SCHEDit wants to answer the question “what is going on tonight?” in the same way that Twitter answers the question “what is happening?” — with a customizable, interest-based platform that transcends personal preference. The company launched with its first partner, Boston.com, on Thursday. Here’s how it works: Users log into a new events site on Boston.com with their Facebook accounts. They set up a profile and choose specific venues and people who they want to follow. Their newsfeeds are then p...  show all text

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Facebook’s slew of newly wealthy employees could “significantly impact” California’s economy during the next few years, said H.D. Palmer, deputy director of external affairs for the California Department of Finance. “The closest analogue is the 2004 Google IPO,” he said. “Its benefit to the state’s general fund was in the neighborhood hundreds of millions– at least $400 million.” Facebook, based in Menlo Park, Calif., afforded generous pre-IPO stock options to as many as 1,000 of its employees....  show all text

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Warning: self-promotional Blog post to follow... I am very excited to announce that the name of my next book is: CTRL ALT DEL - Reboot  Your Business (and Yourself) in a Connected World. The official press release went out this morning via my publisher, Business Plus (an imprint of Grand Central Publishing - Hachette Book Group USA). This is the same publisher as my first book, Six Pixels of Separation, who had the option to pick-up my sophomore business book effort, and I am really (and sincer...  show all text

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Facebook just filed the preliminary prospectus for its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO). As rumored, the company is seeking to raise $5 billion. If Facebook manages to raise this capital, it will be on a shortlist of biggest tech IPOs of all time. Investment bank Morgan Stanley will act as lead underwriter, with Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan and others to take secondary positions. Shares are expected to hit the market in May. For longtime followers of the social network, this is an ex...  show all text

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Fresh off reaching 3 million users in January, HootSuite is adding three apps to its App Directory and releasing its Engagement API.

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Pinterest, the website which lets people collect and share photos online with a “virtual pinboard,” has steadily amassed a very dedicated following of users that spreads far beyond the app-obsessed early adopter crowd. On Tuesday, a new study out of content sharing company Shareaholic showed just how powerful the Palo Alto, California-based startup has become. Shareaholic's survey (click to enlarge) Pinterest is now driving more referral traffic on the web than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and L...  show all text

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Jerry Seinfeld wants the new Acura NSX. He loves it so much, the new ad from Acura would have us believe, that he would do anything to be the first person to own one. Unfortunately, Jerry is number two on the list, and the ad shows us just how far he’s prepared to take that first spot from an unsuspecting customer. The elaborate ad, which Acura posted on YouTube, is quite long (1:52), but it’s well worth the watch. In it, Seinfeld concocts a myriad of hilarious favors he’s ready to perform in o...  show all text

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Pinterest, a two-year-old social bookmarking site that lets users collect and share things they like on the web, is driving increasingly significant amounts of traffic to retailers’ websites. The service enables users to create online bulletin boards, or “pinboards,” for popular categories such as home decor, food and wedding inspiration. Members can use Pinterest’s “Pin It” bookmarklet tool and iPhone app to save things they see online and offline, and explore and repin the images their friends  show all text

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Editor’s note: Guest author Keith Teare is General Partner at his incubator Archimedes Labs and CEO of newly funded just.me. He was a co-founder of TechCrunch. Like millions of other people, I got an email from Google this morning. It was entitled “Changes to Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service”. The first sentence describes the intent of the changes as shortening 60 policies into one, and improving their readability. Then there is a longer explanation captured in the graphic above. The ...  show all text

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Let’s face it: Apple is rich. So rich it could send a crowd of people to the moon to build a luxury hotel and hang out there for a few years. Here’s what else it could do, according to our friends at The Joy of Tech. It’s not surprising Apple is so deeply awash in cash, especially after its spectacular first-quarter earnings announced this week. You can see the details of Apple’s unbelievable numbers here, but will give you a highlight: the company’s revenues for the quarter were higher than its  show all text

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It’s no secret Apple, one of the most valuable public companies in the world, is making major cash off today’s tech gadgets — but how much? This week, the company reported a record net profit of more than $13.6 billion for its quarterly report lasting 14 weeks and ending Dec. 31, 2011. A rumored summer release of the iPhone 5 will help keep the money flowing in this year for the more than $400 billion company. “We’re thrilled with our outstanding results and record-breaking sales of iPhones, iP...  show all text

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"Kill Hollywood," is the latest battle cry from Silicon Valley. If you are Paul Graham, that's not a bad way to motivate young would-be founders to create new startups.But what if you are Apple, trading spots with Exxon on any given day for the most valuable company in the world, with nearly $100 billion of cash in the bank, looking for the next industry to overturn to keep fueling your growth? There aren't that many new markets out there that can make a difference to Apple at this point. Holly...

