Exclusive: Facebook Deal Nets Instagram CEO $400 Million
By Mike Isaac Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired Facebook’s acquisition of the immensely popular photo-sharing service Instagram for $1 billion is far and away the largest acquisition in the history of the world’s largest social network. But for CEO Kevin Systrom and company, it’s a windfall payday like none other. CEO Systrom owns 40 percent of Instagram, according [...]
Instagram for Android: The good, the bad, the ugly
by Jaymar Cabebe To longtime Android users such as myself, the name Instagram might not mean much. Sure, we see the vignetted photos invading our Facebook and Twitter streams, and we notice the instagr.am links all over the place, but other than that, we don’t really get it. I mean, what is it, exactly? Is it just a [...]
Facebook to Launch “Major” Profile Redesign at f8
Facebook plans to roll out a major redesign of user profiles at its f8 developer conference this week. Details about the redesign are sparse, but two sources familiar with Facebook’s plans (who have asked to remain anonymous) have told us that the redesign is “major” and will make Facebook profiles nexuses for consuming content. The profile [...]
New Facebook privacy tip: ‘Super-logoff’
By John D. Sutter, CNN (CNN) — If clamping down the privacy settings on your Facebook page isn’t enough to help you sleep at night, take a cue from the youth of America. Try the “super-logoff.” Performing the trick doesn’t take superhuman powers. Instead of just closing a browser window or clicking the “log off” button [...]
Hey You, Get Off of My Cloud!
By Sonia Arrison By all accounts, cloud computing is the future. The market will grow at five times the rate of traditional IT products, IDC has predicted, estimating it will be worth US$55.5 billion by 2014. While the future should be rosy, some policy groups are warning that without proper protections, the sector could stumble hard. [...]
Is Facebook Planning a Phone? Who Knows. Should It? No
By John C Abell It was quite the weekend sensation: TechCrunch thought it had a resonant story — though perhaps not in this way. It’s hard to say exactly why the TechCrunch piece on Facebook developing a branded phone caught so much fire and ire. It might, however, be because Facebook took the somewhat unusual step of [...]
Is Facebook Getting Bigger Than Google?
Is Facebook Getting Bigger Than Google? [STATS] According to the analysts at Hitwise, social networks in general are more popular than search engines in some parts of the world. In fact, networks such as Facebook have been pushing hard against the biggest names in web search, including Google, for several months now. As Hitwise reported [...]
Does Facebook Show Contempt for User Privacy?
By Troy Wolverton It’s astonishing how much data Facebook considers “public.” Facebook considers itself free to share with marketing partners not just your name and picture, but your city, gender, networks, complete list of friends, likes and interests, and profile information such as where you grew up, where you went to school and where you’ve [...]
How Twitter and Facebook Make Us More Productive
By Brendan I. Koerner Your random tweets about Android apps and last night’s Glee are stifling the economic recovery. At least, that’s the buzz among efficiency mavens, who seem to spend all their time adding up microblogging’s fiscal toll. Last year, Nucleus Research warned that Facebook shaves 1.5 percent off total office productivity; a Morse [...]
Facebook Must Tell Google to Buzz-Off (Or Else)
By David Coursey Since Google is using its new Buzz social network in an attempt to take down Facebook, the #1 social network should return the favor: Facebook should tell Google to buzz-off. Permanently. To protect itself from Google, Facebook content must never appear in any form as part of any Google product. Not ever, [...]