It's official -- Twitter is staying in San Francisco.

On Friday, Twitter announced that it had signed a lease to move the micro-blogging service's headquarters into the Central Market area's Market Square building, also known as the San Francisco Mart building.

The move will bring to fruition a promise Twitter made in a letter of intent to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors that said the social networking site would stay in the city if a payroll tax exemption was approved. Twitter had been expected to leave San Francisco if the exemption had not passed.

In a 8-to-3 vote this month, the supervisors approved an ordinance that gave Twitter and other tech firms what they were looking for -- an exemption from a 1.5% city payroll tax for the next six years, as long as a business is located in San Francisco's Central Market Street and Tenderloin areas.

"The city where we have started and grown will remain our future home," said Sean Garrett, Twitter's vice president of communications, in a blog post. "Twitter is staying in San Francisco and has signed a lease to move our headquarters to Market Square, a historic building in San Francisco's Central Market neighborhood."

Garrett said Twitter looks forward to being part of an expected wave of companies that will move into the Central Market and Tenderloin areas, which San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee has said badly need to be revitalized.

"San Francisco's unique creativity and inventiveness is a part of Twitter's DNA, and we feel like we are part of San Francisco," Garrett said. "Three-quarters of our employees who live in San Francisco are involved in causes and charities in the city. Our employees are excited to be active members of our future neighborhood as volunteers, customers, diners and patrons of the arts."

Twitter expects to make the move from its current headquarters in the South of Market area of the city into the Market Square building sometime in the middle of 2012, he said.

"We can't wait," Garrett said.

RELATED:

Twitter in talks to take over TweetDeck

Twitter to get 6-year payroll-tax break in San Francisco

Twitter considering moving headquarters out of San Francisco, report says

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: A Muni train passes by the building at 1355 Market St. in San Francisco on March 31. Twitter is planning to move into the building next year. Credit: Jeff Chiu / Associated Press

The digerati are merciless when it comes to fail whales. When Tumblr, the blogging platform, experienced technical difficulties in February, one user created a parody site, Stumblr, to poke fun at the misfortune.

So it was only a matter of time before someone took the time to make light of Amazon's ongoing cloud computing trouble -- which is gaining the nicknames Cloudburst and Cloudgate, and spawned the #EC2 hashtag in reference to the Elastic Cloud Compute service at the center of Amazon's troubles.

A good-natured jab came on Thursday from Indaba, an Amazon EC2 customer as well as a digital music sharing and remix site used by more than half a million artists.

Indaba, whose site was one of the many that relied on Amazon's servers, launched a Site Down Jam! contest, giving away a base track and challenging its users to create a song about the misfortune.

Entrants get an "I Survived the Amazon EC2 Cloud Meltdown of 2011" badge for their Indaba profile pages. The winner is to be crowned Site-Down Jam All-Star and receive a $100 gift certificate for, where else, Amazon.

Amazon, the leading online retailer, is the leading provider of cloud computing services. The service outages for customers such as Indaba are believed to be widespread, though Amazon so far hasn't said how many users have been affected.

Last month, Amazon launched its Cloud Drive service, which offers space on Amazon servers where users can store music and other files and play them back from the cloud. The service, ideally, would free consumers from having to store their media files on multiple devices -- laptops, smartphones, tablets.

RELATED:

Amazon cloud troubles leave sites down for second day

Amazon's cloud problems affect Foursquare, HootSuite, Reddit

Amazon Cloud Drive music service: A solution in search of a problem?

-- Alex Pham and Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/alexpham

twitter.com/nateog

Amazon Web Services' cloud computing troubles have persisted into a second day, leaving some of its customers unable to access their websites and services hosted through the tech giant.

Among the sites still affected on Friday morning was Reddit, a social news-sharing site.

Just as it did on Thursday, when the problems began with the Amazon Web Services servers, Reddit said in a statement on its homepage: "Reddit is in 'emergency read-only mode' right now because Amazon is experiencing a degradation," said a note atop Reddit's homepage Friday. "They are working on it, but we are still waiting for them to get to our volumes. You won't be able to log in. We're sorry and will fix the site as soon as we can."

On a status update page, Amazon said in a statement that it's working to solve its cloud server problems, which will likely take more than six hours to fix for some customers.

In the most recent update statement, which was posted at 8:49 a.m., Amazon didn't say how many users were affected, down, or back in action. Amazon officials were not available for comment on its server problems on Thursday or Friday morning.

