When the Google+ Platform is opening for developers and why it’s taking so long

The Google+ Platform is still a relatively small collection of read-only APIs, but Google is definitely preparing for a wide and varied set of features for developers.

At the Inside Social Apps conference in San Francisco Thursday, Google+ engineering director David Glazer (pictured) revealed that Google will roll out more enhancements to the social networking platform “when we’re delighted with how it’s working.”

It’s a vague answer to an important question, and it has a … Continue Reading

Path CEO: We screwed up by uploading your personal data, and we’ve erased it

The CEO of Path, a startup focused on sharing your life with just close contacts, has apologized after a hacker showed that Path’s iOS app uploaded extremely personal data to its servers without permission.

The company’s purpose in uploading that data was to help users better connect with friends and family in Path’s systems. But Path users, naturally, were up in arms that their contacts, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers were taken, and some called … Continue Reading

No ads here: Tumblr now charging $1 to “highlight” blog posts

Tumblr founder David Karp has always dismissed the idea that Tumblr might put ads on its platform. See here, here, and just about every interview the young founder has ever given. But today, Tumblr rolled out highlighted posts, which allow people to pay Tumblr $1 to attach a digital sticker to their posts.

When pestered about a business model in the past, Karp has always said that Tumblr would find a way to generate revenue … Continue Reading

GFACE unveils its new cloud based social gaming network

Crytek, the developer behind Crysis and Far Cry, is backing a new social gaming network called GFACE. Created by a “small team with big ideas”, GFACE promises to deliver high quality free to play multiplayer games directly to your browser, while also offering Facebook-like social network features.

Crytek chief executive officer Cevat Yerli is a director of GFACE, and says, “GFACE enables its users to discover and experience entertainment together in real time. We want … Continue Reading

Facebook’s monster mobile numbers: Over 425M users across Android, iOS, other platforms

With Facebook’s just-released S-1 filing, we’re getting a better picture of how the company is competing in the mobile sphere. We already knew the company had more than 800 million registered members, and now we know it had more than 425 million monthly active mobile users in December 2011, a stunning accomplishment.

“Mobile is really coming into its own right now, and Facebook is going to play heavily in this space,” Altimeter Group analyst Rebecca … Continue Reading

BREAKING: Facebook files its S-1; let the IPO hoopla begin

Facebook has filed its S-1 form with the SEC, announcing its intention to go public.

The SEC filing is included at the end of this post for your convenience, since this news has understandably had a negative impact on the SEC’s site.

The stock ticker symbol will be FB. No starting price has yet been named, but Facebook did say in the filing it expects to raise $5 billion in the IPO. The transaction may … Continue Reading

Facebook user data: 845M monthly users, 2.7B daily likes & comments

Facebook filed for an initial public offering today, and included an updated report on the giant social network’s user and usage data.

The company’s total number of active monthly users, which it defines as registered Facebook users who have logged in and visited the site via web browser/mobile device (including interactions from third-party sites), was 845 million as of December 31, 2011. That’s up by about 45 million since the company’s last update at September’s … Continue Reading

Pinterest wins Best New Startup of 2011 Crunchie, now driving more referrals than Reddit

Hot-as-heck social networking service Pinterest won the award for Best New Startup of 2011 at the Crunchies Awards last night, beating out other strong contenders like Turntable.fm, Fab, and Codeacademy.

Pinterest lets people spotlight products and pictures they like and was launched in private beta in March 2010. It was nominated in the 2011 category because it saw incredible growth in traffic last year. The site attracted nearly 11 million unique visitors in mid-December and … Continue Reading

Facebook said to be filing $5B IPO, Morgan Stanley selected to take lead

Social network king Facebook will likely file its first papers with regulators on Wednesday morning for a $5 billion initial public offering, “sources close to the deal” have told Reuters subsidiary IFR.

We heard at the end of last week that the social network could file papers for its initial public offering as soon as Wednesday, so it’s not unexpected that more details are leaking like a well-worn faucet. The timing aligns with a recent … Continue Reading

Moxie Software rides social wave to big growth

Moxie Software, purveyor of social networking solutions for the enterprise, says that 2011 was a strong year for the company — so strong, in fact, that it added 75 new customers and boosted recurring revenues by 40 percent.

