Facebook reportedly acquires Gowalla

Gowalla is reportedly being acquired by Facebook.

Facebook has acquired Gowalla, which makes a location-based social-networking app for mobile devices, CNN reported tonight.

Some Gowalla employees will move to Facebook's Palo Alto, Calif., offices and work on Facebook's Timeline feature, an unidentified source close to Gowalla said.

Representatives for both Facebook and Gowalla provided statements to CNET via e-mail that said the companies "don't comment on rumors and speculation."

Austin-based Gowalla launched in 2009 but has had difficulty competing against Foursquare in the market for location-sharing apps. The app is available on the iPhone and on Android-based devices and features a large "Sign up with Facebook" button prominently on the front page of itsWeb site.

Gowalla had about 600,000 members a year ago, according to USA Today.

The startup raised $8.4 million in venture funding in 2009 from investors who also backed Foursquare, including Ron Conway and Kevin Rose.

Related articles

• Report: Facebook Acquires Location App Gowalla (forbes.com)

Read More

Facebook likes Big Apple for engineering office

NEW YORK--Facebook is expanding its presence in New York City with an event trumpeting the coming launch of a new engineering office here designed to help promote the creation of technical jobs.

Present at the invite-only event at Facebook's Manhattan offices were New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, and Facebook Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer.

Schroepfer explained that a big part of his job is finding the smartest and most entrepreneurial jobs all over the world. About 15 months ago, Facebook decided to branch out from its Palo Alto, Calif., headquarters and expand with an engineering bureau in Seattle, which focused on projects like video calling, a rewrite of the mobile site, and tools to monitor data centers.

Based on the success of that, the team plotted where else in the world they could go, and after a detailed analysis, New York City was chosen.

"This isn't a satellite office but a core part of our engineering stack," Schroepfer said.

The center is set to open in early 2012 and will start accepting job applications immediately. The office will be run by Serkan Piantino, an engineering manager at Facebook who previously oversaw the teams behind Facebook's News Feed and Timeline features.

"The Big Apple is a world-class place for building new technology," Piantino remarked. "Both New York and Facebook share this energy that is hard to describe."

Since moving here in 2007, Facebook has about 100 people in its New York office, mostly in sales and marketing. By contrast, the social network's Palo Alto headquarters has approximately 3,000 employees since launching seven years ago.

When asked how many of those employees are engineers, Sandberg specified that Facebook does not break down employment numbers by department.

"We will hire as much talent as we can," Sandberg said, but she didn't say whether Facebook would be looking for more office space in Manhattan. (She also said clearly at the start of the Q&A portion of the event that Facebook "will not be talking about the IPO today.")

Sandberg noted that technical jobs in New York City are up 30 percent over the last five years, which she credited to Bloomberg's efforts.

Bloomberg also pointed out that this is Facebook's first engineering office that's not on the West Coast, adding that Facebook's decision to move eastward is "conclusive proof" that New York City is on its way to becoming "the world's No. 1 hub for information technology and social media."

Bloomberg cited several other major, "homegrown" social-media companies that were founded in New York, including Foursquare, Etsy, and Gilt Groupe, among others.

"I really do encourage all tech companies to do what Facebook is doing now, and make New York City your hub of operations," Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg also warned, "Don't wait until your competitors are already here."

Schumer also sang Facebook's praises and welcomed the social network's newest venture in New York, remarking that "it's cliche to say that a company has changed the way in which we live," to which Sandberg quickly quipped, "Go ahead, say it."

Schumer admitted that New York City is still second to the Bay Area when it comes to technology and related venture capital, noting that more work needs to be done if New York wants to become the tech capital of the country. Nevertheless, he sees Facebook's latest move as evidence that New York is "turning the corner" in this field.

"New York is pleased to call Facebook a friend," Schumer said while tossing in a few other Facebook-related puns, admitting that "subtlety" is not his middle name.

Read More

NORAD to once again track Santa's progress

(Credit: NORAD Santa)

The North American Aerospace Defense Command will once again be tracking Santa Claus as he circles the globe on Christmas Eve, offering up-to-the moment online updates on St. Nick's progress in a number of languages and using Google Earth and Google Maps to display his flight path.

While the actual "tracking" starts at 3 p.m. on December 24 (GMT +8), visitors to the NORAD Santa Web site can view last year's flight path while waiting.

If you're out and about on Christmas Eve, you can also use iOS and Android apps to view Santa's progress. Santa watchers can track his updated progress on Facebook, Google+,YouTube, and Twitter.

Now, let's just hope a few people at NORAD won't be enjoying a Christmas break. After all, it would be a shame if a mythical missile accidentally blows Santa's sled out of the sky while en route.

For more on NORAD's decades-long effort to provide children a live view of Santa's progress as he and his reindeer deliver Christmas presents, read this behind-the-scenes story by CNET's Daniel Terdiman.

