OpenKit hopes to head off Google with capable and open mobile social platform for games + MORE

First Look: Sports Stars' Adorable Mother's Day Photos – mashable.com/social-media/ Facebook has become a central way for some of the sports world’s biggest stars to share intimate looks at their lives off the playing field with fans around the world Daily doings, thoughts on current events and peeks at family time are all highlights of this still relatively new type of fan access… Continue Reading On mashable.com/social-media/ » Facebook hires and departures: VP EMEA filled; general counsel and head of Android product leave – insidefacebook.com Facebook has hired Nicola Mendelsohn as VP, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, filling a void...

Internet Connects Dying Girl to Her Musical Hero — in a Day + MORE

Mobile Apps Privacy Bill Introduced in House – socialtimes.com Georgia Democrat Hank Johnson today introduced a bill that would require app makers to present privacy policies to users before they collect any data from their mobile devices and to securely maintain the data they collect.  The bill — called the Application Privacy, Protection and Security Act, or Apps Act — essentially follows in the footsteps of the California Attorney General’s office, which began requiring mobile apps to offer users privacy policies… Continue Reading On socialtimes.com » Finding out which friends of yours use Bang With Friends is painfully easy –...

Good.co Helps You Find Employers That Match Your Personality + MORE

Disney Joins The Private Social Networking Craze With New Photo & Video Sharing App Called “Story” – techcrunch.com/social The latest to join the cadre of startups offering tools for more private sharing outside of Facebook’s massive footprint is not, in fact, another startup, but rather another media giant: Disney. Citing its “rich heritage in storytelling,” Disney’s Interactive division, best known for games, sites, and virtual worlds like “Where’s My Water?,” “Temple Run: Brave,” “Club Penguin,” Disney… Continue Reading On techcrunch.com/social » Airbnb Find: Sleep in Someone Else’s Car in San Francisco, Just $103 a Night – socialtimes.com Rents in San Francisco...

Facebook platform industry news: Compass Labs, ShopIgniter, Marin and Syncapse + MORE

Parse announces new hosting product less than 2 weeks after Facebook acquisition – insidefacebook.com Parse, the cloud-based app development platform Facebook agreed to acquire in late April, today announced its latest product: Parse Hosting. Parse Hosting enables developers to create a web presence for their app without having to manage their own servers or turn to another third party. Previously, Parse offered ways for developers to store their mobile app’s data in the cloud but didn’t host web apps or landing pages on the web for them until now… Continue Reading On insidefacebook.com » Facebook platform industry news: Compass Labs,...

Budget iPhone Is Reportedly Launching This Year + MORE

Facebook tests new rating scales for places – insidefacebook.com As Facebook continues to encourage users to rate the places they’ve been, the social network is testing different language for its five-star rating scale. After a user has checked into a place or been tagged in a post with location, they may see a “Rate These Places” module in the right hand side of Facebook… Continue Reading On insidefacebook.com » Ethics, Challenges and Inspiration in an Age When All CEOs Tweet – sproutsocial.com/insights For some executives, social media can still feel like the final frontier. The networks are known to be...

Why Brazil’s ShoeDazzle clone Shoes4you decided to close shop + MORE

YouTube Launching Paid Subscriptions to Some Video Channels: Report – mashable.com/social-media/ YouTube is set to launch a paid subscription model for its specialist video channels as early as this week, according to a report The move, which has been in development for months, aims to finance a wider range of content such as television shows and films, and will serve as another source of revenue, according to the Financial Times The service will include up to 50 YouTube channels, and subscriptions to each channel will start as low a $1… Continue Reading On mashable.com/social-media/ » This Week On Twitter: 6...

Photo apps for fun and profit: Comparing the successes of Instagram and Camera+ + MORE

Experiencing Life Away From Your Computer Screen – mashable.com/social-media/ With technology so ingrained in our daily lives, it’s easy to forget to interact with others in real life (and, in some cases, to even leave the house). SEE ALSO: More Comics on Mashable In this comic, Krishna Sadasivam of PC Weenies riffs off of a quote from White Stripes frontman Jack White: “Getting out of your chair at home to experience something in the real world has started to become a rare occurrence… Continue Reading On mashable.com/social-media/ » Social Media News: LinkedIn Profiles, Twitter Ads, Promoted Page Likes – sproutsocial.com/insights...

Facebook hires and departures: CAO steps down; partner development roles filled + MORE

Facebook careers: Arabic language specialist, DR strategist, marketing communications and more – insidefacebook.com Facebook added 34 new positions to its careers page this week, including a number of openings on the engineering, account management and user operations teams. The company is looking for a number of administrative assistants in different departments, including one to work directly for COO Sheryl Sandberg… Continue Reading On insidefacebook.com » Facebook hires and departures: CAO steps down; partner development roles filled – insidefacebook.com Facebook removed 27 job listings from its careers page this week, likely after making hires in the areas of measurement, strategic partner development, communications and others....

