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Facebook schedules annual shareholder meeting for June 11

Facebook announced Friday that it will hold its first annual shareholder meeting on June 11 at the Westin San Francisco Airport hotel.

The company's stock, which closed at $26.85 per share today, has seen brighter days, though not many since its bungled initial public offering. As such, we should anticipate heated discussions around the social network's underperforming shares and pressure on CEO Mark Zuckerberg to turn things around. Oh, to be a fly on those walls.

Facebook's official agenda is less exciting. The company will hold a vote to re-elect its eight board directors, not including … Read more

Longtime Facebook board member Jim Breyer stepping down

Jim Breyer, the venture capitalist whose firm Accel Partners made an early bet on Facebook, is stepping down from Facebook's board, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday.

Bryer courted co-founder Mark Zuckerberg in Facebook's early days and eventually got him to agree to take a $12.7 million investment that valued the company at $93 million. What a bet that turned out to be -- for Breyer and his firm. Accel sold $2.1 billion worth of shares into Facebook's IPO last May. Last October, Breyer personally cashed in more than $81.1 million … Read more

Sticker collection grows on Facebook, Path

CNET Update dusts off the sticker book:

Social media has gone sticker crazy. Today's video explains Facebook's latest update to messaging and how rival network Path is playing cute-cartoon hardball (or should I say football?)

Also in this tech roundup:

- Twitter is testing ways to tell you what's being tweeted by users near you

- Nintendo releases a major system update to the Wii U

- Android notebooks may be hitting stores, priced as low as $200

- AT&T rolls out home security and monitoring service

- Charity auction for "power meeting" with Apple CEO has bids exceeding $500,000 … Read more

Facebook's Finch stickers put livelier face on messaging

Facebook is rolling out a new animated sticker pack created by illustrator Matt Jones as part of a much larger effort to make messaging more human.

Stickers, which are essentially a character-driven interpretation on emoticons, made their first appearance in Facebook's iOS application in mid April. The social network has since added its warm-and-fuzzy, and sometimes kooky, digital machinations to the Messenger application for Android. Facebook will eventually bring the characters to its other messaging apps as well.

Facebook announced Friday the release of a new sticker pack based on a character Jones created called Finch. The pack features … Read more

FB Touch for Facebook 1.0.0 Review

As popular as it is, Facebook's default app is still fairly slow and buggy. Unfortunately, the same can be said for most of the replacement Facebook apps you'll find in the Play Store. FB Touch for Facebook isn't any faster or easier to use than any of those. If anything, it's less fun than using Facebook's default app.

This app is actually one of a pack of apps that offer the same mediocre experience under different names. Like all of those, FB Touch for Facebook sports a Facebook layout circa 2011 with a few added … Read more

Zuckerberg's political action group adds Ballmer, Gates

Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us political action group has added a few more tech heavy hitters to its membership roster.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith, and entrepreneur and investor Sean Parker have all signed on in support of the Facebook CEO's group aimed at reforming immigration. AllThingsD earlier reported the news, and CNET confirmed the report with FWD.us.

"We've been excited by the momentum we continue to see as more members of the tech community contribute to the national debate to improve our economic future, and support the … Read more

Facebook's latest mobile acquisition: It's all about your data

With the purchase of Parse, Facebook has instantly moved from consumer social network to business service provider, playing host to the back end of thousands of mobile applications. In so doing, the company has bought access to data it could otherwise not touch.

On Thursday, Facebook announced that it agreed to acquire 2-year-old Parse for an undisclosed sum, though multiple reports peg the value at $85 million in cash and stock.

Parse serves as host to "tens of thousands" of iOS, Android, Windows, and HTML5 apps. The company offers mobile developers a convenience by taking care of back-end … Read more

Facebook purchases Parse to promote mobile app development

Facebook has agreed to purchase Parse, a service that allows developers to build mobile applications for iOS, Android, Windows, and mobile web.

The social network announced Thursday that it picked up the mobile-focused company for an undisclosed sum and said it plans to continue offering Parse's products and services. The deal is reported to be worth $85 million, according to TechCrunch.

"By making Parse a part of Facebook Platform, we want to enable developers to rapidly build apps that span mobile platforms and devices," Doug Purdy, Facebook's director of product management, said. "Parse makes this … Read more

LinkedIn Contacts looks to boost relationships

CNET Update has much to say:

It's hard to remember everything. Apps can help. And LinkedIn's Contacts app wants to help make sure you remember more about your professional contacts.

If you're trying to make it in the business world but don't have time for networking and schmoozing, just pay a ton of money for the chance to become BFFs with Apple's CEO Tim Cook. Coffee is included.

Talking to people can be hard, but Facebook doesn't want you to be shy. It's encouraging more messaging by throwing green dots all over the place. … Read more