Despite rumors to the contrary, it does not appear as if Facebook mistakenly made public millions of users’ private messages on its Timeline feature. Rather, “Facebook says that the Timeline messages that sparked the rumors are actually old wall posts, and if they contain private information, it has been publicly available the whole time,” The Washington Post reports. Misplaced or not, user privacy concerns are real, and easily agitated by the slightest rumor. The degree to which such concerns impact Facebook is not well understood, but it remains an area where the social is clearly vulnerable.  

Like many a tech titan before it, Twitter is trying to strengthen its ties with the entertainment industry. To that end, the microblogging leader is reportedly interviewing some well-known media players for its board of directors. “One of the top director candidates is well-regarded Hollywood exec Peter Chernin,” AllThingsD reports, citing sources. If he signs on, Chernin would compliment Twitter’s evolution as a “consumption-based media company, where some 40% of its user base read and consume content rather than create it,” AllThingsD explains. 

Amid widespread criticism over Apple’s new mapping service, the company is reportedly trying to poach engineers from chief rival -- and the reigning king of digital maps -- Google. “Apple is going after people with experience working on Google Maps to develop its own product,” TechCrunch reports, citing sources. “Using recruiters, Apple is pursuing a strategy of luring away Google Maps employees who helped develop the search giant’s product on contract, and many of those individuals seem eager to accept, due in part to the opportunity Apple represents to build new products.”

Showing a rare sign of weakness, Apple missed sales expectations for the iPhone 5 on its debut weekend. Bloomberg attributed the miss mainly to “supply constraints.” The company that Steve Jobs built sold more than 5 million iPhone 5s in three days -- surpassing the record set last year by the iPhone 4S. Yet, expectations were far higher. Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, predicted that Apple would sell as many as 10 million iPhone 5s on opening weekend. Responsible for about two-thirds of Apple’s profit, the success of the iPhone remains critical to the company’s success. 

On Tuesday, Yahoo is expected to detail plans to improve its troubled search and advertising strategies -- internally, anyway. According to an internal memo that CEO Marissa Mayer sent out Friday, she plans to host an all-hands meeting. As AllThingsD reports, much of what Mayer will discuss was laid out when Yahoo’s board of directors met last week. “In the memo, titled ‘Board slides, strategy and goals,’ Mayer talked about the meetings,” AllThingsD writes. “There will be two this Tuesday, one in the morning and one later in the day, in order to accommodate Yahoo staffers internationally.” 

Pop quiz: How can YouTube increase the amount of time visitors spend watching videos, and hanging around on the site? That’s easy: quizzes! Yes, as Dutch tech site WebSonic.nl first noticed, YouTube is hinting at a forthcoming feature called, “Video Questions Editor Beta.” According to YouTube, the feature will be a way for “multiple questions to be displayed on top of your video during playback that a viewer can answer.” As TechCrunch deduces: “Video producers can add an interactive element to their content -- imagine adding little quizzes to an educational video or introducing product questions to a video ad.”

Earlier this week, 20th Century Fox entered into a content distribution deal with YouTube and Google Play. What might have seemed like an insignificant tie-up, however, represents nothing less than the studio’s “grudging acceptance of a media environment in which they are no longer the primary distributors of their own work.” That’s according to The Atlantic’s Megan Garber who reminds us it wasn’t that long ago that Rupert Murdoch -- head of 20th Century Fox parent News Corp. -- was denouncing Google as the “piracy leader.” Still, as long as Google plays nice, “This week's Pax Murdochiana suggests an ecosystem …

The EU is running out of patience with Google, and what it suspects are anticompetitive business practices. The search giant is presently in talks with the European Commission to resolve complaints by Microsoft and other rivals. Yet, Joaquin Almunia, Europe’s antitrust chief, doesn’t think Google is cooperating fully. “His warning, made in a speech to Fordham University in New York, ratchets up the pressure on Google by making public the EC’s willingness to move to a more confrontational approach to the negotiations, which have been going on since July,” The Guardian reports. In a worse case scenario, a losing court …

Facebook is reportedly cooling to the "passive sharing" pioneered by apps from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and SocialCam, which automatically share users’ activity on Facebook. “Facebook moving away from passive sharing on Open Graph, [Facebook's Manager of Media Partnerships] Andy Mitchell says,” Liz Heron, director of social media and engagement at The Wall Street Journal, tweeted Thursday. As BuzzFeed reports, Mitchell made the statement in front of a panel of journalists and fellow Facebook employees. In a statement to BuzzFeed, however, Facebook says it isn’t giving up on so-called “frictionless” news apps. 

Mobile developer Scopely has raised $8.5 million in financing to build and promote more of its popular multiplayer games. The seed investment was led by Anthem Venture Partners, along with The Chernin Group, Greycroft Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates. As VatorNews points out, Scopely was founded by AdSense co-creator Eytan Elbaz, Walter Driver and Ankur Bulsara. “If Scopely executes well, it can have a bright future, given the demand for social mobile games,” VN writes. Indeed, the Casual Games Association estimates that worldwide sales for social network games will hit $6.2 billion, this year.