While teenagers may not be enthusiastic about Facebook, the company has a fan in Ashton Kutcher. The actor and angel investor, who is set to play Apple Co-Founder Steve Jobs, recently spoke at the CTIA Conference in Las Vegas, saying that Twitter is too crowded and that Facebook has actually effectively placed its advertisements.
Facebook’s talks to potentially acquire satellite navigation startup Waze may have hit a Google-sized fork in the road, as Bloomberg reports that the search-engine giant has thrown its hat into the Israeli company’s ring.
Facebook’s efforts to acquire satellite navigation startup Waze in a deal potentially valued at as high as $1 billion have hit a major roadblock, as Israeli daily newspaper Calcalist reported that Waze’s co-founders and CEO are balking at the shuttering of the company’s development center in Israel and the relocation of some of its employees to the social network’s headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.
Contrary to an erroneous report in The Guardian last week, Facebook isn’t losing users in the U.S. They’re just changing up their habits. According to figures provided to AllFacebook by Nielsen, Facebook users are shifting more of their social network time to their mobile devices and away from desktop. In March 2013, U.S. visitors to Facebook’s mobile application (Android & iOS) spent an average of 6 hours, 49 minutes on the site, compared to 6 hours, 44 minutes on average on desktop.
Another billion-dollar deal may be on tap for Facebook, as Calcalist, a daily newspaper in Israel, reported that the social network is in talks to acquire satellite navigation startup Waze for $800 million to $1 billion.
Facebook Software Engineer Josh Wiseman, who has contributed to pretty much every aspect of the site — Timeline, chat, photos, videos, and more — has left the company for an engineer-in-residence position with The Social + Capital Partnership, according to AllThingsD.
Stickers are spreading through Facebook’s applications. Facebook updated its Messenger for iOS app Monday, adding stickers and the ability to swipe to delete conversations. Stickers were previously available on the main Facebook for iOS app, but now they’ve been added to the stand-alone Messenger app.
You can’t get to 1.11 billion friends without spending a few dollars: Consumer Watchdog reported that the social network spent $2.45 million on lobbying efforts during the first quarter of 2013, up a whopping 277 percent from $650,000 in the year-earlier period.
According to reports, Facebook has quietly hired Richard Williamson, who led the ill-fated Apple Maps effort and was fired last November, and Loren Brichter, designer of the original Twitter iPhone application and word-puzzle game Letterpress.
When Facebook Home was launched for U.S. Android users on selected devices, many users in other countries wondered when they would be able to experience the company’s newest mobile feature. That day is Tuesday, according to AllThingsD. Facebook Home will start rolling out Tuesday to international users.
