Facebook added a search box to its App Center today, but what it might do next is more interesting. Facebook could soon let developers pay to buy search keyword ads in the App Center search typeahead, similar to the specific name ads in its site-wide search typeahead. And if App Center goes beyond the typeahead and launches a search results page, it could host full-blown AdWords-style search… → Read More
Facebook Gifts launched with the ability for you to buy something meaningful for a friend or family member on the social network. I’ve tinkered with it a bit and have bought a few gifts, including a bonsai tree and Starbucks gift cards. My mind immediately jumped to “wouldn’t it be cool if I could donate money to a charity on behalf of my friend for their birthday?”, and well, that happened today… → Read More
At market opening today, Facebook took another hit, with shares trading at 20.94, 5.02 percent below Friday’s level, the last day trades were made since Hurricane Sandy barreled over the East Coast. Today, 234 million Facebook shares (NASDAQ:FB) held by employees are now eligible to be sold on the market thanks to a stock-lockup expiration. → Read More
Chasing a massive payday, lawyers flocked to a man who claimed to have evidence that he owned half of Facebook. But after Paul Ceglia’s arrest for forging that evidence this week, his lawyer Dean Boland has wised up that that payday is never gonna come. Boland has now requested the court’s permission to cease representing the con artist. → Read More
While Twitter plays both the rumor mill and fact checker for Hurricane Sandy news reports, Facebook is how people are leaving notes for loved ones about their particular situations. “We are ok” was the most shared term on Facebook as of 10am EST today. Others in the top 10 included “power” (lost power, have power), “made it,” and “safe.” Here’s the full list and why Facebook and Twitter trends… → Read More
Another unfortunate effect of Hurricane Sandy—Facebook employees and shareholders whose lockup expired today may have to wait a few more days before selling shares. Today, lockups expired on 234 million shares, allowing these shareholders to trade their stock on the public markets. Except, the public markets are closed today, due to the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy in the New York area. → Read More
Ok, so this app made me feel really dirty when I downloaded it. It’s called Badabing! and it basically goes through your friends’ photos on Facebook to pull out the ones of them at the pool or beach. In other words, we’re talking about scantily clad photos here.
I of course, for the sake of technology journalism, had to download the app and give it a whirl. It actually kind of works and it’s… → Read More
As you know, gaming company Zynga laid off employees last week and shut down a few of its offices right before its quarterly earnings call. Well, Zynga has pissed off the online group Anonymous, and it’s quite serious. Here’s a video just released by them, discussing exactly what it plans to do and why. CNet is also reporting on this story, and we’re actively checking to see if this is a… → Read More
I’ve greatly enjoyed watching the petty controversies that erupted this week, controversies having to do with what can only loosely be described as buyer’s remorse: indignant iPad owners, a mysteriously banished Amazon customer, and a host of people calling foul on Facebook’s promoted posts. One of these is a legitimate and productive complaint, the others are nothing but a froth about the mouth. → Read More
Very Pinteresting, in fact. Last night I asked Facebook why its Collections feature had disappeared, and it confirmed “the test is now complete”. But now it tells me that’s because the product is being built out, presumably for a full launch, not being shut down as I originally published. Facebook will improve Colletions and port it to mobile, but had to shut down the existing version to do… → Read More
Wall Street is responding with enthusiasm to Facebook’s earnings. Shares (NASDAQ:FB) are currently trading 22 percent above yesterday’s price. During the earnings call, the company announced that 14 percent of ad revenue are now coming from mobile ads. It is both a meaningful part of Facebook’s revenue and a shift investors were waiting for. → Read More
During the Q&A portion of the earnings call, Zuckerberg was asked if they would ever charge for APIs. It’s an interesting question, and one that I’ve thought a lot about as I’ve watched Twitter change the way it works with developers. I figured that the answer would be a flat-out “No”, but it sounds like this is something that Facebook has thought about.
Zuckerberg said that the company… → Read More
On Facebook’s earnings call today, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg talked mobile, gaming and more. He touched upon Gifts, the company’s big move into commerce. → Read More
No surprise here. Mark Zuckerberg just said he isn’t happy with the growth of the gaming ecosystem on the Facebook platform on the earnings call today.
“Gaming on Facebook isn’t doing as well as I’d like,” he said, pointing out that gaming revenue from Zynga has declined 20 percent from a year ago. → Read More
Facebook announced its third quarter 2012 earnings today, and are participating in the customary phone call to discuss what has taken place over the past few months.
“We should be able to reach more people on mobile than on desktop” Zuckerberg stated during the call. → Read More
Facebook answered the big question of whether it’s transitioning to become a mobile ad company by noting in today’s earnings report that 14% of total ad revenue from Q3 2012 came from mobile — about $150 million. Here’s the full audio of the earnings call and what Facebook has to do next to milk mobile. → Read More
Facebook released the financial results for the third quarter of 2012 just after the stock market closed this afternoon.
