Author: Josh Wolford

Randi Zuckerberg, former marketing head at Facebook and sister of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has just finalized a two-book deal with HarperCollins.

The first book will be called “Dot Complicated,” which happens to be the name of a modern lifestyle newsletter and blog where Zuckerberg serves as the Editor-in-Chief. The other book will be a children’s book exploring some of the same themes.

According to HarperCollins, we should see both books hit the shelves in the Fall.

In the adult nonfiction book Dot Complicated, Zuckerberg will share her personal and professional story and the entrepreneurial journey she has been on through her time at Facebook and beyond, including her work as a television correspondent and producer, balancing her career with motherhood and launching Zuckerberg Media. The book will also address the multifaceted complications of our socially transparent world today, including issues of privacy, social identity, authenticity, crowd sourcing and the future of social change. In an enhanced e-book format, Dot Complicated will feature innovative and engaging interactive components, including a platform for crowd sourced stories and social media integration.

Randi Zuckerberg left Facebook back in 2011 and has since founded her own company Zuckerberg Media.

“Technology has changed virtually every part of our lives, resulting in a modern, digital society that feels a lot like the wild, wild west,” said Randi Zuckerberg. “I am thrilled to be working with HarperCollins to share some of my own crazy experiences on the front lines of social media, and to inspire people of all ages to embrace technology, as well as the new set of social norms that come along with it.”

Kickstarter has picked Valentine’s Day to debut their first-ever mobile app. The app, launching today on iOS, features tools for project browsers, backers, and creators alike.

Browsing projects feels simple and streamlined with the new app. You can look by category, popularity, and a host of other filters. Each project page lets you watch inline videos, as well as fund the project right there in the app.

The new app also lets you browse projects by location, so you can look at local projects near you.

Once you fund a project, you can use the Activity tab to see updates from its creators. If you connect the app to social networks, you’ll receive notifications when your Facebook friends back certain projects of create projects of their own.

“The app is a whole new way to experience Kickstarter. We took things we’ve learned from the past three years of building the site, and applied them to a total redesign for the iPhone. We redesigned the project page, browse pages, and others. And we focused on making three things really useful and fun: finding new projects, keeping up to date with projects you’ve backed, and offering great tools for creators,” says Kickstarter.

For project creators, the Kickstarter app provides some basic analytics as well as notifications for each and every pledge. Project creators can benefit from in-app photos and videos that they can upload as updates to their backers.

You can grab the new Kickstarter app for iPhone and iPod touch for free starting today.

Facebook is doing one of those top-of-the-news-feed topical promotions today – for Valentine’s Day of course. This time, Facebook is suggesting that you remember to surprise your Valentine with a cool gift.

And as you may have guessed, they’re using the real estate to promote Facebook Gifts, the ecommerce initiative first announced in September 2012 and rolled out to all U.S. users in December.

“Surprise Your Valentine,” says the prompt, alongside the profile picture of your significant other. My specific prompts suggests that I “add Honey Jelly Beans to your list of Valentine’s Day surprises for *insert name of my wife.*”

You can click on one button to buy the suggested gift via Facebook Gifts, or another to browse more gifts. It’s a simple and clever way for Facebook to push their Gifts initiative on a day where plenty of people are scrambling to find last-minute presents for their loved ones.

Facebook also has a “Valentines for All” section in the Gifts app, featuring items $30 and below.

I assume that Facebook is displaying similar prompts to other users that are in some sort of a relationship. Although I’m not sure whether or not the prompt changes depending on the type of relationship (married vs. it’s complicated, for instance). I’ve reached out to Facebook for more info on the Valentine’s Day Gifts box and will update this article accordingly.

Working on the theory that you either really hate Valentine’s Day or you really love Valentine’s Day (there is no middle here), YouTube has put together a bunch of Valentine’s Day playlists featuring videos that will make you feel gushy and romantic or will help you wallow in misery – whichever is your thing this year.

According to YouTube, the lists were hand-picked with the help of Trends Manager Kevin Allocca.

