All you do once you’re in Account Settings on Twitter is checkmark “Require a verification code when I sign in,” and then click on “add a phone.” From there, you’ll enter in your mobile phone number. Once that’s done, you’ll always be sent a six-digit code that you’ll use to sign in each time to Twitter. This is to prevent other people from logging into your account, even if they know your password.

Any existing applications that you have connected to Twitter will continue to work after you’ve enabled two-factor authentication, and you shouldn’t have to allow access to them again. If you want to sign into Twitter on multiple devices or sign into Twitter in third-party apps, you can generate a temporary password to log in and authorize such devices and apps.

Twitter finally joins the ranks of other online services using two-factor authentication, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Dropbox. If you haven’t yet enabled two-factor authentication for these services, you should probably go ahead and do yourself a big favor by enabling it for that services that you use. You’ll most likely thank yourself later.

SOURCE: Twitter Blog

Basically, the agreement is that Twitter won’t use their patents to go after other companies (a.k.a. patent trolling), but rather will only use them if they get sued by another company. The agreement also allows the patent’s inventor to retain control, which is quite different than the norm, as most companies retain ownership of patents from employees that invented them.

The IPA from Twitter has been signed and is publicly available for anyone to take a look at. Twitter’s goal is to have other companies adopt a similar IPA, and they announced that Jelly and Lift — two smaller startups — have gotten on board to join the IPA in the hopes of making the patent industry a better place for all of us.

This is certainly good news, and something that many companies should get on board with. Not only does it promote more creativity, but engineers and designers won’t be afraid to share their patent ideas with the company, when otherwise the company would take ownership of the patent, rather than the individual who invented it.

Twitter’s pull-to-refresh patent doesn’t mean that we won’t see such a feature on other mobile apps, as Twitter isn’t going to go after companies who use the patent. Plus, as we’ve seen in the past, patent trolling and lawsuits have arguably put a stop sign in front of innovation and competition, which is something that the tech industry needs in order for it to continue at a swift pace.

SOURCE: Twitter Blog

I’ve known more than a few people that were really on the fence when it came to keeping their Facebook account or deleting it. You probably know a few people like this, they are the sort who have an account but never post anything and only rarely check to see what’s going on. Over the weekend, a new app for Facebook turned up called Social Roulette.

The intention of this app was to take control out of the hands of the user when it came to deleting the account. The game was a spin on the deadly game of Russian Roulette. Rather than risking your life, The simply risked your Facebook account. The design of the app was that one in six people who used it would have their complete Facebook profile deleted.

According to the developers of the app, we can completely remove all your posts, friends, apps, likes, photos, and games before completely deactivating it [your account].” If this sounds like an interesting app, Facebook has blocked the application and it no longer functions. While this sort of app is said to not violate Facebook’s terms and conditions, it obviously isn’t something that Facebook would want out there.

The last thing Facebook wants is for users to delete their account. Facebook is working incredibly hard to figure out a way to generate money from the millions and millions of users the social network has. Honestly, the developers of the application had to know Facebook would eventually block them, even the logo for the app used Facebook’s logo, which the social network doesn’t take kindly to. The developers of the app said Facebook blocked their API key and restricted their ability to create Facebook applications. The developer say that the Facebook automated system flagged their app for “creating a negative user experience.”

SOURCE: TechCrunch

This new recommendation feature is available for both iOS and Android, but it seems it’s only compatible with Forbes for the time being, with more publications to get support in the near future. Basically, a small bar will appear at the bottom of an article that can navigate you to other relevant reading material, as well as the author’s own Google+ page.

Mobile users will also see these recommendations whether they’re signed into Google or not, but users who are signed in, will receive more options when tapping on the bottom recommendations bar. Hopefully this new feature will roll out for all websites sooner than later, but it seems the company is still in its testing phases and will mostly likely only give a few other websites access before they roll it to every web developer.

Google says that they’re making it as easy as possible for developers to add and configure content recommendations for their mobile websites, and by adding a single line of Javascript to the code, devs will be able to make changes in the “For your site” section of their Google+ page dashboard right from the desktop.

This is sort of a win/win situation for both mobile web users and the website developers. Not only will users be able to find more stories of interest based on the initial article they read, but websites will be able to add further value for their readers by easily providing them with related articles if they’re wanting more information about the subject talked about in a specific article. The new feature is a lot like our “Story Timeline” at the end of most of our posts, and while you can still access these additional stories on our mobile site, the new Google+ feature seems to be a lot more intuitive when browsing on mobile websites. We’ll have to wait and see, and we’re guessing Google will talk more about this at Google I/O this week. Stay tuned!

SOURCE: Google+ Developers Blog

The update also comes with “improved navigation for Google Reader RSS folder,” which hopes to make the process easier for those inevitably switching over from the soon-to-be deceased Google Reader RSS service, and it’ll hopefully ease the process for users switching over to find their content quicker this time around.

