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A Florida judge has ordered a debt collection agency to not use Facebook — or any other social media site — in an attempt to locate a woman for a $362 unpaid car loan.
Judge W. Douglas Baird also ordered Mark One Financial LLC of Jacksonville, Fla., to not contact the woman’s family or friends on Facebook. Get the full story »
A new JPMorgan Chase & Co. technology fund is in talks to buy a substantial stake in Internet messaging and communications site Twitter, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the plans.
According to the report, JPMorgan’s Digital Growth fund hopes to acquire 10 percent of Twitter for $450 million, valuing the company at $4.5 billion. Get the full story »
Access to the networking site LinkedIn has been restored in China, a day after it was blocked after calls for Middle East-inspired protests in the country.
A spokesman for LinkedIn based in the United States said: “We are seeing indications that access to the LinkedIn service is being restored in China. We will continue to monitor the situation.” Get the full story »
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. investors interested in investing in Facebook got financial information about the social networking company Thursday afternoon.
Copies of the 101-private placement memorandum for the Facebook offering began being hand delivered to Goldman’s wealthy customers a little after lunchtime in New York, according to a person who received a copy. Get the full story »
Social games leader Zynga Game Network Inc. said Tuesday that it had settled a suit it filed against Walt Disney Co.’s Playdom unit, ending a year-long battle over trade secrets with one of its closest rivals.
Zynga, known for games including “Farmville” and “Mafia Wars,” sued Playdom in September 2009, alleging that Playdom induced four former Zynga employees to steal trade secrets and use that information to help Playdom develop online social games to compete with Zynga’s games. Get the full story »
In a sign of the companies’ divergent fortunes, MySpace says it will let its users log in to their Facebook accounts through their MySpace page. Get the full story »
Microblogging service Twitter is considering raising funding that would value the company at $3 billion, according to a popular technology blog.
Russian technology investment firm DST Global is seeking to lead the funding round, which would be larger than the $100 million that Twitter raised in September 2009, according to a report Wednesday on the blog TechCrunch. The report said that other investors are also eager to be involved. Get the full story »
MySpace launched a new version of its Web site centered around music and entertainment, as the social networking company attempts to regain its former appeal in a market it helped create.
MySpace Chief Executive Mike Jones said that News Corp-owned MySpace is no longer seeking to compete head-on with social networking company Facebook, and is recasting itself as a complimentary service that he hopes the 35-year-old-and-under crowd will flock to to stay abreast of the hottest music and videos. Get the full story »
Facebook and Twitter social networking sites were used to tout stocks in a classic “pump and dump” fraud of about $7 million that was uncovered during a cocaine-trafficking probe, U.S. prosecutors said on Tuesday. Get the full story »
Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg says a lawsuit by a man who claims to own a huge chunk of the popular social networking site is seeking to uncover needless details about his private life.
Zuckerberg is fighting a civil lawsuit filed by Paul Ceglia, who claims an 84 percent stake in the privately held company, believed to be worth several billion dollars. Get the full story »
Facebook said today it has hit 500 million members, a milestone that had been anticipated by the social media industry for months. Get the full story »
From The Wall Street Journal | The American Customer Satisfaction Index, developed by the University of Michigan’s Business School, reported that Facebook has one of the lowest scores in its regular survey of consumer satisfaction with companies. Facebook scored in the bottom 5 percent of all private sector companies, in the same range as the IRS tax e-filing system, airlines and cable companies. Among social websites, Wikipedia led the survey with a 77, followed by YouTube at 73.
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.
By Wailin Wong | Chicago-based Appolicious Inc., whose websites help consumers sort through the growing market of mobile phone applications, has signed an agreement with Yahoo! where its content will be linked to on sites such as Yahoo News, Sports and Finance.
Appolicious, which was started last year by entrepreneur Al Warms, combines independent reviews with social-networking tools such as ratings and profiles. The bulk of the company’s content centers on apps for the iPhone, but it’s also adding information about apps for Android, Google’s operating system for mobile phones.
