“ Twitter has also taken this opportunity to refocus users on its own services. So Twitter’s TweetDeck defaults to Twitter’s URL shortener and Twitter’s photo services. Old TweetDeck delivered photos to YFrog by default and still used bit.ly for URLs. You can still choose to use these services, but with them now hidden behind a settings menu choice it’s unlikely TweetDeck users will ever use them again. “

Mashable  “ The majority of Gowalla’s employees, including founder Josh Williams, are set to move from the company’s Austin, Texas, headquarters to Facebook’s in Palo Alto, Calif., to work on Facebook’s Timeline feature, according to the report “.

VentureBeat “ Other Facebook acquisitions include Beluga, Hot Potato, Drop.io, Snaput, and Digital Staircase. In most instances, the company is buying the companies not for their apps or technology, but to get access to talented engineers.  ”

CNET “ Austin-based Gowalla launched in 2009 but has had difficulty competing against Foursquare in the market for location-sharing apps.”

GigaOM ” Quepasa CEO John Abbott said the merger with MyYearbook, with its strong growth and product focus, will allow Quepasa to become a leader in social discovery and help drive larger growth for the combined company, particularly in mobile where it doesn’t appear to have much of a presence. “

TechCrunch ” Quepasa CEO, John Abbott says that the acquisition and merger doubles the size of Quepasa’s existing user base, and also could represent a new growth area for Quepasa’s mobile and social games, advertising, and virtual currency. “

Marketwatch (includes video) “ In the shadow of Facebook, two smaller social networks are liking each other: Quepasa Corp. said it is buying fellow social network myYearbook.com in a deal valued at $100 million. “

International Business Times  “ The implications of this are huge. Instead of creating a social network “destination” on the Internet, Google can, in-fact, turn the whole of the Internet social. In Google’s world, users won’t go and see their friends, but their friends could potentially be part of every video, chat, purchase and find across the Internet. “

The Seattle Times  ” Like Facebook, Google+ tries to help you expand your network by offering suggestions of those with whom you might want to connect. The list is based on mutual connections or interactions you’ve had with individuals using other Google products. “

TechNewsWorld ”  Google+ is still in its early stages, though, so it’s unclear just how worried Facebook should be. One thing Facebook has on its side is the physics of social media gravity. Facebook is right now closing in on a billion members, and people are naturally going to want to stay with whatever network most of their friends are already part of. “

InformationWeek  “ It is very clear to me, both from Google’s recent move as well as Facebook’s estimated market capitalization ($70 billion, according to CBS MoneyWatch), how much is riding on social networking. “ 

Forbes  ” Spotify already has Facebook Connect integrated into its own desktop interface, allowing users to see what their friends on Facebook are listening to, and opt to have music choices show up on their news feeds. The new service on the Facebook platform will have similar social features. “

Financial Post “ Once launched, users will be able to download the Spotify application on their own computer or access the firm’s expansive musical database remotely through Facebook “

Huffington Post  “ Amazon, Google, Apple, and now Facebook: The social network is reportedly preparing to launch a streaming music service in a partnership with music startup Spotify. “

PRNewswire (Press Release) “ Drawing information from the four biggest social networks – Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook – The Sunday Times Social List system adds up your social networking activity and measures how much interest it generates amongst your friends and colleagues in order to work out how well you score. “

Scribbal ”Upon signing up users are allocated a rank and given a badge which is subject to change depending on how well they perform in the rankings. On the results page, users can see a list of the top 2,000 “socially wealthy” people (meaning the top social media users), and just like technology, the list is ever evolving, so it changes daily. “

” The proliferation of collaboration and social tools designed to increase productivity is actually costing businesses millions of dollars per year in lost productivity, according to a survey of more than 500 employees in U.S. businesses of all sizes conducted by online market research firm uSamp (United Sample) and commissioned by social email software provider harmon.ie. “

Also, PC Worls provides analysis of the report here

Mashable  ” The total number of U.S. impressions was 1.1 trillion for the first quarter. Facebook’s closest competitor is Yahoo’s network of sites, which claimed 10.1% of the market. Google, which is still relatively new to the display business, had 2.5% “

San Francisco Chronicle  ” The site delivered 347 million ad impressions — that’s up 17% from Q3 of last year, which is the last time ComScore reported quarterly numbers.  ”

AllFacebook  ” Now that Facebook dominates online display ads in the U.S., the next likely objective for the social network is further expansion overseas — in addition to maintaining or growing its market share domestically. “

” Facebook has access to ready-made, desirable space through Connect services such as its Like button, sign-on and comments. Facebook could show contextually relevant ads just like Google’s AdSense network. “