Ho ho ho.

Read More

Can you force someone to be your Facebook friend?

Some people are desperate to have friends.

Or, rather, they're desperate to feel as if they have friends. They therefore spend endless and painful hours on Facebook trawling, staring, begging, and waiting.

I find that a bottle of wine, a home-cooked spaghetti bolognese, and a credit card normally do the trick, but too many seem to discount such apparently painless methods.

For them, Brazilian security expert Nelson Novaes Neto has another answer: the foolproof, but perhaps somewhat dubious, route to guaranteed Facebook friendship.

Ars Technica was friendly enough to report that Neto is a man confident of his friending skills. Even when the object of his friendship neither knows him nor cares.

(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

He reportedly demonstrated his skills by securing the Facebook friendship of someone he called "SecGirl"-- who happens to be a Web security queen.

Neto said the first touchy-feely step toward his goal was to create a fake Facebook account. I know that this is supposed to be impossible. Alas, it appears not. The name on the account was one of his target's managers.

Next Neto says he did something frightfully modern. He sent out 432 friend requests. Of those, 24 were accepted within one hour.

You see how needy we all are? But here's how careless: 96 percent of those people were already a Facebook friend of that person. This, remember, was a mere clone. No one seemed to care.

Though clearly already confident of conquest, Neto wafted onto LinkedIn and made a few fake connections there.

Before lo could even introduce itself to behold, SecGirl accepted his Facebook friend request. The whole subterfuge took seven hours.

Please think of all the forlorn and resourceful 15-year-olds who might have already tried such a maneuver. Neto, however, explained subsequently to UOL Noticias that people just don't bother checking whether the friend request is from the real person or not.

They are so used to accepting requests and, some might say, they are so desperate to have more unreal friends.

Neto also pointed out that Facebook's "Three Trusted Friends" feature, which allows you to get help with password recovery, makes things even easier for the subterfuger.

Facebook, for its part, naturally told Ars Technica that Neto's actions were a clear breach of its policies.

But Facebook doesn't always employ the most alert police officers, seeming to be more concerned with the appearance of breasts than the appearance of something more threatening--such as, say, Holocaust denial groups.

The question is less whether Neto has revealed something that might be copied, but whether there is quite a bit of activity such as the sort he demonstrated already going on.

Read More

Zynga IPO could raise as much as $1.15 billion

Social-gaming company Zynga is ready to brave the turbulent initial public offering market, and it might just raise over $1 billion for its effort.

Zynga reported in a Securities and Exchange filing today that it will price its stock between $8.50 and $10 a share. The company currently plans to sell 100 million shares, but has made 15 million additional shares available for over-allotment. Depending on how well Zynga can attract buyers, the company could raise between $850 million and $1.15 billion in its offering.

"We intend to use the net proceeds to us from this offering for general corporate purposes, including working capital, game development, marketing activities and capital expenditures," Zynga said in the SEC filing. "We intend to use approximately $83.6 million of the net proceeds to satisfy tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of restricted stock units, or ZSUs, in connection with this offering. In addition, we may use a portion of the proceeds from this offering for acquisitions of or investments in complementary businesses, technologies or other assets."

Although Zynga didn't say how much it will earmark for charity, the company said that it also wants to use "a portion of the net proceeds to charitable causes through Zynga.org, our philanthropic initiative."

Zynga made its IPO intentions known in July. The company was expected to go public as early as September, but the unpredictable IPO market made the move too risky.

More to come...

Read More

YouTube gets social-networking face-lift

YouTube has a new look, one that the video-sharing service hopes will make it easier for users to find and organize the kind of content that they want.

Google said in a blog post today that it has redesigned YouTube's home page and the channel pages, and is basically revamping its overall appearance by applying "a fresh coat of digital paint across the whole site."

"You can browse recommended Channels," YouTube wrote in its post. You can "customize your homepage's feed; even link your YouTube account to Google+ and Facebook to see what your friends are sharing. The new homepage feed we launched earlier this year is now front and center on the homepage."

One of YouTube's biggest challenges has always been about helping users cull through the seeming infinite amount of video clips to find material that appeals to them. The site has also sought ways to streamline the sharing process to help popular clips go viral. This is the latest poke at those problems.

You can read YouTube's blog post here.

Clarification YouTube said the image of the pages in the video is an artistic rendering.

Related articles

• YouTube gets social-networking face-lift (news.cnet.com)

Read More

How to stop Facebook from sharing your location

acebook is at it again, releasing yet another feature that I never had the opportunity to politely opt out of: location sharing.

When Facebook decided to withdraw efforts from its short-lived check-in service, Places, it quickly implemented a more passive location-sharing feature that doesn't even have a name. It's just there. And it's creepy.

