In an attempt to move beyond standard promoted tweets, Twitter is trying so hard to legitimize its business model that, well, you're about to find out just how much Twitter really knows about where you shop. And the main privacy model "doesn't actually provide protection," a leading online privacy firm tells The Atlantic Wire.
Facebook announced in a blog post on Friday afternoon that its "systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack" and that "Facebook was not alone," which immediately raised the cyber-espionage question of the moment: Was China behind this one, too?
In the latest rather obvious attempt to monetize every inch of its network, Facebook is now trying to charge you to promote not just your own content — they think you'll pay for your friends' wall posts, too.
Taking the next logical step in her quest to gin up as much celebrity as possible for being related to the CEO of Facebook and not much else, Randi Zuckerberg is writing a memoir called Dot Complicated — and her deal with HarperCollins calls for yet another book after that.
A secret program from the defense contractor looks through Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla, and Foursquare to find out where a person lives and hangs out, to discover what he or she looks like, and even to predict what he or she will do in the future.
A weird thing happened on Thursday night. Anytime you clicked on a link — or most of the time anyways — some strange Internet force directed you to an error page on Facebook.
Yes, Instagram's migration from your phone to your personal computer or tablet is nearly complete. Well, except for the taking photos part, and the fact that it's buggy on launch day, but still.
A new report claims Facebook is working on what sounds like a creepy mobile location tracker, even though more likely it's an app that will seek to be more successful than Apple's Find My Friends app for the iPhone.
On the occasion of Facebook's ninth anniversary, pretty much the whole Internet has decided to get nostalgic. Here's how.
Twitter might not quite deserve its (very) big new $10 billion valuation, but it's spent the last year working (very) hard to grow up — and just in time for the inevitable and (very) good-looking public offering in 2013.
The social network's latest earnings report shows why a lot of good is never enough for Facebook, especially when it comes to making money off you and your cellphone.
Despite hiring a couple of linguists to get its new search engine to move "beyond 'Robospeak" and actually understand how people talk, Facebook hasn't actually taught Graph Search how to do that very well just yet. And that's a problem.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Facebook has now clarified why it blocked Twitter's new video-sharing app Vine, suggesting on its developer blog Friday afternoon that Facebook didn't think much of Vine's integration — or lack thereof — with the social network
Twitter launched a new product called Vine on Thursday, one that's as confusing as it is intriguing -- just like Twitter itself was when it started. Unsurprisingly, Facebook wants nothing to do with it.
Instagram released new numbers Thursday that show there's still devotion, but is there real growth to track since Facebook's $1 billion acquisition last year? Or a real drop-off since Instagram's sell-out move last month?
Facebook may have just released a major search product that many are saying "declares war" on Google, but Google CEO Larry Page doesn't sound all that worried about the new competition. Because who said Facebook and Google couldn't get along?
Discovered: Racial separation corresponds with more lung cancer; barnacles have gross sex; social interaction is genetic in ants; Facebook is more memorable than books for many people.
If you were disappointed by Graph Search, take heart: Facebook just added a free phone-call option to its Messenger mobile app for U.S. users, a feature that seemed trapped in Canadian testing grounds ... but might just become Skype for the masses.
Despite all the laudatory praise for the idea of Facebook's new "third pillar," and despite nine years' worth of user data, early reviews indicate that Graph Search doesn't actually give great answers, and that the social network may have a data problem.
From a new set of opt-out options to just how much of your preferences are now searchable — and sellable — here's everything you need to know about protecting yourself from the many advances of the new product Mark Zuckerberg claims is "privacy aware."
Expanding the Facebook experience to what he called its "third pillar," CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced that the social network was banking big on a friend-optimized new product it calls Graph Search.
Expectations are both extremely low and impossibly high under the "masterful" shroud of secrecy leading up to this afternoon's event, but everyone seems to have a relatively educated guess. Here's a reality check on the three big rumors.
A summary of the best reads found behind the paywall of The New York Times.
Facebook is testing some "extreme" prices for a new feature that puts users' Messages inbox up for sale, beginning with that of its CEO, whose attention can be yours for, well, a hundred bucks.
Do you tweet? Do you post things on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Well: you've got company!
