Twitter is in the process of making its algorithmic timeline opt-out, rather than opt-in, as the social network continues its push to appeal to new users. The move comes a little over a month after Twitter first announced the new feature, which surfaces the most interesting and p … | Continue reading
Nintendo has launched its first mobile app, Miitomo, on Android and iOS in Japan today. The company says it’s designed to be a social go-between that can help you learn more about your friends. Kotaku reports that you don’t need a Nintendo Account to sign in, but having one allow … | Continue reading
Twitter today launched its app on Windows 10 Mobile. The company has effectively updated its universal Windows app to support not just desktops and tablets, but phones as well. You can download the new app now from the Windows Store. A handful of devices have already shipped with … | Continue reading
Everalbum now lets you import photos and videos from more sources to create well-rounded shared albums. The company announced today that it has added support for Microsoft OneDrive, Apple’s iMessage, Amazon Cloud Drive, and Flickr. It has also implemented a feature that lets you … | Continue reading
The average Instagram user misses 70 percent of what’s in their feed, including great photos with tons of Likes and posts by their best friends. So today Instagram announced it will start rearranging the order of posts in its feed. Rather than strictly reverse chronological, Inst … | Continue reading
Mirroring the moves of parent company Facebook, Instagram warned users and businesses today that their photo feeds “will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.” Up until now, Instagram organized its feeds in reverse-chronological order. That … | Continue reading
Startup Peerio today announced the availability of its encrypted messaging app on both iOS and Android. They’re a long time coming; Peerio first launched in January 2015, but it’s only been available on desktop, and the alpha and beta testing for the mobile apps — which support c … | Continue reading
We’re excited to announce the launch of our first artificial intelligence-powered news bot on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram. We teamed up with Chatfuel to build the bot, and after a month of development we’re thrilled to show it off to the world. If you are already on … | Continue reading
EXCLUSIVE: Instagram had an impressive 2015, full of new developments and new revenue streams. It also courted a little controversy. Today, the results of a new study from Quintly reveal Instagram’s current state, how businesses are using it, and what’s happening to both follower … | Continue reading
Video news startup NowThis is partnering with FWD.us, the immigration lobbying group backed by Mark Zuckerberg and other tech executives, to tackle one of the biggest issues in this year’s election cycle. Last night at South by Southwest, the two organizations announced a partner … | Continue reading
Facebook cofounder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg today has some positive things to say about Google. The remarks come a few hours after Google’s AlphaGo artificial intelligence (AI) program beat Lee Sedol, a highly decorated player of the board game Go, in the third consecu … | Continue reading
The New York Times is expanding its native ad studio with the acquisition of HelloSociety, a digital marketing agency owned by Science, Inc. Los Angeles-based Science both invest in startups and builds its own companies. It launched HelloSociety (which it fully owned) back in 201 … | Continue reading
The saying “Kodak Moment” is a holdover from another era where camera owners had to be thoughtful about which snapshots deserved to be taken, due to the limitations involved with running out of film. Today, the phrase has lost its meaning as mobile users take photos of everything … | Continue reading
Do you sometimes get the feeling that you’re having a looooooong text conversation to accomplish some fairly simple planning? I’ve certainly had tedious back-and-forths where I’m trying to figure out when to meet with someone, and then where, and so on. That’s the problem that a … | Continue reading
Mobile messaging giant Line has announced that it now caters for conference calls with the latest update to its mobile and desktop app. Available on Android, iOS, and Windows desktop (Mac will be added soon), the new group-call feature supports up to 200 people, and is aimed at a … | Continue reading
During Microsoft’s Surface event back in October 2015, the company also announced that Facebook is building universal Windows 10 apps for Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. Today, screenshots and a video of the third app have leaked courtesy of WindowsBlogItalia. One of … | Continue reading
