Re/Code has become the latest publisher to drop comments section as social media increasingly takes their place. “We thought about this decision long and hard, since we do value reader opinion,” Re/Code founders Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher explain in a co-authored post. “But we concluded that, as social media has continued its robust growth, the bulk of discussion of our stories is increasingly taking place there, making on-site comments less and less used and less and less useful.” 

Follows the launch of FB Newswire in April, Facebook just debuted FB Techwire -- a dedicated page for surfacing breaking tech news, debates and other industry events. “The organization said Techwire is being powered by Storyful and will feature content that can be embedded into news stories by journalists,” The Next Web notes. “The move is clearly an attempt to draw attention away from Twitter, which has become known as a valuable resource for journalists in breaking news stories.” That said, the content will also be distributed on Twitter via a dedicated account. 

The New York Observer has hired Jimmy Soni as a social media consultant -- a move Capital New York finds most interesting because of his murky professional history. “Soni’s departure several months ago from The Huffington Post, after having risen quickly through the ranks there … was clouded in controversy,” it reports. “The 29-year-old former McKinsey consultant garnered complaints about his management style and ultimately was the subject of a sexual harassment investigation by parent company AOL.” 

The UK’s Press Association named appointed Darren Waters, editor-in-chief of Microsoft UK, to the new position of social media editor. “It is the second time in less than a month that PA has turned to the Silicon Valley company to fill a senior role,” The Guardian reports. Last month, PA named Pete Clifton, the head of MSN UK, as its new editor-in-chief. “PA said that Waters has been given the task of putting ‘social media at the heart of the newsroom,’” reports The Guardian. 

Facebook has quietly relaunched its Places Directory, which, as Search Engine Land reports, “is really an emerging local search site.” Users can now use the new directory find a “Place” by location, or another place name. Still a work in progress, however, “the search box doesn’t respond to all queries and even common local queries,” SEL notes. “For example, ‘best sushi London’ doesn’t deliver any results.” 

GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram isn’t too excited about a new partnership that gives BuzzFeed access to Facebook’s “sentiment analysis” data in order to track shifting political opinions. Facebook’s data can be “distorted by a wide range of other factors, including the social ties between users,” Ingram writes. Yet “The biggest potential flaw in the BuzzFeed partnership is that the universe of behavior and sentiment that Facebook users are exposed to through the site is determined by Facebook’s algorithm -- in other words, the sentiment that BuzzFeed is trying to track is being influenced by the site itself, in thousands of tiny …

As Facebook Messenger blows past 500 million downloads, Wired zeros in on David Marcus -- PayPal’s ex-CEO and the guy Mark Zuckerberg tasked with running his messaging business. It’s an “enormous job,” according to Wired. “It’s no exaggeration to say that Facebook’s future depends on the success of its mobile messaging application.” Moreover, “The company that controls the messaging platform will control the future of the way we interact with people and, quite possibly, with businesses.”  

In light of “Alex From Target” taking over Twitter, Buzzfeed explores "parody accounts” -- the Twitter Generation’s version of celebrity impersonations -- and a small group of tweeters turning the pastime into big influence, and big money. “Randomly flexing their power to launch random cute boys into superstardom is only the tip of the iceberg for Twitter’s unofficial parody account network,” Buzzfeed suggests. “The guys running these accounts are also making impressive amounts of money.”

Twitter is reported eying office space Hong Kong. Hoping to set up shop by early next year, the purpose of the outpost will be “to serve greater China and tap advertising revenues from Chinese companies that are quickly expanding,” The Wall Street Journal reports. Shailesh Rao, Twitter’s vice president for Asia Pacific, the Americas and emerging markets, tell WSJ that the office will mainly house sales staff. 

Contrary to initial reports, the near-instant Internet fame of “Alex from Target” doesn’t appear to have happened organically. But, exactly who or what helped the fetching young Target employee become the obsession of fangirls everywhere isn’t quite clear. “While a company called Breakr has stepped forward to take the credit for the stunt, that claim is generating more questions than answers,” Marketing Land reports. Alex himself, or at least someone using the Twitter handle #AlexFromTarget, says he has no connection with Breakr.