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The worldwide Internet population is growing rapidly -- and that growth might have something to do with mobile devices.

Speaking today at the AllThingsD D11 Conference, Mary Meeker, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Meeker, reported that 2.4 billion people around the world are on the Internet -- an 8 percent year-over-year gain. Still, only 34 percent of the world's population is online. In the U.S., the Internet population penetration sits at 78 percent, according to Meeker.

Perhaps the biggest news from Meeker's presentation was the staggering growth in … Read more

Dish subscribers can now combine a bit of social networking with their TV viewing.

Available starting Wednesday, Social is the name of a new app for Dish's Hopper Whole-Home DVR that lets people watch a show and follow relevant posts or comment about it at the same time.

The app taps into both Twitter and Facebook.

Dish subscribers can follow a Twitter feed related to the show or channel currently being watched. They can access their own Twitter feed to tweet, reply to a tweet, favorite a tweet, or retweet someone else's post. They can also log into … Read more

Mobile app maker Waze apparently won't be joining the ranks of Facebook.

After months of chatting about a potential acquisition of Waze by Facebook, the two companies have put an end to the discussion, according to AllThingsD. Facebook had reportedly been ready to spend as much as $1 billion to pick up the navigation app maker. But the two apparently couldn't reach an agreement.

Sources told AllThingsD that talks fell apart recently due in part to disagreements over whether the Israel-based Waze team would move to the U.S. and integrate itself into Facebook's California headquarters. Other … Read more

Photo Zoom for Facebook lets you zoom in on profile photos and images in photo albums whenever you hover over them, which makes the process of viewing larger images on Facebook much easier. This browser extension is easy to use and functions well.

After installing Photo Zoom for Facebook as a Google Chrome extension, the free program offers no additional window, but operates in the background during browsing. A preferences menu does allow some appearance options to be changed such as show or hide captions where possible, zoomed opacity, delays, etc., but little else, although the shortcut features were useful. … Read more

Scan Twitter, Instagram, or Tumblr. Watch your favorite television show, or even listen to the radio, and you might notice that the biggest social network of them all is disconnected from pop culture -- at least when it comes to hash tags.

Hash tags are a form of expression that Facebook, like your grandparents, just can't understand. The social network appears motivated to change that, although a spokesperson wouldn't share details on when and how it will roll out hash tags.

However it shakes out, hash tags on Facebook are long overdue. Their presence could help Facebook lure … Read more

Paul Adams, Facebook's global head of brand design, announced Friday that he has left the social network to join startup Intercom, which makes a social customer relationship management tool.

Adams joined Facebook in early 2011 and led the social network's design and marketing projects for clients such as Starbucks and Nike.

Prior to Facebook, Adams spent four years on Google's user experience team, and worked on Gmail, the now-defunct Latitude and Buzz, and YouTube. He also helped dream up the idea behind Google+ Circles, a way to group friends, which was released only months after his departure. … Read more

Visit Amazon.com and you'll find a bevy of recommendations to fill your digital shopping cart: books similar to what you've read on your Kindle or clothes and gadgets based on what else you've looked at.

Now Amazon is tinkering with ad technology that would flash ads for you even when you're not on Amazon sites. And those ads might not even direct shopper back to Amazon's sites.

It's still early days, but if Amazon's new strategy plays out, it could become the Web's next advertising giant. Sure, it already serves up … Read more

Cover Photo Maker for Facebook Free lets users easily create their own custom Facebook cover photos. While a few features were off limits in the free version we tested, we were still pleased by the number of tools available to us and their ease of use.

First, to get started with Cover Photo Maker for Facebook, you'll need to choose a layout from a pretty large menu. We opted for the three blocks, side by side. Tapping each block gave us access to our iPhone's albums, where we selected a picture. With just the touch of your fingertip, … Read more

Setting up a two-step verification (or authentication, depending on the site) service is more or less an imperative when it comes to keeping your online information secure. Services such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Dropbox and more have rolled out two-step verification in one form or another.

During the setup process for these services, you are required to provide a phone number where you'll have the option to receive a six-digit code that is required to grant you access to your account. But, as a recent Forbes article pointed out, phones get lost, which can in turn lock you … Read more