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Latest by Francis Bea

nfl monitors twitter

Athletes say the dumbest things online, so the NFL is playing big brother

Athletes can't always be trusted to say the right things on social media so the NFL is taking it upon themselves to monitor its players' accounts.
irs

The IRS may be snooping through Facebook and Twitter to nab tax evaders

The IRS is reportedly using social media to its advantage by digging through flagged tax evaders' accounts.
blab screen

Blab wants to know what the Internet will love before the Internet does

Blab is a powerful social media analytic tool that predicts viral events before they happen.

Twitter who? New app turns Wikipedia into a real time news source

Twitter and other social networks are de facto platforms for discovering breaking news, but add Wikipedia to that list with Wikipedia Live Monitor.
money-facebook

How much does a video ad on Facebook cost? Apparently, $1 million

Facebook has been hard at work selling its video ad space for $1 million, since it may show up in News Feeds as early as June or July.
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Turns out, money – or at least, Bitcoins – can buy you love

OKCupid is the latest online service to jump in on the Bitcoin rage, and now accepts the virtual currency.
youtube celebrates vcr birthday vhs mode

YouTube celebrates the VCR’s 57th birthday with VHS Easter egg

YouTube is having fun in its celebration of the VCR's 57th birthday by leaving behind an Easter egg that replicates the fuzzy VCR effects on its videos.

Hands-on with Piki, a music app powered by people, not algorithms

We got our hands on Piki, a social music player that like its Turntable predecessor that relies on its users to power its music recommendation engine.
livefyre justin bieber contest

Instagram your way to meeting Bieber, and other social ways to win this week

These contests all want your social media content, and they're willing to give you something for it.
twitter users magnifying glass

Want to know everything about your Twitter followers? Well you can – for a price

Demographics Pro shows you nearly every detail about your Twitter followers, competitors, or hashtags, down to salaries, ethnicity, and occupations.

Missing Coachella? Watch the festival live on YouTube

Coachella is just a couple of days away. For music lovers that can't make it this year, YouTube has you covered from the first to last set.
the internet is rewiring our brains we just dont realize it internetbrain

The Internet is rewiring your brain and you don’t even know it

We're more connected than ever through the Internet, but this constant stimulation is negatively affecting the way our brains work.
confession bear murder

Redditor takes ‘Confession Bear’ meme too far with murder confession

Reddit is a place where anonymity is embraced, but one redditor's anonymous confessions via the 'Confession Bear' meme have landed him or her in hot water.
facebook rolls out emoticon mood and activity status updates share

Go ahead, tell Facebook how you really feel

Facebook is rolling out a new way to share status updates that are personalized and detailed to highlight what users are doing or what their moods.
read watch open graph actions in Facebook News Feed

Facebook is finally letting us interact with Open Graph updates

'Watch' and 'Read' Open Graph stories that are now a core feature of Facebook's new Timeline are surfacing in Facebook's mobile News Feed.
locking you out of your facebook account is the new way to prevent scams password 4 625x1000

Proposed amendment fails, employers still can’t ask for you Facebook passwords

A bill may block employers from asking for your social media passwords, but a now withdrawn amendment to the bill threatened the privacy of employees.
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Surprise! Facebook Home will have ads, eventually

Surprise, surprise, Facebook Home might not have ads now but Zuckerberg says ads will eventually show up on Facebook Cover Feed.
whatsapp facebook

Rumor: Google negotiating $1 billion acquisition of WhatsApp

Google is four or five weeks into negotiating a billion dollar acquisition of mobile messaging app, WhatsApp, says a Digital Trends source.
ads on instagram

Hear that? That’s the sound of ads coming to Instagram

Facebook has moved Emily White over to Instagram with the task of finally making money on Facebook's investment.
china censorship of weibo over bird flu images

Chinese social media outs new strain of bird flu as the government tries to censor reports

Reports confirming the return of Avian flu have stirred Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, while the government attempts to quiet the news.

Did Facebook Home just put the messaging app ecosystem on notice?

Facebook has unveiled a brand new way to message friends and family called Facebook Chat Heads, but are messaging apps concerned about their future?
facebook intros a brand new messaging experience with chatheads

Facebook puts a new spin on mobile messaging with Chat Heads [Updated]

Facebook introduced a new and native way to chat with your friends through Facebook Home called Chat Heads.
facebook graph search icon

Everybody, calm down! Facebook brings back the ability to delete your Graph Searches

Facebook users might have noticed that the tab search your Graph Search history disappeared, but Facebook said that it was simply a bug that's been fixed.
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Psst, wanna buy a photo? Some apps are hawking prints of your Instagram shots

Facebook's Terms and Conditions are wrought with holes that third-party apps are able to grab friends' photos and create memorabilia.
twitter mobile deep linking

The new Twitter Cards are about to change the way you look at Twitter

Twitter wants to woo back developers on its own terms with the announcement of new Twitter Cards for displaying apps, galleries, and products.
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Trapit launches Publisher Suite so that all apps can become news reader apps

Trapit is offering publishers full access to the very Artificial Intelligence that powers Siri and Trapit to build their own newsreader apps.

Vine is starting to get DMCA complaints … so maybe don’t upload that concert footage

Twitter, just three months after Vine's launch, is facing its first DMCA copyright complaint by Prince's record label NPG Records.
yahoo mail dropbox partnership

Yahoo Mail now comes with Dropbox built in

Yahoo has gotten its cloud storage solution, while Dropbox will sign up more users in a new partnership that's a perfect match for these companies.
google doodle cesar chavez

Why you saw a Google Doodle of Cesar Chavez this weekend

Google has come under fire for celebrating Cesar Chavez's birthday, and here's why Google might have opted not to Doodle something for Easter.
facebook amas diane sawyer fb q a

With threaded comments, Facebook Q&As look a lot like Reddit AMAs

Since threaded comments rolled out to Facebook Pages, celebrities have been conducting Q&A's but it's awfully reminiscent of Reddit AMA's.

Surprise! Your drunken online shopping sprees are a bad idea

Don't shop online while drunk, or your throbbing headache will be the least of your worries the next morning, says a OnePoll study.
Facebook users warned of scam

This week in Facebook

Here are some of the Facebook stories you may have missed this week.
terms conditions vine  fs

Vine’s silent update adds awaited video embedding function

Vine rolled out an updated version of its app that finally enables video embedding into outside sites.

Flipboard’s self-curation feature is a hit with 100,000 magazines created in 24 hours

Flipboard's feature that makes anyone a magazine editor, has been a hit with more 100,000 magazines created in 24 hours.