As for the refreshed profile pages, this gives users insights into their readership and curation activities, as well as the ability to discover “magazines” created by their friends thanks to the new “Friends” category. The update also comes with improved sharing options, which now allow you to send interesting articles and magazines to friends through SMS messaging.

Overall, not a major update by any means, but it does include some small new features that could prove useful for many Flipboardists. Just last week, The Android version of the app was updated to version 2.0, bringing the popular magazine curation feature to Google’s mobile platform and allowing users to create their own magazines that they could share with other users.

Flipboard 2.0 has been out for almost two months now, and by the second week since the app’s update, the company announced that a half a million magazines had already been created by users, proving that users are really enjoying creating their own digital product of sorts. Furthermore, the service claims to have over 50 million users who are flipping over six billion pages per month on average.

SOURCE: iTunes App Store

After you log in with your Microsoft account and connect your Facebook account to Bing, you will discover that you can view comments on Facebook posts in the sidebar inside of the search engine. From there, you can comment and “like” posts without having to visit the Facebook homepage. Whenever you search for something, Bing will automatically bring up any relevant Facebook posts from friends, whether or not they’re recent.

The social sidebar that’s included in Bing has been a feature for a while now, allowing users to connect their Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, or Klout accounts to receive relevant posts from friends on social networks regarding search queries that you make to Bing. Google has a similar sidebar, known as Knowledge Graph, that brings up any third-party relevant info during a search.

This is just another example of the close relationship between Microsoft and Facebook. The social network’s new Graph Search tool, for example, includes results from Bing search on top of Facebook’s own results, so the relationship and integration between the two services goes both ways.

VIA: PC World

SOURCE: Microsoft Bing Blog

Along with the download statistics, Facebook is also rolling out a minor update for Facebook Home as a part of the company’s efforts to release monthly updates for the app launcher. Today’s update isn’t anything special, however — merely just a handful of bug fixes and general performance improvements.

However, Facebook will be issuing more updates over the next few months that will add to the user experience, including the addition of a dock and what’s called a dash bar, which will be similar to an IM buddy list that will be used for Chat Heads. As for more supported devices for Facebook Home in the future, the company says that they’re working on it, but as it stands, only four devices officially support Facebook Home.

However, the company is aware that an unofficial APK of Facebook Home is roaming around on the internet, and they confirmed that over 10,000 users have installed the APK onto their phones, but it seems like the social network is okay with that, as they don’t seem to be doing anything to block or get rid of the hacked APK.

As for how Facebook Home changes the way people use Facebook, the company says that users are logging onto Facebook 25% more often than before, thanks to the quick and easy access that Home provides on enabled devices. Facebook also noticed also an increase in the number of daily comments and Likes someone leaves on their news feed, which is up by 25% as well. Furthermore, Chat Heads has increased use of Facebook messaging by 10%. Check out our review of Facebook Home to learn more about the new platform.

[via TechCrunch]

Users can now rewind live broadcasts no matter when they started watching. That means you can always go back to the beginning of a live video even if you only show up a few minutes before it ends. Another update Google has added is the ability to access recordings immediately after your broadcast. A as soon as your video wraps, recording will be waiting for you on YouTube.

Google has also enabled the ability to watch higher-quality On Air video on mobile devices. The higher-quality video is designed to make viewing Hangouts On Air video from your mobile device more enjoyable. Another nice new feature that Google has added is the ability to start your live broadcast without having to refresh.

This feature allows the video to start playing automatically when the show starts rather than users having to refresh. One potential downside to these new features is that it could take longer to set up your Hangout On Air video. Google says that the Start broadcasting button can be grayed out for a bit before turns red and is ready to use, as things are readied in the background.

[via Google Plus]

And you heard that correctly, Foursquare teamed up with Nokia, which means that the updated app will come pre-loaded on select Lumia models, with the app optimized for Lumia devices as an added bonus, where it will work seamlessly with the line’s augmented reality technology, giving Foursquare users the ability to check in with style.

The YouTube app also received an update on Windows Phone 8, being “completely redesigned” with a handful of new features, most notably pinning support, which lets you pin videos, channels, playlists and search results right to your phone’s Start Screen. The pinning also extends to YouTube’s Kids Corners, allowing parents to easily control what their kids can and cannot view.

These updates come just after Hulu released the Hulu Plus app on Windows Phone 8 yesterday. Netflix had been in the game for over a month, so the streaming service has a lot of catching up to do on Microsoft’s platform. Then again, a lot of companies have catching up to do, as many popular apps still aren’t on Windows Phone 8 yet.

