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How Reggie Brown invented Snapchat
Why sexting and a Stanford class led a group of former fraternity brothers to create Snapchat. Read More
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YouTube will remove ads and downgrade discoverability of channels posting offensive videos
After barring Logan Paul earlier today from serving ads on his video channel, YouTube has now announced a more formal and wider set of sanctions it’s prepared to level on any creator that starts to post videos that are harmful to viewers, others in the YouTube community, or advertisers. As it has done with Paul (on two occasions now), the site said it will remove monetization options on… Read More
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Snapchat almost acqui-hired anonymous app Secret
Evan Spiegel secretly tried to hire away the team at Secret, but the price was too high. That’s according to three sources familiar with the deal who spoke to TechCrunch. The information expands and clarifies a report from the new book about Snapchat’s origin story coming out next week called “How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars” by former TechCrunch writer Billy Gallagher. Read More
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Facebook’s plan to build community with hiring and $10M in grants
Facebook will award up to $1 million to five community leaders and $50,000 to 100 more to fund their ideas for how to strengthen people’s online and offline connections. Facebook will also hire double the number of engineers currently working on safety-related causes in its London office. These were a few of the big announcements made at today’s Facebook Communities Summit… Read More
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YouTube suspends ads on Logan Paul’s channels after “recent pattern” of behavior in videos
More problems and controversy for Logan Paul, the YouTube star who caused a strong public backlash when he posted a video of a suicide victim in Japan. Google’s video platform today announced that it would be pulling advertising temporarily from his video channel in response to a “recent pattern of behavior” from him. This is in addition to Paul’s suspensions from… Read More
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Facebook confirms test of a downvote button for flagging comments
How can Facebook promote meaningful interaction between users? By letting them downvote inappropriate comments to hide them. Facebook is now testing a downvote button on a limited set of public Page post comment reels, the company confirms to TechCrunch. But what Facebook does with signals about problematic comments could raise new questions about censorship, and its role as a news editor… Read More
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Get ready for a bunch of new emojis (yes, including a partying face)
The world needs more emojis. Ever since emojis became a cultural phenomenon, tech companies have been working together to add new smileys, animals and objects. And the Unicode consortium just published this year’s list of new emojis. While many glaring omissions have been fixed in recent years, the Unicode consortium has accepted 157 new emojis. But who are these people who get to… Read More
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Snapchat starts selling $10+ captionable AR masks for events
By combining augmented reality with your customizable captions, Snapchat hopes you’ll share more from birthdays and weddings while earning it a little money. Today Snapchat launches Custom Lenses, expanding its 2016-launched on-demand geofilter program so you can make temporary, geofenced AR effects that people can add to their Snaps at a special event. Read More
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Facebook Messenger’s ‘Your Emoji’ status tells friends what’s up
Want to let friends know you’re trying to party, hit the gym, focus on work or grab a drink? That’s the idea behind a powerful new feature Facebook Messenger is testing called Your Emoji. Akin to offline meetup app Down to Lunch, it lets you overlay a chosen emoji on your Messenger profile pic for 24 hours as a way to spur conversation and hang outs, or just let people know… Read More
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‘Instagram for classwork’ Seesaw in 1/2 of US schools
Kids don’t try their hardest unless they think someone’s watching. Overcrowded classrooms and distracted parents can make pouring effort into school work feel pointless. But Seesaw’s app turns their assignments into social media they share with teachers, peers and mom and dad. Now it’s invading schools across the country and just raised a Series A round from LinkedIn… Read More
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Instagram tests resharing of others’ posts to your Story
Instagram purposefully lacks a “Regram” button to promote original sharing, but it’s easing up on that philosophy when it comes to Stories. Instagram now confirms to TechCrunch that it’s testing an option that lets you share public feed posts from other users to your Story. This could let you add commentary and overlaid stickers to a meme, celebrity post or even a… Read More
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Snapchat will not let users broadcast Live
Snapchat is finally getting Live video, but you won’t be able to broadcast. Today Snapchat announced it will pipe snippits of NBC’s Live Olympics coverage directly into its app. But when TechCrunch asked if users would be able to go Live, a Snap spokesperson told us on background that there’s no intention to open up broadcasting to Snapchatters. Read More
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Tumblr also lousy with Russia-backed US election trolls: Report
The meme-laden Tumblr platform is the latest social media and blogging outlet to be unmasked as a distribution channel for Russian agents to rip at America’s societal fault lines and seek to influence citizens’ voting habits, according to a report by BuzzFeed News. Read More
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After years of neglect, Snapchat wins in the developing world
Snapchat doubled its Rest of World revenue this quarter. That’s a surprise, considering CEO Evan Spiegel never seemed to care about anyone but U.S. teens. Snapchat’s Android app was buggy. Its videos loaded too slowly on weak connections. And Spiegel even admitted “Historically we’ve really focused our efforts on markets where [high-end phones and broadband mobile… Read More
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Snap shares skyrocket on first earnings beat with revived user growth
Snapchat is starting to turn things around, boosting its sluggish user growth rate and beating Wall Street’s expectations for the first time with today’s blockbuster Q4 2017 earnings report. It added 8.9 million daily active users, to reach 187 million, with a quarter-over-quarter growth rate of 5.05 percent percent in Q4, compared to 2.9 percent in Q3. Read More
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Patreon Lens is Snapchat for creators’ paid fans only
Exclusive content is how creators get patrons to pay them a monthly subscription fee on Patreon, so the startup is equipping them with a Snapchat-like tool to turn their private lives into “behind-the-scenes” footage. Patreon Lens launches today so creators can share photos and videos that disappear in 24 hours just with those who pay them at least a $1 a month. Read More
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SocialRank’s new product helps marketers understand why tweets go viral
The team at SocialRank has spent the last few years building ways for brands and marketers to get a better sense of who’s following and engaging with them on social media. Until now, they’ve been doing that on an account level — plug in an account and you get a SocialRank report covering things like your most valuable followers. With a new product called SocialRank for… Read More
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Why I decided to install Messenger Kids
I’ve been struggling with whether or not to download Facebook’s new app aimed at children, Messenger Kids, onto my daughter’s iPad. This weekend, I took the plunge. I sat with her as she typed her first message and sent a selfie. I watched as she discovered GIFs. I wasn’t sure I had done the right thing. No one wants to surrender their kids to online social networks… Read More
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Snapchat slips in features like fonts and do not disturb amidst redesign
Snap is waking up to the “Time Well Spent” movement Facebook is already addressing. Snapchat is offering a way to mute specific people without formally blocking them. Meanwhile, the sweeping redesign that’s slowly rolling out comes with ways to jazz up your Snaps with colorful text styles. Read More
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How Facebook stole the news business
Big news outlets stupidly sold their soul to Facebook. Desperate for the referral traffic Facebook dangled, they spent the past few years jumping through its hoops only to be cut out of the equation. Instead of developing an owned audience of homepage visitors and newsletter subscribers, they let Facebook brainwash readers into thinking it was their source of information. Now Facebook is… Read More
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