Did Yahoo! Sell Delicious?

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Has the former search giant finally sold off Delicious? Reportedly Yahoo! was able to find a buyer for the former book marking service, although they apparently sold the platform at a loss.

We’ve received a solid report from a reliable and proven source that Yahoo has sold social bookmarking site Delicious for $5m+. […]

After a heated bidding process, the site has reportedly been sold to a rival bookmarking service – who exactly we’re unsure of but we’ll update once we have confirmation. (The Next Web)

It’s still unclear who allegedly bought Delicious, although if the information above is correct then Yahoo! sold the company at a loss (as they previously bought delicious for $18 million).

While some may suspect Google could have purchased the service (as the company also offers users a social book marking tool), it could have been a much smaller company instead.

Yahoo! as expected is being tight lipped regarding the reports, (they’re refusing to confirm or deny the report), although we will stay tuned for more details to see whether or not Delicious fans have new owners.

Hat tip: Mashable

Facebook Challenges Disqus, Releases Free Social Stats

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It looks like Facebook just gave bloggers one great reason to have their comment section assimilated as the social giant has released social analytics for the masses (which also includes stats for the like button).

For the first time, you can now access real-time analytics to optimize Like buttons across both your site and on Facebook. We use anonymized data to show you the number of times people saw Like buttons, clicked Like buttons, saw Like stories on Facebook, and clicked Like stories to visit your website. […]

To help you tailor your content and products to your users, we now provide demographic information for the interactions that occur on your site and on Facebook. We display demographics for gender, age range, country, and language, and we count data on a per-interaction (not per-user) basis. This data is aggregated so no personally identifiable information can be accessed. (Facebook Developer Blog)

The social giant provides similar analytics for bloggers powering their comment section with Facebook, although the ability for publishers to see the demographics of their users by age, gender, etc., puts Facebook well ahead of rivals like Disqus (who has a similar feature for premium users).

WordPress lovers (self hosting only) can implement Facebook comments via a plugin, while Blogger fans will have to dive into the code in order to activate this upon your blog.

Note: Unfortunately the only draw back about using Facebook comments is that there is still no easy way to import (or better yet sync) comments to ones blog, although hopefully Facebook will provide that functionality in the future.

Flickr Flirts With Windows Phone 7

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The boys and girls at Yahoo! have released their second official Flickr app, which courts not only Windows Phone 7 but also tablets sporting Microsoft’s latest OS too.

Back in January, we let you know about some exciting mobile developments we had in store for you, and some of you may have already caught a sneak peak of the newest member of our family here at Flickr. Today, we’re excited to officially introduce Flickr for Windows Phone 7® and Flickr for Windows Phone 7®!

While it’s not surprising to see Yahoo! courting Microsoft’s smartphone (especially after the latter assimilated Yahoo! search in August of 2010), their creation of a Flickr app for Windows 7 tablets is puzzling (since they are already running the full OS).

Yahoo! has not indicated on whether they will consider embracing other platforms (like Android, webOS or even Blackberry), although the company may consider releasing official apps in order to help expand their global influence.

Flickr’s embrace of Windows Phone 7 should come as a healthy sign that Yahoo! is committed to keeping their photo social networking service alive (as opposed to “sun setting” it like they are doing with MyBlogLog and Delicious).

BuddyPress Releases Update, Now WordPress Friendly Again

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For those of you not squeamish with the idea of hosting your own social network, you’ll be glad to hear that BuddyPress has released a new update which should make the DIY social network compatible with WordPress 3.1.

This release backports a few important fixes from the currently in-development 1.3 version of BuddyPress to play nicely with the new and very much improved WordPress network administration interface. We’ve also updated the bundled version of bbPress from 1.0.2 to 1.0.3, which addresses a few issues that do not effect BuddyPress directly.

Every effort has been put into supporting both WordPress 3.0 and 3.1 with this release to make updating your sites as painless as possible, so this should be another worry-free update! (Official BuddyPress Blog)

For those of you unfamiliar with BuddyPress, it’s basically a DIY social networking software that empowers you to host and build your own community without having to hire a developer to build one from scratch.

WordPress fans can easily activate BuddyPress by installing the official plugin, and users desiring to customize their social network further have hundreds of BuddPress plugins at their disposal (not to mention the option of creating more).

Do you use BuddyPress? If so, what are your favorite features and (more importantly) what features should the BuddyPress team add to improve it?

Twitter For Blackberry Embracing Long Awaited Features

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Despite not being officially maintained by Twitter HQ (RIM supports the app), Twitter for BlackBerry is one of the top mobile apps despite its limitations.

Fortunately for BlackBerry addicts, RIM is about to introduce a few useful updates that are considered standard features by many third party Twitter apps (not to mention the official ones as well).