Instagram gets face-tagging with ‘Photos of You’ feature + MORE

Following acquisition by Avis, Zipcar makes its cars available at 8 more US and Canadian airports – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ Zipcar, the car sharing service that recently was acquired by Avis, announced on Thursday that it was bringing its vehicles to eight more airports in North America. As a result, travelers can rent a vehicle at their leisure from one of 11 airports around the world making it easy to get around. The new airports are spread across the continent with seven in the US and one in Canada… Continue Reading On thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ » Stephen Colbert Asks Snapchat Founders if Their Profit...

Facebook earnings preview: changes to ads, payments, gifts and other revenue streams in Q1 + MORE

3,800 developers bought Facebook mobile app install ads driving 25M downloads – insidefacebook.com Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on today’s first quarter earnings call that mobile app install ads were “one of most important new ad products” the company offers. COO Sheryl Sandberg pointed out that 3,800 developers used the product to drive a total of 25 million app downloads in the App Store and Google Play… Continue Reading On insidefacebook.com » Facebook earnings preview: changes to ads, payments, gifts and other revenue streams in Q1 – insidefacebook.com Facebook plans to announce its 2013 first quarter earnings tomorrow after the...

Twitter #music iPhone app falls down the App Store charts, dropping to 126th overall + MORE

Facebook rolls out ‘Promoted Page Likes’ for page owners to create fast ads – insidefacebook.com Facebook today announced the global rollout of “Promoted Page Likes,” a feature similar to Promoted Posts but aimed at helping page owners get new fans without having to use the more complicated ad dashboard. All pages with a location and profile picture will now have the “promote page” option in their admin panel… Continue Reading On insidefacebook.com » Twitter #music iPhone app falls down the App Store charts, dropping to 126th overall – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ Less than two weeks after launch, the new Twitter #music iPhone...

Seinfeld's 57 TV Girlfriends Morphed Into One Image + MORE

Wolfram Alpha Shares Usage Data from Facebook’s Social Graph – sproutsocial.com/insights As a marketer, it’s important to know your audience, and not just in some sort of broad categorical way. Wolfram Alpha has published a visual set of data that brings Facebook’s social graph to life, showing how people connect and relate to each other on the platform. Right off the bat, this might not seem important to brands, but there are some key examples that could impact your strategy… Continue Reading On sproutsocial.com/insights » With Its Future on the Line, Foursquare Readies Ad Retargeting and In-App Ads – socialtimes.com...

Re-Mission 2 games re-imagine how to help kids survive cancer + MORE

This Week On Twitter: Social Media Stats, How To Boost Engagement, Twitter Hacker Protection Tips – mediabistro.com/alltwitter/ Need a little weekend reading? We’ve compiled our top ten Twitter stories of the week, which includes a look at the different ways that men and women use social media, advice on how best to engagement social media users, a look at how images are used on Twitter, tips for protecting your Twitter profile from hackers and an overview of how businesses are using Twitter… Continue Reading On mediabistro.com/alltwitter/ » Bar Power Is A Nightlife App To Help You Be Less Of A...

Facebook roundup: board members, data centers, stickers, photos and more + MORE

Twitter Careers: New Jobs Posted This Week – mediabistro.com/alltwitter/ This continues our series highlighting new positions posted at Twitter each week. Check out past listings here. This week, Twitter added 15 new jobs to its career page. And here they are: continued… New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media. Continue Reading On mediabistro.com/alltwitter/ » The Disturbing Truth About Dog Dreams – mashable.com/social-media/ If you have a dog, you already know how entertaining it is to watch him sleep. With soft growls and frantically running paws, Rufus is adorable as he frolics through dreamland. SEE ALSO: More Comics on Mashable But in this comic, Josh...

LivingSocial hack affecting some 50M accounts reported, passwords reset but no credit card info breached + MORE

Inside an NBA Playoff Team's Digital Strategy – mashable.com/social-media/ Until this year, the Oakland, Calif.-based Golden State Warriors last made the NBA playoffs in 2007. Twitter was barely a year old, Facebook was still years away from world domination and YouTube had been acquired by Google just several months before So for the franchise’s digital team, in charge of rallying Golden State fans near and far, what’s different between the 2007 playoff run and this year’s? In a word, everything “It’s our first time in playoffs in the modern social media era… Continue Reading On mashable.com/social-media/ » Is Twitter Testing...

HootSuite adds support for 750M more users: China’s Tencent Weibo, and Russia’s VK.com + MORE

Passion Is Key To Finding Your Buyer Personas and The Secret To Selling Online – socialfresh.com/blog This is the first part in a three-part series on how to build your online presence for real social selling, inspired by research from Jon Ferrara, founder and CEO of social CRM developer Nimble. Socialized selling isn’t about blasting mass emails on Linkedin, or sending out coupon codes on Twitter – customers are becoming increasingly disenchanted with this kind of push messaging… Continue Reading On socialfresh.com/blog » 3D Leap Motion Controller device shipping date delayed 2 months until July 22nd for more testing –...