All eyes are on the social networking company to show Wall Street some sort of sign of strength in the results from its second quarter as a publicly-traded company. Its stock price has lagged at around $20 and below for several months now, a significant decline from the $38… → Read More
Today, Facebook introduced its third quarter earnings for 2012 and shared some updated stats on how the social network is performing. Recently, Mark Zuckerberg shared that Facebook had crossed the billion user mark, and the trend continues upward, as our own Josh Constine predicted. → Read More
You probably won’t see the revenue bump in Facebook’s earnings report today from all its new monetization schemes. But with this quarter’s rollout of Gifts, a mobile ad network, app install ads, FBX, and Sponsored Results, Facebook tried show the world that it has new engines to power profits. Earnings and share price may drag for a while longer, but here’s how they could kick into high gear… → Read More
Those eighteen words got a founder and I kicked off of the trading floor of the NYSE earlier this evening. Because, as we shuffled out of the Girls Who Code event held there earlier tonight, we looked at the jumble of computers and stock tickers on the first floor of 18 Bond Street and exclaimed in awe, “So this is where it all goes down, huh?”
And of course, because we’re tech people and… → Read More
I’ve never really been a fan of tapping a “Like” button on Facebook. Mostly because it doesn’t always mean that I like something. I use that button as a way to say “hey I looked at this and it meant something”, but maybe I use Facebook incorrectly. Today, The Next Web surfaced what seems to be a test on Twitter, with the labels of “like” and “star” instead of the word “favorite” when it comes to… → Read More
When Instagram’s roughly $750 million sale to Facebook closed, it seemed that the photo-sharing chapter in mobile app history closed. Instagram had definitively won, while many startups like Mixed Media Labs’ Picplz and Path either pivoted or completely redid their apps. But if you look at the top charts today, maybe this race isn’t so finished. In fact, there are a couple of younger… → Read More
Facebook has donated $250,000 to the Center for Information Assurance and Joint Forensics Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, in recognition of its efforts in tracking down the creators of the social media botnet Koobface and other spammers. The donation, in fact, comes from money Facebook recovered from spammers around the world. The center says it will be using the grant to… → Read More
At Startup School today in the Memorial Auditorium at Stanford University, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to Y Combinator founder Paul Graham about the early days of Facebook. He revealed that, early on, the team did not intend for the TheFacebook.com (as it was called) to become a business.
In fact, being at Harvard and all, Facebook had no cash to run the business and… → Read More
Facebook didn’t guess that users wanted to share photos. It learned it, Mark Zuckerberg explained in his talk at Y Combinator Startup School. “We really listened to what our users wanted, both qualitatively listening to the words they say, and quantitatively looking at behavior that they take.” Users didn’t necessarily say they wanted photos, but were uploading new profile pics every day. → Read More
If Facebook’s going to make money on mobile, it needs developers building social apps that send it content and buying ads. That’s why making it easy to build Facebook-integrated apps is critical, and why today it revamped its Android SDK and launched the Android Dev Center. These give deves pre-made Facebook widgets to augment their apps, and guides for building in friends rather than bolting them… → Read More
Facebook just launched a new page in the Family Safety Center to help raise awareness during Bullying Prevention Month. It helps users navigate through different partners and all the specific actions that can be taken to prevent bullying, like how to report bullying and education around the Support Dashboard.
The mutlifunctional Support Dashboard launched earlier this year and Facebook recently… → Read More
Until now, a Facebook Page showed up only in the language it was created in, alienating foreign fans. Now Pages appear translated into a visitor’s local language, which could inspire global brands to buy more Facebook ads promoting them. Global Pages could help a billion language-fragmented users commune around what they like, and connect Facebook to the pesos, pounds, and yen Wall Street wants. → Read More
Facebook is testing out a new way of picking up mobile users in international markets — a crucial part of its strategy to continue building out its user base as subscriber growth slows in markets like the U.S. In India, Facebook has launched Talktime, which gives users 50 Rupees (about $1) in calling credit when they sign up to Facebook via their mobile devices. It also offers users a further… → Read More
In his six years at Facebook, Ari Steinberg sired the Platform, ran the news feed, and started the Seattle engineering office, but he’s decided to move on, TechCrunch has learned and Facebook as well as Steinberg confirmed. Friday will be his last day working for the social network.
Steinberg verified that founding a travel startup is first on his post-Facebook itinerary. → Read More
The 6th Annual Crunchies Awards
San Francisco
Toronto, Detroit, Chicago
Toronto, ON
Detroit, MI
Chicago, IL
