Social Media Newsfeed: Microsoft to Invest in Foursquare? | Reddit App

[emailonly]{{{ sbox300x250 }}}[/emailonly] Click here to receive the Morning Social Media Newsfeed via email. Microsoft Said to Be in Talks to Invest in Foursquare (Bloomberg) Microsoft and American Express are vying to take an equity stake in Foursquare, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The two companies are competing to invest in Foursquare rather than cooperating on a joint bid, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. VentureBeat The interest in the company is the result of a few things. One, of course, is data: Foursquare is sitting on 4 billion check-ins, thousands of venue listings and many other valuable tidbits gleaned from its 35 million users. Another component is advertising. Foursquare recently opened up its self-serve ad platform to small businesses. TechCrunch I think that the investment is being considered for the same reason that Microsoft pumped hundreds of millions into Facebook: Bing. By buying into Facebook as its only corporate investor, Microsoft has locked up a long-term deal to provide mapping and search capabilities for the social giant. Snagging a chunk of Foursquare is pro-Bing, albeit in a different fashion. GigaOM Announced via the company’s blog, the new Foursquare app will roll out to just a few thousand people on Android phones. The overall technology is very similar to Foursquare’s old feature, Radar, which utilized push notifications to check in to saved locations. However, instead of pushing flagged content, Foursquare works in the background to push recommendations for nearby locations from friends and the overall Foursquare community. ReadWrite According to the company, the new feature won't cause significant battery drain; running the application in the background throughout the day should be equivalent to playing 20 minutes of Angry Birds. This feature is only available to a few thousand select Android users for now, although Foursquare says it will bring it to all Android and iOS users in the near future. Upvote with Your Remote: Reddit Gets a Roku App (GigaOM) Reddit, meet Roku: An Austin, Texas-based Reddit user has launched a Roku app to access the site’s posts on a TV. The unofficial Reddit Roku app, which is available for $5 in the Roku channel store, works best to consume photo-heavy subreddits, and comes preloaded with access to subreddits like Aww (be prepared for a cute overload) or Funny (which is, of course, very subjective). Authors’ Twitter Handles Now Linked to Their Articles in Reply Tweets on Mobile (AllTwitter) A helpful Twitter Cards update, noted by eagle-eyed social strategist Nick Cicero, links authors’ Twitter handles with their online articles so that when someone tweets a link to the article, replies to that tweet will include both the poster’s handle and the handle of the article’s author. It’s a welcome update for journalists and bloggers, whose work often becomes separated from their bylines as it disperses across social networks. [emailonly]{{{ jodslot01 }}}[/emailonly] Facebook to Update Privacy Policy, but Adjusting Settings is No Easier (The New York Times) Facebook announced Thursday that it planned to enact changes to its privacy policies on Sept. 5. But the social network’s famously difficult privacy controls will not become any easier to navigate. Prediction: Twitter Payment Processing Will Put Co-Founder’s Company Out of Business (SocialTimes) With all the "Miley twerking" and Syria issues evolving, you may not have heard that Twitter has hired the former Ticketmaster CEO to be its head of commerce. Here's why Jack Dorsey, Twitter's co-founder and Square CEO, should care. Sorry, Facebook Does Not Support Animated GIFs (Mashable) We got duped. That’s right, Giphy told us (and a lot of other people) that now you can put GIFs on Facebook. Once supported on Facebook, the file format, as our story explained, is back — all thanks to Giphy working with Facebook to make it so. Except that’s apparently not what happened. [emailonly]{{{ sbox01 }}}[/emailonly] Exclusive: How Comedy Central is Bringing the ‘Roast of James Franco’ to Fans’ Fingertips (LostRemote) The Comedy Central Roast of James Franco will air this Monday (Labor Day) at 10 p.m. Eastern. Lost Remote has exclusively learned about the multi-screen social TV experiences that will be bringing the roast to fans fingertips. Twitter is Wrecking Twitter to Make Twitter More Popular (Fortune) By making conversations easier to follow, Twitter is encouraging people to use the service for something other than its essential function. It's probably a good idea for the company, but not for people who use Twitter to follow the news. Jay-Z Premieres Video for ‘Holy Grail,’ Featuring Justin Timberlake, Exclusively on Facebook for 24 Hours (AllFacebook) Allow Jay-Z to reintroduce himself by premiering his new music video featuring Justin Timberlake, “Holy Grail,” exclusively on Facebook for its first 24 hours. Facebook said this marks the first time an artist with such a large following has debuted a music video exclusively on the social network for an entire day before releasing it elsewhere. [emailonly]{{{ sbox02 }}}[/emailonly]

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Social Media Newsfeed: Microsoft to Invest in Foursquare? | Reddit App

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