When you upload a photo to Instagram, you’re now able to tag the people that are in the photo, and Instagram says its as easy as adding hashtags. Plus, only you can add people to your photos, which we’re guessing means that other people won’t even be able to request permission to add themselves in a photo like Facebook does.

However, you can only tag people that also have an Instagram account, so it’s definitely a bit limited on who you can tag, especially since you can’t tag Facebook friends, but the service gives you the ability to tag previously-uploaded images to give your collection a bit of uniformity at least.

As for the “Photos of You” section, this is where you can view all photos on Instagram that you’re tagged in, and it appears as a dedicated section on your Instagram profile. For privacy’s sake, Instagram allows you to approve each photo you’re tagged in so that you have control over what shows up in that section. The update is available now on both iOS and Android.

[via Android Community]

Of course, it’s rare when you get locked out of your account and need to resort to your friends to help you back in, but it’s certainly not unheard of, so it seems Facebook is wanting to cover there bases as far as account security is concerned. However, it’s up to you to pick friends that you trust.

As a baseline to go off of, Facebook suggests choosing friends that you would trust with your house key, so most likely your best friend since elementary school, siblings, or even your parents. Facebook also suggest choosing people that you can easily reach outside of Facebook, like their phone number or mailing address.

We haven’t seen the feature roll into our accounts yet, but it should be just a matter of time before we get access to the new feature. The feature will be located in Security Settings, where you’ll then simply enter in the friends that you trust. Facebook says this method is a lot easier than filling out forms to prove your identity or trying to remember log-in codes.

This is similar to the Facebook version of the game that you can play in your web browser, but the mobile game is standalone, meaning that scores won’t sync with the browser-based version. The new game has weekly tournaments, as well as the usual Facebook game features that you’d find elsewhere, such as sending gifts to friends and posting your achievements through a status update.

Unlike Rovio’s latest Angry Birds titles, there doesn’t seem to be any new physics concepts added on — it’s the same Angry Birds game that you’ve known and loved for the past few years, except you get to battle your friends in order to see who takes the crown for the ultimate Angry Birds nerd.

The game only comes in a free ad-supported version, but it’s available on both iOS and Android right now, so if you feel like rebooting your Angry Birds obsession from yesteryear, now would be a good time to do so and get some friends to tag along with you.

As for the social network’s user base, the latest figures show that mobile usage on Facebook is continuing to rise. The company boasts that 751 million users are accessing the social networking site via mobile devices, while only 665 daily users are visiting through the desktop. This is the second quarter in a row where mobile users have trumped desktop users.

As for advertising, Facebook says that $375 million of its advertising revenue came from mobile alone, while 30% of the company’s revenue this quarter came from advertising, proving that putting ads on their service is one of the most lucrative things that they’re doing, which means that users won’t see a slow down in the number of ads they see anytime soon.

As for the number of monthly active users on Facebook, the company has updated that number to 1.11 billion users, which is a 23% increase from the same time last year. As for Facebook’s 665 million daily active users, that’s up from 26% from the same quarter last year. It’s been interesting to see Facebook’s usage grow and grow, but we have to be approaching a point when they’ll hit a plateau. When will that be, exactly?

Disruptor Bean joined up with HBO to launch the social game on Facebook. The game entered open beta mode on February 21st, and over 500,000 million people have installed the game since then. While 500,000 is an impressive number, the developers at Disruptor Beam know that they need to do more to increase their user base. Jon Radoff, CEO and Founder of Disruptor Beam, says that “partnerships are integral” in making any game successful.

The game takes place in the world of Westeros, where your character plays the role of a Noble. You can choose which Great House you will swear your allegiance to, whether it’d be House Lannister, House Targaryen, House Stark, or any of the other houses. You can also choose your lineage, develop your lands and reputation, and create alliances with friends. The game integrates itself deeply with the HBO series, and each week, after each new episode airs, new content is added to the game.

Publishing Games of Thrones Ascent should do well for Zynga’s revenue, which is most likely the primary reason why they’re doing it. Recently, Zynga had to shut down several of its games in order to lower costs. It also stated that in order to increase revenue, it will transition more into the mobile market this year. Who knows, maybe we will see Games of Throne Ascent, or a similar Game of Thrones game, head to mobile devices soon, hopefully.

[via Zynga]

Microsoft says this new beta program is targeted to those who like to mess around with experimental software, so folks that hate when apps crash or don’t perform smoothly most likely don’t need to apply. However, anyone can join in, as it’s not just limited to developers, and Microsoft is encouraging anyone to try it out.

The beta app for Facebook underwent major redesign, and it comes a lot of new features, including support for high-resolution photos, improved post sharing, and Facebook’s Timeline. If you spot a bug or just want to give your overall feedback about the app, you can head to Settings > About in the app to report information.

