Facebook

Facebook puts account security in the hands of your friends

The next time you're locked of your Facebook account, one of your besties can loan you the key.

Facebook today released a security feature called "Trusted Contacts" as an optional way for people to recover their passwords with the help of their closest friends. Thursday marks the global rollout of the redesigned feature, previously named Trusted Friends, which the company first started testing back in 2011.

With Trusted Contacts, you can pick three to five friends you trust to help you get back into your account the next time you're having trouble logging in. Should a … Read more

Zuckerberg's steady hand paying dividends in latest Facebook earnings

When Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his top lieutenants talked with Wall Street analysts Wednesday perhaps the only real surprise was that there were no surprises.

Facebook, it would appear, has blossomed into your average public company with a steadily growing business. Its formidable captain, who has been able to right a ship that was all but upside down just one year ago, now looks the only man for the job.

The social network had a solid quarter with revenue of $1.46 billion, good enough to beat analyst estimates. It posted acceptable, though not great, earnings per share of … Read more

Facebook's Q1 rides mobile surge, with slight earnings miss

Facebook reported first-quarter 2013 earnings that were close to Wall Street's expectations.

The social network came in with earnings per share of 12 cents, excluding one-time items, and revenue that grew 38 percent to $1.46 billion compared to the same quarter one year ago. The company said mobile advertising accounted for around 30 percent -- which amounts to about $375 million -- of its advertising revenue for the quarter. Revenue from advertising in the quarter totaled $1.25 billion, or 85 percent of total revenue.

Facebook had 1.11 billion monthly active users as of March 31. The … Read more

Facebook wins millions in case against typo squatters

Time to rethink that get-rich-quick strategy of buying up Facebook-like domain names.

Tuesday, the United States District Court of Northern California ruled in favor of Facebook in its case against typo squatters, aka parties that were squatting on various misspellings of Facebook's trademarked domain name.

The 11 named defendants in the case were ordered to pay the social network damages ranging form $5,000 to $25,000 per domain, with additional fees tacked on for bad behavior like redirecting visitors to other sites. Each was also ordered to transfer the rights to their domains to the company.

In total, … Read more

Facebook, bankers want IPO lawsuit thrown out of court

Facebook and the banks that financed its IPO want a judge to put the brakes on a slew of lawsuits filed by unhappy investors.

In court documents released Wednesday, Facebook claimed it was not required to reveal its own forecasts on how its mobile and product strategy might affect future sales, Reuters said today, even if that information had been disclosed to its underwriters.

Facebook is facing a host of lawsuits claiming that it misled investors about its financial health before it went public last year. Morgan Stanley and other underwriters are also targeted in many of the suits, blaming … Read more

Facebook Home's rough start puts Zuckerberg in a tough spot

Facebook Home is ready to entertain guests on Android, but the housewarming party hasn't been as warm as the social network would have hoped. On Wednesday, architect Mark Zuckerberg will likely be asked to address the mess during Facebook's conference call for its first-quarter earnings.

On April 12, Facebook introduced Home, a software suite for select Android devices that puts the company's social-networking features on a person's home and lock screens. Less than a tenth of a percent of the company's roughly 1 billion members have given Facebook's Home a chance. Those who've … Read more

Facebook courts small businesses with new ad type

Facebook is providing Page owners with a basic way to pay to garner more "likes."

Promoted Page Likes is a new ad tool attached to Pages and is meant to more conveniently serve small businesses that don't have the targeting requirements, or budgets, of bigger companies. Tuesday marks the global rollout of the tool, first introduced in the U.S. in December, a Facebook spokesperson told CNET.

Page owners can make the simplified ad buys from the admin section of their Pages and choose between showing their ads to people nearby, or in the same city, state, … Read more

Facebook earnings: Skepticism on all fronts

Like a growing number of teens, Wall Street is emphatically meh on Facebook.

Though the social network is expected to show marked improvement on mobile and 43 percent year-over-year growth in advertising revenue, investor confidence remains low. Facebook shares, stagnant since the company's last report, suggest that the market trusts the long-term health of the social-networking service the way a parent relies on the word of an adolescent child.

As far as numbers go, Wall Street expects Facebook to report $1.44 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings per share of $0.13 when it details its first-quarter financial … Read more

Jack Dorsey says Twitter 'not even thinking' IPO -- report

Although there has been much speculation in recent months that Twitter is ramping up for an initial public offering, company co-founder Jack Dorsey has suggested that nothing is imminent.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Dorsey reportedly said that Twitter "is not even thinking" about an IPO at the moment.

"A lot of people think of this as a goal you have to get to but it's a milestone," Dorsey told Bloomberg during an interview in New York. "If you think about it as a goal you're rushing towards it and then stop, and … Read more