Facebook reportedly testing its own mobile purchasing program

Purchasing stuff on mobile devices is very easy, between Amazon, PayPal, and Google. According to a report from All Things D, Facebook is trying to break into the market too.

Facebook's mobile payment system which is in a limited test right now, allows shoppers to make purchases with credit cards stored in their Facebook account. Some users already have this information in the system from buying Gifts and in-game purchases. The system uses one-click mobile paying, allowing users to pay without having to type in their info.purchases on its main desktop site, which require customers to have credit card information on file. A retail company called JackThreads is currently the only company to have its hands on the platform.

It's honestly not clear what Facebook will use this new payments platform for. Maybe they will incorporate mini-stores into retail Facebook pages, like American Eagle, and others. It will be very tough for Facebook to get users to hop onto the service, because everyone is already cozy with their favorite mobile payments solution.

Facebook Purchases Jibbigo, Signaling Voice Commands may come to Facebook

Facebook has just announced that it has acquired Mobile Technologies, the developer of Jibbigo, a translator app for Android and iOS.

Facebook is being very tight-lipped about the acquisition, and Jibbigo is remaining on both app stores for the time being. It's possible that Facebook could use Jibbigo in all sorts of ways, from better translations to something similar to Siri voice recognition and transcription.
Read more at

I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Mobile Technologies, a company with an amazing team that’s behind some of the world’s leading speech recognition and machine translation technology. With this deal we will welcome some of the industry’s most talented people to our engineering teams in Menlo Park, California.

It has always been our mission to make the world more open and connected. Although more than a billion people around the world already use Facebook every month, we are always looking for ways to help connect the rest of the world as well. Voice technology has become an increasingly important way for people to navigate mobile devices and the web, and this technology will help us evolve our products to match that evolution. We believe this acquisition is an investment in our long-term product roadmap as we continue towards our company’s mission. Read more at http://www.cultofandroid.com/39325/facebook-buys-jibbigo-possibly-signaling-siri-like-plans/#KETDCeS1qOXQSxQL.99

Facebook Gets a CMO, Ex-Motorola VP Gary Briggs

On Sunday, Facebook hired Gary Briggs, a former VP of marketing at Motorola, the company's first chief marketing officer. According to Ad Age, Briggs is replacing former VP product marketing Eric Antonow, who has been in charge of marketing since 2010.

Facebook Unlocks Embeddable Posts Starting With Major News Outlets

Facebook unveiled Embedded Posts today, allowing anyone to place widgets on a page that contains images, links, update text and even clickable hashtags. This feature is rolling out slowly, with CNN, Huffington Post, Bleacher Report, PEOPLE and Mashable the first to have it turned on for their accounts. Facebook promises that broader availability will be coming soon, but it may be awhile before personal accounts can start embedding public posts all over the web.

App 'Rounds' Lets You Have Mobile Hangouts Jam-Packed with Features

Rounds, a new video chat hangout mobile app for iOS and Android, threatens to blow Google+ hangouts out of the water.

The app allows many new features that Google and other competitors dream about at night. The latest update includes a co-browsing feature, allowing chatting friends to share web pages. Other popular features include watching YouTube videos and using different camera effects. Rounds is compatible with iPhone, Android, Web, Facebook, Desktop, and Chrome.

Currently, the app is free with zero advertising.

Facebook Home is Now International

Facebook Home is now available for download in Canada and the United Kingdom in Google Play. Facebook does however still keep the number of phones even eligible to use the Home service very limited. The HTC First is still an AT&T special, and  other carriers across the pond in the UK and in Canada carry the four other phones that Facebook Home can be installed on. The Home phones are: the HTC One X, HTC One X+, Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy Note II.