If you didn’t know Microsoft actually develops the Facebook app for Windows Phone, and it’s the same way with BlackBerry, so essentially, Facebook only actively develops mobile apps for iOS and Android. However, with the social network’s permission, Microsoft can develop their own Facebook app for Windows Phone users.

The recent data comes from analytics firm SocialBakers, which also says that the UK saw a drop of 1.4 million Facebook users last month. Between the US and UK, the average percentage drop within the last month was 4.25%, which isn’t bad at all, but that obviously doesn’t make up a majority of Facebook users.

Furthermore, however, the last six months have seen a total drop of nine million users in the US and two million in the UK. Other countries are reporting similar results as well, including Canada, Spain, France, Germany, and Japan. The average time spent on Facebook has also fallen to six minutes since December.

However, usage continues to grow. Developing countries are getting in on Facebook, with Facebook usage in Brazil rising by 6%, up to a monthly total of 70 million users. India also has seen growth of 4%, up to 64 million monthly users. Of course, though, we still can’t help but feel that this will affect advertising for the social network, but it may not be a huge hit for them at all.

[via The Guardian]

Inside the cup is a chip of some sort, likely of the NFC variety. The chip will be linked to the cupholders Facebook profile somehow and when they think they’re glass together with someone else’s a bar or party, it would make them instant Facebook friends.

The Buddy Cup was created by Agencia Africa in partnership with a digital advertising studio in Brazil called Bolha. The cup can be used to help improve the social aspects of drinking for consumers attending Budweiser sponsored parties, concerts, and festivals. There might be a downside to this sort of product though.

I can see this Buddy Cup be particularly hazardous for attractive women. I can only imagine the never-ending stream of drunk guys begging to toast the pretty ladies at a party. I can also see some sneaky drinkers tapping glasses with a pretty girl without her knowing it. A cup like this likely means lots of weird creepers showing up on your Facebook account.

[via TheDrum]

This supposed share button will allow gamers to upload any gaming highlights to streaming services such as YouTube and Ustream, as well as share clips to Facebook, Twitter, and other social web services. This feature seems to be practically identical to Sony‘s own sharing feature on the PlayStation 4, which the company detailed at the unveil event back in February.

The report comes from Polygon, where their sources say that the video game capture system will work like a DVR, and it can be turned on or off if need be. Gamers can also set it up where the console automatically begins recording when certain in-game events happen. However, Microsoft is said to still be hammering out the details as of right now.

These same sources also point out that the Xbox 720 will require to be in an always-on state. We’ve heard numerous rumors about this before, and it seems to be picking up steam. The function will act as an anti-piracy tool, making sure that all games loaded up on the console are legit by checking with Microsoft’s servers for validation.

[via Polygon]

With Retina support, the updated Twitter app will be able to take advantage of the added pixels, and Twitter claims that the whole app will appear sharper and crisper on high-resolution displays. Twitter also made it easier to share photos. You can either drag-and-drop photos into the app, or click the new camera icon in the corner and browse for a photo to add.

Twitter says that “more improvements” will be coming in the future, which we would hope so, given the fact that Twitter’s client restriction are resulting in numerous third-party Twitter clients to shut their doors, most notably TweetDeck, which is set to close down on May 7 due to the restriction of the number of users that third-party clients can have.

TweetDeck is only one of the beloved Twitter clients seeing its end, which not seem like a huge deal since Twitter has their own apps to use, but the company has been surprisingly lacking in their offerings, with many third-party clients out-performing Twitter itself with unique features that you can’t get with official Twitter apps.

Alongside the cancellation of those games, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus stated that Zynga has also decided to cancel the development of two of its major unreleased games. He stated that those games would not have done well for Zynga in the long run, and would only produce short-term boosts for the company. However, on the bright side, Zynga has released Draw Something 2 today in hopes of bringing casual gamers back to its platform, and it also recently released a new card battle game, War of the Fallen, which it hopes will attract more serious gamers to its service.

War of the Fallen will help Zynga in its transition into world of mobile games. Pincus stated that 2013 is the transition year for Zynga to get more into mobile games. Time and time again, analysts have stated that consumers are purchasing more iOS and Android games than they do standard video games, and Zynga wants to take advantage of that. Alongside Draw Something 2 and War of the Fallen, it plans on releasing many more mobile games this year. Currently, Zynga has over 65 million monthly active users playing its mobile games.

Zynga isn’t the only gaming company shutting down its social games in an effort to save money. Earlier this month, EA Games also decided that it needed to shut down several games of its own in order to cut costs. The company stated that it will be cancelling The Sims Social, SimCity Social, and Pet Society on June 14th. These shutdowns aren’t signaling the end of social games, but are suggesting that these companies need to branch off to different platforms in order to find new opportunities of revenue. Will you be missing any of these cancelled games?

