By Todd Haselton |
Waze is quite the hot item right now. The social traffic application apparently shot down a buyout bid from Apple and is currently in talks to sell to Facebook for $1 billion. But wait, things get even hotter: apparently Google is interested in bidding on Waze…
By Todd Haselton |
HTC hasn’t come out publicly to state that the HTC First was a failure, but all of the signs are there. In a recent report an unnamed employee said the device was a “disaster” and AT&T dropped the price of the device from $99 to…
By Brandon Russell |
Acquiring Tumblr won’t be quite as simple as shelling out $1 billion. If Yahoo really wants the popular blogging service, it’ll have to participate in a royal rumble with Facebook and Microsoft, according to new report from Forbes. Right now, Yahoo is currently in lockup…
By Todd Haselton |
A report surfaced early Monday morning that suggested HTC First sales were bad. So bad, in fact, that AT&T moved fewer HTC First units during its first month on sale than it did with the HTC Status a few years ago. As a result, the…
By Todd Haselton |
Microsoft announced on Friday that it has updated its Bing search engine with an updated version of its Facebook sidebar, which was first introduced last year. The bar shows social results, so if you search for the Galaxy S4, for example, you’ll see posts from…
By Todd Haselton |
Yesterday Facebook held a brief event in which it revealed that Facebook Home has been downloaded a million times. That might seem like a large figure, but the social network didn’t reveal the important stat: the number of active Facebook Home users. Aside from that…
By Todd Haselton |
Facebook will make good on its promise to frequently update its Facebook Home software by releasing a new patch today. CNET said the update will land at about 1p.m. Pacific and will mostly include bug fixes and will be available for the half-dozen or so devices that…
By Todd Haselton |
Facebook may be close to finalizing another $1 billion deal. According to several new reports spotted by TechCrunch, the social network is readying a $1 billion bid for the social traffic application Waze. Apparently the offer currently sits between $800 million and $1 billion, right around…
By Todd Haselton |
Target is trying a new ad program it calls “Cartwheel” on Facebook that it hopes will bring users of the social network into its stores, and away from online retailers such as Amazon. The Cartwheel approach is relatively simple: a Facebook user can decide to…
By Todd Haselton |
Do we have another Kin on our hands? The HTC First – a phone that puts Facebook front and center to a user’s experience, launched less than a month ago on AT&T for $99 with a new two-year contract. It’s now available for $0.99, which…
By Brandon Russell |
Instagram got a small dose of Facebook on Thursday, with an update that allows users to tag their friends in photos. No more @ mentions. It’s exactly the same experience you’d find when sifting through albums in Zuckerberg’s online friend palace. Once you update, a…
By Todd Haselton |
Facebook recently unveiled Facebook Home, a skin that covers the entirety of Android and keeps its users inside the social network, and the HTC First which launched as the first smartphone with the UI layer installed out of the box. There seemed to be a…
By Todd Haselton |
Facebook on Wednesday published its first quarter 2013 earnings report. Wall Street analysts were predicting revenue of $1.44 billion and an earnings per share of $0.13. The company reported revenue of $1.46 billion for the quarter and an earnings per share of $0.12, missing predictions…
By Todd Haselton |
Microsoft on Tuesday announced a new beta of the Facebook application for Windows Phone that it promises has a major redesign. As with all betas, the product is not final and will likely have several bugs, and Microsoft wants to know about them. So what’s…
By Adriana Lee |
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. And when it involves Facebook, the truth is often even stranger: Reportedly five people have been arrested in India in connection to the Facebook sale of a baby — including the boy’s grandfather. Ferox Khan, 47, kicked off a bizarre…
By Todd Haselton |
Facebook Home has already been downloaded on more than 500,000 Android smartphones, a milestone that was reached in just a week. It’s unclear how many of the people who downloaded the application are active users, however, which is a key metric to measuring the real…
By Adriana Lee |
Is there anything about social media that researchers haven’t yet zoomed in on? This time, the study (.pdf) comes from a Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student and a Facebook staffer, who reveal that most Facebook users tend to self-censor their comments at the last minute before posting.…
By Brandon Russell |
Facebook is allegedly preparing a new messaging feature in addition to Chat Heads and VoIP calling. According to iMore, the company’s Messenger app on iOS will get something called Facebook Blast, which handles group messages a little differently than we’re used to. Through Messenger right…
By Brandon Russell |
Chat Heads on Android is great because they’re there across the entire OS, no matter what app you’re in or Web page you’re looking at. But on iOS? Functionality is restricted, further highlighting the closed nature of Apple’s ecosystem. But thanks to developer Adam Bell,…
By Brandon Russell |
Just like on iOS, Facebook has rolled out support for VoIP calling to its Messenger app for Android on Thursday. The update brings the feature to 24 countries around the globe for Android users, meaning millions of people can access VoIP calling. If you prefer…
By Brandon Russell |
Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want Facebook to be among a group of apps on your device; he wants it to be the only one. Instead of a traditional lock/home screen, Zuckerberg has created an experience that rewires how you and I use a phone. This isn’t…
By Brandon Russell |
Jon R. is back with an all new show where he rants and raves on various topics in and out of the tech world. On this week’s episode, Jon rants about our instinct to use our smartphones to post on social media websites before helping…
By Jon Rettinger |
Facebook Home has elicited a lot of differing opinions in the Android community. What people love about the open Google OS is suddenly stripped away in favor of a full screen Facebook experience—and nothing more. When you use Mark Zuckerberg’s cozy new home, you concede…
By Brandon Russell |
When Facebook introduced its new Home app for Android, the company said updates would be frequent—as many as one a month. Making good on its promise, Cory Ondrejka, head of mobile engineering at Facebook, said users can expect the first update in early May. Speaking…