Twitter Partnership With Fuse Flips Social TV Scenario, Placing Twitter In The Driver’s Seat [VIDEO] + MORE

Tomorrow on TNW: Your chance to ask HopeMob’s founder Shaun King your entrepreneurship questions – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ Streaming live on The Next Web, HopeMob founder Shaun King will answer questions from readers at 3 p.m. ET (12 p.m. PT) Thursday, April 25th. As part of the Young Entrepreneur Council’s #StartupLab initiative, a virtual mentorship program, Shaun will appear live via video chat broadcast on this site… Continue Reading On thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ » How a Tweet Toppled the US Stock Market in Seconds – socialfresh.com/blog Yesterday, social media controlled the stock market . A breaking news tweet was posted to @AP, the Associated...

Facebook Challenges Yelp With Mobile Pages Redesign Featuring Actions, Local Biz Details, And Ratings + MORE

Facebook redesigns mobile business pages – insidefacebook.com Facebook today released a new mobile layout for business and fan pages, which gives users more actionable information up top but pushes unpinned page posts further down the screen. The redesign better optimizes pages for the mobile use case, for instance, looking up a store’s location or hours, viewing a restaurant’s photos or seeing reviews and friend recommendations… Continue Reading On insidefacebook.com » Ex-Googlers launch venture-backed SRCH2 to speed up enterprise search – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ SRCH2, an enterprise search startup created by Google veterans, has officially launched, while also announcing an “insider round” of...

Wearable Computing Pioneer: How Google Glass Makes Life Better + MORE

YouTube is testing a new auto-generated playlist feature called YouTube Mix to aid in video discovery – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ YouTube is experimenting with a new feature designed to help users better discover videos and channels on its site. Called “YouTube Mix”, it’s an auto-generated playlist that will display suggested videos based on what you’re reading. While the video service already has suggested videos displayed in the right-hand sidebar of each page, YouTube Mix offers users the ability to watch 50 videos continuously that it thinks they’ll be interested in… Continue Reading On thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ » Terrorists on Twitter: Al Qaeda tweets to...

Video games are the new Thin Mints: Girl Scouts add new badge for game design + MORE

Here we go again: Top Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox taken down for hours by ‘another strong DDoS attack’ (Updated) – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ The world’s largest Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has once again been hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. At the time of writing, the site has been down for over three hours, as the company scrambles to fight back. On Facebook and Twitter, the company first informed its users that it was experiencing an outage and then later followed up to confirm the source was indeed yet another DDoS attack… Continue Reading On thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ » Video games...

Facebook roundup: video ads, voice calling, logos and more + MORE

Social Media News: EdgeRank, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter – sproutsocial.com/insights While you’ve been busy updating your company’s Facebook page, keeping your customers up to date through Twitter and posting the latest corporate video on YouTube, we’ve been reporting on the latest in social media news for businesses large and small. In case you’ve missed any of it, here’s a recap of this week’s breaking stories… Continue Reading On sproutsocial.com/insights » These 10 Cats Are More Awesome Than Yours – mashable.com/social-media/ As with humans, some cats just have “it” — that mysterious quality that somehow sets them far apart from lesser kitties We have found 10 such kitties that...

Guest Post: One of Facebook’s Most Underestimated Advertising Tools + MORE

This week at Microsoft: Earnings, Azure, and 7″ tablets – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ It was a busy week in the realm of Microsoft – thank god that isn’t an MMORPG – so we shall have to be summary in our notes today. Check your coffee mug, is it full? We have some ground to cover. Before we dive in, double check that you are following TNW’s Microsoft channel on Facebook, and Twitter… Continue Reading On thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ » Facebook brings Promoted Posts to mobile, tests audience options on desktop – insidefacebook.com Facebook has brought its Promoted Posts feature for pages to its mobile...

Google+ comments are now part of Blogger + MORE

CISPA passes the House 288 to 127, its future uncertain following the President’s veto threat – thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ We’ve done it again: Today the House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) with 288 votes in favor besting 127 votes opposed. Eighteen representatives abstained. That vote tally compares to last year’s vote on the bill, in the previous Congress, in which CISPA passed 248 to 168… Continue Reading On thenextweb.com/socialmedia/ » Facebook announces new mobile platform features to give app developers better tools – insidefacebook.com Facebook today announced a number of changes meant to improve the experience and increase the possibilities for mobile...

Facebook updates iPhone app with stickers and Chat Heads; iPad gets new design + MORE

As The Smart Calendar Market Heats Up, Calendo For iPhone Doesn't Want To Just Manage Your Calendar – It Wants To Fill It – techcrunch.com/social In recent months, the iOS App Store has filled with “smart” calendars like Sunrise, Tempo, and Cue, for example, but despite its name, a new Tel Aviv-based startup called Calendo isn’t trying to directly compete with these types of applications. Instead of better managing your calendar for you, Calendo wants to help you fill it by making sure that you don’t miss out on events you would have otherwise attended… Continue Reading On techcrunch.com/social »...