Some of the new and exciting features in this release include Geotagging Tweets, Push @Mentions, Chat-Style Messages, #Topic Autocomplete and more! You’ll also notice that we’ve updated the Twitter graphics throughout the app to reflect the new look of the Twitter brand. […]

Now when you’re mentioned on Twitter, you’ll immediately receive a notification on your BlackBerry smartphone through the use of BlackBerry Push technology. You can control whether you want to be notified when anyone mentions you, or just when your followers mention you. With Push @Mentions, you’ll know who is talking about you or to you, so you can continue the conversation as it happens. (Inside Blackberry)

These features are not yet live for Twitter for BlackBerry, as RIM is still beta testing the future release in order to squash any bugs remaining within the app.

There is still no word on when (hopefully not “if”) RIM will consider adding video support for the app, a feature available for both the official iOS and Android apps (not to mention a few third party BlackBerry apps as well).

Users interested in testing out the latest features will need to log into the BlackBerry Beta Zone (account required).

For those of you testing out the app, what feature do you love and what features would you like to see?

UberMedia Repents, Submits To Twitter’s Demands

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twitter earlybirdThe drama between UberMedia and Twitter is coming to an end, as the former has agreed to follow Twitter’s TOS, but also change the name of a prominent app upon Blackberry in order to avoid violating Twitter’s trademark.

We were immediately in touch with Twitter, and the changes they asked us to make were very small.  As a result, we have completed the changes, and new apps are currently being posted to their respective stores.  Twitter has assured us that as soon as those changes were complete, they would reactivate our applications.

Twitter also asked us to modify the name of UberTwitter.  We began a process of changing the name three weeks ago by polling our users, and we’ve decided based on their input to change the product name to UberSocial, which we completed today. (Official UberMedia News) [Read more…]

Twitter Banishing Tweet Apps From The Twitterverse?

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Blackberry and Android fans unfortunately have two less tweet apps to use as Twitter has banished two prominent apps for violating their TOS (among other things).

We have suspended UberTwitter and twidroyd for violating our policies.

Every day, we suspend hundreds of applications that are in violation of our policies. Generally, these apps are used by a small number of users. We are taking the unusual step of sharing this with you because today’s suspension may affect a larger number of users. (Twitter Help Center)

According to a memo sent TechCrunch, Twitter banned UberTwitter and TwiDroyd for not only violating the social network’s trademark, but for also altering tweets sent out by users in order to generate more profit via ads.

Twitter has also suspended a third app from UberMedia (UberCurrent), although it’s unclear whether they will consider expanding the ban towards Echofon and TweetDeck (both prominent tweet apps upon iOS).

UberMedia has yet to publicly respond to their apps being blocked by Twitter (as they have been very silent upon their official blogs and twitter accounts), although hopefully they will provide an explanation soon in order to regain the trust of not only Twitter, but their users as well.

Twitter To Twitterverse: We Need A Few Good Translators

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In a bid to expand their reach globally (and perhaps catch up to Facebook), Twitter is reaching out to the community in order to help translate their services into other languages beyond their current selection.

Today we’re announcing a product that is a major step toward making Twitter more easily accessible by people around the world – the Twitter Translation Center. The Translation Center allows us to crowdsource translations from our passionate users in order to more quickly launch Twitter in additional languages. […]

The new Translation Center allows any Twitter user to sign up, choose a language and begin translating immediately. Translators can now help localize twitter.com, mobile.twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone and iPad, Twitter for Android, Twitter Help and the Twitter Business Center. We also improved the Center’s search functionality, added phrase tagging, created special translator profiles, enabled commenting on phrases and much more. (Official Twitter Blog)

Surprisingly Twitter seems to have forgotten to mention their Windows Phone 7 app (which might be an oversight) although Blackberry owners will have to depend upon RIM for future translations (as the “official” app is not supported by Twitter).

Twitter currently is  available in English, Japanese, Korean, as well as what is commonly referred to as “FIGS” (French, Italian, German and Spanish) by tech companies.

Twitter played a key role when it came to organizing protesters in Egypt (where Arabic is the official language), and by partnering with users they can help lower the barriers of entry for new users by ensuring that their is a service or site available in their mother tongue.

Google Exec Praising Facebook Over Egypt?

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Facebook LogoWith President Hosni Mubarak resigning from office due to pressure in the streets (as well as online), it looks like one social network is receiving praise from a Google Exec who has become a hero in the land of Egypt.

“First Tunisia, now Egypt,” began CNN host Wolf Blitzer. “What’s next?”

“Ask Facebook,” answered Wael Ghonim, an Egyptian activist and the head of marketing in the Middle East and North Africa for search giant Google. “I want to meet [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg and thank him personally.”

“I’m talking on behalf of Egypt,” he continued. “This revolution started online. This revolution started on Facebook. This revolution started in June 2010 when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians started collaborating content. (Raw Story)

Despite his high profile within the Egyptian society, Wael Ghonim used his power and influence to counter what the Egyptian regime was doing instead of cowering in fear at the threat of being punished by the secret police (note: he was later on kidnapped but was released shortly thereafter).

Later on Ghonim goes on to explain that the best way to liberate a society is to give them the internet, which empowers people to organize themselves via social networks and counter government propaganda.

With Facebook being credited for helping organize the Egyptian revolution, we may see authoritarian governments take stronger measures against social networks in order to prevent something similar happening within their own borders.