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‘social media’ Stories

Facebook auto-liking pages for users without permission [updated]

Craig Lloyd, Oct 4th 2012 Discuss [10]

Some more bad news has hit the Facebook front today. It's being reported that Facebook is scanning its users' private messages and searching for links to Facebook fan pages. Once it finds these links, Facebook supposedly automatically likes the pages for you without asking for your permission to do so. Read The Full Story

Facebook testing Promoted Posts for all users

Craig Lloyd, Oct 3rd 2012 Discuss [1]

You might already be familiar with different companies and brands promoting their status updates or tweets on Facebook and Twitter. By paying social networks, these companies make sure their messages are read by as many people as possible in the form of "promoted" content, and it looks like Facebook is expanding this feature to regular users as well. Read The Full Story

Zynga reportedly handed out stock to keep workers from leaving

Eric Abent, Aug 10th 2012 Discuss [2]

Things haven't been looking good for Zynga lately. Not only has its stock dropped by a pretty large amount since it went public in December, but it's apparently had to offer incentives to keep its employees from leaving. Bloomberg reports that the company was forced to hand out stock to prevent what analyst Arvind Bhatia calls a "mass exodus," which certainly makes things seem dire for the social games giant. Read The Full Story

Google announces Wildfire acquisition

Eric Abent, Jul 31st 2012 Discuss [0]

Google announced today that it has purchased Wildfire, a social media marketing startup. Wildfire is only four years old, and since its inception its been helping businesses keep track of their presence across various social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Neither company is talking about how much Google paid for Wildfire, but AllThingsD says that sources close to the deal reckon the amount is somewhere around $250 million. Read The Full Story

Apple apparently seeking strategic Twitter investment

Mark Raby, Jul 27th 2012 Discuss [0]

Apple is reportedly planning to make a huge splash in the social networking arena, but it doesn't want to build something from the ground up. It would be impossible to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter, so apparently the company is willing to dole out a bucket of money to Twitter and become a strategic partner with the microblogging site. Read The Full Story

Zynga hit with investigation over questionable stock sell-off

Eric Abent, Jul 27th 2012 Discuss [3]

Things just went from bad to worse for some of the folks at Zynga. Earlier this week the company delivered a less-than-stellar quarterly financial report, and now Ars Technica is reporting that some executives and shareholders are under investigation for dumping over $500 million in stock before the bad news hit and Zynga's stock price took a dive. In other words, a few Zynga higher-ups could be in a whole lot of trouble. Read The Full Story

Zynga to offer real-money gambling in 2013

Mark Raby, Jul 25th 2012 Discuss [0]

Enough with that silly fake money in Farmville and the lack of real-world thrills in Zynga Poker. The country's favorite social game company is looking to expand into the world of sin and will offer a poker game that allows players to gamble actual money sometime in the first half of 2013. However, don't expect it to be hosted - or perhaps even playable - in the US, where online gambling is all but expunged due to several state laws banning the practice. Read The Full Story

Socialmatic promises Instagram-for-real prototype by end of year

Ben Kersey, Jul 20th 2012 Discuss [2]

Earlier in the year, a design team called ADR Studio created a camera concept based off the Instagram icon used for iOS and Android. Now the designer of Socialmatic, Antonio De Rosa, says the concept could see a fully working prototype before the end of the year. De Rosa recently returned from Singapore where he met several manufacturers based in Hong Kong, saying that he had secured a partner that will bridge the gap between the concept and the manufacturing. Read The Full Story

Washington state becomes first to allow voter registration by Facebook

Mark Raby, Jul 19th 2012 Discuss [0]

Everyone in the country should vote. It's a civic duty, and more importantly, you never have any right to complain about the government unless you took the time to actually cast a vote. But do you even know how to register to vote? If you happen to live in Washington state, that is no longer an excuse, as long as you have a Facebook account. Read The Full Story

International Olympic Committee enhances online social presence

Mark Raby, Jul 19th 2012 Discuss [1]

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London are going to be the most online-connected Olympics ever. That's a fact, and it's nothing worth writing an essay about because that doesn't surprise anyone. What's perhaps most interesting, though, is to see whether or not the organization that runs the international games is keeping up with the incredible social presence that the next few months will have. Read The Full Story

Autodesk buys Socialcam in $60m deal

Eric Abent, Jul 17th 2012 Discuss [1]

3D design software pioneer Autodesk announced today that it has agreed to buy mobile video start-up Socialcam for around $60 million. The deal will likely close sometime within the next 30 days, and afterward, it sounds like Socialcam will still retain a large amount of its independence. That doesn't mean that Autodesk isn't going to focus on beefing up Socialcam's service, however, with the company saying that it intends to develop "a more comprehensive set of tools" for Socialcam's tens of millions of users. Read The Full Story