Teens are flocking to Twitter, Instagram and other sites because its main rival, Facebook, is increasingly becoming DRAMA CENTRAL and they’re SICK OF IT (slams door). A study from the Pew Research Center found that teens are seeking safe havens on other social networks because their parents are ruining the serene Facebook experience by complaining about Uncle John’s heart condition. Read More
Sometime recently, Mark Zuckerberg’s smiley, overgrown Swiffer of a dog, Beast, hit 1.5 million fans on Facebook. To mark this momentous occasion, the crack team over at Next Media Animation made a video of how Beast became the social media monster that he is today. Read More
Mark Zuckerberg and co. have been acting a little slim shady (heh) recently, at least according to the keeper of rapper Eminem’s extensive musical catalog. The Detroit Free Press reports that Eight Mile Style, the publisher of Eminem’s songs, is suing Facebook and its ad agency for using a song that sounds suspiciously like the artist’s 2000 jam “Under the Influence” in an ad that streamed during Zuck’s announcement of Facebook Home on April 4th. Read More
Each year on February 5th, lovers of the crack-laced hazelnut spread Nutella gather to create delicious recipes and spoon-feed each other scoops directly from the jar in celebration of World Nutella Day. But it appears that this year’s festivities may have been the last. Read More
There’s really not a whole lot going down down under, so this is what’s making news: An Australian politician has apologized for accidentally liking a Facebook photo of a 16-year-old prankster exposing himself. It was part of a prank called “sneaky nuts,” a time-honored tradition where teenaged boys sneakily expose their balls through their pants. Read More
Looks like there might be a suitor waiting in the wings for Tumblr, that scatterbrained belle of the ball. He’s a real gray-hair, though. According to AllThingsD, the blogging site is talking to Yahoo about the possibilities for an alliance, an investment or even a lock-stock-and-barrel purchase. Ad Week says the highly hypothetical price tag could be as much as a billion dollars.
At this point, it might be easier to keep a list of the startups Yahoo hasn’t considered acquiring. Read More
Apple CEO Tim Cook is preparing for his upcoming Congress appearance about corporate tax code by promising a “dramatic simplification” of the ancient laws. [Washington Post]
It’s been a year since Facebook’s IPO. So let’s celebrate it with a ~one year later~ reflection piece. [WSJ]
Remember when you’re complaining about your long work week, it’s way worse for Foxconn employees. [NYT]
It sounds like the Facebook designers behind News Feed’s redesign were having the chillest of times on the project. They brought in lamps to create a “nice living room” and stared at posters on the wall to keep them motivated. [Taxi]
Ugh, we have some disturbing news: A website that bills itself as “Kickstarter for gigs” has launched in London. [BBC]
Three men in New Jersey were arrested yesterday for allegedly swindling nearly $7 million from an investor by claiming that they had “special access” to shares of Facebook prior to it going public last May.
Federal prosecutors arrested Aaron Muschel, 63, of Brooklyn, and Alex Schleider, 47 and Eliyahu Weinstein, 37, of Lakewood, N.J. and charged them with wire fraud conspiracy. Bloomberg reports that they offered a New Zealand investor “blocks of Facebook shares” even though the men had no access to them. They preyed off the near deafening buzz, that seemed to promise Great Gatsby-like riches, to those who cash in on the site’s IPO. Read More
Oh no, our world’s children are succumbing to the perils of the World Wide Web. A new survey of 19,000 parents worldwide said their kids browse porn as early as age six and begin e-flirting at eight years old. The news comes from Bitdefender, a Bucharest-based antivirus company, that compiled the results from talking with parents and monitoring which sites parents block. Read More
It's Zuck's World We're Just Living In It
Heedlessly disregarding the bad luck of looking anything like MySpace, Facebook recently added the option of emoticons for status updates. But, according to Popular Science, the social network couldn’t simply use the same smiley faces that’ve done the Internet perfectly good for more than a decade. No, besides the old standbys you’ll have the option of expressing your feelings with a custom-designed, “compassion-research-based set of emoticons.”
Hey, we’re willing to try anything that’ll keep drama out of our News Feed. Read More
