What you need to know – 05/13/11

Investment bank Caris & Co. estimates that, in 2011, Kindle revenues will reach $5.42 billion, and by 2012, they’ll reach nearly $8 billion.

Out of all check-in users, just 12.7 million used the services on a smartphone, representing 17.6 percent of the smartphone population.

Facebook tried to smear Google by calling out its privacy practices with a service called Social Circle, but it did so by handing the dirty work external PR firm Burston-Marsteller. Read how the story unfolded here.

Morgan Missen, formerly a Twitter recruiter, is now serving as Head of Talent at Foursquare West, the company’s rapidly expanding San Francisco division.

VatorNews’ Faith Merino chats with Lightbank’s newest addition, Paul Lee, who joins the investment firm as its first outside partner.

In a study of 3,001 U.S. adults, the Pew Research Center found that a full 80% of Internet users have looked online for health information pertaining to diseases, treatments, medications, and more.

Social media marketing company Buddy Media acquired Spinback, creator of a social plugin and analytics dashboard for online retailers.

The Taliban now has its on Twitter account, @alemarahweb, which tweets about violent jihad operations against the “US-NATO invaders.”

Also: Twitter has updated its mobile website and its Mac desktop client.

Also also: NTT DOCOMO has reached an agreement with Twitter, under which DOCOMO will leverage its mobile expertise, with support from Twitter, to develop innovative applications and services incorporating Twitter features for DOCOMO feature phones and smartphones.

Online games publisher We R Interactive raised $5 million in second round funding from private investors.