Sarah Perez
Sarah currently works as a writer for TechCrunch, after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
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Latest from Sarah Perez
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OKCupid’s rating sinks as users rebel over new ‘real name’ policy
OKCupid’s users are angry – very, very angry. Just ahead of the new year, the company made a radical change to its policies, and now requires people to use real names instead of an OKCupid username, as before. The change eliminates one of the biggest differentiators between the dating app and rivals like Tinder and Bumble, which have users log in via Facebook in order to use their… Read More
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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
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Consumers dropped $200 million on apps on Christmas, up 12 percent from last year
Consumers spent $196 million on apps, in-app purchases and subscriptions on Christmas Day 2017 across the App Store and Google Play, according to new data from Sensor Tower. The report, while excluding Android revenue in China, represents a 12.3 percent increase over last year’s spending of approximately $174 million. That speaks to a still-growing market for apps and games as well as… Read More
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PSA: You can’t opt out of the customer surveys Netflix is running in its TV app, but you can skip
While preparing to do a little binge-watching over the holidays, something odd popped up on my TV’s screen upon launching the Netflix app on my Roku: a consumer survey. Well, that’s new, I thought to myself, while quickly navigating to the “Skip” button. Fortunately, skipping the survey was easy and getting back to the app was fast. Still, it was surprising to see… Read More
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Amazon updates Fire TV’s YouTube app to redirect users to a web browser instead
The feud between Amazon and Google continues today with the early removal of YouTube from the Fire TV – a move Google had said wouldn’t take place until January 1, 2018. But as a number of Fire TV owners have now noticed, launching the YouTube app today informs you that you can choose to watch “YouTube and millions of other websites” by using a web browser. You then… Read More
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LG debuts the ThinQ, a Google Assistant-powered smart speaker
LG is adding a new smart speaker powered by Google Assistant to its 2018 lineup, the company announced this morning. The LG ThinQ, as it’s being called, looks to be a more high-end competitor to something like Google’s recently launched Google Home Max. LG’s new speaker is promising offering a “premium” audio experience thanks to Meridian Audio technology and… Read More
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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
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Apple devices again saw the most activations during the holidays
Apple devices accounted for 44 percent of smartphone and tablet activations over the holidays, with nearly a third of those coming from new devices including the iPhone 8, 8 Plus and X, according to new data from Flurry Analytics out this morning. However, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 6 actually took the top two spots in terms of Apple activations, at 15.1 percent and 14.9 percent… Read More
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Amazon’s Alexa app hits the top of the App Store for the first time
Amazon’s claims that the Echo Dot was the retailer’s best-selling product all through this holiday season appear to be backed up by the rise of the Alexa app in the U.S. App Store. The companion app for Alexa-powered devices like the Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show and Echo Spot, grabbed the number one spot for the first time ever on Apple’s App Store on Christmas, and remains… Read More
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Pixel art coloring book apps are the newest App Store craze
Has your kid bugged you to let them download Sandbox Coloring? You’re probably not alone. The latest trend blowing up on the App Store is a new twist on the coloring book apps that have been popular for a couple of years. Now, instead of having users pick and choose their colors as before, this new group of coloring book apps – four of which recently snagged spots in the App… Read More
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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
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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
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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
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Smart speakers to outsell wearables during U.S. holidays, as demand for wearables slows
Smart speakers will likely outsell wearable devices this holiday season. That’s the latest prediction from analysts at eMarketer, which forecasts a slowing growth rate for devices like fitness trackers and smartwatches here in the U.S. The wearable market is continuing to grow, to be clear, but it’s struggling to reach the mainstream. Next year, only 20 percent of the U.S. Read More
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Apple revises its controversial guidelines on template-based apps
Apple today announced it’s amending the App Store guideline that banned apps created using templates and other app generation services. When the company revised its policies earlier this year, the move was meant to reduce the number of low-quality apps and spam. But the decision ended up impacting a much wider market. Read More
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Amazon Music to end support for streaming your uploaded MP3s
In the early days of streaming music services, some aimed to differentiate themselves by offering users the ability to upload their personal collection of MP3’s, which could be streamed alongside the on-demand streams and radio stations offered by the music service itself. Rdio, which later sold to Pandora, offered music uploads for matching purposes, for example. Amazon Music… Read More
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MoviePass tops 1 million subscribers
Last month, the movie subscription service MoviePass, which lets customers go to unlimited movies in theaters for a monthly fee, lowered its pricing to under $7 per month, when billed annually. This followed an earlier price drop announced in August that brought the service down to $9.95 monthly. Today, the company says the introduction of its new pricing model has pushed membership to over… Read More
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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
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Google’s mobile-first search index has rolled out to a handful of sites
Just over a year ago, Google announced a major change to the way its search index will rank sites: it will go mobile-first. As the company explained at the time, Google’s algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a website’s content to rank its pages, to understand structured data, and to show snippets from the site in its search results. This week, Google said… Read More
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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
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