Beluga

Facebook to shelve Beluga messenger in December

Beginning next month, Facebook will take steps to close Beluga, the group messaging software it acquired this year and proceeded to replace within the span of a few months.

Starting November 11, users of the service will no longer be able to use the software to send messages to others, however they'll still be able to access them. The company is offering users a way to grab an archive of all their chats for posterity's sake, through that tool is not yet functional. On December 15 the service goes dark for good.

The shutdown news comes in conjunction … Read more

Mastering social media saturation at SXSW

AUSTIN, Texas--There was a time, just a couple of years ago, when you could figure out almost everything going on at the South by Southwest Interactive conference (SXSW) just by keeping an eye on the #SXSW hash tag.

Whether it was an impromptu wine party hosted by Gary Vaynerchuck or a Laughing Squid meet-up or word about a great panel going on, that hash tag was many people's essential organizing principle.

But with the explosive growth of SXSW and Twitter, the thousands who are prowling around day and night here this week looking for the next great thing to … Read more

GroupMe launches another update pre-SXSWi

Group messaging service GroupMe launched a big upgrade last week, timed to occur right before the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, the biggest event of the year for digital start-ups looking to make it big. But that wasn't enough: GroupMe today launched what co-founders Steve Martocci and Jared Hecht call "version 2.1-more-thing" in a nod to the famed Steve Jobs line.

What's new this time? Instead of making groups invite-only, groups can now be "joinable" through solicitations on Facebook and Twitter. There are also some smaller tweaks, including avatars alongside … Read more

A camera you can sit on

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

The iPad 2 has a faster processor and updated specs.

RIM's BlackBerry Playbook is rumored to come out next month.

Nintendo 3DS gets Netflix.

Mobile editing in Google Docs now supports 45 languages.

The Olympus TOUGH TG-810 is crushproof at up to 220 pounds.

National iPad 2 day

Links from Wednesday's episode of Loaded:

Apple gets ready to announce the iPad 2

Verizon's unlimited data plan will end this summer

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize

Facebook purchases a group messaging system

Lenovo shows off an eyeball-controlled laptop

Amazon threatens to shut down California affiliates based on a proposed tax law

Angry Birds St. Patrick's Day will launch March 22

Group-texting market shaken up with Facebook buy

A barely launched start-up called Beluga, one of several looking to dominate the suddenly hot again group messaging market, announced today that it had been acquired by Facebook.

The company, which had drummed up a moderate amount of hype, was unlikely to sell so early. But it's not that much of a shock that Facebook swooped in to snap it up: Beluga's three co-founders are former Google employees, and were likely appealing to Facebook as the company looks over and over again to fill its product and engineering teams with entrepreneurially minded people by buying their start-ups. What … Read more