YouTube has six new Valentine’s Day playlists this year: most-viewed marriage proposals, cheesiest love songs of all time, science of love, marriage proposal fails, broken-hearted-yet-defiant-love-songs, and bad pickup lines.

In all, there are 69 videos spread out across the playlists (good one, YouTube).

You’ll see painful rejections like this:

And insane proposals like this:

And even find some solace in old breakup classics like:

You can check out all the playlists here.

I feel good about V-Day this year. I think I’ll go listen to some cheesy love songs.

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted a fundraiser for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at his home in Palo Alto, California. It’s thought to be the first major political fundraiser that the billionaire has ever hosted.

“Mark and Priscilla have worked closely with Governor Christie on education reform in the Newark school system. They admire his leadership on education reform and other issues and look forward to continuing their important work together on behalf of Newark’s school children,” said a Facebook spokesperson, in justification for the fundraiser.

But the fundraiser didn’t go off without a hitch. In fact, it was disrupted by dozens of activists who led a spirited protest outside Zuckerberg’s home. According to Bloomberg, around 40 protesters greeted guests as they arrived last night.

“When we heard that Mark Zuckerberg was going to be inviting his wealthy Silicon Valley friends to raise money for Chris Christie, we thought they needed to see a bunch of us out here,” said Becky Bond, VP and Political Director of CREDO.

CREDO Action is an activism program working as a wing of CREDO Mobile.

“When I say ‘go home’ you say ‘Christie,” said one protest leader.

“CHRISTIE, GO HOME,” echoed the protestors.

As former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice walked through the crowd of protesters, she was met with cries of “Shame on you,” and questions about the Iraq War. You can see Rice arrive at the fundraiser in a video here.

Protesters mainly spoke out about Christie’s record on women’s rights, which they find lacking.

“Chris Christie has built his political reputation by attacking Planned Parenthood, which provides all kinds of health services to women and men,” Greg Miller, a retired nurse with the California Nurses Association told The Huffington Post. “And we think that Mark Zuckerberg is contaminating himself by supporting that.”

[Images via @cmarinucci, Twitter]

I’m not sure if two of the biggest internet companies in the world actively participating in the latest meme craze is a fun thing or a death-of-the-meme- type thing. Either way, it’s happening.

Both Facebook and Google’s employees have decided to get in on the Harlem Shake craze

Here’s what’s going on at Menlo Park:

And now for the folks in Mountain View:

Who did it better? Where’s Mark Zuckerberg in all of this? Where’s Sergey Brin? Why is nobody actually doing the Harlem Shake? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?

As you know, the Harlem Shake craze has hit hard and fast. YouTube says that in just this month they’ve seen 12,000 versions with over 44 million views.

Not to be left out, Groupon’s staff have just put out their own Harlem Shake video.

A solid effort, I’d say:

Earlier this month, the State Department’s official Twitter account announced that all tweets coming directly from the mouth of Secretary Kerry would be signed with “-JK,” – the same way tweets from the President are signed “-BO” and tweets from the First Lady are signed “-MO.”

They failed to see the problem with this.

In the last 24 hours, here are three tweets in which it looks like newly-appointed Secretary of State John Kerry is not that serious about what he’s saying:

Listened to #SOTU focus on economy @statedept promotes US business – we’re stronger in world when stronger at home-JK go.usa.gov/4s7H

— StateDept (@StateDept) February 13, 2013

#ClimateChange call to action in #SOTU is in economic, national security interests for all countries. -JK

— StateDept (@StateDept) February 13, 2013

Good visit w/ @nasserjudeh. Commend #Jordan’s welcome of refugees from #Syria, consistent ldrship on peace.–JK

— StateDept (@StateDept) February 13, 2013

People are still commenting on how “JK” makes it look like he’s kidding:

@statedept Does “JK” mean just kidding?

— Annie Rex (@annie3592) February 13, 2013

Seriously, State Department, you have to do something about this. I’d say you could just use his middle initial when he signs tweets, but his middle names is “Forbes.” I don’t think signing his tweets -JFK would be any less confusing.

