San Francisco, US-based marketing automation firm Autopilot is releasing a new Chrome plugin that generates up to 42% reply rate on cold email prospecting and bridge the gap between sales and marketing.

Chinese bloggers asked for the help of US Secretary of State John Kerry to help push for Internet freedom in China in a meeting at the US Embassy in Beijing, Bloomberg reported.

Oregon Angel Fund led the $1.7 million round "Series Seed" round for Marshall Kirkpatrick's social marketing startup Little Bird, bringing the company's total funds raised to date to $2.7 million, TechCrunch reported.

California, US-based mobile messaging app Snapchat was victimized again by a hacking attack that affected several accounts and sent spam photos of a fruit smoothie.

Colorado, US-based big data firm Datalogix is acquiring Connecticut-based shopper intelligence company Spire Marketing for an undisclosed amount to expand its footprint into shopper marketing.

San Francisco, US-based customer service software startup Zendesk is moving closer to an initial public offering (IPO) and has hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to handle the transaction, according to a report.

Facebook is looking to steal the "second screen" crown from Twitter as the two social giant networks scramble to offer the best coverage of the National Football League (NFL) teams' clashes in the Super Bowl XLVIII.

San Francisco, US-based social media giant Twitter decided to buy more than 900 patents from American multinational tech firm IBM to settle patent infringement claims against it, with the two companies forming a patent cross-licensing agreement.

Inq Mobile, the London-based company which is among the first to make a Facebook phone, announced via its website that it has shutdown, but the company has not elaborated on the exact reason.

In its first outside funding round, Medium, the blogging platform that Twitter co-founder Ev Williams established, raised $25 million from Greylock Partners and other investors.