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.
Inside these posts: Facebook
Visit our Filed page for categories. To browse by specific topic, see our Inside page. For a list of companies covered on this site, visit our Companies page.
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 »
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 CEO: Privacy controls ‘missed the mark’
Facebook 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.
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.