Business Opportunities Weblog (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
MySpace was doomed when the social network became overrun with obnoxious ads. On the heels of newspaper articles alerting users that their friends tweets could actually be an ad, Valleywag predicts Twitter is following in MySpace’s footsteps. The problem, argues Valleywag, isn’t advertorial content, but the fact that the tweets in question look like endorsements [...]
Digital Media Wire (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
Sacramento, Calif. - A class action suit has been filed against Facebook and social network gaming firm Zynga, over "offer-based" advertisements that allegedly resulted in users being billed for unwanted services, Valleywag reported. read more
GamesIndustry.biz (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
Social gaming company Zynga and networking site Facebook have both been named in a class action lawsuit following the alleged use of advertising which users say was false and misleading. The suit, which is being handled by Sacramento-based law firm Kershaw, Cutter and Ratinoff, seeks upwards of USD 5 million in damages, claiming that "over the past four years, Zynga and Facebook have generated...
DCblog (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
A correspondent from Valleywag wrote last week to ask if I saw anything interesting in the Twitter decision to change its prompt - from 'What are you doing?' to 'What's happening?'. I do think this is interesting. My impression is that Twitter has become steadily more discursive over the past few months, with people maintaining threads and introducing a great deal more interaction, rather than posting...
Paidcontent (Free subscription) | 21/11/2009
Offer-based ads seemed to be the secret to monetizing social games—and social network users, in general—that standard banner ads couldn’t provide. But amid ongoing accusations that the ads actually “scammed” users into paying for things they didn’t want and giving up their personal info, comes the inevitable: a class-action lawsuit. The suit, which seeks upwards...
TechSheep (Free subscription) | 20/11/2009
Ryan Tate / valleywag - Gawker: Facebook Named in Federal Class-Action Suit over Scammy Zynga Ads — Facebook and Zynga are the defendants in a federal class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday, which seeks upwards of $5 million for social network users scammed in online game ads. Neither company’s top-drawer investors can be happy.
Silicon Alley Insider (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
Martha Stewart tells ABC's "Nightline" that her past jail sentence might have cost her namesake company more than $1 billion. "I was pissed. OK. Pissed that something could actually affect that. The company had nothing to do with anything. But yet, because I am the face and the brand, my person -- it certainly had a harmful effect. When you are prosecuted in such a way, and a great...
Mac|Life all RSS Feed (Free subscription) | 19/11/2009
What’s a sure-fire sign that your unannounced, does-it or doesn’t-it exist, top-secret product is a hit before it even materializes? When major publishers like Condé Nast are racing to retool their biggest magazines in anticipation of it. That’s the word out of Valleywag today, with Condé Nast readying a repackaged version of Wired magazine for Apple’s famed tablet....
SFist (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
Moving out of the LoRi (Lower Outer Rincon Hill)/South Park neighborhood, the folks at Twitter moved up Third Street to a sweeter, swankier pad. CEO Ev Williams's wife, Sara Morishige, reportedly aided with the interior design of the new office, reports Valleywag . Also, Twitter bees can also watch themselves in a mirror while they poop . Makes your sad little nonprofit office looks that more little...
broadstuff (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
So this last weekend, finally, the first and most famous bonkblogger Belle de Jour outed herself (or was possibly neo-outed, as Paul Carr suggests ) At SXSW earler this year there was a panel on Scandals in Social Networks, hosted by Techmeme's (nee Valleywag's) Megan McCarthy. Girl with a One Track Mind's Zoe Margolis was telling her post-outing story. So now, with Belle’s ringing in my ears...
Dependable Renegade (Free subscription) | 14/11/2009
Via Valleywag [h/t Elliott]
Paidcontent (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
The Inside Word is a weekly feature that looks at compelling industry debates and discussions unfolding on the blogs of employees at digital-media companies. Blogger: Sean Ryan Position: Chairman, teen-centric virtual world Meez Blog name: SharkJumping Backstory: Two weeks after TechCrunch first reported on what it said was the prevalence of ‘scammy’ offers on social games, the fallout...
SFist (Free subscription) | 13/11/2009
For woefully explicable reasons, the fine folks at the San Francisco Google office yanked their brilliant lipsynch video set to Miley Cyrus' ode to a celebratory modern America -- which is, arguably, one of the best songs written in the history of girls. Otherwise, we'd post it here for you to enjoy. (And believe us, it is, if anything, enjoyable.) Fortunately, Ryan Tate at Valleywag captured it in...
SFist (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
What's being described as a "major bloodbath," both the Los Angeles and San Francisco Current offices plan on snipping 80 employees , which will bring their entire staff to somewhere around 300. This comes on the heels of news that Al Gore's media company will become more YoutTube-ish. That is to say, shorter videos produced my non-employees. NBC Bay Area's Jackson West reports : This re-organization...
Woolly Days (Free subscription) | 11/11/2009
A new study of Twitter in the Iranian elections has found that that the use of the social network was greatly exaggerated inside the country. British writer Charles Leadbeater and his team found there were less than 20,000 twitterers with an Iranian address and many of these included foreigners who changed their location to “Tehran” in sympathy with the protesters. The report also found...
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