Fiorina scores well on social media in face-off with Trump

By Angela Moon NEW YORK (Reuters) – Carly Fiorina surged toward the top of social media ranks during CNN's Republican debate, emerging as the second-most tweeted candidate and finishing in the top four in a Thomson Reuters gauge of social media sentiment. Stealing much of the spotlight from persistent social media leader Donald Trump, Fiorina also had one of the most tweeted moments of the Wednesday night debate with her challenge of the GOP front-runner over his reported remark on her looks.

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Facebook, expanding in Asia, opens first office in Thailand

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc opened its first office in Thailand Thursday as the social network company expanded its footprint in Asia, its fastest-growing region. More than 34 million people in Thailand log into Facebook's 1.5-billion user network each month, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote on her Facebook page

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Facebook’s new ad service to charge only after full-scroll

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc said it would launch a service that will let advertisers pay for ads only when they are scrolled through from top to bottom on its news feed. The new service, called “100 percent in-view impressions”, will include text, photo, link and video ads, the company said in a blog post on Thursday. The company said Moat would later extend its services to all other ads on news feed, including the service launched today, and also to ads on Facebook's photo-sharing app, Instagram.

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Muslim woman says she faced discrimination on United-linked flight

(Reuters) – A social media campaign gained strength on Monday for a Muslim chaplain at Northwestern University who said she was denied an unopened can of soda on a United Airlines-affiliated carrier after a flight attendant told her it could be used as a weapon. Referring to the incident last week, Tahera Ahmad said in a Facebook post the flight attendant had discriminated against her and that she was the subject of anti-Islamic hatred by other passengers on the flight from Chicago to Washington. Bob Birge, a spokesman for Republic Airways Holdings, which operated the Shuttle America flight on behalf of United, told cable news channel CNN on Monday that the airline’s beverage policy does not prohibit serving unopened cans to passengers.

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Alibaba ploughs $200 million into Snapchat in latest startup deal: source

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is investing $200 million in photo-messaging app Snapchat, a source familiar with the deal said, striking its latest Silicon Valley deal as the Chinese ecommerce company builds up mobile services. The investment values the company at around $15 billion, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the situation as saying.

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IBM says cloud business enjoying ‘breakthrough year’

By Eric Auchard LONDON (Reuters) – IBM aims to expand the number of data centers it offers clients around the world by 25 percent to meet fast-rising demand for internet-based services, after what a company executive said has been a “breakthrough year” in 2014 for its cloud computing business. IBM has quadrupled the number of cloud data facilities it offers around the world to 49 in the past 18 months, responding in part to laws requiring the local retention of data following revelations over U.S. government Web surveillance as well as increased corporate compliance rules

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