Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’

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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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Zuckerberg Weds Longtime Girlfriend, No Word on Prenup (Reuters)
Details of Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg’s surprise wedding trickled out on Sunday, but mysteries remained, not least whether there was a prenuptial agreement in place that could affect Zuckerberg’s large stake in the company. Zuckerberg wed his longtime girlfriend, Priscilla Chan, on Saturday in the backyard of their modest home in Palo Alto, Calif., with fewer than 100 people in attendance, a Facebook spokesman authorized to speak on behalf of the couple said. CNET However, a woman in India is reportedly divorcing her husband because he committed the cardinal 21st century crime: he didn’t change his Facebook status when they got married. How can a woman trust a man who doesn’t whip out his cell phone the minute the marriage ceremony is over and declare himself to the world? VentureBeat NASDAQ chief executive Robert Greifeld admitted Sunday that the exchange was at fault for some glitches in early trading of Facebook’s IPO but said it had nothing to do with the stock’s uninspired performance. Facebook expected trading to begin at 11 a.m. on Friday, but it did not begin until about 11:30. GigaOM Catching the last five minutes of the Boston University commencement speech by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt on WBUR, I was struck by the veiled swipes (pokes?) he took at Facebook. You know, the company that last week launched the most anticipated IPO in years, and that despite NASDAQ glitches and a disappointing finish, wiped Google out of the record books? Yes, that Facebook. CNET A mother wanted to share a picture of her son on Facebook. He lived only eight hours. Facebook removed the image, deeming it “too graphic.” Much later, the company offered an apology and admitted it erred. Read more

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Bing Reinvents Social Search and Discovery (Mashable)
Bing has been reinvented, offering enhanced search results that tap into the power of social media. Microsoft has done this by pulling people out of search results and putting them in their place: A right-hand social column that will eventually include Facebook, Twitter, Google+ Quora and LinkedIn integration, as well as people who may know something about your most recent Bing query. AllFacebook The new Bing will gradually be rolled out to users, and those interested in getting it earlier can sign up. The search engine makes its suggestions based on information in friends’ Facebook profiles, their likes and photos they have shared. The New York Times Strengthening the ties between Bing and Facebook is a sign of how Microsoft and Facebook are working together to provide a counterbalance to their common adversary, Google. While Google is by far the dominant player in the Internet search business, it also competes with Microsoft in productivity applications and with Facebook through its Google+ social network. The Wall Street Journal Microsoft’s share of U.S. Web search was 15.3 percent in March, according to comScore, while Google had a 66.4 percent share. Combined with Yahoo!, for which Bing also powers search, Microsoft had a combined 29 percent market share. Forbes In 2007, Microsoft spent $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook, which goes public next week. And the two nabbed headlines in October 2010 by announcing their plan to team up on social search. Read more

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Announcing the Facebook Antivirus Marketplace (Facebook Newsroom)
We’re announcing the Antivirus Marketplace, developed with industry partners to enhance protection for people on Facebook. AllFacebook The Antivirus Marketplace features free downloads and six-month licenses from Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos and Symantec. GeekWire The social network says its URL blacklist — which aims to stop its users from accessing malicious sites from Facebook — will also now incorporate the databases of those companies. The Next Web To access the new protection tools, all you have to do is visit the Facebook Security Page and select from the options listed on the page. Read more

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Facebook Acquires AOL Patents From Microsoft (paidContent)
Facebook announced today that it will pay $550 million to Microsoft for the right to 650 patents and patent applications. Microsoft acquired those patents and hundreds of others in a deal with AOL earlier this month. The New York Times / Bits The deal allows Facebook to bulk up its intellectual property portfolio ahead of the social networking company’s initial public offering, expected next month, and it is a further sign of the growing importance of stockpiling patents in the arsenal of any big technology company. AllFacebook Facebook is currently embroiled in a controversial patent-infringement lawsuit filed by Yahoo in March. Meanwhile, last September, AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft joined forces to challenge Facebook on the online display advertising revenue front. PandoDaily Another thing is astounding about this story: The ever-bumbling AOL has actually done something smarter than Yahoo, the purple dinosaur. AOL sold and licensed its patents for a cash injection of more than $1 billion. Yahoo wanted money too, but it chose to use its patents to extort that kind of cash out of Facebook via a conveniently timed lawsuit — with zero attempt at negotiations before hand. Read more

It’s been covered here and there, but Microsoft’s “research experiment” in social networking called SoCl is still around on the web.  The service seems like a hybrid of a social network and search, and includes some neat features like video chat.  Read more about SoCl below.

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Facebook Delves Deeper Into Search (Bloomberg Businessweek)
Searching the social network could get a lot better in the near future. About two dozen Facebook engineers, led by a former Google engineer named Lars Rasmussen, are working on an improved search engine, say two people familiar with the project who did not want to be named because the company is in a quiet period ahead of its IPO. AllFacebook Speaking of the IPO, speculation about Facebook’s search initiatives heated up when the social network announced its intentions to go public February 1. That week co-founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture of his desk, in which a MacBook displaying what looked like a Facebook page with a large search box was visible. SocialTimes Google, which owns 67 percent of the search market in the U.S., has a clear advantage in being able to index sites from across the Web, while Facebook appears to be working internally with pages and profiles. Mashable Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has consistently downplayed the level of direct competition between Facebook and Google. “I don’t think that this is going to be the type of situation when one company wins all this stuff,” he told Charlie Rose of PBS last fall. Tom’s Guide So how will this new search engine affect Facebook’s relationship with Microsoft? Zuckerberg still meets every few months with Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s online services division, sources claim. There may be no ruffling of feathers at all, but rather a huge opportunity for two separate types of search engines to work together in harmony to create a huge Google rival, loaded with data Google probably still covets. Read more

Google’s policies are once again under scrutiny as Microsoft and others have caught the company circumventing users’ privacy settings to track them with cookies. But Google representatives have pointed out that they are not alone.

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When, where and how much to share are big issues when it comes to social media, especially now that geolocation and search have gone social. But the panelists at a Social Media Week event on Tuesday night agreed that the rewards of connecting online far outweigh the potential for sharing too much information.

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When Google plus Your World came out, many critics were underwhelmed. Although there were privacy concerns about personalized search results, the site’s social media elements were actually conservative considering the arsenal of tools available for finding people online. At a Social Media Week panel on Tuesday, pioneers in geosocial networking predicted a more sophisticated – and slightly creepy – future.

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