[via VentureBeat]

The updated app also includes the ability to save blog posts for later using read-it-later services like Instapaper and Pocket. Users can also email blog posts to friends and family using Tumblr’s all-new template. There’s also some new navigation tweaks, like swiping up or down to close photos, as well as added support for animated GIFs on the dashboard.

Overall, it’s not a huge update, but avid Tumblr users who take advantage of the app while on the go will appreciate some of the new features, especially if they’re all about sharing blog posts with friends. However, users will begin to be bombarded with mobile ads, so be prepared to see sponsored content show up in your feed.

The Tumblr apps for Android and Windows Phone 8 already allow for easy sharing of blog posts, but iOS users are now honored with the feature. Tumblr released a dedicated app for Windows Phone 8 yesterday, bringing lock screen and live tile support along with it, giving Tumblr users on Microsoft’s mobile platform a unique experience unlike iOS or Android.

The fake tweet was noticed by the AP fairly quickly, and several of their other Twitter accounts tweeted out that the hacked AP tweet was indeed bogus. However, many people were quick to shoot down the claim anyway, since the tweet wasn’t in AP style formatting in the first place, and no other mainstream news outlets were reporting on it.

The AP always puts “breaking” in all caps in their tweets, and they also use a service called SocialFlow to publish their tweets, whereas the fake tweet was sent out through the “web,” meaning it was sent through Twitter’s website rather than a third-party service like SocialFlow. Plus, the tweet was in title case, which the AP and other news sources never use.

In the end, it took only three minutes for the fake tweet to be officially denied by the AP, with the account being suspended just four minutes later. This is quite a fast response, but we shouldn’t expect nothing less of a news source like the AP, who is constantly keeping an eye on their social media feeds.

[via The Next Web]

Tumblr is partnering with several companies to bring these sponsored posts to mobile, which include ABC, GE, Pepsi, and Warner Bros. The social blogging company says that these ads will get around the same exposure as posts that have been re-blogged by friends, although some of the ads will be animated, which makes us believe that they’ll be more obtrusive than users would like.

These new mobile ads also come almost a full year after Tumblr posted its first sponsored post. Since that time, Tumblr’s partners “have created some truly delightful blogs and racked up tens of millions notes on their posts.” Based upon “how well these creations can fit into our Dashboards,” the company decided to roll out the same thing for mobile today.

This is an expanded effort from Tumblr to create revenue growth for its business, and it’s said that the company will unsurprisingly continue to think up different ways to bring sponsored content to users, including giving users the opportunity to promote posts, but it seems anything is possible for social blogging platform at this point.

Facebook will be working with the National Association of Attorneys General in order to promote privacy awareness and provide general tips to teenagers on how to use Facebook’s privacy settings. Of course, many of us could use a lesson on how to keep our profiles private, but it seems teenagers are the main culprits.

More state attorneys general might hop on board in the future, but so far 19 of them will contribute to the initiative. Each of the 19 states will create their own informational videos on how to better manage your Facebook profile, as well as provide a general tip sheet with various. There will also be videos created by Facebook that will answer questions on privacy.

Frankly, we’re glad to see that Facebook is taking some initiative when it comes to privacy on the internet, and teaching people how to effectively use their services. Facebook is seen the brunt of criticism over its privacy practices over the past few years, and it looks like they’re finally coming around to their senses.

[via All Things D]

EA blames the shutdown on a lacking number of users that have been reported playing the game, and the publisher notes that “the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off.” They also mention that based on the past history of social game shutdowns, EA’s own shutdown of some of its Facebook games “is not surprising.”

However, EA says that they will continue to deliver other popular Facebook games to its users, mostly games from PopCap that include Bejeweled Blitz, Solitaire Blitz, and Plants vs. Zombies Adventures. So while EA may have shut down a few of its Facebook games, they won’t be exiting that market anytime soon.

Of course, EA isn’t the only one having a difficult time keeping players on its social games. Zynga also shut down quite a few of their own Facebook titles, and the company announced that they would be distancing themselves from Facebook. This comes after Zynga shut down a few of their studios and laid off a handful of employees.

The survey was conducted by Kerry Patterson et al, who wrote the New York Times best-seller book Crucial Conversations. The study says 78% of social network users reported being hostile in some fashion while online. Furthermore, the survey pointed out that 40% of users have admitted to unsubscribing or “unfriending” someone over an argument on a social networking site.

Other findings from the survey include 76% of users reported to have witnessed an argument on a social networking site, while 19% have gone so far as to decrease in-person contact with someone because of something they said online. A whopping 88% of users believe people are less polite on social media than in person, and 81% say that arguments they have been involved with over social media remain unresolved.

Of course, this isn’t surprising at all. The internet is a hotbed for incivility, and since the consequences are so low, many users have no qualms to start an argument or be rude to other users, which is why cyber bullying has been such a hot topic lately. Social networks provide the opportunity to make connections, but it turns out that it’s having the opposite effect on a majority of users.