"We continue to see progress in recovering volumes, and have heard many additional customers confirm that they're recovering," Amazon said in a status update online.

"Our current estimate is that the majority of volumes will be recovered over the next 5 to 6 hours. ... a smaller number of volumes will require a more time consuming process to recover, and we anticipate that those will take longer to recover. We will continue to keep everyone updated as we have additional information."

Quora, an increasingly popular question-and-answer website that uses Amazon for its web hosting, was available for users after being down Friday.

RELATED:

Amazon Kindle to open up to library lending

Amazon Cloud Drive: A solution in search of a problem?

Amazon's cloud problems affect Foursquare, HootSuite, Reddit

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Social media websites such as Foursquare, HootSuite and Reddit crashed temporarily Thursday because of problems at Amazon Web Services' data center.

HootSuite -- a Web-based "dashboard" application that allows users to manage content on Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and WordPress -- said on its homepage Thursday morning that the problems were affecting a large number of sites.

"Oh no! It seems much of the Internet is struggling today due to widespread outage problems," HootSuite said on its homepage. "We're working diligently with our upstream providers to resolve the conundrums so we can be back online as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience."

Reddit, a social news website, was unavailable to users by about noon Thursday.

"Reddit is in 'emergency read-only mode' right now because Amazon is experiencing a degradation," said a note atop Reddit's homepage Thursday morning. "They are working on it, but we are still waiting for them to get to our volumes. You won't be able to log in. We're sorry and will fix the site as soon as we can."

While HootSuite and Reddit were down, the location-tracking service Foursquare was among the Amazon Web Services customers whose sites were down earlier in the day but back up late Thursday morning.

"Our usually amazing data center hosts, Amazon EC2, are having a few hiccups this morning, which affected us and a bunch of other services that use them," Foursquare said in a blog post.

Officials at the Seattle company were unavailable for comment on the server problems Thursday afternoon, but a status update page on its Web Services site said the problems began early in the morning at a server bank in northern Virgina.

At 11 a.m. Thursday, Amazon said in a status update that it was working on the problem but wasn't exactly sure when it would be resolved.

"A number of people have asked us for an ETA on when we'll be fully recovered," the Amazon update said. "We deeply understand why this is important and promise to share this information as soon as we have an estimate that we believe is close to accurate. Our high-level ballpark right now is that the ETA is a few hours. We can assure you that all-hands are on deck to recover as quickly as possible. We will update the community as we have more information."

Amazon Web Services uses a large number of server computers in multiple data centers across the U.S. Amazon also specializes in "utility" server needs, which allow users to buy storage space and hosting.

ALSO:

Amazon Kindle to open up to library lending

Amazon Cloud Drive: A solution in search of a problem?

Apple location tracker file: Congressman asks Steve Jobs to explain by May 12

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screenshot of HootSuite's warning to users that its service was down temporarily Thursday morning. Credit: HootSuite

 
Washington Post Co. is venturing into the social-media business with Trove, a news aggregation website that can also be accessed via mobile apps.

Trove, which went live on Wednesday, pulls news from 10,000 sources across the Internet and sorts content by what a user's interests are.

Users can personalize content on the site and in apps by adding or subtracting "channels" that filter news on specific topics such as Google, Osama Bin Laden, books and sports.

It also sorts news by connecting to Facebook, taking information from a user's Facebook profile page  and determining through its own algorithms what a person would be interested in.

Trove editors also select breaking news stories to feature on Trove's home page. On launch day, Ford Motor Co. was a major advertiser on the site, offering suggested news channels users can follow.

"Because Trove is all about the individual user, the experience is customized and different for everyone," said Vijay Ravindran, Washington Post's chief digital officer, in a statement. "We believe launching Trove is a good step toward understanding what the future of news could look like. And we're pleased to have Ford on board to support our development of personalized news and our experimentation with new approaches toward online advertising."

Washington Post said that more social media features will be added to Trove in coming months, as well as increased integration with Facebook.

Trove is open to the public, online or in the form of mobile apps for BlackBerry smartphones as well as smartphones and tablets running Google Android. Trove apps for Apple's iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch are in development.

The new news product was built by the company's WaPo Labs, which is made up of Washington Post employees and former employees of ICurrent, an online news aggregation firm that Washington Post bought last July.

;

RELATED:

Arianna Huffington says Huff Po writer's lawsuit is 'utterly without merit'

The New York Times details Web, mobile app subscription plans launching March 28

For the first time, more people got news from the Web than newspapers in 2010, Pew report says

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screenshot of Trove.com. Credit: Washington Post Co.

