Facebook, Google Roll Out Persian Updates

Social network valuations head to the sky

(NEWSER) - Facebook and Google are among the companies circling Twitter and considering a colossal buyout deal, insiders tell the Wall Street Journal . The talks haven't gone anywhere yet, but the price under discussion is somewhere between $8 billion and $10 billion—roughly 100 times the amount of revenue Twitter, which lost money last year as it invested in expansion, expects to earn this year. More»

Social media platform hopes to be more intimate than Twitter

(NEWSER) - Caught off guard by Google Buzz, the social media service that's invaded Gmail? Not to worry; GeekOSystem.com breaks down what Buzz is, and isn’t:

• It’s not Twitter: Google went out of its way to point out that Buzz integrates with, rather than replaces, Twitter.
• It’s not Facebook: You won’t have thousands of Buzz friends; Google’s hoping for a more intimate experience.

Where is technology taking us? There are a few schools of thought

(NEWSER) - Michael Wolff hears so much about the Internet’s future “that I should be in a position to get rich, finally.” But it’s tough deciphering all this chatter, “because the technology business is at least as much talk as it is science,” he writes. So in his latest Vanity Fair column he’s broken down the big competing theories about the Internet’s future, kind of like "a Next Big Thing for Dummies. More»

(NEWSER) - Twitter’s been so instrumental in giving Iranians a voice that it, and its creators, deserve Nobel Prize consideration, writes Mark Pfeifle for the Christian Science Monitor. Scoff all you want at the 140-character “time waster.” “In the past month, 140 characters were enough to shine a light on Iranian oppression and elevate Twitter to the level of change agent.” More»

(NEWSER) - Tech-loving journalists need to chill out about Twitter’s supposed role in Iran’s unrest, writes Jack Shafer of Slate. “I’ve found it more noise than signal,” he writes. Twitter’s already produced a lot of erroneous stories—like the 3 million people tweeters claimed were at one demonstration, or the house arrest of Mousavi, or the annulment of the election by authorities. More»