Facebook's User Growth Continues to Decrease while Google+ Adds 625K Users Daily



Facebook's growth rate for its user base is continuing to decrease while Google+'s user base is growing, and at the same time when Google+ just experienced its biggest traffic month of all time.

As All Facebook reports, in the 1,001 days from April 1, 2009 through Dec. 28, 2011, Facebook added 609M, with averages of around 600K per day and seven per second. But according to Optim.al, that growth rate has tapered off.
 
While Facebook's growth soared to 8.39 users per second from July 2010 through March 2011, it slowed to 7.02 users per second from March 2011 through Sept. 2011. From Sept. 2011 through Dec. 2011, growth dropped to five users per second.

Last month, an unofficial Googler revealed how Google+'s growth is accelerating, noting how it recently passed 62M users and adds 625K users per day. Still, Facebook has...
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Watch SimpleGeo and Sprint.ly Co-Founder Joe Stump on TWiST Live at 1pm PT

[ Image courtesy of Joe Stump via creative commons license. ]

Today on This Week in Startups, SimpleGeo co-founder Joe Stump will speak with Host Jason Calacanis about his newest venture, software development service Sprint.ly.

Joe left SimpleGeo, along with co-founder Matt Galligan, after Urban Airship acquired the company for a reported $3M in Oct. 2011. Prior to the acquisition, SimpleGeo raised $10M in funding from Ron Conway, Kevin Rose, Chris Sacca, Timothy Ferriss, Shawn Fanning and Gary Vaynerchuk.
 
Before launching SimpleGeo, Joe co-founded...
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Finally: Evernote Launches Skitch for iPad, iPhone App Coming Soon



We've been waiting for Skitch integration with Evernote ever since they acquired the popular photo editing Mac app in August but now it's finally here.

"Millennia ago, all you needed to get a point across to your buddies was charcoal and a cave wall or a pointy stick and some sand," the Evernote blog states. "Now, we sit for hours crafting passive-agressive emails to make a point that once was communicated with an arrow and a grunt. There’s beauty in that simplicity. Let’s return to it."

While Evernote launched Skitch for Android earlier this year, until today, iOS users could not use Skitch on their devices.

With Skitch for iPad, you can...
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Siri Horror Movie: Beware of the Upgrade (video)

Just in time for the holidays, live action production company Rooster Teeth has released a new short -- a trailer for Siri: The Movie.  

"This holiday season, be careful what you wish for," the narrator says.

The trailer starts with friends gathered around a Christmas tree. When they open their presents, they're all ecstatic to see that they received an iPhone 4S featuring Siri.

"Hey Siri, what's the meaning of life?" one friend asks. 

Siri responds, "life...

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Conan O'Brien Roasts the Kindle Fire (video)



While Amazon issued an update to the Kindle Fire this morning, Conan O'Brien's Team Coco still (literally) roasted the device on the show last night [h/t Cult of Android].

Team Coco mocked the Kindle Fire's poorly placed power button, security concerns and other areas of dissatisfaction. 

O’Brien has a history of mocking tech products. In March, Team Coco produced a parody of Apple’s iPad 2 launch video and in June, they targeted the ill-received Final Cut Pro X. But in September, Team Coco shared its studio on Airbnb to...
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Google Search Launches New Yorker-esque Cartoon Caption Challenge



Google just launched a search caption challenge to see who can come up with a caption that best describes what a cartoon character is searching for on Google.

"As a lifelong fan and connoisseur of New Yorker style cartoons, I always believed in the power of humor not just to entertain but to enlighten," Google VP of Engineering and Cartoons Udi Manber writes on the Google blog. "I have tried to connect humor to everything I do (although, I have to admit, not always successfully). The best cartoonists possess great insights, which they illustrate in a clever package that we can consume in seconds and yet remember for years."

To submit a caption, go to Inside Search and submit your idea. It will automatically appear on the site, and you can share it with friends via a unique link. You can also vote on your favorite submissions and the most popular will rise to the top.

"We've left it to you to imagine what they'd be searching...
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Zuckerberg Supports Facebook Competitor Path


Despite any potential threat that Path might be to Facebook, Path CEO Dave Morin says that Mark Zuckerberg supports the company and even uses the product.

"We're friends on Path," Dave said on This Week in Startups. "Mark's a great supporter. He gives me great advice."

Dave, a former Facebook Senior Platform Manager, was one of the original members of the Facebook team platform team but left to start Path in 2010.

"I don't think I'm reacting to anything," Dave says. "I think that we believe...
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Watch Path CEO Dave Morin on TWiST Today at 1pm PT



Today on This Week in Startups, Path co-founder Dave Morin speaks candidly about what he learned from Path 1.0's luke-warm reception, why he believes in the slow product movement and how he's managed to stay on Mark Zuckerberg's good side, even with a competing product.

Dave, who was one of the original members of the Facebook platform team, met with Host Jason Calacanis in CNET's San Francisco studios last week for this special interview. While at Facebook...
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Discovr Hits 1.5M Downloads, Launches Movie Discovery App


The company behind music discovery app Discovr, which recently hit 1.5M downloads, just launched Discovr Movies for iPhone, iPad and Mac OS.

"It was the single biggest request we kept hearing from users," Filter Squad founder and CEO David McKinney tells LAUNCH via email. "We just got heaps of people asking us to make Discovr Movies."

Discovr Movies features an interactive map of movies, making it easier to discover new ones from a data set of nearly 500K titles.

"People intuitively understand the...
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Trade NBA Player Shares and Make a Profit with StarStreet


Sports stock market StarStreet, which launched back in September for football season, has just opened its NBA market so you can buy stock and invest money in "shares" of professional basketball players.

