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Securities regulators balk at employee social-media privacy

Securities regulators are advocating for special exemptions to new and pending state laws that prevent employers from snooping on employee Twitter or Facebook accounts.

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, an independent U.S. securities regulator that seeks to protect investors, is asking lawmakers in around 10 states to amend their legislation to allow financial firms to peak at social media accounts when employee misuse is suspected, a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

The fear seems to be that brokers could use their social media accounts to spread information that would influence stocks, and that misdeeds would go unchecked without … Read more

Bill Nye, LeVar Burton in first White House Vine

What do you get when you combine some celebrities with serious nerd cred and a few incomplete sentences? The first official Vine from the White House, of course!

Bill Nye the Science Guy, LeVar Burton, and uh, this other woman took a quick 6 seconds to welcome us all to the White House Science Fair in a Vine tweeted out from the official White House Twitter feed today.

Students from across the country were invited to the White House to share their creations -- from marshmallow launchers to robots to 3D-printed widgets -- with the president and others. Some projects also got the Vine treatment. … Read more

Twitter reportedly bags huge payday with 'milestone' ad deal

Twitter's been hammering home its value as an advertising medium, and Madison Avenue is apparently nodding in agreement. The company has reportedly nailed a multiyear deal with Publicis' Starcom MediaVest Group that's worth hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the Financial Times.

It's a big deal -- a really big deal, which the FT describes as a "milestone" -- and one which undergirds the argument the social media giant has been making to advertisers still sitting on the fence about whether to sign on the line which is dotted. According to the report, which … Read more

Twitter partners with Comedy Central to host laugh fest

If you've got time for quick joke, Twitter will be the place to be next week.

While there there's already plenty to laugh at on Twitter, the microblogging site is partnering with Comedy Central on a five-day laugh festival that will occur almost entirely on Twitter, according to The New York Times. Comedy legends such as Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner will be joined by young comics in tweeting jokes and posting video clips on Vine, the app Twitter launched in January that allows users to share six-second video clips.

Utilizing Vine's brevity, comedian Steve Agee will … Read more

How Twitter #Music plays to the company's most important asset

Twitter #Music provides people with a striking, and follower-inspired way of listening to music, but don't be fooled by its true purpose. This isn't just about music.

Twitter #Music is about augmenting its follow graph, an important asset that sets Twitter apart from Facebook and others, with explicit data on what members care about.

Twitter's follow graph is a phrase the company uses to describe the map that plots who follows whom. It's a hybrid of a social graph, or a chart of how people relate to other people, and an interest graph, which diagrams how … Read more

TweetDeck mobile and AIR apps to go dark on May 7

The end is nigh for several TweetDeck applications.

The Adobe AIR and mobile versions of the Twitter-owned, power-user-beloved tool for maintaining columns of tweets will cease to exist and stop functioning entirely on May 7, the team said Friday.

TweetDeck first announced in March that it would be shuttering its apps for iPhone, Android, and AIR to solidify its focus on browser-based versions of the service. Not surprisingly, Facebook integration is also going the way of the dodo on May 7, which means TweetDeck will go back to being a Twitter-only service.

"Doubling down on the TweetDeck web experience … Read more

Authorities in Boston bombing helped, hindered by social media

Authorities pursuing a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing have a love-hate relationship with social media. After initially asking for help via Twitter, law enforcement later requested that social-media users be a little more conscientious about the kind of information shared (or fabricated) on social networks.

In the immediate aftermath of the dual blasts that killed three and injured dozens near the marathon finish line on Monday, law enforcement turned to the public via Twitter and other platforms for help crowdsourcing leads. On Thursday, the FBI released video footage of two young men carrying backpacks near the finish line of … Read more

Twitter, BBC America announce video partnership

It looks like Twitter is ready to make its rumored foray into the TV business.

The microblogging site has partnered with BBC America to offer what the network trumpets as the first "in-tweet branded video synced to entertainment TV series," according to a tweet sent Thursday evening. What this means exactly is not clear. Presumably, the tweeted video would be companion content to the programming that appears on the network, with the partners driving traffic to each other.

Specifics of the agreement were not revealed. CNET has contacted Twitter for more information and will update this report when … Read more

Twitter hires first data editor to find stories in tweets

Twitter is tapping new hire Simon Rogers, previously a data journalist at the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper, to be its first-ever "data editor," a position created to uncover fascinating stories as told by tweets in aggregate.

"What I'm good at is explaining data, simplifying it and making it accessible," Rogers, a 15-year veteran of the Guardian, said in an interview with O'Reilly Media.

Twitter, Rogers said, is an "amazing phenomenon" that has become a necessity for reporters, as well as a tool that keeps people informed about everything happening in the … Read more