[via VitalSmarts]

Image via XKCD

When updating your status this way, you’ll still be able to put your own two cents below the main status. How it works is that you first choose what you’re doing, whether that’d be “watching,” “listening to,” or “reading.” Then select the movie, TV show, book, or artist (or type it in manually).

After that, you can then type in your own status, and then publish it for all your friends to see. Whenever you share something new that you’re watching or listening to, it’ll automatically be added to your Timeline. Facebook recently revamped Timeline to include various media that you’ve consumed — not just your favorites.

Facebook says that these updates “respect the privacy settings” that you choose for posting status updates, so you’ll be able to change around the various settings associated with this type of status update, including the ability to restrict Facebook from automatically adding something to your timeline when you post about it. The new feature is rolling out today, but it’ll take a couple of weeks for it to roll out for everyone.

The app puts more emphasize on Search as well, allowing you to quickly find an establishment, or browse places that are trending and popular in your area. The map area is also easily expandable, allowing you to see where nearby Foursquare friends are located, as well as explore interesting and places using the map view.

The app also received a couple of design modifications, most notably the relocation of the Check-In button, which is now placed at the bottom of the screen, and it stays static even when you scroll through the app. Tapping on it will let you check into a place just like normal — that aspect of the app hasn’t changed.

In place of where the Check-In button used to be is now where notifications exist. It’s a larger button this time around, allowing you to easily check any notifications that have come in. Overall, the recommendations engine is the big kicker here. The system uses the time of day, how familiar you are with the neighborhood, and places that are currently popular to give you relevant places that you might want to check out. Foursquare is a free download and the update is available now in iTunes.

This marks the first time that Vine has hit the number one spot in the iTunes App Store, and frankly we’re surprised that it took this long, even despite app’s controversy. Vine’s co-founder and creative director, Rus Yusupov, tweeted the announcement today with a sort of wise-guy attitude, saying “Hey guys, remember that time we made the No. 1 most popular app in the world?”

The app’s controversy stems from an issue that saw adult content being posted on the service, without a 17+ age warning. Of course, this is against Apple’s terms of service for the iTunes App Store, so Vine was required to tack on an age warning. However, that didn’t stop Apple from removing the app from its list of Editor’s Choice apps for the week.

Vine is available for free on iOS devices, but it’s mysteriously missing on Android. While it’s been reported that the company was looking for Android developers, we have yet to hear anything about an Android version of the app making its way to Google Play, but it could be anytime soon, as an Android version would surely take off.

According to MobileSyrup, Director of Product Marketing at Facebook, Ami Vora, says that Facebook Home will be available to Canadians a couple of weeks after the US launch, and even going as far as saying a few days after the US release, possibly. However, Vora says that it certainly won’t be months until Home launches in other countries.

The HTC First, which is the one device that Facebook Home is optimal on, is an AT&T exclusive, and it’s only available in the US. However, there’s no word on whether or not we may see the new phone release in Canada or other countries, although it’s certainly possible. We won’t hold our breath just yet, though.

Canada has been a big testing ground for Facebook, using the country to test new features that are being workshopped. However, it seems that Canada is getting short end of the stick this time around, but we have a feeling that the exclusivity with AT&T might have something to do with that. Either way, if you’re a Facebook junkie and live in the US, you’ll probably want to tune into Google Play come April 12 to be one of the first to get your hands on the new product.

[via Android Community]

Facebook Home is essentially a family of apps that can run on any Android device, although HTC announced the HTC First, which is a new smartphone specifically built with Facebook Home in mind. This device will become available starting April 12 for $99 after signing a new two-year contract with AT&T.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasizes that Facebook Home is built around people, not apps, which means that users can spend more time interacting with their friends and families on their smartphones, rather than take unnecessary time to switch between all the apps that you have piled onto your Android handset.

Facebook Home includes Cover Feed, which displays recent status updates from your friends, with notifications to go along with them, only this time they’re more integrated into the Android OS. The Cover Feed is the first thing you see in Facebook Home, and it’s there to make sure that you receive all of the important updates from your group of friends.

There’s also a new messaging platform in Facebook Home called Chat Heads, which allows you to easily chat with your Facebook friends without leaving the app that you’re currently in, which means that there’s no app-switching required. In Chat Heads, a small avatar icon will appear in the corner of the screen when you receive a message. From there, you can tap on it to reply to the message, and then flick it off of the screen to go back to what you were doing.

