As if having an underwhelming IPO weren’t enough? Now The LA Times has a story that claims that teens today are starting to drop Facebook for other social networks like Twitter, Google+ and Tumblr. Could Facebook be the new Friendster or the new MySpace?

According to the story, while 80% of teens have a Facebook account, it’s the 50-64 year-old users who are helping the company grow its user base. Apparently, teens today consider Facebook a social network for parents. Here is an excerpt from the story:

‘Facebook is just not the big fad anymore,’ said Kim Franklin, a 15-year-old from Gaithersburg, Md., who does not have a Facebook account and prefers social media site Tumblr. ‘It was like everybody was constantly on there, but now not so much.’ Franklin said her 13-year-old sister Nicole hasn’t signed up for a Facebook account either. Meanwhile, Laura Franklin, the girls’ 37-year-old mother, always has Facebook open on her computer while working on her parenting blog, Better in Bulk. That, she said, has led her teen daughters to dub Facebook a ‘mom thing.’ Read more

Just in time for Facebook’s IPO, there is a new Facebook app available to let social networks have their 15 minutes of fame.

A company called Youtoo today has released a new app called “The Be on TV” that lets Facebook users record and upload videos of themselves, which will be aired on network television. The way it works is that users can make videos that respond to questions posed by a Youtoo program. Then the user can share the video on their Facebook page. Users will get a notification once their video has been approved, which will include the date it is scheduled to air.

Here is more from the press release: “Starting this week, the Facebook Be on TV app will broadcast videos from Facebook to air on Youtoo TV, which can be seen in 177 of the top 200 cable markets in the US. The app was designed for major broadcasters around the world and will run on other networks in Fall 2012.”

The question and answer social network Quora shocked the tech world this week, raising $50 million in financing that valued the company at $400 million. The company depends on both mobile and Facebook apps–do you think it is worth it?

According to research from AppData, daily average users for the Facebook application for Quora rose from 160,000 to 190,000 users since April 15th–adding 30,000 users in a month. At the same time, the Quora iPhone app is currently ranked at #98 on the Top Free Apps Social Networking Genre chart.

Here’s more about the app: “Quora for iPhone makes it easy for you to browse the information that is most interesting and most valuable to you. All you have to do is follow topics, questions or people and their boards (collections of information people use to share their interests).  People — real doctors, economists, screenwriters, police officers, and military veterans — bring a wide range of expertise and first-hand experiences to make the content on Quora high quality and enlightening. Discover content in over 60,000 topics on the fly, including thousands of location-based topics.”

SoundCloud, a social networking site where people can share audio recordings from found sounds to music, is testing a new web app in which Internet users can share sound recordings like they would images on Pinterest. The SoundCloud blog claims that the new beta program is part of the company’s mission “to unmute the web.”

The updated platform is designed to work like a web app. New features include more interactive waveforms, the ability to repost and the ability to build sound collections that you can play all within one waveform. SocialTimes has more: “‘We have rewritten every single line of code,’ explained SoundCloud co-founder and CTO Eric Wahlforss. ‘Our platform is very scalable and it supports all of our official apps and third party apps,’ including Garage Band.” Read more

Want to jump start your social media presence? Learn how in Mediabistro’s Social Media Marketing Boot Camp, an online class that will take place this summer.

The eight week course, which starts June 7th, will include instruction from leading social media experts such as Brian Carter, author of The Like Economy; Alex Leo, Director of Web Product at Thomson Reuters Digital; and Gracey Newman, Digital Marketing Manager at VH1, among many others.

Here is more about the event: “You’ll learn how to track traffic, engagement, and conversion to sales with various content strategy and monitoring tools. Over eight weeks, you’ll participate in a dynamic online event to tune in to live weekly video webcasts, participate in ongoing forum discussions, complete strategic assignments, and work with a small group to receive one-on-one feedback on your social media plans.”

If you sign up by Thursday, you’ll save $100.

Ad agency JWT has launched a new app for Nestle’s Kit Kat that plays on the brand’s “Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat,” tag line. The “Social Break” app is designed to be a break from social networking and will automatically post status updates for the user.

The app’s website explains more: “Kit Kat Social Break, a widget that spares you the pressures of hitting the Like, Re-tweet or Share button every time you are tagged in a post. Simply turn on the widget, log into your social media accounts and tune out from the stress of social networking whenever you feel you need a break.”

The website explains the need for social breaks with research. According to JWT Singapore, which surveyed 19 to 26-year-olds in China, Singapore and the U.S.,  more than 50 percent of young adults “find it too time consuming and stressful to keep up with all their social media commitments.”

Via Reuters.

Digital content platform company Copia Interactive has teamed up with online news outlet The Blaze to bring eBooks to news readers. Together, the two companies have created The Blaze books vertical, a social networking feature where news readers can discuss books related to the news in the margins.

The platform, which is powered by Copia, is curated by Blaze news editors. Readers can use the platform to start their own reading clubs and groups. To promote the launch, the site is highlighting a new book by author Buck Sexton. Discussions about his new eBook, Occupy: American Spring - The Making of a Revolution, are featured on the site along with commentary and annotations from Sexton himself.

Ben Lowinger, EVP of Copia Interactive, stated:  ”By merging the thoughts and ideas of The Blaze’s impressive personalities and dedicated readership into the margins of some of the most enlightening and discussion-generating content of our time, Copia will create the type of compelling and differentiating experience The Blaze is known to represent.”

Have yo ever tried to organize your next event while on the way to your current one? It’s not easy to arrange by email, twitter, or Facebook while mobile, and GiddyUp can help with that.

This app is available free for iOS and Android. Simply create an event, invite people from your address book, and then GiddyUp will send them a text message. The app will track RSVPs, share notes between attendees, and it even includes a built-in group chat.

You can also share events on Facebook or Twitter and you can even save them to your calendar. Read more

The new social networking site Pinterest may still be closed to the general public, but that’s not stopping you from using the site as a resource for free eBooks.

The site, which lets users create virtual “pinboards” by pinning images of their favorite things, has a host of pages dedicated to books, including a number of pages dedicated to free eBooks. To help you get started, we’ve put together a list of 10 Pinterest boards for eBook fans. Writers interested in using the social network, should check out GalleyCat’s Pinterest Tips for Writers post.

Here is more about the new social network: “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.” Read more

Author Alex Epstein is using Facebook as a medium to release his latest short story collection For My Next Illusion I Will Use Wings.

The Israeli author published 88 pieces of “micro-fiction” as images in a Facebook album to create what he is calling a Facebook book. He explains the idea in this blog post: “The idea of publishing an entire new collection of very short stories on Facebook was, in part, an experiment to see how literature can become more social…wanted to see if it could be different: how literature could evolve if the reader can see who of his friends likes the same stories, who is sharing the stories he shared with others, how does the book endure with readers’ comments on every page, visible to all.”

Electric Literature has published a sample from Epstein’s collection on their Facebook page, which will be translated from the original Hebrew into English.