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A staggering manufacturing system in China has made it possible for Apple and other companies to make devices almost as quickly as they can be dreamed up, but for workers, it can be dangerous.

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If you look closely at Netflix’s fourth quarter earnings, it will become clear why the company wanted to split its DVD and streaming businesses. This is the first quarter that the company is splitting out each business and reporting revenues, profits, and margins separately. While the streaming business is growing (adding 220 subscribers domestically in the quarter), and the DVD business sis shrinking (it lost 2.76 million subscribers domestically), it’s margins are much worse than the legacy D...  show all text

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Mashable’s Davos coverage is presented by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. Documented@Davos The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has been called one of the most important conferences in the world. Once a year, heads of state, politicians and leaders from across the world join together for a week to discuss the key global economic, societal and political issues that will shape the coming year. There’s often a debate about the ...  show all text

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You can run, but you can't hide. Facebook's biggest user interface overhaul since the Wall, the Facebook Timeline, is now becoming mandatory for all users. According to the company, over the next few weeks, everyone will get the new Timeline. And here's the important part: when you do, you'll have just seven days to preview what's there now, and hide anything you don't want others to see.

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Gearing up for Twitter’s self-serve advertising launch — currently in beta stage with only a small selection of advertisers — the company announced its acquisition of spam and malware protection service Dasient on Monday. Dasient will be integrated into Twitter’s “revenue engineering team because they have a deep understanding of advertising-platform security issues,” says Rachael Horwitz, a spokesperson for Twitter. The team will be very valuable as Twitter continues to expand its ad products....  show all text

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Every 4th Monday of January social media professionals gather around their warm, cozy monitors to toast Starbucks and sing viral video carols — all to

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Editor’s note: Mark Hendrickson is the founder and CEO of Plancast, a social site for planning events, which he has decided to stop working on full-time. In this guest post, Hendrickson takes us through a detailed analysis of why it never took off and what he learned. He is also a former TechCrunch writer. Nearly three years ago, I left my position at TechCrunch to start my own Internet business, with the idea of creating a web application that’d help people get together in real-life rather than  show all text

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News spread quickly Saturday evening that former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno had died. Except, he hadn’t. Here is an account of how it happened. [View the story "False reports of Joe Paterno's death" on Storify]

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Reinforcing the fact that Chris Dodd really does not get what's happening, and showing just how disgustingly corrupt the MPAA relationship is with politicians, Chris Dodd went on Fox News to explicitly threaten politicians who accept MPAA...

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Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: HumanBirdWings Guy Survives First Test Flight Marketing Genius: Two Twins Giggling As They Sell You Designer 3D Glasses Math-Blind AI Teaches Itself Basic Number Sense Watch This Delightful Crowdsourced Star Wars Fan Film Immediately iPhone 4S and iPad 2 Finally Get Proper, Untethered Jailbreaks

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Christopher Dodd, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, suggested the White House convene a meeting to discuss antipiracy.

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LinkedIn is planning to shut down its Tweets application as of January 31, 2012. As you may remember, the Tweets application allowed users find and keep track of their LinkedIn connections on Twitter, view Twitter feeds of connections, recommend Twitter users to follow, and more.In an announcement, LinkedIn says that the application will be removed from all profiles and the homepage. From the announcement: At LinkedIn, we want to provide a simple and efficient experience for members like you. S...

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Google generally gets in hot water when it is thought to be abusing its pole position in the search industry. But it's no use denying that while some moves skirt the edges of abusing monopoly, others are more than welcome. During natural disasters, for instance, Google has provided helpful links and resources for people who want to donate or volunteer. And their logo doodles pay homage to personages and events many people would otherwise have overlooked.Today must rank among the best applicatio...

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The time has come for another Facebook launch event, and we’re here to cover it live. Rumor has it that the social network will be launching more apps based on the Open Graph and Gestures — that is, apps that let you “verb” any “noun” (read a book, hike a trail, ride a bike and so on.) SEE MORE: Facebook Announces Tight Integration of 60 Apps to Timeline The event starts at 5pm Pacific Time, 8pm Eastern — and we’ll be here to chat and answer questions a half-hour beforehand. Stay tuned! More ...  show all text

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