Social Media Newsfeed: Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences | Pinterest Funding

Click here to receive the Morning Social Media Newsfeed via email. Mark Zuckerberg Helps Launch the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation (AllFacebook) Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg teamed up with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Apple chairman Art Levinson, technology investor Yuri Milner and 23andMe Founder Anne Wojcicki (Brin’s wife) to launch the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation. Mashable The Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences is a $33 million prize that rewards researchers who work at "curing intractable diseases and extending human life." The foundation has already selected 11 winners for this year — including neurobiologist Cornelia Bargmann, geneticist Hans Clevers and molecular biologist Napolean Ferrara — each of whom will receive $3 million. Going forward, the foundation will award five annual prizes — similar to the way the Nobel Prize works — for $3 million each. AllThingsD “I think that our society needs more heroes, more scientists, more researchers, more engineers,” said Zuckerberg at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday. “The things that we can do from the sidelines are build institutions that celebrate your work. The Wall Street Journal Milner said he is hoping the foundation can attract other sponsors and grow into an "open platform" to support more prizes. "Other sponsors can come in and establish their own prizes for different diseases in order to increase the impact," he said. ReadWrite From disheveled boardroom 20-something to amoral hacker, Zuckerberg's image runs the gamut - and it isn't always flattering. But in 2012, the Facebook founder ran up a tab as the second biggest philanthropist in the United States, giving away 18 million shares of Facebook stock valued at $498.8 million to a health and education foundation in Silicon Valley. Pinterest Officially Pins Down $200M at $2.5B Valuation (CNET) Pinterest has inspired investors to pony up about $200 million in a new round of funding that values the scrapbooking startup at $2.5 billion, the company confirmed to CNET. The round, which was rumored to be in the works a few weeks ago, closed with firm Valiant Capital Management leading the way and was first reported by AllThingsD. The Next Web Pinterest was widely tipped to be raising funds at a valuation north of $2 billion. As TNW reported previously this month, a figure as high as $2.5 billion was said to be under discussion. Pinterest appears to have managed to raise at the high end of expectations. GigaOM “Our focus is on helping millions of people discover things they love and get inspiration to go do those things in their life,” said Ben Silbermann, Pinterest co-founder and CEO announced in a statement provided by the company. “This investment gives us more resources to help realize that vision.” HootSuite Adds Tool for Publishing and Analyzing Promoted Tweets (SocialTimes) HootSuite has announced a new integration with Twitter that will give marketers the tools for managing their advertising campaigns on the microblogging site. Companies can use the Promoted Products Integration to build their campaigns, monitor the response and react in real-time to amplify the promoted tweets that work best. Sony Completely Revamps its User Interface for the PlayStation 4 (The Verge) Sony has announced a complete overhaul of the user interface for the PlayStation 4. The interface relies heavily on social and video features, with mobile companion apps that look almost identical to the PS4 UI. The Second Screen: Your Backstage Pass to This Year’s Oscars (LostRemote) This year, actress Kristin Chenoweth, Entertainment Weekly managing editor Jess Cagle and Good Morning America’s Lara Spencer will host the official Oscars pre-show, and each made the announcement via Twitter. Also, in a big surprise announcement, Robin Roberts also tweeted that she would be making her return to TV to help co-host. Tweet from Beyond the Grave with LivesOn (PC Magazine) Wishing you could have one last conversation with your uncle who passed away last month? In March, that might become a reality. The LivesOn app, debuting next month for Twitter, aims to make the afterlife more social. Twitter Launches New Advertising API (AllTwitter) Twitter has launched its long-awaited, heavily rumored and much-requested advertising API, which promises to reward marketers for “being good, not for being loud,” and have announced five early partners who have been working with the API and can now offer advertising features to their clients. The brands – Adobe, HootSuite, Salesforce, SHIFT and TBG Digital – were chosen by Twitter because they “address some of the most pressing needs of marketers,” and over on the official Twitter advertising blog, Twitter has revealed that it has been testing the ads API with these partners since January to prepare for the official launch. LivingSocial Secures Much Needed Funding (SocialTimes) LivingSocial has raised $110 million in additional funding from existing investors, according to a report in The Washington Post citing a staff memo written by CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy. LivingSocial has been struggling as the daily deals market weakened. Sumpto Wants to be the Klout for College Students (TechCrunch) Sumpto isn’t just looking to replicate Klout for the college demographic, although the two companies admittedly share similar goals. Simply put, Sumpto aims to measure the social influence college students have among their peers and reward them for “being themselves,” while in turn allowing brands to sneak their products into the collegiate conversation organically.

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Social Media Newsfeed: Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences | Pinterest Funding

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