[RSVLTS via reddit]

If you watched Senator Marco Rubio’s GOP rebuttal to the President’s State of the Union address last night, you probably saw him awkwardly reach for a small water bottle in the middle of the speech. The man needed some water, it’s really not that big of a deal. The only thing was that the water bottle was simply placed way too far away from where Rubio was standing, leading to a funny moment.

Of course, Twitter and Facebook jumped on it and “Water Bottle Gate” was born.

Unless you were really paying attention, you probably wouldn’t have noticed that the brand of the water Rubio grabbed was Poland Spring. Well, Poland Spring noticed.

Poland Spring Natural Spring Water2 hours ago

Reflecting on our cameo. What a night!

Powered by socialditto  472 likes ·  30 comments

Nice one, Poland Spring. But you posted that this afternoon! You gotta get on that faster!

As a bonus, here’s all of Rubio’s lip-smacking moment throughout his speech. No wonder he needed the Poland Springs:

Hello there indiscriminate texters! I’m here to offer you a new solution to all of those embarrassing late-night texts that you send to your exes. It’s much better than saying you were drunk, because even that implies some sort of consciousness.

May I present to you, “sleep-texting.”

“It’s just what you’d think it is, it’s texting while asleep,” says Elizabeth Dowdell, nursing professor at Villanova University. “It’s exactly what is sounds like, or really more between that, you know, that area between being asleep and being awake.”

“The phone will beep, they’ll answer the text. They’ll either respond in words or gibberish. (It) can even be inappropriate. Ex-girlfriends contacting ex-boyfriends, saying ‘I miss you. I want to see you.’ The thing that happens, though, is that when they wake up, there’s no memory.”

People have been known to do any number of strange things whilst technically “asleep” or in some sort of strange limbo between asleep and awake. You know, like make a sandwich or murder someone. But sleep-texting?

“Oh, sorry Jesse. I’m sorry I texted you that your new girlfriend looks like Sloth and she gives off a perpetual stink-eye. I don’t even remember it, I was actually sleep-texting.”

Apparently the sleep-texting crisis is being brought on by stress and lack of sleep. So pretty much like every other problem. If you have a sleep-texting problem and want to do something about it, it helps to make your bedroom “technology-free” or at least put your iPhone on the other side of the damn room.

[CBS Philly via UPROXX]

[Photo via]

There’s a new viral share hoax going around Facebook involving a photo of Bill Gates.

“Hey Facebook, As some of you may know, I’m Bill Gates. If you click that share link, I will give you $5,000. I always deliver, I mean, I brought your Windows XP, right?” says a sign in the hands of the Microsoft founder.

The photo already has over 200,000 shares.

In reality, Bill Gates isn’t going to give you $5,000 for clicking share. Nobody is, for that matter. The photo was taken from Gates’ first-ever reddit AMA, which he hosted on Monday. Here’s the original image:

Clearly, the text inside the piece of paper has simply been shopped. It also looks like they’ve replaced the little reddit alien in the background with a sex toy or something. Cool.

There’s no doubt that some people shared this simply because they thought it was funny – they know it’s fake. But there are plenty of people (evidenced by the comments) that believe sharing this photo will net them five grand from one of the richest men in the world.

In either case, just don’t share it. You may know it’s a joke but thousands of others don’t. And it’s all over my news feed. And it’s annoying. So stop. Thanks.

Taco Bell, one of the best companies around in terms of social media presence, has just announced the official launch date of their new Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos on Twitter, with a Vine video.

We already knew that the Cool Ranch followup to Taco Bell’s Nacho Cheese Doritos Locos Taco was coming soon, but today’s announcement gives us a specific date: March 7th.

“On March 7, 2013, Doritos Cool Ranch fans won`t have to wait any longer. Today Taco Bell announced it will launch another soon-to-be blockbuster Doritos flavor to the Doritos Locos Tacos line-up: Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Tacos. The
announcement was made today directly to Taco Bell`s most ardent fans across social and digital media channels, and via a six-second Vine video announcement, the first-ever product announcement made by Taco Bell using the Vine platform,” said the company in a press release.

