Social network and groups

Facebook shares sag as investors, analysts question future

Facebook shares are down today, spelling some possible erosion in the stock price heading into the rest of the week of trading.

Shares in the big social network are down 3.5 percent today to $30.13 in early trading. The company's stock ended the day yesterday at $31.24, up significantly from the company's 52-week low of $17.55. That rally has been due to Facebook's ability to gain traction in mobile and reassure investors that it could continue to grow.

The company went a long way in making its case yesterday, reporting better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings. … Read more

Wolfram Alpha's Facebook analytics just got smarter

Those looking for greater insight into their Facebook networks will now find enhanced analytics from Wolfram Alpha.

The organization yesterday announced a wide array of updates to a Facebook analytics tool it launched in August. That launch allowed users to see daily posting activity and friend statistics, ranging from location to age ranges. In the new update posted yesterday, Wolfram Alpha has added a new categorization feature that arranges a person's friends, family, and acquaintances into several groups:

Social Insider: A person with many friends in common with you. Social Outsider: A person with few or no mutual friends. … Read more

Bieber squeaks past Gaga with most Twitter followers

Justin Bieber has wowed his way to the top of the Twitter ranks.

The teen singer now has the highest number of followers in the Twittersphere, according to data from Web site Twitter Counter. Wooing 33.38 million fans to follow his every tweet, Bieber has shot past fellow singer Lady Gaga with 33.36 million followers.

Gaga's reign as the queen of Twitter lasted two and a half years, a spokesman for Twitter Counter told Reuters yesterday.

Bieber is also high on the list for the sheer number of tweets posted at 20,545 so far, an average … Read more

Google adds high-res photo zoom to Google+

Two days ago, I griped that the new photo zoom feature in Google+ didn't work with high-resolution images. But today, it does.

"The blurriness issue you mention has already been fixed," said Dave Cohen, a photographer and Google+ team leader, in response to my experiments posting images ranging from 22 to 80 megapixels.

If you want to take advantage of the full-immersion view that's now available, I uploaded a batch of high-resolution photos from a trip to New Mexico and some even higher-resolution 60- and 80-megapixel shots taken with medium-format Phase One cameras of San Francisco … Read more

Facebook's latest: A Pages Manager app for Android

People in the U.S. who maintain Facebook Pages can now maintain them via their Android phones and tablets.

Debuting earlier this month in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the app hit the shores of the U.S. and the U.K. yesterday, according to The Next Web. A Facebook spokesperson told TNW last week that the Android app would be "rolling out more widely in the coming weeks."

As opposed to personal profiles, Facebook Pages are often used by businesses, organizations, and public figures that have something to sell or promote and who want to build up a … Read more

Google+ one-ups rivals with zoomable photos

Google, which found early success for Google+ among photographers and has been working to keep them happily sharing on its social network, has added the ability to zoom into pictures.

Flickr, Facebook, and other photo-sharing sites offer a larger view of photos, but it's usually at least one click away from the smaller photo that shows by default. Google offers that ability, and last night went one step further by letting people use the mouse scroll wheel to dive further into a photo.

Once zoomed in, clicking and dragging lets people pan around to explore the photo at the … Read more

Facebook yanks Instagram usage data from public view

Facebook has pulled Instagram traffic from public view, according to a story out yesterday from TechCrunch.

Instagram's page on AppData, which reports user numbers based on data obtained through Facebook's API, now states that "Facebook no longer reports new data for this application."

As an example cited by TechCrunch, Instagram showed 45.8 million monthly active users on January 7 as measured by Facebook logins. That number was zero as of yesterday.

Facebook told TechCrunch that the move was designed to bring Instagram in accord with its other apps, which don't appear separately in AppData.… Read more

LinkedIn now stands at 200 million members

LinkedIn has reached another big-round-number milestone.

The professional social network today announced that it now has over 200 million members across more than 200 countries and territories around the world, accounting for 19 languages.

"I'd like to thank each of you for helping build the LinkedIn network into what it is today," LinkedIn senior vice president of products and user experience, Deep Nishar, wrote today in a blog post. "It's been amazing to see how our members have been able to transform their professional lives through LinkedIn. You truly grasp the power of LinkedIn when … Read more

Zynga puts PetVille and more out to pasture

Say goodbye to PetVille, FishFille, Mafia Wars 2, and a slew of other games from the folks at Zynga.

The video game studio has reluctantly pulled the plug on 11 of its gaming titles, as detailed by blog site TechCrunch.

The list of casualities encompass some of the company's most popular games, most of which were playable online through Facebook and a few that were available as iOS or Android apps.

PetVille - Shut down as of yesterday. Mafia Wars 2 - Shut down to new players as of yesterday. FishVille - Shut down December 5th. Vampire Wars - … Read more