Seth Fiegerman says, “Facebook may soon be able to understand you a bit better — or at least your voice. Facebook has agreed to acquire Wit.ai, a speech recognition and natural language processing service. The deal could help the social networking company develop voice features for Messenger and help the Facebook developer community. SEE ALSO: Facebook in 2015: Drones, messaging and virtual reality, oh my! A rep for Facebook confirmed the deal in a statement to Mashable. “Wit.ai has built an incredible yet simple natural language processing API that has helped developers turn speech and... [...]

Barry Schwartz says, “Facebook is launching their own version of YouTube’s playlists, TechCrunch reports. Facebook now has a video tab available to all businesses that let them choose a selected video to be shown in the extra-large format with a live comment feed on their Facebook page. ABC News has this happening on their Facebook video page right now. Below the featured video is a playlist of other videos available to users to watch online”. Facebook To Launch YouTube-Like Playlists Marketing Land  [...]

Seth Fiegerman says, “Facebook is ending the year on a high note. The company’s stock hit a new all-time high of $81.89 a share in midday trading Monday, an increase of about 2.5% on the day, which pushed the social networking company’s market cap to nearly $230 billion. The surge in Facebook stock came amid a broader market rally that continued into Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up as much as 0.47% in early trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was essentially flat on the day, but still hovering near an all-time high”. Facebook stock hits another all-time... [...]

Martin Beck says, “Facebook announced today that it’s adding a second day to its F8 developers conference, which will return to San Francisco March 25-26. The company, which rebooted the conference last April after a three-year hiatus, said it is adding the extra day because its developer community is rapidly growing. From the email announcing the dates: Facebook’s developer community is bigger today than it ever has been. The scope of the company’s products has broadened, and there’s more content to share than can fit into a single day. The additional day means double the number... [...]

Samantha Murphy Kelly says, “Facebook has quietly removed Microsoft-owned Bing as its primary search engine, according to a new report. The social network pulled Bing search from its Graph Search platform in exchange for its own search tool that will allow users to find information related to friends’ posts and comments,Reuters reported. Facebook was using Bing to produce search results as its in-house search engine, allowing Facebook users to look for more information about their friends. Selecting Bing as a partner was also a way for Facebook to keep rival Google’s search engine... [...]

Jason Abbruzzese says, “Facebook is already the most important platform for online publishers. Now, the social network also wants to be the favorite. Facebook launched a new set of publisher tools on Wednesday that provide greater ability to target posts and promote timely content, as well as greater automation. The move comes at a time when publishers are basking in the massive amount of traffic that Facebook sends, while also voicing some concern about increasing reliance on the social network”. Facebook cozies up to publishers with new tools Mashable  [...]

Ginny Marvin says, “Rising demand for ads in Facebook’s Newsfeed along with more users accessing Facebook on mobile led to dramatic increases in CPMs in November year-over-year, according to Kenshoo. With the higher CPMs, advertisers also saw ROI jump significantly in this time period. CPMs saw a 7-fold increase, while return on investment nearly doubled and click-through rates rose 5-fold”. Facebook CPMs Jump 7X YoY With Holiday Demand, ROI Doubles Marketing Land  [...]

Derek S. says, “Whether it’s due to the creation of new network or just updated features, the social media landscape is constantly evolving. As the influential channel changes, it’s important that businesses understand how it has evolved and adjust their approaches accordingly to continue to receive the most out of their social media efforts. GlobalWebIndex (GWI) has released its latest quarterly report detailing the social network trends for Q3 2014. The report saw participation from 41,823 adults between the ages of 16 and 64“. Is Facebook Losing its Edge? Website Magazine  [...]

Todd Wasserman says, “Facebook is trying to be your go-to source for tech news, rather than just a way to see baby pics and find out which friends are engaged. Seven months after introducing FB Newswire, the social networking giant on launched FB Techwire on Tuesday, a brand extension that will focus on industry happenings. Like FB Newswire, Techwire is powered by Storyful, which will share newsworthy content from tech influencers on Facebook — including embeddable photos, videos and status updates that journalists can use for their own content”. Facebook wants to be a tech news powerhouse Mashable  [...]

Lara O’Reilly says, “Gobble, gobble. YouTube’s dominance of the worldwide video market is under threat as Facebook continues to ramp up its charge to increase its share of the lucrative online video market. In recent months Facebook began seeding autoplay videos into the News Feed, shortly followed by premium autoplay video ads; the company has increased its mentions of the importance of video in its quarterly earnings and investor calls; and it is reportedly actively trying to poach YouTube stars to create content made specifically for its platform. The results of energized... [...]