Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was creating a lab of up to 50 aeronautics experts and space scientists to figure out how to beam internet access down from solar-powered drones

A new Facebook lab intent on delivering web access by drone

$19-bn deal  for text messaging firm includes $12 bn in stock and $4 bn in cashThe frenzy to acquire fast-growing technology start-ups reached new heights on Thursday as Facebook announced its largest acquisition ever, saying it would pay at least $16 billion for WhatsApp, a text messaging application with 450 million users around the world who pay little or no money for it.The hefty price signals the lengths to which Facebook's co-founder & chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, will go to protect his company's turf as the dominant social network on the web, and is sure to fuel the debate on whether consumer internet companies are overvalued.Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, will pay $4 billion in cash and $12 billion worth of shares for WhatsApp. But the ultimate cost of the deal could rise to $19 billion, with WhatsApp employees and founders receiving an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units, which would vest over the next four years.By any measure, Facebook is pay

Facebook likes WhatsApp

Share tanks nearly 18% in after-hours trading as investors digested the company's first financial report since its IPO on November 7

User growth for Twitter starts to slow, and stock dips

Companies are competing to show users how well their data is protected from prying eyes

Internet firms step up war on spying

When Evan Spiegel peered into a crystal ball to divine a future for his company, Snapchat, he did not see Facebook.He saw something else, something much bigger - a social network that could exist on its own, outside Facebook.Facebook is still the dominant social media service, and has been an attractive suitor for many start-ups. And Snapchat most likely spurned Facebook partly because it thought it could fetch much more than the billions Facebook was willing to pay.But the snub also foreshadows a possible future where Facebook is no longer the default place on the web where people go to network. The swift rise of upstarts like Snapchat in a shifting social media landscape suggests a change in how and where people like to spend their time. The rebuff also reveals a changing perception of Facebook in the tech industry. As the once scrappy start-up evolves into a sprawling corporation, younger companies who view themselves as disruptive do not find Facebook's size and cushy campus as app

Facebook, still dominant, strives to keep cachet

Business Standard

Twitter received 26% of revenue from markets outside of US in Q3

Twitter's ad dilemma

In June 2007, Evan Williams was looking for investors for a quirky internet communications service called Twitter that he had co-founded.He had already signed up a number of well-known Silicon Valley financiers, but he also dashed off a note to his old friend Dick Costolo, who had just sold his company to Google, asking if he would like to put in $25,000 or $100,000."I'm on the $25k bus," Costolo replied three minutes after receiving the email. "Thanks Ev, this will be a lot of fun."Costolo, who is now the chief executive of Twitter, is one of a handful of individual investors who stand to reap the rewards of a potential initial public offering of stock in the social network. The company said on Thursday it had filed early paperwork with regulators to conduct such a sale, which would probably occur late this year or early next year.Although many details are still unclear - most of all the offering price of Twitter's stock -Costolo's initial investment is probably worth more than $10 mi

The payday at Twitter many were waiting for

The malware appears as a link in an email or Facebook message telling people that they have been tagged in a Facebook post

Vindu Goel