secretive start-up Parakey
updated
Facebook has acquired Parakey, a Mountain View, Calif., startup that had been working on a new way for people to work seamlessly on applications while online and offline.
Founded by former Mozilla Firefox browser developers Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, Parakey had worked in secrecy for… Continue Reading
Introducing “Causes on Facebook”
updated
Serial entrepreneur Sean Parker’s new philanthropy focused company, Project Agape, launches tonight, with a special version of its software tailored for Facebook users.
It is called Causes on Facebook.
Just as significant as its launch, however, is its intent to showcase the strengths of Facebook’s new “Platform,”… Continue Reading
Facebook growing, but more roadkill coming?
Facebook is growing quickly, adding between 100,000 and 150,000 new users per day, the company tells us, with the highest growth rates coming from abroad.
Particularly noteworthy is its traction in Canada, where it has more than 2 million active users, around 11 percent of the… Continue Reading