Facebook Home will be available starting on April 12, and it’ll be a free download in the Google Play store. Facebook notes that they’re not trying to “fork” Android with their new product, and are mostly trying to supplement Google’s OS. Either way, Facebook Home will work on most Android devices, and the new home screen launcher will soon work for the HTC One, One X, One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III, GALAXY S 4, and the Galaxy Note II. Plus, Facebook plans to update the launcher every month with new features and support for more devices, which is always a good thing in our book.

The HTC first will sport a 4.3-inch LCD display with a 720p resolution, as well as a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 dual-core processor — one of Qualcomm’s newest chips that was announced not too long ago. The phone also packs a 5MP camera on the back, as well as a 1.6MP camera on the front for video chatting and taking selfies.

The phone will also come with Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box, meaning that you’ll have access to the latest features of Android, including Google Now, improved notifications, and a smoother UI thanks to Project Butter. Plus, there’s 1GB of RAM to keep you going through all the Facebook multi-tasking you’ll need.

With AT&T’s CEO at the Facebook event right next to HTC, it makes sense then that the first will be available on AT&T, and will support the carrier’s fast 4G LTE. Overall, this looks to be the phone to get if you’re a Facebook junkie at heart. Have a look at our Android Hub for more Android news!

Facebook Home will be available as a free download in the Google Play store starting on April 12, which is just next week, so it seems users won’t have to wait long to get a hold of it. Off the bat, Facebook Home will only be available for Android phones, while tablet support is in the works and will become available in the future.

Once you have Facebook Home installed, the company says that you’ll have the choice of trying it out once, or you can set it up so it’s always in use instead of the standard launcher that comes with your Android handset. Facebook says that Home will be available for tablets “in the coming months.”

As for devices that Facebook Home will work best on, Facebook as partnered with a handful of companies, both phone makers and carriers, including HTC, Samsung, EE, Qualcomm, Sony, Huawei, Alcatel One Touch, Lenovo, ZTE, AT&T, and Orange. Plus, Home will have more features and will be offered on more devices as time goes on. Facebook says it plans to release these kinds of updates once a month on average.

The two apps that Zynga plans on releasing are called ‘ZyngaPlusPoker” and “ZyngaPlusCasino”. ZyngaPlusPoker is self-explanatory, but ZyngaPlusCasino brings you a variety of gambling games, including BlackJack and Roulette. The games will start off as web-based games, and desktop applications at first, but Zynga plans on integrating the apps into Facebook in the future as well.

Zynga hired the former Senior Executive of 888 Holdings PLC (an online gambling poewrhouse), Maytal Olsha, to help it branch into the real-money gambling world. Zynga believes that it will soon be able to tap into its 300 million users, and generate a potential $30 billion from its online gambling services (19.85 billion pounds). After announcing the launch of its online gambling apps, Zynga’s shares rose up 5.5%.

Zynga still has many legal hurdles to jump over in order to bring its real-money gambling apps to the United States, but it still plans on releasing its app in several states where online gambling isn’t illegal. Zynga’s Chief Revenue Officer, Barry Cottle, stated, “Our long term vision is to offer our players the next generation of real money games on multiple platforms in regulated markets worldwide.” It looks like those of us in the U.S. will have to wait a while before we get to gamble away our hard-earned money, but those of you in the UK can experience the joys of gambling starting tomorrow.

[via Reuters]

Chorus.im is very simple to get started with. You can sign up using your email, or you can just link your Facebook or Google account to the service. To start a chat message, all you need to do is invite a contact via phone number or email to initiate a conversation. The contact can join in by clicking the “join” button sent to their emails. This will be efficient for contacting buyers or sellers from Craigslist or eBay. You are able to have an instant chat with the person without needing to divulge your phone numbers. This allows users to use what Chorus.im says are “disposable chats”.

When using Chorus.im on your desktop’s web browser, you will receive notifications on the bottom right of your screen. Push notifications have yet to make it to the mobile browser version of Chorus.im, which is why the startup has launched stand-alone apps. They’re hoping to incorporate mobile browser push notifications within the next few years. While using the Android app, I noticed that there are still many bugs that need to be worked on, but that’s not surprising considering this service is still new. Android users may experience screen blackouts from time to time.

In the future, Chorus.im will start advancing more towards being a browser app. Eventually, the service will get rid of its stand-alone mobile apps. Chorus.im will have a difficult time prying users away from Whatsapp, or convincing users that it’s different from Facebook Messenger, which allows users to message via their desktop or mobile device. Nonetheless, having “disposable chats” will be a major selling point for Chorus.im, and when it is able to enable push notifications through mobile browsers, it’ll be a major contender in the messenger market.

[via Forbes]

The video shows footage of YouTube’s offices where 30,000 staff members are reviewing ALL of the content that has ever been uploaded to YouTube. In the video, Tim Liston, the “Competition Director”, states that it’s finally time to pick the “winner”. He also says that the entire process of determining the winner will take 10 years. The “winner” of the competition will be revealed in 2023 when YouTube’s site goes back online.