Now, there are plenty of vendors who try to bring cloud-hosted social functionality to the enterprise market: Yammer and Salesforce.com’s Chatter come to mind. But Moxie takes a slightly different approach by enabling what it calls “external … Continue Reading

Reminder: First Google+ Hangout with President Obama is tonight

President Obama will give the Google+ social network a high-profile boost by taking questions on a Hangout video chat starting at 5:30 p.m. Eastern tonight.

The Hangout was announced a week ago, and it will hopefully allow for a more interactive experience than usual for political discourse. The President will be joined by five pre-selected people and answer several questions that were submitted using YouTube.

The President’s hangout will give the fledgling Google+ network more … Continue Reading

Emerging social network Pinterest driving big traffic to retailers (infographic)

Emerging social network Pinterest, an addictive site that lets people spotlight products and items they like, is helping drive increasing amounts of traffic to retailers, according to a new infographic by Monetate.

Pinterest, which attracted nearly 11 million unique visitors in mid-December, is now one of the top 10 social networking sites. It’s one of the rare cases of a social network generating strong word-of-mouth interest without much help from the tech community. The site … Continue Reading

British tourists detained, barred from U.S. after tweet about “destroying America”

Two British tourists were detained and barred from entering the U.S. after the Department of Homeland Security flagged one of them for joking to “destroy America” and to dig up Marilyn Monroe’s grave on Twitter.

British citizens Leigh Van Bryan (pictured, middle) and his friend Emily Bunting recently flew to Los Angeles for a holiday trip and instead were interrogated for five hours and locked up over night, according to The Sun newspaper.

Bryan told … Continue Reading

Google+ Hangout with Obama planned for Jan. 30

In what might be the biggest promotion yet for the Google+ social network, President Obama will be participating in a Google+ Hangout and answering questions submitted via YouTube on Jan. 30.

While there’s been some controversy over forced registrations for Google’s social network and misleading statistics from Google, there’s no doubt that a chance to “hangout” with the President will get Google+ some more traction and more followers. Google claims Google+ has 90 million registered … Continue Reading

Tumblr now reaches 120M people each month

Tumblr’s quirky blogging platform and community network reaches 120 million people every month, founder and CEO David Karp disclosed at the Digital Life Design conference in Munich Monday.

Karp, citing the startup’s latest Quantcast figures, shared that the social network and blogging hybrid now sees 15 billion page views each month.

Interviewed by entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, Karp talked about the company’s early growth, its decision to take the road less traveled in social networking, the … Continue Reading

Grubwithus debuts iPhone app to book meals on-the-go

Grubwithus, the social-dining startup that helps people meet over meals in real-life, has launched an official iPhone app. The free mobile app is a promising step toward a future service that allows people to spontaneously book meals amongst themselves anytime, anywhere.

The service is already known for its “in-real-life” approach to social networking, bringing strangers together for prix fixe meals that are negotiated with partner restaurants beforehand. The social goals are very open-ended: people use … Continue Reading

GetGlue prepares to take social TV mainstream with $12M in funding

It’s not in the same league as Facebook or a Twitter, or even half the size of Instagram, but GetGlue’s highly-specialized social network for entertainment watchers could be on its way to superstardom.

On GetGlue, more than two million die-hard entertainment fans check-in to television shows and movies, over the web or from mobile devices, to share their enthusiasm and get rewards for their viewing behaviors. Seventy five major television networks have already taken notice, … Continue Reading

Google search gets its biggest change in a decade with a dose of Google+

Well, it’s finally happened. Google web search has been Google-Plus-ified.

Today, Google is bringing some specific new features to Google web search, its flagship and most widely used product. In addition to the usual assortment of links, pictures, news items and shopping results you’d see in a typical Google search results page, logged-in Google+ users will now also find several kinds of Google+ content sprinkled in among the normal search results. There are even promoted … Continue Reading

Web consumption wanes as mobile app usage skyrockets

The notion of the post-PC era may have legs to stand on, and Facebook could be playing a key role in the shift. This according to new data that highlights increasing mobile application usage at the expense of web consumption.

Mobile apps continues to rise in popularity, with people now spending 94 minutes per day, on average, using mobile applications, according to analytics firm Flurry. Meanwhile, web consumption, on both desktop and mobile devices, has … Continue Reading