Social Networks

It's been eight years since Twitter first began to impose its 140-character regime on the social world, and to celebrate, the company this week launched a new, nostalgically minded tool. At First-Tweets.com, Twitter users now can fondly reminisce about -- and, of course, tweet and share -- what they...

Alibaba is putting some skin in the mobile-messaging game with a $215 million investment in Tango. Mobile messaging apps are hot. Facebook recently scooped up WhatsApp for $19 billion, and Japanese e-commerce titan Rakuten recently acquired Viber for $900 million. Tango is a cross-platform app -- An...

A federal judge in Chicago froze the U.S. assets of Mark Karpeles, the chief of the now-defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, and allowed possible victims to demand evidence surrounding what some believe is massive fraud. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, once the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, last month we...

Turkey's prime minister and president are spewing conflicting talking points on the nation's stance toward social media. It turns out the one who is getting nailed on social media is the one who wants more restrictions. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week vowed to restrict social media aft...

The consumer privacy backlash stirred up by Facebook's recent deal to purchase WhatsApp for $19 billion is now in full swing. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Digital Democracy jointly filed a complaint about the deal with the FTC. Following the announcement of the agreem...

Facebook reportedly is in talks to buy drone maker Titan Aerospace to bolster Internet.org, the project that aims to provide Internet connectivity everywhere in the world. Facebook, which is one of the main backers of Internet.org, may buy Titan for $60 million. Titan builds near-orbital solar-power...

Several members of Hollywood's elite walked out of the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles clutching golden statues on Sunday, but it might have been Samsung that landed the largest victory at the event. Partway through the show, host Ellen DeGeneres stopped to capture the moment by using a Samsung phone t...

A handful of Chinese Web companies are banding together to provide user support -- system upgrades, security services and the like -- to domestic users after Microsoft turns out the lights on Windows XP. Microsoft announced that it's going to punt on Windows XP in early April. Alas, an estimated 25-...

It's not often I see news that surprises me, but Facebook paying nearly $20 billion for an instant messaging app had me scratching my head. People have been paying too much for properties for some time, but this is crazy money for a class of product that stopped being trendy nearly a decade ago. I'v...

Facebook on Wednesday announced the acquisition of WhatsApp in a $19 billion deal geared toward increasing its global connectivity. The company paid $4 billion in cash, $12 billion worth of Facebook shares and an additional $3 billion in restricted stock to acquire WhatsApp. Facebook was drawn to th...