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News Byte

Google Revamps Google+ for iPhone

Lauren Goode in News on May 9 at 1:23 pm PT

Google has launched an updated version of Google+ for iPhone, with larger profile pics, optical cues, a more prominent “+1” atop the news stream and other visual enhancements to create a more eye-friendly app. Google+ app users can also sync photos from their iPhones to a Google+ album, use mobile “Hangouts” to video chat with friends and view a “Nearby” news feed to see status updates from people around the same location.

News Byte

Flint Mobile Raises $3 Million in Capital for Mobile Payments App

Tricia Duryee in Mobile on May 9 at 4:30 am PT

Flint Mobile said it has raised $3 million in a first round of capital, and that it is launching its new mobile payments app, which enables merchants to process payments with a mobile phone. But rather than requiring a merchant to buy a card reader, the app allows the merchant to snap a picture of a credit card. The round, which will be used on product development and hiring, was led by Storm Ventures and True Ventures.

News Byte

Average Facebook Mobile Use Beats Desktop Access

Mike Isaac in Social on May 8 at 8:02 am PT

Facebook users spent an average of nearly 7.5 hours accessing the site from mobile phones in March, according to a recent comScore report, surpassing the average time spent accessing the site via desktop by nearly an hour. The trend is consistent with the shift of users relying more heavily on mobile devices to access the site, as the company itself has noted; more than half-a-billion people accessed Facebook via mobile device in March.

News Byte

In Wake of Instagram Acquisition, Twitpic Launches iPhone App

Mike Isaac in Social on May 7 at 6:46 pm PT

Despite having been founded four years ago, Twitpic only launched its first free iPhone application on Monday, complete with basic photo editing tools and comments section. The app debuts as competition increasingly heats up in the mobile photo-sharing space, intensified by Facebook’s recent $1 billion acquisition of similar photo-sharing service Instagram.