But here’s how most people saw the announcement today:

It’s out of the bag. Coming March 7th. #CoolRanchDLT vine.co/v/bvlaYggdIiU

— TACO BELL (@TacoBell) February 13, 2013

In case you were wondering about pricing, caloric intake, and all that other stuff that you shouldn’t really care about when you’re stuffing Taco Bell into your face, the new Cool Ranch Dortios Locos Taco will be $1.39 and will pack 160 calories. The supreme (with sour cream and tomatoes) will run $1.69 and have 200 calories.

For the Super Bowl, Volkswagen chose to run a fairly innocuous ad that for some reason generated a bunch of controversy. It featured a while guy from Minnesota going around his office speaking in a Jamaican accent, who eventually gets his coworkers to “get happy” by speaking in the same fashion – all because they enjoyed a wonderful ride in a new Volkswagen Beetle.

That ad, though controversial (still, why?), wasn’t as great as VW Super Bowl offerings of the past. Then again, VW has quite the pedigree. They’re responsible for one of the most-beloved Super Bowl ads of all time – the one featuring that cute kid in the Darth Vader mask.

Here’s a new ad for the Beetle, and it’s awesome. I mean, it has the Trololo song playing in the background. Check it out:

In the past, Jimmy Kimmel has asked people to prank their friends and family around certain holidays, upload the video to YouTube, and let all of us enjoy the lulz. He’s done this for Halloween, by asking parents to tell their children that they ate all of the candy. Hilarious.

He’s asked people to give their kids terrible Christmas presents and their mothers terrible Mother’s Day presents. Both hilarious. He asked people to unplug the Super Bowl at a pivotal moment in the game and capture everyone’s reaction on video. Priceless.

But this time…I dunno Jimmy. You’re playing with fire.

Amazon and CBS have just announced an expanded content agreement that will see even more of the network’s programming become available on Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service (Amazon and CBS already have a deal for some of the network’s catalog).

The new, expanded deal will see CBS and Showtime content like America’s Next Top Model, Everybody Loves Raymond, Jericho, The L Word, Undercover Boss, United States of Tara, and more hit Prime Instant Video.

“CBS was one of our earliest content partners for Prime Instant Video and our Prime customers have consistently told us how much they love having access to great CBS and Showtime shows,” said Brad Beale, Director of Digital Video Content Acquisition for Amazon. “Adding a wider selection of great TV series, while extending our already popular selection of CBS programming, continues to make Prime an even better deal for customers – and we love that.”

This announcement comes on the heels of another one involving Amazon and CBS. Earlier this week we learned that Amazon Prime had snatched up the rights to stream CBS’ upcoming show Under the Dome, exclusively, as it airs (4 days after original airing). Under the Dome is based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name It centers on a small New England town that is suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by an giant, transparent dome. It’s being produced by Steve Spielberg’s Amblin Television and will premiere on CBS on June 24th.

Amazon also recently made a move to steal PBS’ Downton Abbey (past, present, and future episodes) away from Netflix and Hulu.

Tuesday night’s State of the Union address contained 6,419 words and took just about an hour to deliver. 101 different lines in the speech were followed by applause, and President Obama mentioned defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney a total of twice throughout the address.

Twitter has provided us with some more figures – total tweets and tweets per minute. And according to their calculations, 1.36 million tweets were registered from the start of President Obama’s SOTU to the conclusion of Senator Marco Rubio’s GOP response speech.

And if you think that Twitter buzzed the most during the President’s impassioned section on gun violence, you would be wrong. The moment of the speech with the highest tweets per minute registered was when he was discussing the minimum wage and “ladders of opportunity.” That saw 24,000 TPM.

The gun violence part came in second with 23,700 TPM (the “they deserve a vote” part).

As far Rubio’s speech goes, Twitter says they they saw a spike when he had to reach a little bit out of his comfort zone to grab a bottle to take a sip of water.

If you need something to compare the SOTU tweet total to, let’s look back at this month’s Super Bowl. Twitter said that they counted 24.1 total Super Bowl-related tweets – 5.5 million of which were simply about Beyonce.

As you may have expected from all of the buzz surrounding the new Netflix original series House of Cards, it’s incredibly popular. Just how popular?

