With it now certain that China’s popular Weibo (microblogging) services – prime among them being Sina’s (NASDAQ:SINA) and Tencent’s (HKG:0700) – will have to implement real-name ID checks in the coming months, it appears that the system will not come cheap.

Twitter’s slick new redesign has brought it – visually and practically – closer to China’s most dynamic microblogging platform, Sina’s (NASDAQ:SINA) Weibo. It shows, perhaps, that Sina’s rapid rate of change on its most popular service is now actually leading the way for Twitter. How the tables have turned!

The government has climbed down on plans to ban suspected rioters from using social networking websites in times of civil unrest.

The UK’s Home Secretary will meet media and social media companies regarding blocking access during emergency situations, in the wake of England’s mass looting this week.

Last month’s rumour that Sina (NSDQ: SINA) Weibo, a Chinese equivalent to Twitter, will launch internationally is gaining credence. To start, it is driving up its service in Japan by striking a partnership with data company Find Japan that, from today, will verify the Weibo accounts of celebrities, businesses and…

Sina (NSDQ: SINA) Weibo, the microblogging service operated by China’s Sina portal company, is planning to launch in English in the U.S. in two to three months, bringing it in to competition with Twitter, according to “informed sources”, says the Chinese technology news site TechWeb, in a story with no…

After refusing to confirm the deal rumoured over recent weeks, Twitter and TweetDeck have now announced the latter’s acquisition by the former.

UberMedia, which has accumulated a portfolio of Twitter clients in recent months and is in the process of acquiring TweetDeck, has raised $17.5 million in a new round of funding led by Accel Partners. Existing backers Index Ventures and Steve Case’s Revolution Ventures also participated in the funding.

To stave of growing competition in social sound-sharing, AudioBoo is now offering third parties an application programming interface they can use to add audio upload functionality in to their own mobile apps.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Twitter have launched a service to allow people in Egypt to send Twitter messages by leaving a voicemail on a specific number after the last internet service provider in the country saw its access cut off late on Monday.

UberMedia, which is behind Twitter clients like Echofon and Twidroyd, has purchased Digg-like news site Mixx. On Mixx, users post interesting stories, photos, or videos and vote and comment on those that others submit; it also lets publishers set up “channels” that aggregate social chatter related to a specific topic…

I spent a little time on a trip to Beverly Hills interviewing a stand-up comic, a human Magic 8 Ball and a guy with one of the hottest—and hardest—jobs around. All in one person. That would be Dick Costolo, COO of Twitter, who sat down with me after his keynote…

Less than a year after taking a $2 million investment, desktop and mobile Twitter app Tweetdeck has gone back to its investors for a $3 million second round. Betaworks leads this round, just as it did last time. Ron Conway, Danny Rimer, The Accelerator Group, Roger Ehrenberg and Howard Lindzon…

Twitter’s purchase of Twitter iPhone client Tweetie last week, along with its launch of a Blackberry app, have raised concerns among developers who believe the company could soon crowd out their own creations. CEO Evan Williams’ response at Twitter’s Chirp conference: “I know this is a controversial decision because there…

Twitter has always been mum on some key stats about its service—like how many people have actually signed up to use it. But at its Chirp conference Wednesday, co-founder Biz Stone finally made public some numbers. He says the site now has 105,779,710 registered users—and is adding 300,000 new users…

Nearly two months after Google’s rocky introduction of ‘Buzz,’ the sharing service remains under fire from privacy advocates; eleven congressmen have written a letter to the chairman of the FTC urging the agency to investigate complaints about the service—and, perhaps more ominously for Google (NSDQ: GOOG), also look into the…

After being hounded for months about how it plans to make money, Twitter (finally) is set to provide an answer, likely at the company’s Chirp conference in mid-April. What’ll it be? The consensus is that an ad platform of some sort will be announced. But by our count, over the…

About that Twitter ad platform that was supposed to launch at South by Southwest but never materialized there ... Well, co-founder Biz Stone tells CNBC that “later this month (we’ll be) revealing exactly how we plan to make a sustainable source of income so we can build a business.” He…

Twitter client HootSuite, which recently raised $1.9 million in funding, has now made an acquisition, buying up Android app developer Swift App. HootSuite says that Swift App was behind the development of HootSuite’s own Android app, which was released last week. The company says the acquisition “means quicker development for…