The most significant Twitter chatter over the past 24-hours has been Twitter itself, ableit in connection with Apple. In a series of conflicting reports late Friday, major newspapers The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal broke a series of stories about Apple's talks to take a strategic investment in the micro-blogging platform. The Times reported that Apple has been in recent talks about making an investment in Twitter that would give it a valuation of about $10 billion. The Journal reported that the talks were old news and that there hasn't been any recent action between the two …

Facebook hasn't delivered on its long-promised role as a hub for driving e-commerce. People seem to be more focused on hanging out than shopping. But there have been some exceptions, like Fab.com, which credit Facebook for helping to build its business. Social media advertising firm Nanigans, which works with Fab.com and other companies marketing on Facebook, released findings today from a study looking at e-commerce-related advertising on Facebook. The results suggest women are better targets for e-commerce ads than men. Below are some of the highlights from this infographic it published: -Men are 12% less likely to click on …

In its first earnings report as a public company, Facebook on Thursday posted a second-quarter loss of $157 million, or 8 cents a share. On an adjusted basis, the company reported a profit of 12 cents a share. Revenue was $1.18 billion, up 32% from a year ago. The quarterly earnings met Wall Street analysts consensus estimate of 12 cents a share, while slightly beating the revenue forecast of $1.15 billion. Among other revenue highlights: -Revenue from advertising was $992 million, representing 84% of total revenue, and a 28% increase from the same quarter last year. -Payments and other …

Ethan Grey has joined MPA (the Magazine Publishers of America) as vice president-digital, an new position at the magazine trade group. He was vice [resident of strategy at Tigerspike.

With its latest app upgrade, Fab.com has made it easier for fashion and design bargain hunters to connect via mobile. The company added one of its most popular features—the Fab Live Feed—to the updated app so people can browse product images and see what Facebook friends and other Fab members are “faving,” sharing, and buying. Fab says half of its 5.5 million users joined as a result of social sharing and that more than 20% of its daily traffic comes from social media. Mobile is also a key traffic driver, with its apps on the iPhone, iPad and Android accounting …

Mobile marketing firm Velti has named Harry Patz as its chief revenue officer, responsible for overseeing revenue strategy and operations in North America. Patz, a 20-year Microsoft veteran most recently served at the company as VP of the communications sector North America for mobile, media video, cloud and enterprise. Also joining Velti is Jesper Helt as SVP of human resources. He most recently was where he was VP of business HR at consulting firm SuccessFactors. Helt has also held prior roles at Hewlett Packard and Novo Nordisk A/S. Velti’s stock Thursday was trading at about $5 a share, down …

Interpublic Group reported Thursday a decline in its second quarter 2012 revenue of 1.4% to $1.72 billion, while net income was down 3% to $105.5 million. IPG's organic revenue growth (ORG), which excludes acquisitions and divestitures and which is seen as a key industry performance metric, lagged behind key holding company competitors in the quarter. IPG said that second quarter organic growth was up just 0.8%, as result of account losses in the U.S. where ORG dropped 3.2%. Outside the U.S. the company's ORG rose 6% in the second quarter. By comparison, Publicis Groupe last week said its second quarter …

Social gaming service Zynga on Wednesday reported lower than expected financial results for the second quarter, “citing short-term challenges” that led to lower bookings. The company posted a loss of 3 cents per share (or profit of 1 cents a share on an adjusted basis) on revenue of $332.5 million. Wall Street analysts had forecast earnings of 5 cents on revenue of $344 million. Among the company’s key metrics, average daily bookings per user fell 10% in the quarter from $0.051 a year ago to $0.046. That means Zynga isn’t making as much off each user as a year …

Publicis' ZenithOptimedia unit has restructured some key operations, naming Dave Penski CEO of Zenith U.S. and Rob Jayson Chief Data Officer of Zenith Optimedia Worldwide.

J.T. Batson, chief strategy officer of MediaOcean, in speaking at OMMA Data & Targeting, used to hear about too much data can make things stuff for marketers and agencies. But perhaps no more. MediaOcean is new media billing office software group of Donovan Data Systems and Media Bank, which racks up a volume of $130 billion media buys, of which $24 billion comes at digital spending. Many years ago many executives he says used to hear from likes of Xerox who warned: "We are in danger of drowning in data." Batson says what is needed is to create new unique …