Facebook rolled out a few new security tools on Tuesday that aim to improve how users report bullying, fake profiles and offensive content, in addition to announcing a teacher's guide to the social network.

The world's most popular social media website also launched a redesign of its online Family Safety Center, which has tips for families, educators and teenagers looking to use Facebook safely.

Among the tips for teens is a warning that they are responsible for what they post and how others might respond.

"It's easy to get caught up in the moment and fire off a comment that may seem hilarious at the time," the Playing It Safe page reads. "But remember, what you say can really hurt someone, or come back to haunt you. Think before you post. It only takes a second or two. Ask yourself if you really want to say it. Make sure you don't mind if your friends, classmates, or teachers hear about it later."

However, people all make mistakes and it's never too late to apologize, the teen page said.

Facebook's social reporting tools have been expanded as well, allowing users to notify various parties if they "see something they don't like," Bejar said.

"People can now report bullying, impostor profiles, abusive content and other safety issues simultaneously to Facebook, to the person who posted it, or to a trusted adult who might be able to help address the issue offline," Arturo Bejar, the site's director of engineering, said in a blog post about the new features.

"Safety and child psychology experts tell us that online issues are frequently a reflection of what is happening offline. By encouraging people to seek help from friends we hope that many of these situations can be resolved face to face," he said.

The social reporting tools, which have been available for photos for sometime, can now also be used on other parts of Facebook, such as Profiles, Like Pages and Groups.

The Facebook for Educators guide will be made available as a free download in a few weeks, Bejar said. Written by three teachers, the guide "answers many of teachers' common questions about Facebook," he said.

Facebook also introduced a "two-factor authentication" option for U.S. users Tuesday that seeks to block unauthorized use of a member's account by requiring a one-time code that is sent to the member's cellphone whenever their Facebook account is accessed from a new computer, smart phone or tablet. "This helps us make sure it's really you," Bejar said.

Changes were also made to Facebook's HTTPS browsing option, which provides an encrypted and more secure connection when logging in to the site.

"We're improving HTTPS so if you start using a non-HTTPS application on Facebook, we automatically switch your session back to HTTPS when you're finished," Bejar said.

RELATED:

T. Rowe Price invests $190.5 million in Facebook

Winklevoss Twins petition to void court ruling on Facebook settlement

Facebook reportedly teaming with Baidu to build Chinese social-networking site

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screenshot of one of Facebook's social reporting tools. Credit: Facebook

Twitter is in talks to buy TweetDeck and its eponymous Web and mobile app for about $50 million, according to a report.

TweetDeck is one of the most popular Twitter clients on the market, allowing users to do many of the same things they can on on Twitter's website and apps -- tweets, direct messages, lists, search trends.

Twitter is eyeing taking over TweetDeck as part of its plan to increase the micro blogging platform's appeal, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the rumored talks, citing "people familiar with the matter."

Officials at Twitter, based in San Francisco, and TweetDeck, based in London, were not available for comment Monday.

Twitter's reported interest in TweetDeck comes shortly after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey returned to the social media firm to lead product development, while remaining chief executive at Square, the mobile payments start-up.

Last month, Dorsey told students at Columbia University that Twitter will have to become "more approachable so that people can get into it immediately and it's extremely relevant right away."

RELATED:

Twitter kills the QuickBar

Jack Dorsey wants to take Twitter mainstream

Homeland Security to issue terror alerts on Facebook, Twitter

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: TweetDeck display outside the keynote hall at Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco in September 2009. Credit: Niallkennedy via Flickr

The Winklevoss twins aren't giving up their Facebook fight just yet.

On Monday, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss filed a petition with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a court ruling from last week that said the two men can't get out of their 2008 settlement with Facebook.

DOCUMENT: Read the Winklevoss petition

For about $65 million in cash and stock, the Winklevosses settled a suit against Facebook that claimed co-founder Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for the social networking website while working on a site for them called ConnectU when the three were students at Harvard.

The settlement is now worth more than $160 million because of Facebook's rocketing popularity and value.

The investment firm T. Rowe Price recently bought $190.5 million in Facebook shares. Facebook, now the Internet's most visited website, is valued at about $50 billion.

A three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals ruled against the twins last week and now the two are looking to an 11-judge panel to consider their appeal.

The Winklevosses have argued in court documents that after the settlement was reached, they found out that their stock was worth less than were led to believe in the 2008 agreement.

