Webware Radar: Stop automated direct messages in Twitter
Also: ToysRUs has acquired the Toys.com domain name, MSpot has a browser-based ringtone service, and Zuora wants to be subscription-based billing to Facebook.
SocialToo, a company that makes it easier to get more out of social networks, announced that it will no longer allow its users to automatically send direct messages to users who follow them on Twitter. According to the company's CEO, Jesse Stay, he wants to "take a stand against automated direct messages" and aims at restoring their usefulness in Twitter. In addition, he announced that anyone who wants to block automated messages from any service can do so by providing SocialToo with their Twitter username and password.
ToysRUs announced that it has won an auction for the Toys.com domain name, paying $5.1 million in a bidding war with domain holding company National A-1. There is currently no word on how ToysRUs plans to use the domain, but the URL is currently down.
Mobile app developer MSpot has launched a new tool that will allow users to make ringtones directly in their browser. Dubbed Make-UR-Tones, the service provides a click-and-drag ringtone creation tool from a catalog of over 400,000 songs. Each ringtone will be 30 seconds in length and cost $2.99. So far, the service is limited to Sprint and AT&T customers, but the company says its ringtones will support other carriers "soon." Worse, it doesn't support every phone from the carriers and the iPhone, for example, is currently not supported. Weird.
Zuora is bringing its billing subscription service to Facebook, Tien Tzuo, the company's CEO, announced Monday. Tzuo contends that subscriptions are the missing element that will allow developers to make money on Facebook apps and his company will let developers charge as little as 25 cents weekly, monthly, or annually. The company currently takes 2 percent as a commission on all sales.