Internet, Social Media | featured news

News.me, the social news service incubated at betaworks, announced today that it’s officially shutting down its iOS apps and removing them from the App Store. The company is also claiming that it’s yet another victim of Twitter’s latest API guidelines, and states that Twitter may have even viewed its service as a competitor. We might not go that far, but it makes for a good story.

Facebook reported better than expected third quarter earnings Tuesday, giving investors hope that the company might find positive momentum. In after hours trading, Facebook stock is up 67 cents, or 3.4%, to $20.16.

Possibly trying to hide the grim news by announcing it during Apple’s event, we’ve just independently confirmed that Zynga has shut down its Boston office and laid off 2/3s of the employees in its Austin office, including cuts to The Ville and Bingo teams. We’ve now confirmed the initial report from Justin Maxwell. We’ve also just heard Zynga may have an all-hands meeting this afternoon.

India is becoming a critical testing ground for Facebook as it strives to capitalize on growth in emerging markets and better target mobile-phone users—two increasingly pressing goals for the social-networking firm.

On the Internet, the real winner of Tuesday night’s presidential debate may just be the phrase “binders full of women.” Mitt Romney’s sound bite quickly spawned its own Twitter account, Facebook page with more than 161,000 likes and countless online memes.

Say it's your birthday or you've just had a baby, maybe got engaged or bought your first house. If you're like many Americans, your friends are texting their congratulations, sending you an e-card or clicking "Like" on your Facebook wall....

No baby photos in the status update, no "my kid said the cutest thing" tweets. Some parents are responding to concerns about privacy and safety by keeping their children's photos and stories offline, totally.

President Obama and Mitt Romney were a huge sensation on Twitter Wednesday night, generating a record 10.3 million tweets over the course of their 90-minute debate. It was the most tweeted event in political history, Twitter says, and exceeded the activity on the social media site during the political conventions. The high point, however, didn't belong to either candidate vying for the White House.

More than a billion people now log into Facebook each month to check up on old friends, tag photos of new ones and post about politics, religion, cats or what their kids are doing. That's double the 500 million it hit in July 2010 - what now seems like a lifetime but was a little more than two years ago. August 2008 marked another milestone, 100 million. The latest milestone also amounts to nearly half of the world's roughly 2.5 billion Internet users, as measured by the International Telecommunications Union.

Facebook is rolling out a feature that will let users give presents from their network profiles, marking the company’s first big step into offering physical goods. The new service goes way beyond the network’s old gift feature, which let you send virtual puppies and hearts. It’s more of a riff on the company’s ill-fated Deals service — which the company shuttered after four months — but with a twist.