The appeal was filed by the Winklevosses' lawyers at the law firm Howard Rice. Jerome B. Falk Jr., one of the twins' lawyers, said in a statement that the appeal is not for the courts to decide whether the substantial settlement is worth being kept or not, but rather whether the settlement was reached legally.

"Settlements should be based on honest dealing," Falk said. "Courts have wisely refused to enforce a settlement obtained by fraudulent means. The panel's decision shut the courthouse door to a solid claim that Facebook obtained this settlement by committing securities fraud. Our petition asks the full 9th Circuit to reopen that door."

Officials at Facebook were not available for comment on the Winklevosses' latest appeal.

[Updated 10:32 a.m., April 19, 2011: Andrew Noyes, a Facebook spokesman, declined to comment specifically on the Winklevoss Twins' latest petition, but did say in a statment: "We appreciate the Ninth Circuit's careful consideration of this case and are pleased the court ruled in Facebook's favor."]

RELATED:

T. Rowe Price invests $190.5 million in Facebook

Court orders Winklevoss twins to abide by Facebook settlement

Plaintiff says he had a 2003 partnership with Facebook's Zuckerberg

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Cameron (left) and Tyler Winklevoss at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston on Oct. 23, 2010. Credit: Adam Hunger/File/Reuters

Wal-Mart Stores has agreed to buy social-media company Kosmix for an undisclosed sum of money in a move to better position itself with online and mobile consumers.

"We are expanding our capabilities in today's rapidly growing social commerce environment," Eduardo Castro-Wright, Wal-Mart's vice chairman, said in a statement. "Social networking and mobile applications are increasingly becoming a part of our customers' day-to-day lives globally, influencing how they think about shopping, both online and in retail stores."

Buying Kosmix should speed up Wal-Mart's development in both social and mobile retail plans, Castro-Wright said.

Kosmix, based in Mountain View, Calif., builds Web-based applications that filter social media content in real time by interest, using three different websites: Kosmix.com, Tweetbeat and RightHealth. The company was founded by Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman, who sold their first start-up, Junglee, to Amazon in 1998.

Once the Wal-Mart purchase is complete, Kosmix won't be leaving Silicon Valley. Instead, Wal-Mart said it plans to integrate the company and its employees into its new tech offshoot called @WalmartLabs to focus on building out its platform technologies for social and mobile commerce.

Wal-Mart is the world's largest retailer, with brick-and-mortar stores in 15 countries and e-commerce websites operating in nine countries. But Amazon.com is currently the leading retail website online -- something Wal-Mart would like to change.

Rajaraman, in the statement, said he thinks Kosmix will fit well into Wal-Mart plans.

"Our work has focused on developing a social genome platform that captures the connections between people, places, topics, products and events as expressed through social media -- be it a feed, a tweet or a post," he said. "We are thrilled to join one of the world's largest companies and combine our work with Wal-Mart's vast online and offline retail businesses."

RELATED:

Amazon patents system to stop bad gifts

Sprint to launch wave-and-pay service in 2011, before AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon

Epsilon hacking exposes customers of Best Buy, Capital One, Citi, Chase and others

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Twitter.com/nateog

Image: A screen shot of TweetBeat.com, one of Kosmix's social-media-sorting websites. Credit: Kosmix

Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker, who worked together in 1990s during the early days of the music-sharing application Napster, have teamed up again and are building a new video chat project called Yo.

A source close to Fanning and Parker told The Times that Parker has been devoting a lot of time to Yo. Parker was previously Facebook's president and was recently played by Justin Timberlake in "The Social Network," a movie about the start of the world's most popular social media site.

Fanning is also involved with Path, former Facebook executive Dave Morin's photo-centric social networking start-up. 

Parker, who is a managing partner at the Founders Fund venture capital firm, also works with Joe Green's Causes, a Facebook app that connects users with various causes and organizations so they can donate time or money.

The website TechCrunch reported Friday that its co-editor and founder, Michael Arrington, is one of Yo's investors.

RELATED:

Dave Morin rejects Google's $100-million offer for Path

Venture capitalists bet on photo-sharing social network Path

Former Facebook exec Dave Morin wants you to show your emotions on Path

-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles and Jessica Guynn

twitter.com/nateog

Photo: Napster founder Shawn Fanning, 20, attends a press conference in San Francisco on Feb. 12, 2001, a short time after a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which said that Napster, the on-line music down-loading service, must prevent subscribers from sharing copywritten material. Credit: Lou Dematteis/Reuters