The video features interviews with a variety of uploaders with popular video uploads. There are interviews with iJustine, the uploaders of “____ reacts to ____” videos, Charlie bit my finger, David After Dentist, and more. The winners of the contest get a pretty terrible prize. They get a MP3 player that can be strapped to their sleeves, as well as a $500 stipend to be used towards their next creative venture (8 years well spent).

All in all, it was a creative video that will get you some laughs. Of course, if YouTube really were to shut down, it’d be a nightmare. How else are we going to get easy access to hands-on video demonstrations, or learn how to tie a tie? Fortunately for all of us, YouTube is doing extremely well and is seeing no threats of being shutdown, unlike Google Reader. Just last week, YouTube announced that it finally has 1 billion monthly active users. If YouTube was really a contest, which video would you nominate to win?

LivingSocial has become an extremely popular deals site, however it has been struggling to make a profit since its debut. Last month, the company was granted an additional $110 million by its investors, which the company was supposed to use to, “build our reserves, solidify our long-term plans, and execute against our vision for the future,” according to LivingSocial’s CEO, Tim O’Shaughnessy.

The company’s goal is to make a profit this season. The additional money granted to it by its investors was supposed to be a morale boost for the company and its employees, however it’s demoralizing to see one of the company’s co-founders leave. Questions start being raised about whether or not LivingSocial was able to utilize that money in an efficient way to drive the company towards a more profitable future.

According to LivingSocial, the company has yet to appoint a new CTO. Batalion also wrote in his blog post that he came to his decision after much “soul-searching”. He states the is proud of LivingSocial, and that the experience he had with the company and the friendships he developed “have been the best of my career”. He is “confident in LivingSocial’s future and the vision of local we have all been fighting for.”

[via VentureBeat]

You can embed Vine clips through two different avenues. You can either embed a clip directly from the webpage of the clip, or you can embed it using the iOS app, which can be found by tapping the ellipses in the bottom-right corner, tapping “Share this post,” and the hitting “Embed.” One thing to be aware of, though, is that Vine uses “iframe” to embed clips, which some websites and blogging platforms don’t support.

Embedding a Vine using the web link allows you to choose different sizes and styles. You can choose between 600 pixels wide, 480 pixels wide, or 320 pixels wide. There’s also two different styles, one of which is called “Simple,” which only displays the Vine and nothing else, and then there’s the “Postcard” view, which shows other details, such as the username, date, and any captions written.

We can’t embed Vines here on SlashGear, but here’s a still screenshot of what the “Postcard” style looks like:

However, even though Vine is still constantly updating its Vine service, they still have yet to release the app to Android. However, we’d be surprised if an Android version didn’t arrive at some point. Back in February, Vine was looking for an Android developer, according to their job listings, so it’s possible they’re working on an Android version right now.

A lot of the pay to play video games on Facebook come in the form of games that are actually free to play, but players spend money on virtual goods to make the game more enjoyable and move along more quickly. Facebook has made an interesting announcement that the number of people who are paying to play games via the social network has increased significantly.

Facebook says that the number of paying gamers using its service has increased by 24% compared to a year ago. The social network says that desktop-game players via the social network increased to more than 250 million from 235 million in October. Facebook also notes that it has paid a total of $2 billion to developers during 2012.

Facebook makes money on games by taking a percentage of the fee gamers pay. Facebook has also stated that over 100 developers generated more than $1 million each in revenue from Facebook during 2012. While Facebook is making more money off gamers, the company isn’t holding back on its other revenue-generating plans. Facebook recently announced an expansion to its Facebook Exchange service allowing advertisers to target users based on web browsing history.

[via Bloomberg]

The Next Web reports that on March 2, 2013, Tumblr had around 93 million blogs on its network, so in only 25 days, it managed to gain 7 million blogs. It’s rapid expansion of blogs isn’t surprising, considering how easy to use the service is. Signing up is painless, and sharing posts, pictures, quotes, and more is simple and straight to the point. It’s also very easy to find blogs and people who share the same interests as you.

Tumblr has also made it very easy to blog while you’re on the go. It dedicates a good amount of its resources to make blogging on your mobile device easier. It revamped its iOS app in order to make it more faster and smoother, as well as bring to it more features to make it more efficient. It also boasts a nice Android app, and has even developed an Android tablet app so that your tablet’s screen is fully utilized.

Tumblr is showing no signs of slowing down. It plans on implementing mobile ads in order to fully monetize its service. The mobile ads will not be intrusive, like the pop-up ads you see sometimes on web pages. Instead, they will be shown as regular posts alongside Tumblr’s news feed. Back in November, Tumblr stated that over 170 million users visited the site each month. It’ll be interesting to see what that figure is right now.

[via The Next Web]