Thinking big, WhatsApp reportedly just leased a 78,000-square-foot yet-to-be-built office in downtown Mountain View, CA. “Facebook Inc.'s $19 billion baby … just signed a major long-term lease,” Silicon Valley Business Journal reports, citing sources. “That's a significant boost from What'sApp's current digs of about 11,000 square feet.”  

Twitter has reportedly given up on acquisition talks with music-streaming service SoundCloud. “The short-messaging service chose to let the deadline for exclusivity on talks pass without coming to an agreement because ‘the numbers didn't add up,’ ” The Wall Street Journal reports, citing a single source. Meanwhile, “Twitter recently began trying to forge a partnership with Beats Music that would promote subscriptions to the music-streaming service,” WSJ reports, citing a source.

Pinterest is reportedly planning to give brands a clearer picture of trends on the popular picture-sharing platform as part of a new and improved API platform. “The API will inform businesses which products are most popular, which types of images work best, which Pins are driving the most sales, and more,” TechCrunch reports. “A select group of marketing technology companies have been invited to test this new ‘Business Insights’ API.” 

Awkward as it may seem, Facebook users can now “ask” other users about their relationship status with a single click. “Users who have opted to leave their relationship status blank will soon be presented with a button through which friends can send a message,” The Telegraph reports. “The social network began introducing 'ask' buttons for other sections, including employer, phone number and hometowns in January, but has only now extended it to relationships.” 

What’s up with Silicon Valley’s best and brightest? First, RadiumOne’s CEO pleads guilty to domestic violence charges. Now, the CEO of Nextdoor, a San Francisco-based social network for neighbors, is facing a felony hit-and-run for allegedly fleeing a crash, which left one woman injured. As SFGate.com reports, the incident took place last August. Since then, the startup has raised $60 million led by John Doerr and Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.  

What compels Twitter users to “favorite” -- or “fav” -- a tweet? It turns out there’s a host of reasons, and some researchers have gone to the trouble of categorizing them all. Among other findings, “Some study participants indicated they’ll only use a fav as a ‘Like’ [i.e., Facebook’s universal sign of approval] if it crosses an intensity threshold,” BuzzFeed reports, citing the study published by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

The hot, new trend on Twitter is for users to unload screeds far exceeding 140 characters onto their poor followers. “Tweetstorms,” so-called, are great at clogging up users’ already congested feeds. But, as Buzzfeed reports, “The fundamental criticism of the tweetstorm goes beyond the simple ‘get a blog’ mentality.” Indeed, “The tweetstorm feels like an abuse of power/influence or, at the very least, a slightly inconsiderate, oblivious way to engage with people who’ve chosen to follow you.”

At the request of TV programmers and other valuable partners, Twitter will no longer require that they sign exclusive contracts for full access to the social network’s data. “Twitter has backed off a move it made a couple of months ago, designed to make it harder for TV networks to use content from Facebook and other rival social networks on their screens,” Re/Code reports. “The reversal comes after Twitter executives heard from annoyed TV programmers.”

For E!, Instagram is the gift that keeps on giving. NBCUniversal’s celebrity news and gossip network is helping itself to famous users’ photos on the popular social network, and using them for a Photo Wall. “As we continue to build on E!’s digital and social offerings, there is no better platform to work with than Instagram to expand on our pop-culture-driven content,” John Najarian, E!’s EVP and GM of digital, said in a statement given to Variety.

It sounds like Facebook has yet to perfect its “related articles” feature, which uses relevancy algorithms to suggest stories that it deems similar to those that users click on in their news feed. In one instance, as The Boston Globe reports, Facebook suggested that a reader check out a report about the president and his wife having “S*X in Oval Office,” after clicking on a story about Michelle Obama’s innocent exchange with the young girl. Yeah.