VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Facebook announced its plan to open the second data center in Clonee, Ireland. By opening the Clonee center, the company is joining a list of companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, which operate some of the European centers in the nation.

The media research firm Nielsen will enhance its methods for measuring people’s TV watching activities using the new “Social Content Ranking,” which will use Facebook and Twitter for their surveys.

Facebook has come out with yet another special feature, this time, exclusively for the sports fans. Its Sports Stadium will be a virtual hub for millions of sports fanatics to get together and post photos/videos, like them, look at a dashboard full of stats and, most importantly, chat about the games, all the while getting access to expert commentary by celebrities and their teams. Currently, this space has only been rolled out for iOS in the US.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has continued his efforts to spread internet even in the poor countries through Free Basics or internet.org. Even in paternity leave, he responds to the criticisms placing arguments. But now, he is facing criticism even from his own house. An unidentified Facebook employee has appeared to criticize his moves and Facebook spokesperson hasn’t commented on such in-house resistance.

Greatist has raised 4.5 million US dollar in Series A round. The company will utilize the funds to add more staffs, on the advertising department, to create additional custom programs like events and original content, according to Derek Flanzraich, CEO of Greatist.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Wealth Management analysts expects India to be the next e-commerce battleground in 2016 as big tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon are set to conquer the country this year.

Google has assigned Cardboard famous Clay Bavor as the head of its virtual reality projects. Facebook has also assigned Instagram’s director of product as Head of Product management in its VR subsidiary, Oculus. The concurrent moves have been analyzed as their keenness for reigning over VR market.

David Marcus, VP of Messaging Products has written a blog post outlining how their Messaging app will eventually end the need for phone numbers. The app has grown in its user base and Marcus sees only more growth in the future.

The majority of states in the United States including major cities will implement new minimum wage rate starting this year as workers continue to strike and demanding a better payment. Workers have been under pressure lately as the cost of living continues to increase yet their minimum wage remains the same.

Today, Prismatic declared that it will no longer be available and accessible for iOS, Android, and web news reader products and Interest Graph APIs for third-party developers.

US Presidential Candidate Ted Cruz harvests data called "psychographic profiles" from tens of millions of US citizens in Facebook. According to The Guardian Ted Cruz's campaign collected these data without the permission of the Facebook users.

Airbnb, the US home-sharing startup, has confirmed closing of $1.5 billion fund-raising round. The latest closure of fundraising puts the unicorn startup at staggering valuation.

Silicon Valley technology firms see robust business potential in India as over a billion people are without internet access. Most of the US-based technology majors are looking to India to bring more people online to get connected to their services.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is planning to venture into the publishing sector as news circulated that the e-commerce tycoon will be buying some stake in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.

Amazon Echo is a smart device that was launched on November 7, 2014, it can respond to human voice when users call its name, "Alexa." After a year in the market, new functionalities are added to make it a better smart device.