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Latest by Francis Bea

Narcissism thy name is Your Show, the new app that makes you an entertainment TV star

Social Studio's 'Your Show' curates just the top content and updates from your Facebook friends in an entertainment TV format.

What user backlash? Instagram now has 100 million users

Instagram announced that, with the help of its community, it passed its 100 million user milestone.

Google Chrome might help find the tab with the annoying video ad

Google is testing out a new feature that turns on an animation if a Chrome tab is playing audio or video.

The battle for your login information heats up as Google+ launches Sign-In

Google introduced 'Sign-In' to allow users to sign into third-party apps with a click, just like we've been doing with Facebook Connect.
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Dumb people, smartphones: One in four users saves dirty pictures on their phones

As many as 1 in 4 people have intimate photos on their mobile devices, evidence to the consumer's lack of knowledge about mobile security and privacy.
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Just reading about the China cybersecurity scare can get you hacked – here’s how

Hackers are using the publicity surrounding Mandiant's discovery of the location of Chinese hackers to dupe victims into opening up Trojan-laced PDFs.

Facebook Messenger gets a data price cut – at least, for international users

Facebook Messenger's competitive advantage now is the fact that your messages might cost next-to-nothing, if not nothing at all.
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Here’s a social media cheat sheet for picking tonight’s Oscar winners

The Awards Meter tracks and analyzes positive and negative tweets about Oscars nominees to predict the winners and losers.
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All the Facebook news you may have missed this week

As per usual, Facebook had a busy week. Here's a quick look at what the networks' busy working on.

Pope Benedict XVI shutting down @Pontifex Twitter account

With Pope Benedict XVI resigning from his post on February 28, Vatican Radio announced he would be shutting down his @Pontifex Twitter account the same day.

Zendesk hacked – Tumblr, Pinterest, Twitter user email addresses stolen

Zendesk announced a security breach today, and the email addresses of some Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest users were downloaded.

Twitter addressing security problem, introduces DMARC to prevent email phishing attacks

Twitter announced today the inclusion of DMARC to help weed out phishing attempts from copycat email addresses.

Need a place to crash at SXSW? WeHostels has you covered – if you move fast

With SXSW on the way WeHostels is offering up 49 beds reserved for its members to launch its new Hot Trips feature.

Highlight 1.5 update adds location-based photos and event discovery

Just ahead of SXSW, SoLoMo app Highlight adds photo and event features.

Twitter wants you to keep it short and tweet when you use URLs

Twitter has changed up the number of tweets that link-including tweets support to 117 or 118 characters

Quench your morbid curiosity with The Tweet Hereafter

The Tweet Hereafter recaps and memorializes the last tweets of Twitter users before their untimely deaths.
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Researchers can tell the difference between tweets from men and women

Researchers used Twitter to decipher the differences in speech between the male and female gender.

Visual analytics platform Curalate antes up and adds Instagram support

Curalate, which has provided visual analytics services for Pinterest, has followed through on its promise and added support for Instagram.

Mutex.me finds coveted sales on this season’s hottest luxury fashions

Mutex.me curates the most up-to-date sales on the top luxury brands from the leading department stores and fashion e-commerce sites.
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The Facebook News Feed is running out of room

Despite the limited space, Facebook is getting creative and testing out multi-column advertising modules in its News Feed.

Facebook ‘s VP nearly confirms Facebook is working on auto-play video ads

Facebook's VP confirmed that Facebook is figuring out video advertising, but it's not settled on how to implement it without ruining the user experience.
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Facebook says its engineers’ computers were hacked – last month

Laptops of Facebook engineers were infected with malware hidden in a Java exploit. The vulnerability has been patched and user data hasn't been compromised.

Facebook rolls out ability to promote friend’s posts

Facebook added the option to promote your own posts for a fee, and now it's gradually rolling out the option to promote your friend's posts.
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Pot, meet kettle: The user that filed the lawsuit against Instagram is still using her account

Instagram requested that the class action lawsuit over its changed terms of service be thrown out in light of recent facts about the plaintiff.

Facebook explains how minors are getting special treatment when it comes to Graph Search

Facebook Graph Search gives users a revealing and sometimes embarassing look at other users, but Facebook has some measures in place to protect minors.
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Pew study digs into what social media users looked like in 2012

Pew studied Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram to get a better look at what types of users were on these social networks in 2012.

Flickr privacy flub exposes private photos for three weeks

Privacy settings on some Flickr photos had been changed, which Flickr chalks up to a bug, for three weeks. The bug has since been patched.

Hands On: Kickstarter goes mobile, hits iOS first

Kickstarter finally unveiled its first mobile app, to iPhone and iPod Touch devices, and the app is a sure crowd pleaser.
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Twitter API will get language detection and ‘top tweets’ filtering

Twitter's latest inclusion to its API adds language detection and filters for "high value" tweets.

Send that special someone your still-beating heart this Valentine’s Day

There's nothing more romantic than sending your significant other your still beating heart. You can do this, digitally of course, with Rebtel's Re:Beat app.

Another zero-day exploits Adobe and runs wild masquerading as a PDF

Adobe has been hit with another zero-day exploit that takes advantage of an Adobe Reader vulnerability.

People use social networks to cheat; ‘Shocking!’ says no one

Studies show that cheaters online will open a new social media account, and couples are increasingly sharing their login info with each other.

Kickstarter project accused of fraud shuts down campaign

Another Kickstarter project has run afoul. This time the accused is Dirty Bird Sports, which was developing a sports console game until it was outed.

Pulse adds social news section to ‘Highlight’ articles your friends are sharing

Pulse has added a brand new social news section called 'Highlight' that surfaces important articles by Facebook friends.

Facebook exec offers a 2013 forecast, and it is full of partnership deals

Facebook’s Dan Rose at the D:Dive Conference gave a glimpse of what's to come with Facebook in 2013, which includes books, television, and fitness apps.

Snapchat is testing self-destruct videos for Android

Snapchat is rounding out its core features across operating systems, with the testing of self-destructing videos in its Android apps.

Twitter makes a case for mobile advertising, but leaves out key details

Twitter published encouraging research indicating that its mobile app garners far better engagement than its desktop app, but left out the important facts.

Raytheon’s RIOT tracks social media users, predicts their next move

Raytheon has developed analytics that tracks and analyzes social media users to make predictions like whether or not an individual is a security threat.