Technology, Social Media | featured news

Although many investors had hoped for a big first-day pop, Facebook's stock opened on May 18 at $42.05 and fluctuated between $45 and $38 throughout the day. It closed barely above its IPO price, at $38.23. Since the IPO, the stock has been down on seven trading days and up on four. Facebook's stock price has gone as low as $26.44 since the IPO.

Salesforce.com agreed to acquire Buddy Media in a deal worth as much as $745 million, continuing its rapid expansion into social-media marketing. Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff said the deal will help the company keep up with demand as the online marketing business matures. Chief marketing officers are expected to outpace chief information officers in directing technology spending within the next five years, according to a recent report by industry researcher Gartner.

If you’ve got a vacation coming up, a startup called HoozTrippin is aiming to make it more fun by connecting you with other travelers. Co-founder and CEO Steven Oh (who was formerly the head of product at Rotten Tomatoes and Movielink), describes the site as “Match.com for travelers,” except broader: “We don’t limit ourselves to just singles.” In some ways, it sounds like a complement to a service like Triptrotting, which connects travelers to locals. Local guides can make for a better trip, for sure, but so can hanging out with fellow travelers — for example, that’s one of the big reasons many of my friends prefer staying in hostels.

We've heard rumblings that Facebook was testing a system called Highlight that would allow people to pay to promote a post, and now obnoxiously enough, it's starting to show up.

Facebook's stock has fallen below $30 for the first time since its much-awaited public debut this month.

Voters who click on President Barack Obama's campaign website are likely to start seeing display ads promoting his re-election bid on their Facebook pages and other sites they visit. Voters searching Google for information about Mitt Romney may notice a 15-second ad promoting the Republican presidential hopeful the next time they watch a video online....

Independent analysts have issued price targets ranging from below $25 a share to nearly $50, while bloggers, day traders and others have trotted out valuations that pin Facebook as low as $6 a share. At $38 a pop, nobody liked Facebook.

The new app is similar to Instagram, the photo-sharing app Facebook is in the process of buying for $1 billion. The acquisition, however, has not yet been completed, and Instagram's employees did not work on the Facebook app. Facebook has said it expects the Instagram app to close sometime this year.

The fallout from Facebook Inc's messy initial public offering widened on Wednesday as shareholders sued the social network and its bankers while a trading firm revealed a massive loss on the shares and threatened to seek "remedies."

Two top U.S. financial regulators said on Tuesday the issues around the initial public offering of Facebook should be reviewed, putting fresh pressure on the company, its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, and the Nasdaq stock exchange.