Now, every time you compose a post on a mobile device or desktop computer, you'll see a light-gray location description in the lower left of the status box.

Facebook sneakily grabs your location via GPS or Wi-Fi router, and attaches it to your post, so your friends can enjoy a more in-depth stalking experience.

Do you remember opting in to that? Me neither.

In fact, if you dig through your privacy and account settings, the option to turn off location-sharing isn't available. However, it's pretty easy to turn it off. Here's how:

• Since the location is shown in light gray, it's very easy to miss. Always check the lower left of the status box to see if a location is attached.


• If you're on the Web, simply hover the cursor over the location and click the "X." Your location will no longer be attached, even to future statuses. If you later change your mind, just click the location marker to manually enter your location, but beware: it will be attached again for all future updates (unless you turn it off again).
  (Credit: Screenshot by Sharon Vaknin/CNET )


• In the Facebook mobile app, tap the location to remove it. On the iPhone, you can turn off location services for Facebook entirely by going to Settings > Location Services, and turning it off for Facebook.

Read More

How to send money to friends through Facebook

If you forget birthdays until Facebook reminds you, or you constantly fear that your friends pay for lunch more often than you, then PayPal's new Facebook app is for you. Send Money is aptly named, and while you can choose to bundle your e-payment with a silly customized greeting card, there's no need for it. Here's how to settle your accounts:

1. Log on to Facebook and visit the Send Money page.


2. Click "Send a card with money" if you want to make a card. Click "or just send money" if you want to get down to business right away.

Step 2: Send a card or just send money.
3. Give PayPal permission to see your friends list and make posts in your name.


4. Type in your friend's name, then e-mail address (needed for fraud protection and account confirmation).


5. Write a message to your friend; if you haven't told him what you're doing, an explanation would probably be most welcome. You can attach photos or YouTube clips, if you'd like.

Step 5: Create message.
6. Add money. If you use your bank info or PayPal account, there's no fee. If you use a credit card, there is a fee that currently stands at 2.9 percent plus 30 cents in the U.S.


7. You'll need to sign in to your PayPal account to confirm and choose a payment method. You can also tell Send Money to skip this step in the future when using the same computer, but you may want to keep another layer of security active.


8. Your friend will see a notification in Facebook and in his e-mail. Once he logs in to PayPal, he should soon see a bump in his account balance.

That's all there is to it. From now on, forgetting your wallet is no excuse.

Related articles

• PayPal Adds E-Cards to Its Facebook App (news.dice.com)

Read More

Spotify's 'new direction' is in app makers' hands

Spotify's press event was short on celebs but Sean Parker, the Internet idolmaker and Spotify investor, was on hand to add some glamour.

(Credit: Greg Sandoval/CNET)

NEW YORK--Maybe because we're so used to the app platforms from iTunes, Android, and Facebook that Spotify's announcement today that it too is building such a platform doesn't inspire much awe.

Or maybe it's because the new apps that the company demonstrated today at a press event here don't do much that's new. It also didn't help that Daniel Ek, the streaming-music service's CEO and co-founder, didn't have much else to announce other than the new app platform. Not only did we not get any download store or video offering, which were rumored, but much of the news about the app platform was leaked over the past month.

Reports that Spotify, the largest subscription music service with over 10 million active users worldwide, would debut a new developer platform began when Evolver.fm reported that the subscription music service was planning to allow developers to build and sell apps for the service. While most of Evolver's report was dead on, that last part didn't happen. Ek said today that all the apps, which will be made available to the public starting next week, will be offered free of charge.

The reason that matters is we still don't know why Spotify developers will be motivated to build for the service when they won't be allowed to generate revenue from their wares like they can with iPhone or Android apps.

Rolling Stone's app was demonstrated at the Spotify press event today.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Then there's the question about how much music fans care about new ways to interact with their music. I wasn't much impressed with most of the apps that Ek demonstrated at the event. The app from music magazine Rolling Stone enables users to listen to music and read reviews from the iconic rock publication at the same time. Meh. I can read reviews on the Web easily now without an app.

The Songkick app gives me some good and often hard-to-find info about my favorite bands. Ek showed the audience how the app helps me learn where and when acts are playing in town and even what their song set was the last time they played. That's handy enough.

But Spotify managers say this is just the beginning and it's easy to see how Spotify's developer platform could benefit the London-based company.

Since launching three years ago, Spotify has built a reputation for providing one of the best user experiences for any of the top music services. By mining the developer community for new features and services, Spotify stands to build on that reputation. We also don't know what kind of apps are coming. That means that there might be some cool software coming.

Anyway, none of Spotify's top competitors, such as Apple, Google, or Amazon, is as well situated to tap into developer creativity.

None of those companies enables developers to build features strictly around their music services, although it wouldn't be hard for them to catch up quickly.

a quaff swims like a trash can

Read More