Inside these posts: Facebook

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Obama to host town hall at Facebook headquarters

President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign is under way and, in what may be a nod to the influence of social media on his presidency, he’s hosting a town hall-style meeting on April 20 at Facebook headquarters to talk about the economy.

Facebook plans own daily deal service

Facebook will soon start testing a service to provide discounts and other special offers to its more than 500 million members, a move that will thrust the social network into direct competition with daily deals market leader Groupon. Get the full story »

Warner Bros. to offer movies through Facebook

Warner Bros. Digital Distribution said it would make some of its films available on Facebook, opening up a new source of revenue for the Internet social network and marking new competition for online entertainment companies.

Consumers can pay for the movies using Facebook Credits, Warner Bros. said on Tuesday. Until now, the virtual currency developed by Facebook has been primarily used in the social games that are popular on the site.

The first movie available on the Warner Bros. Entertainment page on Facebook’s site is “The Dark Knight,” which consumers can rent for 30 Facebook Credits, or $3. Get the full story »

Tiger Electronics founder invests in startup

Chicago-based Media Chaperone, developer of a free Facebook application that helps parents manage their children’s Internet gaming use, said it has raised $1 million in its first venture capital backing ever.

The investor group is led by Northbrook-based Leo Capital Holdings, which focuses on youth-oriented technology companies. Leo’s managing partner is Randy Rissman, who founded toymaker Tiger Electronics and in 1998 sold it to Hasbro for $335 million. Rissman will join Media Chaperone’s board of directors. Leo’s other investments include Chicago-based GrubHub.com. Get the full story »

Sprout Social gets $10M in venture funding

Sprout Social, a Chicago-based startup that helps businesses manage their social media presence across different platforms, has raised $10 million in venture funding. Get the full story »

Deal site Bling Nation launches in Chicago

A Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup called Bling Nation has launched a new “social rewards” program in Chicago as part of a national rollout, using Facebook as a way for consumers to share deals at local businesses with their friends.

In Chicago, Bling Nation has deals with merchants such as Deleece Restaurant, Noble Tree Café and White Glove Car Wash. The company said any local business can participate in its FanConnect program. The program uses a dedicated Facebook application that keeps users updated on local deals. A person that redeems a deal receives rewards that he or she can use for future purchases, and earning these rewards automatically shares special offers with the person’s friends via his or her Facebook wall. Get the full story »

Poll: People can’t live without high-speed Internet

High-speed Internet has had the greatest technological impact on society over the past decade and is the technology most people say they cannot live without, according to a new poll.

Twenty four percent of 1,950 U.S. adults questioned in the online survey conducted by Zogby International said high-speed Internet had the greatest impact on their lives, followed closely by Facebook at 22 percent and Google with 10 percent.

Of the technologies people say they cannot live without, high-speed Internet came in first at 28 percent and email was second at 18 percent. Get the full story »

Google, AOL extend Web search pact

Google Inc. and AOL Inc. have agreed to extend their search partnership for five years and expanded their pact into mobile search and online video, two areas expected to grow as the media business transitions to digital communications.

The deal helps Google protect its dominant share of the fast-growing Web search business from smaller competitors,  including Microsoft Corp.  and IAC/InteractiveCorp.  Get the full story »

Facebook’s now trying to trademark the word ‘face’

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Facebook, which has gone after sites with the word “book” in their names, is also trying to trademark the word “face,” according to court documents.

But the social networking site has met with a familiar foe. As TechCrunch first reported, Aaron Greenspan has asked for an extension of time to file an opposition to Facebook’s attempt. Greenspan is the president and CEO of Think Computer, the developer of a mobile payments app called FaceCash.

Greenspan, also a former Harvard classmate of Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, claimed he had a hand in developing the social networking giant. The case was settled last year. Get the full story »

Google may be working on rival site to Facebook

Silicon Valley is speculating that Google is working on a social network to compete with Facebook called Google Me. That speculation stems from a tweet by Digg CEO Kevin Rose that he has since deleted (“Ok, umm, huge rumor: Google to launch facebook competitor very soon — ‘Google Me’, very credible source”) and from comments on Quora from former Facebook CTO and Quora founder Adam D’Angelo.

Journal calls for Facebook blood donor drive

A leading medical journal says the world could boost its blood supply from young donors by tapping into social networks like Facebook.

In an editorial on Friday, the Lancet calls for doctors to encourage young people to donate blood, including recruitment drives on Facebook or running advertisements for national blood donation agencies on Google. Get the full story »

Yahoo punches up pages with Facebook

From CNN | People who use both Facebook and Yahoo will be able to link those
accounts and share updates and messages across platforms, thanks to a
major redesign rolled out by Yahoo on Monday.

Get the full story »

Facebook CEO: Privacy controls ‘missed the mark’

Zuck-Web.jpgFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivering a keynote address at a conference in San Francisco in April 2010. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Reuters
|
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the Internet social network will roll out new privacy settings for its more than 400 million users, amid growing concerns that the company is pushing users to make more of their personal data public.

“Many of you thought our controls were too complex,” said Zuckerberg in an opinion piece published on Monday in The Washington Post.

“Our intention was to give you lots of granular controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted. We just missed the mark,” said the 26-year-old Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm room in 2004.

Get the full story »

U.S. Internet users blanketed with online ads

By Mary Ellen Podmolik
|
If it seems like you’ve been inundated with online ads this year, you were.

U.S. Internet users received a record 1.1 trillion display ads during the year’s first quarter, a 15 percent increase versus a year ago, according to comScore’s Ad Metrix.

Get the full story »

Facebook bigger than Google in the U.S.

Facebook.jpgFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2007. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

By Wailin Wong | Social networking platform Facebook racked up the most U.S. hits on its Web site last week, edging past search giant Google to be the country’s most-visited site for that period, according to data from research firm Hitwise.

Get the full story »