Well, according to Netflix’s Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos, it’s the most-watched show on Netflix in every single one of their markets. Here’s what he had to say at All Things D’s Dive Into Media conference:

“We’re not doing ratings, [but] we’re thrilled with the numbers,” said Sarandos. “It’s the most watched thing on Netflix in every country we operate in.”

Sarandos went on to confirm that “most-watched” means both in number of total hours watched as well as number of total people watching.

Sarandos said that we should expect a time when great original series premiering on Netflix isn’t really “news” anymore:

“I think the 13 episodes at the same time, the fact that it was on Netflix, the fact that we premiered something on Netflix, the fact that we did something we’ve never done before – we created an international content brand on Netflix. So this was a news story in a bunch of different ways besides the fact that the show was good.

And the show, by the way, is really great, which really helped. But I think it became and interesting news story…but over time it won’t be as novel for sure because we’re going to do a lot of these shows.”

Of course, what matters here for Netflix is if series like House of Cards can increase signups and keep people signed up.

“Engagement really matters to Netflix. The more people watch, the longer they stay, the more they tell their friends. There’s a real direct correlation with engagement and retention,” said Sarandos.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should. It’s a juicy, well-acted, gripping political thriller. And all 13 episodes are available to stream at once so you can binge. You know, if that’s your thing (and Netflix hopes that it is).

As of right now, you should be able to stream HBO GO to your television through Apple TV. But you don’t have an actual app with which to do it…yet.

What you can do is stream HBO GO to your television using Apple’s AirPlay feature on your iPhone or iPad. All you have to do to begin beaming content from your smaller device to your TV is download the update to the HBO GO app on your device.

(You’ll need iOS 6 or above and v5.1.1 or above on your Apple TV)

HBO’s Eric Kessler made the announcement at the All Things D: Dive Into Media conference.

“Our long-term goal for Go is to be on all devices and all platforms,” said Kessler.

And you should expect to see an actual HBO GO app appear on Apple TV at some point.

“We will get on Apple TV, as we’ve said all along,” said Kessler.

Reports from earlier this month put a dedicated HBO GO app on Apple TV by mid-year.

HBO GO already has dedicated apps on devices like Roku and the Xbox 360., so Apple is lagging behind a little bit here. But at least the HBO GO app now supports AirPlay, which makes streaming possible. Go get your Game of Thrones on, people.

Today’s winner for parody Twitter account you need to be following comes to you from Everywhere, Florida. It’s Florida Man, which features “real-life headlines about the world’s worst superhero.”

The account tweets out any and all headlines that involve a “florida man” doing something. For instance, “Ketchup-covered Florida Man arrested for yelling profanities at tourists” or “Florida Man arrested with sex toy in rectum.”

For some reason, men in Florida tend to make the news for doing some of the most ridiculous things. And this account perfectly demonstrates that by simply tweeting out news stories involving any man in Florida doing something insane.

Simply beautiful.

Here, take a look at some of Florida Man’s exploits:

Follow @_FloridaMan

Florida Man
@_FloridaMan

Drunk Florida Man Tries To Use Taco As ID After His Car Catches Fire At Taco Bell | http://t.co/omqOoSNv

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
1 day ago via Twuffer · powered by @socialditto

Follow @_FloridaMan

Florida Man
@_FloridaMan

Florida Man Accidentally Shoots Off Penis And Testicles While Cleaning Gun | http://t.co/KRBTTRo8

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
5 hours ago via Twuffer · powered by @socialditto

Follow @_FloridaMan

Florida Man
@_FloridaMan

Florida Man Caught Masturbating In Front Yard, Left “Unknown Clear Liquid Substance” On Door Knob | http://t.co/RjaMKO1f

 Reply  ·  Retweet  ·  Favorite
21 hours ago via Twuffer · powered by @socialditto

Remember, these are all links to real stories (mostly from local Florida news outlets). The tweets read like stories from The Onion, but they all really happened. And that’s the beauty of Florida Man. He’s everywhere, doing hilariously stupid things at all times. He’s the hero Florida deserves. He’s Florida Man.