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J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970 in Huntington Beach, California) is a serial entrepreneur and the founder of TechCrunch, a blog covering startups and technology news. Arrington attended Claremont McKenna College (BA Economics, 1992) and Stanford Law School (JD, 1995), and practiced as a corporate and securities lawyer at two law firms: O’Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich... → Learn More Facebook is completely rewriting their messaging product and is preparing to launch a fully featured webmail product in its place, according to a source with knowledge of the product. Internally it’s known as Project Titan. Or, unofficially and perhaps over-enthusiastically, the Gmail killer.
Facebook's ProjectTitan A Full Featured Webmail Product
Mobcast Brings Geo To Facebook And Your iPhone
Erick Schonfeld is a technology journalist and the former Editor in Chief of TechCrunch. At TechCrunch, he oversaw the editorial content of the site, helped to program the Disrupt conferences and CrunchUps, produced TCTV shows, and wrote daily for the blog. He joined TechCrunch as Co-Editor in 2007, and helped take it from a popular blog to a thriving... → Learn More If the $8.4 million raised yesterday by geo-social network Gowalla tells us anything it is that geo is red hot right right now. The trickle of geo apps is already turning into a flood. The latest example is Mobcast , an iPhone app ( iTunes link ) which adds lets you broadcast your location to your existing Facebook friends.
Over the last six months just about all of my tech friends have started using Foursquare , a geolocation-based game that was built by the creators of Google-acquired Dodgeball. Some of them will literally pull out their phones as soon as they enter any restaurant, event or even TechCrunch HQ and check in just so they can be named ‘mayor’ of that establishment (whoever checks into any particular location the most times becomes mayor of that location). It’s fascinating and a bit bizarre to watch, and it clearly shows that Foursquare has tapped into something powerful. But all this time I’ve had a nagging feeling that Foursquare, at least in its current form, is not going to be the next Twitter , as some people have concluded.
Facebook Poised to Dominate Geo
PALO ALTO, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash. — Aug. 22, 2006 — Facebook and Microsoft Corp. today announced a strategic alliance in which the two companies will collaborate to bring relevant advertising to the more than 9 million registered users of Facebook, the Internet’s leading social directory. Microsoft’s advanced advertising technology and Facebook’s unique social network make possible the multiyear collaboration grounded in the two companies’ commitment to technological innovation. As part of the relationship, Microsoft will be the exclusive provider of banner advertising and sponsored links on Facebook using Microsoft’s digital advertising solutions and the Microsoft ® adCenter platform.
Microsoft+ Facebook Team Up for Adver
Microsoft Launches Outlook Facebook Integration [Exclusive]
Microsoft has integrated Facebook and Windows Live Messenger into Outlook, bringing the newsfeeds of millions of Facebook users into inboxes across the world. Last year, Microsoft launched Outlook Social Connector , a plugin that syncs social networking feeds with your Outlook contacts, giving you immediate data on what they are doing and thinking. It started last year with LinkedIn integration, followed by promises that MySpace and Facebook were coming .Facebook Will Allow Users to Share Location - Bits Blog - NYTime
Starting next month, the more than 400 million Facebook users could begin seeing a new kind of status update flow through their news feed: the current locations of their friends. Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8 , the company’s yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss unannounced services. In preparation for the introduction, Facebook updated its privacy policy last November. The new policy states: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”
Facebook has a lot of things going for them as they prepare to enter the geosocial fray. They have a half a billion users. They have a strong mobile presence, and a wonderful iPhone app. They have thousands and thousands of engaged brands and local businesses. They have the team from NextStop , with their impressive local expertise and HTML5 mastery. But they also have some non-trivial issues around trust, social graph, and culture that could prove very challenging, and if mismanaged, could threaten the entire geosocial ecosystem.
Facebook’s Geo Problem
Facebook Closing In On Acquiring Check-In Service Hot Potato
We’re hearing from sources close to the deal that Facebook is in late stage negotiations to buy Hot Potato , the social activity service. The deal is not yet finalized from what we’re hearing, but could be at any moment. Terms of the deal are likely still be negotiated, but it’s believed that this would largely be a talent acquisition for Facebook. Yes, another one . Hot Potato raised a small $1.42 million Series A round late last year, so it should not be too expensive for Facebook to buy such a company.
Facebook's Foursquare competitor is imminent | The Social - CNET News
The long-rumored geolocation "check-in" feature at Facebook is slated to debut within weeks, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNET. It's going to take the form of an application programming interface (API) for third-party companies on the Facebook developer platform, integrating existing "check-in" start-ups more deeply into the massive social-networking service and in turn permitting location-aware data to become a part of existing platform applications. Facebook declined to provide much detail. "We are working on location features and product integrations, which we'll be launching in the coming months, and we'll share more details when appropriate," spokesman Larry Yu told CNET.
Is Facebook about to become one big MyTown?
It will come as no surprise to readers of TNW Location that we’re just a tad bit skeptical of how well Facebook Places (or whatever it’s officially called when it launches – how many “Places” can the Internet take?) is going to pan out. Part of our skepitism has been associated with how long it has taken Facebook to get around to adding location. Well, today CNET reports that Facebook will start adding location to it’s developer API “within weeks”.A week after rumors surfaced about Facebook’s acquisition of New York-based check-in-to-everything service Hot Potato , CNET’s Caroline McCarthy reports that the company’s long-awaited plan to enter the geolocation check-in space may finally be at hand. At a time when the social network is supposedly in lock-down mode , bracing for battle with Google’s supposed Facebook-killer, the debut of geolocation could give it an interesting edge. While specific details about the social network’s plans in the space are still speculative, McCarthy’s sources say it might be integrating existing check-in startups through their respective APIs in an effort to make location a key part of the service — effectively creating what GigaOm is calling ‘Facebook Places.’ What remains unknown is to what extent this integration will rely on third-party services like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt, and whether Facebook has plans to add its own check-in function.
Facebook tiptoes closer to launching geolocation | VentureBeat
steals Foursquare's location crown - CNN.com
Editor's note: Pete Cashmore is founder and CEO of Mashable , a popular blog about social media. He is writing a weekly column about social networking and tech for CNN.com. (CNN) -- Facebook this week launched "Places," a service that allows any user to "check in" to restaurants, stores and other local businesses -- thereby sharing their location with friends. The new feature is virtually identical to the much-hyped location startups Foursquare and Gowalla , leading to the obvious question: Are these upstarts now doomed? I'd stop far short of declaring their death -- the market for location-based services is large enough to accommodate many large businesses -- but both will have to come to terms with the fact that they are no longer the biggest game in town. Identical featuresFacebook Places