A new feature for Facebook's Messenger app lets you add audio to your text-based conversations — but if an additional testing phase of the app goes worldwide, it could let everyone replace their phone bills with Facebook calls over the Internet, for free.
Arizona is entertaining a law that will make it a felony to use another person's real name to make an Internet profile intended to "harm, defraud, intimidate or threaten," which to some sounds like a law against parody Twitter accounts.
Google has always made it all too easy to join its not so beloved social network, but now it's forcing users to log in with Google+ in order to get better (and more lucrative) data for advertisers.
What were supposed to be private Facebook messages on the occasion of New Year's Eve were not private at all, and everyone got to see what people in Australia and New Zealand were saying to each other — new privacy settings and all.
This probably isn't the outcome Facebook was hoping for. After Facebook created Poke, its very obvious SnapChat intimidator, the rival app saw a big boost in numbers.
Instagram lost 4 million of its 16.4 million daily active users over the Christmas holiday, according to the usage trend monitors at AppData — but let's not jump to conclusions.
The secret guide to stopping the app's sexy messages from self-destructing has arrived, and the most unsettling part is that SnapChat doesn't seem to care.
Jonathan Cohn on Starbucks and the fiscal cliff, Jacob Sullum on Adam Lanza and mental health, James Bessel on Chuck Hagel and Israel, Leonid Bershidsky on the new cold war, and William H. Janeway on American-made startups.
Following a segment about the Randi Zuckerberg-Facebook privacy fiasco, Savannah Guthrie, Natalie Morales, and Willie Geist revealed they approach Facebook (and, to a lesser extent, Twitter) the same way your parents do.
You were mad enough when you thought Instagram was going to use your photos for ads, so it stands to reason that you might be a little ticked Instagram used them for a year-end roundup, right?
Mark's sister got a little sensitive last night over a photo of the Zuckerberg clan celebrating the holidays — the public outing of which may say as much about Facebook as it does about its first family.
For Instagram, there's good news and there's bad news about the class action lawsuit just filed against them. Bad news first: Somebody just filed a lawsuit. Good news: Facebook's lawyers have plenty of practice getting rid of these.
Mark Zuckerberg usually leaves the coding to the plebes. He's a CEO now, b- you know the rest. Anyway, he's CEO now. But it turns out he put some very personal touches on Facebook's new Poke app, his company's answer to Snapchat.
Friday afternoon Facebook released its iPhone app for the incredible vanishing half-message — because that is apparently what the kids like sending these days, if SnapChat's huge, sexy success is any indication.
Even though Instagram has both apologized and now walked back its terms of service, the mutiny over the photo-sharing app has given its once universally loyal users a preview of a tech universe very much prioritizing money over user experience.
Now comes word, by way of an announcement buried deep inside the social network, that your Messages inbox will be monetized, whether you like it or not.
Subtle tweaks will arrive on your screen, helping you block people and de-tag ugly photos — but you've got to have a keen eye to discover when they're really affecting your profile.
Mark Zuckerberg's been eager to find a way to get more kids on Facebook for years, and on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission handed it to him on a platter.
Fans of philanthropy around the world gave Mark Zuckerberg a collective slow clap on Tuesday night when he committed to donating nearly $500 million worth of Facebook stock to charity.
The backlash to Instagram's new Terms of Service agreement that suggested it might sell its users' photos as ads without compensation has forced the company to take a big — if not complete — step back with a statement released Tuesday.
Now that Instagram has suddenly angered so many of its millions of loyal users with a sneaky terms of service change, Yahoo's Flickr app for iPhone actually has a chance to win over legions of new photo sharers. Herein, a comparison test.
This most annoying addition, which will allow advertisers a chance to slap unsolicited videos all over the Facebook news feed, is expected to launch by April 2013, sources say.
In an extended Facebook note posted overnight — her longest since the election — Sarah Palin weighed in on the Newtown shootings with an emotional but loaded plea to stop listening to pundits not that unlike herself.
Gun control and gun rights have instantly come to dominate the American conversation, but the biggest gun lobby in America has decided to sit this one out — at least on the Internet.
Facebook may have something of a new strategy: If you can't buy the competition, build a clone of it. Rumor has it that Facebook has built and is testing its own version of SnapChat, that popular-with-the-youngsters app that many associate with sexting.
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