Crowdsourced driving app Waze just got a big boost of confidence on both the financing and user fronts. The company has raised $30 million in growth funding and its user base has now hit the seven-million mark. Waze, a free app, provides turn-by-turn directions and enables users to crowd-source traffic information. The company had raised $25 million in funding last December. READ MORE
Google’s earnings reports showed that the company’s mobile division continues to contribute to revenue. Mobile search may make Google as much as $2.5 billion this year, but analysts have questioned where the portable version of the search engine will fall in the company’s revenue stream long-term. READ MORE
If you’re among the thousands of users who’ve run into trouble trying to download and install iOS 5 on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch–or if you’ve installed it without a hitch but now your device is malfunctioning–you may be able to set things right by following the procedures outlined on Cult of Mac. READ MORE
If Google Maps seems a bit two-dimensional, consider trying the new MapsGL option. That gives you a transparent view of buildings on the ground, and other features such as shadows appropriate to the time of day, and the ability to “swoop” down to street view. READ MORE
Qrank, a company that develops games that make use of social media, will come off its seed round of funding this week a little stronger for having scored an investment from early Twitter VP Jason Goldman. Goldman was one of five investors involved in the funding round, which raised $350,000. READ MORE
In what seems to have been meant as an internal note, a Google engineer gave an unfiltered opinion of Google+ the other day. Steve Yegge, the Google engineer in question, made public a post on the Google social networking site in which he described the site as “a pathetic afterthought.” READ MORE
If you use an Apple mobile device, you’ll want to make note of this deal. Cloud storage provider Box.net has announced it’s giving 50GB of free online storage to anyone with a free Box Personal account on an iOS device, reports 9to5Mac. READ MORE
Targeting online marketing campaigns geographically is about to get easier: HootSuite has just acquired Geotoko, a company that runs location-based marketing campaigns. Geotoko’s co-founders will come on board: Rasheed Akhtar will join HootSuite as director of Local and Adarsh Pallian will be director of Apps and Integration. Geotoko lets users manage location-based campaigns across a host of social networking platforms, including Facebook, Foursquare, and Gowalla. READ MORE
Facebook may not seem like it was designed for business uses. There’s a good reason for that: It wasn’t. But you don’t have to be limited by its original design. Six add-on apps will help you make Facebook a much more powerful business tool. And they’re all free. RSS Graffiti turns your Facebook page into an RSS stream so you can push content to your fan base and keep your brand top of mind. NutshellMail helps you keep up with what’s going on on your page by sending regular activity summaries to your e-mail. It’s especially handy given Facebook’s changing notification schemes, and it works for Twitter, too. Get the full list at SmartBlog on Social Media.
18 months after the first Apple tablet was launched, Facebook has released its mobile application for the tablet. The app is similar to the social network’s existing iPhone app, and enables users to use the device’s touch screen display to flip through photos and post messages. READ MORE
