The Chinese government may be about to ease up on its policy of censoring its citizens.

You knew it was coming. Pinterest is testing promoted pins in what is certainly a preview of how the company will make money from all those carefully curated food photo collections.

The companies behind Internet.org, the organization formed by Facebook, Qualcomm and several others to bring the Internet to areas that still don't have it, released a document (PDF) yesterday detailing some of their plans for the initiative. One section stands out in particular, if only for its title – Facebook for Every Phone.

The days of shrugging off Twitter may soon be over. Some 200 million users strong, the site is already one of the most prominent social networks, but going public could give it the muscle to become the next Facebook or Apple, one analyst said.

Twitter announced -- on Twitter, of course -- that the company has filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering.

In a new push to compete with Twitter and its lock on immediacy, Facebook took the wraps off two new APIs that enable news organizations to tap into user comments and display them online or on TV in real time.

Twitter has acquired MoPub, a mobile-focused advertising exchange that could help the social network grow its ad business as more users move away from the desktop.

Instagram is unstoppable. The photo-sharing app added 20 million users over the last two and a half months, growing from 130 million to 150 million monthly active budding photographers since introducing video.

Yahoo's logo is now a little bit sleeker, under a redesign unveiled Wednesday in keeping with the company's reinvention efforts.

Searching through Twitter's archive of tweets can be frustrating -- they are sorted on the site by Twitter's own algorithms, and older tweets tend to get buried. Google? Forget it. Topsy, an analytics company, wants to do it better.

Salesforce.com's second-quarter earnings conference call featured the usual dose of chest-thumping by CEO Marc Benioff as the company posted US$957 million in revenue and raised its full fiscal year forecast to at least $4 billion.

Facebook wants to be clear: It can use the names, profile pictures and other data of its members to deliver ads on the site.

Twitter has acquired Trendrr, a data analysis company, to better leverage users' tweets about television to draw in more advertisers.

Yahoo has redesigned its Sports, Movies, Music, TV, omg, Games and Weather sites with a more consistent look and some personalized tools, the company said Tuesday.

Salesforce.com's next CRM (customer relationship management) software release will contain a slew of new features, with many focused on the Chatter collaboration and messaging tool as well as customer service, according to a set of official release notes.

The Internet reacted to the news that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plans to retire within 12 months as might have been expected – with a flurry of jeers, opprobrium and the occasional heartfelt farewell.

The current generation of teenagers seems willing to share anything on social media, but cares more about privacy than you think, according to a recent Pew study.

Vine, the video service introduced by Twitter in January, now has 40 million registered users, it said Tuesday.

Many companies have begun using specialized software to analyze what people are saying about their products and services on social media, and now SAP says it can help them match up individuals' social profiles with customer history data from CRM (customer relationship management) systems.

Twitter has announced a new feature designed to give people a better sense of the context behind the site's characteristically short, 140-character tweets.

Facebook has designed a system that would allow individuals and advertisers to make direct connections to those physically nearby that share similar interests or are open to receiving certain advertisements.