When the FBI asked for help from the media and the public on Thursday in its manhunt for suspects in the Boston bombing, the Twitterverse immediately got to work – spreading photos, videos and phone numbers to call. But by Friday, all that activity had given way to another concern: Could social-media threaten investigators' ability to capture the main suspect still at large?

The public has never had such an up-close, play-by-play account of a manhunt, with instant updates from people – both professional journalists and citizens – on the scene. Indeed, the story has dominated social media: Up to 8 of the top ten world-wide Twitter trends on Friday have been directly related to the Boston investigation.

Apple is one of many big names in the spotlight next week as earnings season heats up. Ten of the Dow firms and more than a third of the S&P 500 are also set to report.

Apple, which releases its quarterly results after the bell on Tuesday, has seen its shares tumble from an all-time high of $700 last September to under $400. With its stock down over 25 percent since the beginning of the year, the tech giant faces major questions about whether it can keep on innovating and selling more electronics.

Analysts are projecting revenue to grow 8 percent to $42.49 billion, while earnings per share are expected to drop 18 percent, according to Thomson Reuters.

After months of reports and speculation, Twitter finally launched its music discovery app, Twitter Music, on Thursday.

The app allows Twitter users to discover music that their friends are listening to, to see what artists they follow are listening to, and to tweet songs from the app. It will be available Thursday for download from Apple's App store, or as a web service in the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and then it will roll out to Android devices and other countries.

This app is built on the fact that music is a huge topic of discussion on Twitter and music artists are the most-followed Twitter users.

"It uses Twitter activity, including Tweets and engagement (retweets, comments), to detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists," Twitter said in a blog Thursday written by Stephen Philips, the founder of We Are Hunted, the music discovery service Twitter recently purchased.

Advertisers on Twitter can now target tweets based on keywords in them, the social media company announced on Wednesday. They can also target keywords in tweets users have retweeted or replied to.

"This is an important new capability—especially for those advertisers looking for signals of intent—because it lets marketers reach users at the right moment, in the right context," Nipoon Malhotra, Twitter's product manager for revenue, wrote in a blog.

(Read More: Twitter Ad Revenue May Soar to $1 Billion Next Year)

As Twitter works on new tools to make its ads more effective and boost advertisers return on investment, as well as its own bottom line, its latest move makes perfect sense.

Just four days after Facebook's Home "super app" became available for certain Android devices, the company is rolling it out across the world and adding features to its Apple's iOS app on Tuesday.

Facebook isn't yet launching a full version of Home for the iOS app, but the company's CTO and VP of Engineering Mike Schropfer told the All Things D's "Dive Into Mobile" conference that Facebook is in talks with Apple. On Tuesday, an update to the Facebook app for iPhone and iPad included the launch of the Home feature "Chat Heads."

Sony's Playstation 3 isn't just a gaming destination and entertainment hub, it's also a retail powerhouse, with direct access to consumers at 20,000 retailers and with 31 million fans on Facebook and 1.7 million Twitter followers.

PS3 is now in the 7th year of its lifecycle, and with PS4 not in stores until November, the company is doing all it can to leverage the power of social media to keep fans engaged and grow its user base ahead of the launch.

Sony Computer Entertainment America President and CEO Jack Tretton spoke at the Global Retailing Conference 2013. We caught up with him there to talk about how retail is changing and how Playstation is leveraging its massive social network to reach consumers.

"I think we've got more informed retail associates than we've ever had before so they're real advocates for our brand," Tretton said.

PlayStation has spent the past 5-6 years growing its online community.

As news of the blasts in Boston began to break Monday afternoon, people in the area turned to social media to share updates on what was happening and to tell their loved ones they were OK.

(Read More: How to Trade a Nervous Market After Boston Marathon Attack )

Authorities and first responders used Twitter to relay real-time updates. The Boston police department confirmed the explosion in a tweet at 3:39 p.m. ET and continued to send information via tweets throughout the day.

People in the area reported losing cellphone service after the explosions. The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency sent a tweet telling people to try to use text messaging instead.

"If you are trying to reach friends or family and can't get through via phone, try texting instead (less bandwidth)," the agency said.

Twitter is expected to launch its own music application this weekend to coincide with the Coachella music festival hosted in Indio, Calif., according to a recent report.

The company confirmed via its Twitter feed on Thursday that it had acquired the San Francisco-based music service We Are Hunted.

(Read More: Apple's Cook, Music Mogul Iovine Discuss New Music Service )

However, the start-up—which scans the Internet to track the most popular new music around the world—has reportedly been working on an app for Twitter for some time, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Twitter acquired We Are Hunted last year and the company's team has been developing a standalone Twitter Music app that will function primarily as a personal music recommendation application.

The app will serve-up fresh artists and tracks to Twitter users based on some personal information, including who the user follows, on the social platform, according to the report.

The app will also use third-party services such as Apple's iTunes and the music service SoundCloud to enable users to listen to recommended tracks, according to the report.

(Watch Video: Apple iRadio to Launch Soon? )

—By CNBC's Cadie Thompson; Follow her on Twitter @CadieThompson

Does improved protection against hackers need to come at the cost of privacy? That's the big question facing Congress. On Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee held closed door meetings about the controversial cybersecurity bill that is scheduled to hit the House floor next week.

The bill aims to make it easier for companies to share information with the government about cyberthreats, without violating consumer privacy laws. The idea is to exchange information about hackers to build better defense.

"We need to provide American companies the information they need to better protect their networks from these dangerous cyber threats," said one of the bill's co-authors, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

LinkedIn unveiled a new and improved "LinkedIn Recruiter" on Wednesday. The tool is at the core of its recruiting business, called "Talent Solutions," which is LinkedIn's biggest and most profitable business by far.

These changes are designed to make the tool easier and more effective, and to drive more use and higher revenue. In the fourth quarter, talent solutions revenue grew 90 percent and its latest changes explain how the company aims to keep up that growth.