Posts Tagged ‘iPhone’

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Facebook Camera App Launches for iOS (TechCrunch)
Facebook began rolling out a standalone photos app Thursday with which users can shoot, filter and share single or sets of photos and scroll through a feed of photos uploaded to Facebook by your friends. Facebook Camera for iOS lets users rapidly pick one or more photos, apply filters, tag friends and locations, add a description and post. Gizmodo iOS users are used to pulling down at the top of apps to refresh a stream, but this action reveals your iPhone’s photo album, instead. This takes getting used to, as does the process of selecting multiple photos to upload or changing your mind and removing one. Wired The product highlights the company’s commitment to its mobile business. But considering Facebook’s recent purchase of the photo-sharing app Instagram, it’s hard not to compare the two. Silicon Valley Mercury News Facebook agreed to acquire Instagram on April 9 for cash and stock then valued at $1 billion, but the value of the stock has widely varied after the Menlo Park, Calif.-headquartered social network went public last week and has experienced volatility on Wall Street. The deal has not closed, and Facebook recently changed wording in its Securities and Exchange Commission filings that indicated it did not expect the acquisition to be complete in the current quarter. Reuters Less than a week after its IPO, Facebook is already facing multiple lawsuits by disgruntled shareholders who claim that the company and its underwriters told only select institutional investors about the social media company’s weakened growth forecast. This is not the first time investors in a hot tech company’s initial public offering have alleged that underwriters favored their regular clients at the expense of the little guys. Read more

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Facebook’s IPO One of World’s Largest (AP)
Facebook priced its IPO at $38 per share on Thursday, at the top of expectations. Now, regular investors will have a chance to buy stock in Facebook for the first time. The stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq sometime this morning. The ticker symbol will be FB. The Verge To commemorate the momentous day, co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been invited by NASDAQ to ring the stock exchange’s opening bell. He won’t be at the New York stock market in person, but the ceremony will be carried out remotely from Facebook’s Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters Reuters The scramble for shares in what is one of largest initial public offerings in U.S. history quickly divided the haves from the have-nots on Thursday. Those with big brokerage accounts and a long history as customers of Wall Street firms likely got at least part of their orders for Facebook shares filled, but would-be buyers who had no such ties were lucky to get any. Bloomberg Businessweek The average first-day “pop” for a technology company is 32 percent; if Facebook follows that trend, it’ll be worth $137 billion by day’s end. But there’s little about Facebook that’s average, including its public offering. TechCrunch Facebook kicked off its 31st Hackathon Thursday evening to celebrate the IPO. Hackathons are a company tradition. They’re a place where engineers and other non-technical employees get to stay out all night building concepts into real products that sometimes eventually get shipped. The Huffington Post The big money has already been staked out. Facebook’s founders and early investors own huge amounts of stock. When the company goes public, some will hold on to their stock; others will walk away with cash after selling shares at the IPO. The Daily Beast The $104 billion Facebook IPO testifies to the still considerable innovative power of Silicon Valley, but the hoopla over the new wave of billionaires won’t change the basic reality of the state’s secular economic decline. AllFacebook We now know that Facebook’s initial public offering will open at $38 per share. But what price will it reach at the end of the trading day? Let us know your prediction by taking our poll. The Washington Post On Thursday, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., used the anticipation surrounding Facebook’s big day to talk again about why Congress needs to close loopholes in corporate tax law. Levin objected to Facebook’s decision to issue its employees options to buy company stock in the future at its original issuing price. Read more

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Facebook is Getting its Own App Store for All Devices, All Platforms, All Prices (VentureBeat)
Facebook is launching a new App Center, “a place to find social web, desktop, and mobile apps” — and not just Facebook apps. The App Center will bring Facebook’s 900 million users all the best in iOS apps, Android apps, web apps, mobile web apps and even desktops apps. Facebook Developer Blog Many developers have been successful with in-app purchases, but to support more types of apps on Facebook.com, we will give developers the option to offer paid apps. This is a simple-to-implement payment feature that lets people pay a flat fee to use an app on Facebook.com. CNET The challenge, for a platform like Facebook, is that it has to build a store on top of other existing stores. It is especially tricky to build on top of the Apple App store, which remains the only legitimate channel for users to get apps onto iOS devices. AllThingsD Ironically, on Wednesday, the company submitted another amendment to its S-1 filing to the SEC, further outlining its weaknesses in the mobile realm. The company’s daily active users has grown fast over the past year. But the corresponding number of ads delivered isn’t matching the pace of the daily-active-user growth. CNN Money Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg won’t be the only one collecting billions from Facebook’s initial public offering: Uncle Sam and the state of California are also poised to cash in big. Tax collectors will be taking a giant bite out of the paper millions that thousands of Facebook employees will soon gain. The average tax hit: $1.1 million per employee. Read more