It works by investing in the players you think are going to have a good season and if you're right, you'll make real money. In order to start trading, you must first deposit between $5 and $5K to your account via a credit card or PayPal. If you make a deposit now, you can get a 20% cash bonus to trade with. StarStreet takes 4% commission on the sell side of each trade and covers all PayPal fees.

For the current NFL market, there are 700+ traders -- about 20% of them who are active every single day -- but expects more for the NBA market, StarStreet CEO Jeremy Levine tells LAUNCH via email.

"We're expecting more and more traders as we're improving our product and the trading experience almost daily," Jeremy says. "...Some people are seriously...
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Facebook Timeline Arrives on iPhone, Still Waiting for iPad Support

Facebook has updated its iOS app to feature the new Timeline and offer access to friend lists, subscribers and subscriptions.

Facebook launched Timeline last week, after first introducing it at f8 in September. That same day, Facebook updated its app for Android to feature Timeline, but left iOS users in the cold.
 
In terms of daily users, the Facebook app is...
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Google+ Boosts Stream Control, Adds Brand Page Admins



Google+ just shipped a load of new features including a volume slider to adjust how posts from specific Circles integrate into the stream, notifications that are easier to understand and the option to add up to 50 people as administrators to a brand page.

"Oh, cool," Robert Scoble writes on Google+. "Google+ finally included its first form of noise control this morning. Good first step. Now we need Gmail-style filtering on top of this."

The volume slider lets you control whether you want to see more or less...
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Occupy Movement Generated 2.8M+ Retweets in 75 Days


The highest peak in Occupy-related Twitter activity occurred around mid-November when word got out that NYPD started clearing Zuccotti Park and the UC Davis campus police pepper sprayed protesters, according to Klout statistics.

 
Klout analyzed retweet data of Occupy-related content from Twitter between Sept. 15 and Nov. 29 and found that peaks in activity, unsurprisingly, correspond to important events in the movement.

The first day of the Occupy Wall Street movement, where an estimated...
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Make Sweet Beats with Electronic Drum Machine Shirt



Think Geek has created an awesome wearable drum machine where you can make your own drum loops and layer beats on top to build a complex rhythm. 

The fully-playable t-shirt drum machine offers nine different drum kits with seven professional-grade drum sounds. It also comes with a mini amplifier that clips onto your belt.

To use, you simply tap the drum pads on the front of the shirt to create a rhythm. You can make...
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Social Discovery Engine Top10 Launches Music App on Spotify



Recommendation and discovery engine Top10 recently launched a Spotify app for users to create and share top 10 playlists with friends and other users on the platform. In order to access the apps, you will need to download the Spotify preview version.
 
Users can easily click and drag tracks to make top 10 playlists based on artist, genre, era and more. There are currently 2K+ top 10 lists in the app that you can browse and subscribe to.

When you create a Top 10 Kayne West Songs playlist, for example, Top10 will add it to the collection and from there, you can compare your playlist to those of other users. Once you create a playlist...
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Watch TWiST Seoul, South Korea Meetup Episode #215 Today Live at 7pm PT


Tune in to
This Week in Startups for the second Seoul, South Korea Meetup live at 7pm PT.  Host Jason Calacanis and co-host Tyler Crowley will hear pitches from eight companies and then vote on the best ones.

Entrepreneur Jason Demant organized the event to present TuneRights, a stock market for music, mobile game company PixelAmmo, mobile app for...
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Facebook Timeline Launches on Mobile Devices, But Not for iOS



Facebook's Timeline is now available on the mobile site, m.facebook.com, as well as the Facebook for Android app. Users on iOS can still access the Timeline from the mobile site but it is not yet included in the native app. 

"Mobile timeline starts with your unique cover photo," the Facebook blog states. "As you scroll down, you'll see your posts, photos and life events as they happened, back to the day you were born. Photo albums and other posts are horizontally swipeable, so you can quickly view multiple photos or posts inline without leaving timeline. You can also swipe through the views at the top of your timeline to navigate to your map, photos, subscribers and more."

Posts now appear in several different ways on the mobile Timeline. For instance...
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Delicious Revamps User Interface, Improves Discovery with Stacks

Delicious just updated its design to change how users see content and enhance discovery through Stacks.

"We’ve begun a comprehensive overhaul of how the Delicious UI deals with information density and hierarchy, while applying a clean, consistent style," the Delicious blog states. "Giving Delicious an interface flexible enough to add new features moving forward was a strong consideration. It required us to take into account overarching themes like how content types get presented (stacks, links, actions, and so on) to minute details like a consistent button style."

Delicious Stacks, which launched back in September to offer users...
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Twitter Service Is Down (video)

When Twitter goes down... from Kosso on Vimeo.

[UPDATE 3:11pm PT: Twitter service is back in working order. ]

Twitter is currently down, but engineers are trying to fix the issue.

"Users may be experience some issues with our service; our engineers are currently working on this issue," Twitter wrote

When you visit Twitter.com, the site reads, "Something is technically wrong." Tweeting from TweetDeck, however, does seem to work. 

The International Business Times reports that Twitter has been...

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Gmail for iOS Adds Scribbles Drawing Tool, Custom Signatures



If you have ever wanted to send an email with just doodles or scribbles, now you can with the Gmail app for iOS and Gmail for mobile devices. 

"In the Gmail app and Gmail for mobile you can now open up a canvas and scribble a message that will be attached to your email," the Gmail blog states. "It's perfect for sending a quick sketch that is hard to express in words or adding a fun graphic to make your email more personal."
 
Scribbles offers 10 different colors, three brush sizes, lines, erasers and spray paint.

As The Next Web notes, "you can now have arts and crafts time inside of your Gmail app."

As part of the update, you can also set a custom signature for...
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