-
Pinterest adds former CBS Corp. CFO Fred Reynolds to its board
Pinterest announced today it’s adding former CBS and PepsiCo exec Fred Reynolds to its board of directors. Reynolds’ background includes global financial and strategic planning as well as business analysis, the company notes. He will also serve as Pinterest’s Audit Committee Chair. Prior to joining Pinterest’s board, Reynolds spent 15 years at CBS and… Read More
-
Snapchat adds a 2017 year in review feature for saved memories
Snapchat users who snap and save can take a stroll down memory lane with the app’s new feature, “A Look Back at 2017.” If you’re the type that would rather ruminate than remain committed to Snapchat’s previously purely ephemeral philosophy, you can find your 2017 year in review in the memories tab. Read More
-
Instagram will now add ‘Recommended’ posts to your feed
Instagram’s feed will now show users recommended posts – a change that earlier this month was spotted while in testing, and has since quietly gone live. The feature, described here in the company’s Help documentation, will suggest posts for you based on those that have been liked by other accounts you follow. The new section, “Recommended for You,” is clearly… Read More
-
President Obama warns against getting ‘cocooned’ in bias via social media
Former President Barack Obama sat down with the UK’s Prince Harry for an extended and far-ranging interview with the BBC this week, and their conversation touched on social media, the use thereof, and Obama’s take on what the current state of social media means for human discourse. The full interview covers a lot of ground, but the breakouts regarding social media include an… Read More
-
Facebook’s ‘comment a memory’ meme should replace ‘HBD!’
I find it truly sad the way Facebook has led us to reduce wishing friends a happy birthday to a meaningless, generic chore. It’s not Facebook’s fault. It gives us an open-ended comment box. But our laziness and sense of social obligation unfurl as a pile of “Happy Birthday!” or even “HBD!” wall posts. Read More
-
Library of Congress will no longer archive all public tweets, citing longer character limits
The Library of Congress announced today that it will no longer add every public tweet to its archives, an ambitious project it launched seven years ago. It cited the much larger volume of tweets generated now, as well as Twitter’s decision to double the character limit from 140 to 280. Instead, starting on Jan. 1, the Library will be more selective about what tweets to preserve, a… Read More
-
Julian Assange’s Twitter account goes offline, returns
It’s a Christmas miracle of sorts. Julian Assange’s Twitter account disappeared from the site, returned, and now there’s a bouncing baby Corgi up top. The account appears to have gone offline around 7:00/8:00PM ET on Christmas Eve, a silent night for the Wikileaks founder. Attempts to access the page overnight were met with a “Sorry, that page doesn’t… Read More
-
Check now to see if you liked any Russian troll accounts on Facebook
This fall saw ever-rising estimates of the number of people reached by Russian-backed troll accounts — just shy of 150 million at last count . Now the social network has at last released the tool it promised last month allowing users to see if they liked or followed one of the many pages or pieces of content put online during the sketchy attempt at mass manipulation. Read More
-
CNN is killing its Snapchat news show only four months after its debut
CNN is giving up on its Snapchat news show, which launch only four months ago. “The Update,” as the program was called, had been designed for Snapchat’s vertical video format, but didn’t feature video produced only for Snapchat, nor did it have dedicated anchors. Instead, the news featured on “The Update” was a curated selection of CNN’s reporting from… Read More
-
A look at 42 women in tech who crushed it in 2017
What a challenging, exhilarating year it has been for women everywhere, starting from the women’s March on Washington to former Uber engineer Susan Fowler’s eye-opening and now famous blog post to the #metoo movement that has swept the country, washing dozens of sexual predators out of their powerful roles in the process. All the while, women in tech have been driving their… Read More
-
Instagram now lets you share live videos through direct messages
Instagram has been beefing up its Direct Messaging feature as it toys with the idea of spinning out messaging into its own, separate app. Among its more recent tweaks: the added option for photo and video message replays, and enhancements like support for web links and different photo orientations. Today, it’s rolling out another change — live videos over Direct Messaging. Read More
-
Talent trickles out of Snapchat as Timehop founder leaves
Less than a year after joining Snapchat, social media nostalgia app Timehop’s founder Jonathan Wegener is departing the company. He tells TechCrunch he wants to build his own thing again, but the fact that the No. 1 teen social network isn’t exciting enough to stay at is telling. Read More
-
Facebook and Universal Music Group’s new partnership will allow for user-gen videos with licensed music, new social features
Facebook today announced a first-of-its-kind licensing deal with Universal Music Group that will allow users across its properties – including Facebook, Instagram and Oculus – to use Universal Music in the videos they upload and share. The deal will also allow Facebook to introduce new “music-based products” across platforms, also including Messenger, the companies… Read More
-
Twitter will tell users if content was blocked to comply with local laws or legal demands
Twitter will now display messages to inform users if blocked tweets were withheld to comply with local laws or court orders, which it calls Country Withheld Content (CWC). The public already has information about CWC through notices sent directly to affected accounts, Lumen, a database of legal requests for the removal of online content, and Twitter’s own biannual transparency reports. Read More
-
Twitter adds support for app-based two-factor authentication
Twitter is rolling out an update to its platform security that will allow users to employ third-part authentication apps to receive a two-factor login authentication for their Twitter account. Twitter has offered two-factor for a long while now, but it’s used the less secure SMS-based verification method excessively until now. The third-party app support means you can use tools like… Read More
-
Snap and Twitter now have roughly the same market cap
While we won’t call this a huge watershed moment per se, something nominally interesting in the world of Weird Social Media Things happened this morning: Snap and Twitter are now worth the same based on their market caps. With some small moves on both companies’ shares, both companies are now hovering around $18.7 billion in market cap. There are some extra mechanics that go into… Read More
-
Dating app Hinge rolls out a new feature to reduce ‘ghosting’
Most dating apps match users then leave it up to them to initiate their chat. When Bumble launched, however, it broke new ground by having women make the first move. Today, Hinge is introducing its own take on how conversations on dating apps should be handled with a new feature it’s calling “Your Turn.” The idea with “Your Turn” is that it lets users decide… Read More
-
Instagram launches an alpha testing program on iOS and Android
Are you an early adopter? Okay, but are you a really early adopter who likes to test new, experimental things even if it means you’ll experience crashes and bugs? Then you may be interested to know that Instagram has launched Alpha testing programs on iOS and Android aimed at those who want to test pre-release versions of its popular photo-sharing app. Instagram has been running an… Read More
-
YouTube: More AI can fix AI-generated ‘bubbles of hate’
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter faced another online hate crime grilling today by UK parliamentarians visibly frustrated at their continued failures to apply their own community guidelines and take down reported hate speech. Read More
-
Musical.ly launches $50 million ‘creator fund’ to build out its community
In November, the popular lip-syncing app Musical.ly announced its acquisition by Chinese social media giant Toutiao, owned by Bytedance, in a deal sources said was valued at $800 million to $1 billion. Today, the acquisition has completed, with Musical.ly officially joining Bytedance, the companies said. In addition, Musical.ly announced the launch of a $50 million “Creator Fund”… Read More
Message Us