Looking for a book suggestion? Culling information from your Twitter feed and turning that into accurate recommendations is harder than it looks, but Parakweet is looking to use natural language procesing to do just that. Read more at GigaOM »
If you’re looking for the latest video clips from your favorite sports, you might soon find them on Twitter. The social media company has solidified a deal with ESPN that will let users check out the action via Twitter video clips. 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 »
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 »
Cooking inspiration is already one of Pinterest users’ biggest reasons for using the popular social network, and Pinterest has decided to make the most of that trend. Its first acquisition is recipe aggregator and culinary inspiration portal Punchfork. 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 »
Some prominent users of Facebook such as billionaire sports-team owner Mark Cuban are complaining that the social network wants to charge them to reach their users with marketing messages — but shouldn’t it be fairly obvious that this was part of Facebook’s plan all along? Read more at GigaOM »
Mobile technology and social networks aren’t just disruptive to existing industries like communications and media, they are also helping the change the way that students learn and how education is delivered both in North America and around the world. And the disruption is just beginning. Read more at GigaOM »
With 2m members, science startup ResearchGate isn’t just talking big when it says it wants to start a revolution: it’s actually changing the way scientists work. Co-founder Ijad Madisch explains his vision — and how he’d like to change Germany’s clone-heavy culture along the way. Read more at GigaOM »
Most critics of Dalton Caldwell’s App.net project seem to see it as a replacement for Twitter, only with users paying for the service rather than advertisers. But what the service really wants to be is a central messaging bus and open ecosystem for the social web. Read more at GigaOM »
Facebook is stepping in to support a deputy sheriff who was fired for “Liking” his boss’s rival. The case, which will determine whether a “Like” is like a bumper sticker, is helping to define free speech in the age of social media. Read more at GigaOM »
Facebook wants a court to approve a deal that will see it pay $20 million to settle the ‘sponsored stories’ controversy. But now, as groups file objections, the judge is questioning whether the settlement’s blacked out financial figures can remain secret. Read more at GigaOM »
Twitter’s decision to suspend the account of a British journalist raises a host of questions about the company’s behavior, but one of the important ones is to what extent Twitter’s filtering and curation features could make it legally liable for the content flowing through the network. Read more at GigaOM »
According to the New York Times, Apple has had discussions with Twitter about making a substantial investment in the real-time network. A closer relationship between the two — which has been rumored in the past — would make some sense for both companies. Read more at GigaOM »
Facebook’s rise has come on the back of astonishing international growth — but it needs to keep expanding everywhere, and in every way, to keep up with investors’ expectations. Where can it find the silver bullet? And how will it happen? Read more at GigaOM »
If Facebook’s future is mobile, it may not be enough for it to merely secure a piece of the mobile ad market. It will need to have an outsized impact on the industry. Read more at GigaOM »
Some of Silicon Valley’s biggest technology companies keep rejecting comparisons with news organisations.
But they nevertheless think they have the prescription for what news media must do next… Read more »
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 »
Springpad has long been compared to Internet note-taking sensation Evernote, but starting today Springpad will likely be compared to another darling of the startup world, Pinterest. On Wednesday Springpad evolved into its third iteration, transforming the information capture service into a social networking engine. Read more at GigaOM »
Saavn has been hailed as India’s Spotify. But with much of its customer base being in India and much of its catalog being Bollywood fare, things work a little different for the company. One example: Saavn has high hopes for its Blackberry and Symbian apps. Read more at GigaOM »
