Twitter Hits $1B Valuation

Venture capitalists are pouring money into social networking startups

(NEWSER) - The New York Times makes the rounds of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs and hears worry that another dangerous bubble is forming with tech startups. Because relatively young companies such as Groupon, Twitter, and Zynga have billion-dollar values, nobody wants to miss out on the next big thing—hence the flood of money into anything remotely connected to social networking. (Which explains why Groupon is able to turn up its nose at Google's offer of $6 billion.) More»

Users with no brand loyalty are a shaky foundation to build a long-lasting business on

(NEWSER) - These are rosy times for Facebook, but there's no guarantee the social networking juggernaut will even be around 5 years from now, Gary Andrew Poole writes for True/Slant. The newly profitable site is riding high, with 300 million users. But as fallen giants like AOL and veterans of the dot.com implosion attest, "our expectations have changed," Poole writes. "Brand loyalty has diminished and companies tend to go bust much more quickly." More»

Purchase sets up battle with Twitter for real-time search market

(NEWSER) - Facebook is buying fellow social networking site FriendFeed for nearly $50 million, the Wall Street Journal reports. Friendfeed, a 12-employee outfit founded by former Google engineers, allowed users to share information across multiple social media services but never took off beyond a core techie user base. The purchase may help Facebook in its battle with Twitter, which it failed to buy last year and which is outpacing Facebook in the lucrative area of real-time search. More»

Site will keep growing as it figures out how to make money

(NEWSER) - Venture capital partners have poured another $35 million into Twitter, reports Bloomberg. The microblogging site said it still has money in the bank from its last round of financing, but the offer was too good to turn down. Twitter—which has grown ninefold in the last year but still lacks a revenue model—plans to use the cash to hire more employees and keep expanding, notes the San Francisco Chronicle. More»

Here's a tip: No one cares about your food

(NEWSER) - If you want to avoid driving away all the Twitter followers you've accumulated, you may want to take a look at this list from Katie Heaney on BuzzFeed of 11 things that will really, really annoy them:

• Using your followers as Google: If you want to know what restaurant to visit in a new city, just look it up yourself.
• Tweeting about what you're eating: Absolutely no one cares, unless you're a famous chef. Assuming you're just a normal person, "just put food in your mouth about three times a day, chew it quietly, and swallow. There are no other necessary actions."