Brands may put plenty of time and money behind the content they share on social networks, but only a small percentage of their intended audience may actually ever see it. New York-based startup Adaptly believes it has a solution. Read more at GigaOM »
Apparently Pinterest users drop cash, then run. Jewelry and accessories website Boticca.com compared 50,000 shoppers referred from Pinterest to 50,000 shoppers referred from Facebook and says the Pinterest users spend way more money — $180 vs. $85 — but less time browsing the site. Read more at GigaOM »
The recent dramatic declines in users of some Facebook social-reading apps from newspapers like the Washington Post reinforces a lesson that media companies need to keep in mind at all times — namely, that Facebook is the information gatekeeper now, and you are just a provider. Read more at GigaOM »
Luxury brand Burberry is in legal trouble for using an iconic image from the film Casablanca in a social media campaign to promote its trenchcoats. Read more »
Google is doing everything it can to integrate the Google+ social network into all of its properties, so that it can become a “social layer” across the entire company. But that same behavior is irritating users like actor — and prominent Google+ user — Wil Wheaton. Read more at GigaOM »
Media people don’t like combining hard-nosed political reporting with lots of kitties. Excerpt for Jonah Peretti. Read more »
With deals like Facebook’s $1-billion acquisition of the relatively tiny startup Instagram, some argue we are in another tech-stock bubble. But others in the venture industry say that while there is some froth in parts of the startup ecosystem, there are few signs of 1990s-style mania. Read more at GigaOM »
Some critics have raised the question of whether Facebook and Twitter are making us more lonely and disconnected from one another. But the Web and social media are just tools: They can be used to create connections or to create distance, just like any other technology. Read more at GigaOM »
The 650 patents that Facebook acquired from Microsoft are “web-related” said a source with knowledge of the deal and listed some specific examples. The source said the portfolio includes patents related to: instant-messaging, e-commerce, LTE, mobile, handsets, search and advertising. Read more »
Gawker Media founder Nick Denton talks about whether we are in another technology bubble, what the decline of Facebook and Twitter as conversational media say about social networks, the death of advertising and whether he has any interest in selling his digital empire. Read more at GigaOM »
Facebook announced today that it will pay $550 million for the right to 650 patents and patent applications from Microsoft.
Microsoft acquired those patents and hundreds of others in a deal with AOL earlier this month. Read more »
Privacy is a bit like the weather — everyone talks about it but no one does a damn thing about it. Sure, it’s creepy that these companies track you and munch your personal information. But are you really going to ditch Facebook and every other online convenience of modern life? Read more »
Every week the media seems to offer a new account of some dumb crook who is off to the slammer because he posted about his caper on Facebook. It turns out this phenomenon may be even more widespread than we think. Read more »
Jonah Peretti, BuzzFeed’s co-founder, spoke at Ad Age’s Digital Conference and talked about how it’s helping usher in the transition from search to social. He said the new standard in advertising is ads that are engaging and are ripe for sharing. Read more at GigaOM »
Rolling Stone’s new social networking hub, #RSFans, aims to be a “two-way conversation” between Rolling Stone editors and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram users. Read more »
Past one month has been interesting, to put it mildly. Facebook snapped up Instagram for $1 billion and Zynga lookout OMGPop for $200 million However, here are three key lessons (and takeaways) between these two deals and what they say about both these companies. Read more »
Path, a niche mobile social network has raised $40 million in new funds. It has also drawn comparisons with Instagram, a mobile photo service that was acquired by Facebook. Many are betting it would be the next big acquisition. I disagree, and here is why. Read more at GigaOM »
Facebook is giving users the chance to download more of the information that it holds about them than ever before, but the small group of Austrian law students who forced the change say the social network is still holding back. Read more at GigaOM »
Being a cynical optimist by nature, whenever I fall head over heels in love (no, not in the romantic sense) with a product, and the startup and the founder(s), I know that startup/product is going to be a winner. The Instagram-Facebook deal is decent testimony. Read more »
What is about Instagram that has made Facebook open up its checkbook and spend nearly a billion dollars in stock and cash to buy up a company only in its third year. There are many reasons, and the biggest one is fear. Read more at GigaOM »
When a movie opens to nearly $153 million dollars, the studio executives backing it always tend to look like geniuses. But in the case of th… Read more »
In the land of the freemium, how much free is enough to convince users to pay?
In the latest refinement to its market strategy, Spotify in… Read more »
Silicon Valley leads the world in technology but it’s losing a debate over how that technology should be used. A new surge in patent lawsuit… Read more »
Digital influence is one of the hottest trends in social media and it is also one of the least understood. Like some relationships on Facebo… Read more »
Clever Facebook. The social network has the media singing its praises as a civil rights champion on the same day that it shuffles its privac… Read more »
Facebook engaged in an illegal conspiracy to monopolize the market for display ads says the maker of PageRage, a product that lets users per… Read more »
We’ve heard that social media is a great source of traffic for news outlets so often that it’s close to textbook. Yes, Facebook, Twitter an… Read more »
Mike Lang has resigned as CEO of Miramax effective immediately, according to the film company. Lang, a former News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) exec i… Read more »
A sprawling lawsuit filed in Texas this week targets Path, Instagram, Facebook and others for instructing their apps to suck up user address… Read more »
When Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) filed a patent suit against Facebook this week, it became as popular as Rush Limbaugh at a Planned Parenthood gather… Read more »
Yes, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) went there today — claiming in a lawsuit that it, not Facebook, is the real king of social networks. The company po… Read more »
Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) has made good on its threat of last month and filed a patent infringement suit against Facebook. The lawsuit adds to the… Read more »
Chris Hughes, the 28-year-old Facebook co-founder and the founder of social action site Jumo, is moving from social networking to media with… Read more »
Facebook’s value has risen to $100 billion since its IPO announcement, based on private trades of its stock. But could Mark Zuckerberg justi… Read more »
A new patent troll last week fired a shot at Facebook, Zynga and others with a lawsuit that claims rights to in-game payments — the process… Read more »
The UK’s media regulator will consider the reliability of social networks as premium-rate TV interaction mechanisms, after Britain’s first e… Read more »
Prior to the digital age, there were three companies that, acting like undersea currents, steered all news. Namely, I am referring to the bi… Read more »
A new patent troll announced its arrival this week by suing companies like Facebook, Zynga and Playfish. Its weapon is a patent that it clai… Read more »
Last November after our paidContent Entertainment conference in Los Angeles, I got to talking with a gentleman in the advertising business w… Read more »
Facebook showed off a new suite of premium ads Wednesday that it thinks will allow advertisers to interact more directly with their customer… Read more »
