Fans of the social-blogging network might not like the idea much, but a $1-billion acquisition of Tumblr would arguably solve a number of problems for Yahoo — and do the same for Tumblr CEO David Karp. Read more at GigaOM »
We are used to thinking of a “mass media” market made up of large newspapers and TV networks as the normal state of affairs in media, but what if that was just a historical anomaly? Read more »
Congress and even some tech companies are promising to get serious about “Do Not Track” legislation, which will let consumers tell companies not to collect their personal information. But any meaningful change is unlikely. Read more »
People wondered why Google sold Frommer’s Travel barely nine months after acquiring it in the first place. The answer is that it’s keeping a huge number social media followers from sites like Facebook. Read more »
The financial company Bloomberg says it will add Twitter to its platforms now that the SEC has given a green light to companies to use social media to announce market moving news. Read more »
Storytelling website Storybird has added a poetry web app designed to let users quickly create illustrated digital poems. Read more »
Netflix rolled out its Facebook integration for U.S. subscribers Wednesday, offering them an easy way to see what they friends are watching on the service. Read more »
“Friend” has a new meaning, “Web site” should be avoided, and some tech concepts still lack words. A panel at SXSW Sunday discussed how language is changing in the digital age. Read more »
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg says that the social network is trying to create “the best personalized newspaper” with its news feed. But we all know what has happened to newspapers — can Facebook somehow avoid suffering the same fate? Read more »
Facebook is making changes to its news feed in order to try and filter content better for users, while Twitter continues to provide a largely unfiltered experience. Which one is better? That depends on how you use it. Read more at GigaOM »
U.K. supermarket chain Tesco announced three new hires for its forthcoming digital entertainment offerings Monday. Gavin Sathianathan, who was at Facebook, will be managing director of Tesco’s blinkboxbooks. Read more »
Facebook plans to tap into the loyalty reward data collected by retailers like drug stores to serve you ads based on your off-line purchases. Read more »
Twitter’s new advertising API is just part of an ongoing seismic shift in the way advertising works online, where algorithms and self-serve networks are taking over from traditional ad buying and further destabilizing the media industry. Read more »
New CEO Marissa Mayer launched a redesigned version of the Yahoo homepage on Wednesday, but the site’s new features seem like a lukewarm rehash of the company’s old portal strategy and imitations of what Facebook offers. Read more at GigaOM »
Do you remember the huge controversy when people claimed Instagram wanted to sell your photos? In a court filing, Instagram reiterated a familiar refrain by social media companies that users can take or leave it when it comes to their policies. Read more at GigaOM »
In our age of the dual television and smartphone screen, watching Twitter during live events has become intertwined with the actual watching of the broadcast itself. You can always DVR a show for later, but experiencing the Twitter jokes as they happen is something else entirely. Read more at GigaOM »
Facebook released its fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday, beating analyst estimates and making significant gains in mobile, which was an important metric for the company this quarter. Facebook saw mobile daily active users exceed web DAUs for the first time. Read more at GigaOM »
Did you get a mysterious email from Facebook about a lawsuit? You’re eligible for some money but, alas, chances are the lawyers and privacy groups will keep it instead. Here’s the odds. Read more at GigaOM »
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer told attendees at the World Economic Forum that the key to the company’s future success is partnering with other players like Apple, Google and Facebook. But is that a future worth betting on? Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter has been expanding the idea of what a tweet consists of for some time now, and has just added the ability to include short video clips. But is the service at risk of losing the simplicity that once made it unique? Read more at GigaOM »
AdRoll, a firm that places “retargeted” ads on Facebook had a very good year. Does that provide any hints as to what Facebook will say about its ad earnings next week? Read more »
Facebook’s new social-graph search may look like a fairly boring feature of interest only to marketers, but the information it is able to reveal highlights how much we make public without even realizing it. Read more at GigaOM »
Google published its latest report about how often governments are asking for data about individuals. The growth of this type of surveillance means that Facebook should consider publishing a report of its own. Read more at GigaOM »
Evidence of Twitter’s ambition to become a media entity continues to accumulate, but if it wants to fulfil its role as a digital-media player, it is going to have to get a lot better at finding relevant content for its users. Read more »
A year after it launched as a skunkworks project inside music data company The Echo Nest, trendy social music site This Is My Jam is “looking at options” for going independent — as well as getting ready to launch some fun new site exploration features. Read more »
The Associated Press is running sponsored tweets as part of a deal with Samsung during the Consumer Electronics Show. While this is allowed under Twitter’s rules, it also clearly threatens the network’s future as an advertising medium. How long will it allow this to continue? Read more »
A new Facebook prank making the rounds lets you turn someone’s account into a memorial page by sending along an email address and a fake obituary. Read more at GigaOM »
Netflix has been lobbying to change a law that prevents it from using Facebook to reveal what movies people are watching. It has finally won in Congress but, by this point, doubts about the value of frictionless sharing mean the victory may not be worth much. Read more at GigaOM »
The sister of Facebook’s CEO got caught in a privacy snafu on Christmas Day after a private photo of her family was shared publicly. But this is about more than Facebook and its notoriously complicated settings — figuring out the boundaries of online privacy is not easy. Read more at GigaOM »
A law firm is trying to capitalize on recent outrage over Instagram’s changes to its terms of services. Despite media hype, the lawsuit has been described as “frivolous” and “flimsy” by social media law experts. Read more at GigaOM »
The SEC says Netflix is in trouble for sharing news on Facebook rather than through a more traditional method like a press release. The incident shows how regulators can fail to recognize transformations in our communications infrastructure. Read more at GigaOM »
Instagram says it is removing the ability for Twitter to embed photos because it wants users to go to its own website instead of Twitter’s to see that content. Other media companies should probably also be asking themselves similar questions about their relationship with Twitter. Read more at GigaOM »
Who has the right to use platforms like Facebook and Twitter? On Thursday, a federal judge emphatically sided with Facebook against an adware company that wanted to use the site for its own ends. Read more at GigaOM »
After critics accused its new Jerusalem bureau chief of making inappropriate comments about the Middle East on Twitter and Facebook, the New York Times has appointed a senior editor review her posts — but this robs social media of the power it has when used for journalism. Read more at GigaOM »
A study of Black Friday cyber-shopping said that social media advertising was a big bust with few people buying things in response to an ad from Facebook. The story is very different if you use other metrics to define “responded.” Read more at GigaOM »
An old hoax has resurfaced that suggests Facebook users can tell the company what to do by posting a legal notice on their profile. Alas, it’s not true — your interactions with the company are governed by law and licenses, not your wishes. Read more at GigaOM »
Included in the changes that Facebook recently announced to its privacy and governance policies was an admission that it aggregates and shares data on user activity with advertisers — and Facebook says it plans do so not just inside the network but on external websites as well. Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter has been restricting the ways in which external services can use its API, and has also said that it plans to launch curation tools for journalists — both of which could potentially affect Storify’s future. But co-founder Burt Herman says the company isn’t afraid. Read more at GigaOM »
In the past, information flow during a military campaign was mostly controlled by the armies involved, but now that everyone has the ability to publish and distribute data including photos and videos, it changes the nature of attacks like the latest Israeli campaign against Hamas. Read more at GigaOM »
Social media chatter claiming incorrectly that a British politician was a pedophile has proven a far-reaching scandal in the UK — and one of the rare times that the network has self-corrected a lie. Is this a new dawn? Don’t get your hopes up. Read more »