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LinkedIn Launches iPad App With Bells and Whistles (SocialTimes)
Professional social network LinkedIn has finally launched an app for iPad. The social network obviously has a lot on its plate, having gone public and serving 150 million users per month, but it’s great to see that they took time to reach out to iPad users with a native app. The Washington Post LinkedIn says users often log on to the site through their iPads in the early morning to prepare for meetings and in the evening, on the couch. The iPad app targets these people with a calendar function and other features optimized for the device. Before, they had to use iPad’s Web browser or use an iPhone app that doesn’t take advantage of the iPad’s screen size. VentureBeat Typically, LinkedIn’s most avid users are a relatively affluent crowd, and they’re in their early 30s to 50s, which lines up nicely with tablet ownership demographics (college grads under 65 years of age who earn $75,000 or more per year). PCMag The new iPad app is available for free in Apple’s App Store. In addition to the app, LinkedIn also rolled out a new mobile website for the Safari browser on the iPad. Read more

In the latest episode of mediabistroTV’s “Elevator Pitch,” host Alan Meckler meets with Storyville co-founder Paul Vidich. Storyville is a mobile app for short stories that connects readers and authors. A former music executive, Vidich helped Steve Jobs bring music singles to iTunes. He hopes Storyville will do for the short story what iTunes did for the single.

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Spotify Launches Android Redesign (CBS News / Techtalk)
The new Spotify for Android will be completely redesigned from “top-to-bottom.” Some of the new features include: new “slide-out” navigation, the ability to view profiles and playlists, related artist view, high-resolution imagery and 320kbps listening. Support for Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is also included in the update. PCMag “That’s not the end of it,” Spotify said. “We’re working hard on adding further features, including folders and Last.fm scrobbling, before the app goes live in Google Play.” Computerworld If you can’t wait for it to hit Google Play, Spotify is offering a preview version you can install right now. Cnet Before any Spotify users head to the company’s blog to download the application, though, be aware that it’s only available to Premium subscribers who pay $9.99 per month for that offering. Spotify’s free and Unlimited plans do not include mobile support. Read more

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Viacom Wins Reversal in Landmark YouTube Case (Reuters)
A U.S. appeals court dealt Google Inc a major defeat by reviving lawsuits by Viacom Inc, the English Premier League and various other media companies over the use of copyrighted videos on Google’s YouTube service without permission. Bloomberg Viacom sued in 2007, seeking $1 billion in damages and claiming that YouTube users were illegally uploading thousands of videos of Viacom television programs, such as South Park and The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, and movies from its Paramount Pictures studio. ZDNet The case translates to putting the burden of responsibility back on the website owner, rather than the uploader, which could send massive ripples through the online community from search engines to social networks, like Facebook and Google+. Gizmodo The outcome of the case will hinge entirely on whether YouTube “knew” that all of this copyrighted material was out there and what “knowing” actually means. Read more

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Google Begins Testing Its Augmented-Reality Glasses (The New York Times / Bits)
Yesterday, Google gave people a clearer picture of its secret initiative called Project Glass. The glasses are the company’s first venture into wearable computing. The glasses are not yet for sale. Google will, however, be testing them in public. Cnet A video of this augmented-reality experiment was posted by Google on YouTube showing someone wearing the glasses as he made his way around a variety of Manhattan venues, receiving up-to-the-minute updates as information streamed into his glasses. The Wall Street Journal / Digits Instant walking routes on maps, video chat, voice notes and a camera may be included in the glasses, Google suggests. Wired / Epicenter It’s also a timely means for Google to remind the public that its engineers have visions that transcend the current spats with Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, the DOJ and the European Union. Read more

When you download an application, you’re giving it a certain level of trust.  We’ve all been in the position where we download an application and within minutes we’v been asked multiple times to “log in with Facebook to invite all your friends.”  We quickly remove the application.  What if the application covertly uploaded everyone one of your address book contacts to its own servers?  Unfortunately, that’s the case with Path, a popular iPhone social app that we’ve covered here in the past.  The fact was broken this morning by Arun Thampi, a blogger in Singapore.

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Orkut has been sitting on the sidelines ever since Google Plus showed up on the product roadmap at Google, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way.  With Google+ up to a reported 40 million monthly active users, it’s only the start for the emerging social network.  That said, Orkut is still pushing forward, with strength in India and Brazil and 66 million active users as of October 2011.  The question is whether Google is doing anything to help these two products get along or not — and whether they’re taking opportunities to synergize (yes, I used that word).

Judging by the looks of the recent release of the Orkut app for iPhone, it looks like these two products are going to stay on their own tracks, at least for now.

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