TC Cribs: Sliding Throu...

We’re back with a new episode of TC Cribs , and it’s featuring one of the most tricked-out offices yet: YouTube. Yes, the world’s biggest archive of cute cat videos (among other things) invited us to take a stroll through their halls, which are brimming with nifty artifacts, viral video memorabilia, and gnomes. A lot of gnomes. There’s also a big surprise that comes around two-thirds through the episode that had me hurting for a couple of days. Don’t miss it! Here are some of our past episodes (oh, and don’t worry — we’ll feature some much smaller companies very soon!): Inside The Psychobox: A Tour Of Dropbox’s Bumping Office Take A Doc On The Wild Side At Scribd (With Bonus Go Karts!) Dogs, Unicorns, And Mysterious Gongs: Inside Yelp’s 5-Star Pad TC Cribs: IGN HQ Gets Its Game On With Lawn Gnomes, Plumbers, And Creepy Dinosaurs TC Cribs: From Frenchmen To Randy Raccoons, An Inside Look At Seesmic TC Cribs: Inside The Snuggified Home Of Posterous TC Cribs: Meebo’s Headbanging, Rocket-Flinging Office (With Magical Passageways) TC Cribs: Unlock The Secrets Of GroupMe HQ (Beware The Time-Out Chair) TC Cribs: Inside The Escheresque Home Of Justin.tv and Socialcam TC Cribs: Inside Tumblr’s Reblog-Worthy Digs TC Cribs: Inside Etsy’s Handcrafted Wonderland TC Cribs: A Magical Journey Through Box.net (In The Cloud) Crunchbase YOUTUBE Company: YouTube Website: youtube.com Launch Date: November 9, 2005 Funding: $11.5M YouTube was founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. YouTube is the leader in online video, sharing original videos worldwide through a Web experience. YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and email. Everyone can watch videos on YouTube. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, find videos about their hobbies and interests, and discover the quirky... Learn more

AT&T Wants Their C...

By now, we all know that the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit to block the AT&T/T-Mobile merger. Sprint and C Spire Wireless (formerly known as the Cellular South) have filed suits to that same effect, but AT&T has asked the court to reject those companies’ complaints. The reason? AT&T believes that Sprint and C Spire are fighting for their own sakes, and not for the public’s best interests. Because Sprint is a major competitor and not a consumer, AT&T doesn’t believe Sprint has a legal leg to stand on. Ouch. Sprint is preparing to respond to AT&T’s claim next week, but only after saying the argument had no merit. The folks in Overland Park have one thing to smile about though: 7 state Attorneys General have already come out against the merger, and they are now joined by the Attorney General of Puerto Rico . Meanwhile, AT&T alleged that C Spire Wireless fears “competition, not lack of competition.” In their filing to have the C Spire suit dismissed, AT&T’s lawyers included a memo from C Spire CEO Hu Meena asking AT&T for a network sharing agreement in certain parts of the southeastern United States. C Spire claims that AT&T mischaracterized their proposal, and fired back by alleging that AT&T asked for then-Cellular South’s support for the deal when it was announced. With billions of dollars on the line, the situation just seems to be getting dirtier and dirtier. U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle has scheduled the merger trial for February 12 of next year, but who knows what crazy developments may arise between now and then.

Hitwise: Singaporeans S...

Hitwise just published a new study examining how much time people living in different countries spend on Facebook. Singaporeans actually spend the longest on the social network, with an average of 38 minutes and 46 seconds per session, while people living in Brazil spend less than half that with an average of 18 minutes and 19 seconds per Facebook session for August 2011. Singapore is followed by New Zealand (30 mins 31 sec); Australia (26 mins 27 sec); the UK (25 mins 33 sec); and the US (20 mins 46 sec). Brazil actually has the highest percentage of Internet visits going to social sites (18.9% of Internet usage) with 43% of all social networking visits in Brazil going to Google-owned Orkut. In contrast, the UK has the lowest market share of visits going to social networks with 12.2% of visits. Facebook was the most visited Social Networking site in the US in August 2011 receiving 91% of visits among the sites followed by Twitter with 1.92% of visits. Tagged.com ranked 3rd for the first time, passing MySpace.com with 1.04% of US Internet visits. The fastest growing country in terms of visits is India, which saw an an increase in market share of 88% in August 2011 compared to August 2010. The US also experienced a market share increase from Facebook of 5% year on year. It’s no surprise that Facebook is seeing major growth internationally and in the U.S. Marc Zuckerberg just revealed that as many as 500 million members have used used Facebook in a given day, which is a milestone for the network. And the social network saw a record number of visitors in July.

USA Today and Facebook ...

There's nothing official about USA Today's ad ranking, but it has come to carry weight in the ad world. Now it's social too.

Facebookers Are Not In ...

Aloha! You know where I wish I were right now? That’s right, Maui! You know who else is in Maui? Some of the Google Social team. Note: I am really jealous of anyone who is a Googler in Maui right now, because it sure beats being someone who has to write about being a Googler in Maui right now. According to unpaid blogger Michael Arrington , I’m not alone in my jealousy, as some other people who worked on Google+ apparently weren’t included in the Google Maui trip, and “wish they were.” Makes sense. Meanwhile, Facebook PR just invited me to a meeting next Wednesday to discuss the recently introduced Facebook Timeline features. According to our sources, Facebook also plans on announcing its iPad app and unveil Project Spartan early next week. And, as far as I can tell from trolling Instagram, there are not 450+ Facebookers hanging out by the beach right now (I’ve emailed Facebook PR for confirmation of this.) Facebookers? “We never really had a formal term, I think that’s a reasonable portmanteau,” said a person familiar with the matter. “I think “Yahoo!” made it uncool.” Click through Googler Chris Messina ‘s Hawaii pics, below. “Circles” image above: Eider Oliveira  via Liz Gannes Crunchbase GOOGLE FACEBOOK Company: Google Website: google.com Launch Date: July 9, 1998 IPO: NASDAQ:GOOG Google provides search and advertising services, which together aim to organize and monetize the world’s information. In addition to its dominant search engine, it offers a plethora of online tools and platforms including: Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Most of its Web-based products are free, funded by Google’s highly integrated online advertising platforms AdWords and AdSense. Google promotes the idea that advertising should be highly targeted and relevant to users thus providing them with a rich source of information.... Learn more Company: Facebook Website: facebook.com Launch Date: January 2, 2004 Funding: $2.34B Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 500 million users. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004, initially as an exclusive network for Harvard students. It was a huge hit: in 2 weeks, half of the schools in the Boston area began demanding a Facebook network. Zuckerberg immediately recruited his friends Dustin Moskowitz and Chris Hughes to help build Facebook, and within four months, Facebook added 30 more college networks. The original idea for the term... Learn more