Oculus today announced a slew of new features for the Samsung Gear VR. The Facebook-owned company is unsurprisingly focusing on social, and in this case that means video and games. In November, Samsung released the Gear VR in collaboration with Facebook’s Oculus VR. Upon unveilin … | Continue reading
A few months ago, Google pivoted Google+ away from being a basic social network and put a focus on content curation instead. To reward the most interesting and active users on its service, Google today launched the Google+ Create program. Google says that since it launched the re … | Continue reading
Twitter wants to make it easier for you to explore links featured in tweets displayed in any of its Moments. The company has added AMP support which allows you to go right to articles, blog posts, videos, etc. that a featured tweet is referencing. By doing so, you won’t have to w … | Continue reading
Twitter is shifting toward mobile services, and now it’s teaming up with one of the most popular game-development engines to expedite that transition. The social-networking company announced today that it is integrating Fabric, its suite of development tools, into the Unity softw … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: Facebook has acquired Masquerade, a selfie app that lets you record silly video animations of yourself and share them across social media. Available for Android and iOS, Masquerade is the latest selfie filter app to be snapped up by a bigger social network — back in Sep … | Continue reading
NEW YORK (By David Henry, Reuters) – Depositors at some of the largest U.S. banks are finally going to get the chance to do something quick and simple: send money to another person’s account instantaneously by mobile phone. The idea has been in the works for at least five years, … | Continue reading
Spot, a startup that says it can help you find “the best places in the world,” is launching to the public. The company emerged from “startup studio” Expa. It’s also announcing today that it has raised $2 million in seed funding from Expa, SV Angel, Ram Shriram, Tim Ferriss, Fenwi … | Continue reading
Flickr has made a change to its $5.99 monthly Pro membership plan that will affect those using the photo-sharing social network for free. Starting today, its desktop Auto-Uploadr tool will be exclusive to paying customers. But all is not lost, as the company is offering a 30 perc … | Continue reading
Don’t just drunkenly wander around SXSW. Meet amazing people and catch an unforgettable concert at TechCrunch’s SXSW party. Between 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Saturday March 12, join us at Deloitte Digital’s Interplay Lab at The Palm Door at 508 E. 6th St. Only 2 blocks from the … | Continue reading
No one else ever sees most of your camera roll. But if you’re brave enough, your close friends might enjoy peeking at every photo, video, and screenshot, not just the best ones. So call it creepy or the next frontier in social media, but that’s what Shorts does. It’s the new iOS … | Continue reading
Tired of watching (relatively) lengthy online videos when there’s only 10, 30 or 60 seconds that you really care about? Well, viral publisher and publishing toolmaker Playbuzz has a solution called Video Snaps. Basically, the Snaps product makes it easy for a publisher or anyone … | Continue reading
While Spotify is acquiring startups expand its messaging and social features, Pandora is also raising its game in the artist-to-fan communications sphere for musicians to better target Pandora’s 80 million users. Today, the music streaming company is launching a service called AM … | Continue reading
Truecaller has announced plans to merge two of its flagship apps into one as part of the Swedish startup’s efforts to create the ultimate phone call management app. If you’re new to Truecaller, the Stockholm-based company has built a solid reputation over the past seven years wit … | Continue reading
Crimson Hexagon is announcing that it has raised $20 million in additional equity funding. Founded in 2007, the Boston-headquartered company helps brands and ad agencies track conversations across social media. It says its customer base has grown by more than 65 percent in the la … | Continue reading
Google never “got” social. For all the resources thrown at it, Google+ just never quite felt human. But luckily Google just hired the guy behind 4Chan — a site that epitomized the good, the bad, and the ugly of humanity on the Internet. Chris Poole (screen name: MOOT) started 4Ch … | Continue reading
Ryan Leslie gave every fan his phone number. It’s (915) 600-6978. But instead of a million unwanted phone calls, it’s making him money and giving him deeper intelligence about his listeners than anyone in the music business.That’s why A16z’s Ben Horowitz, Betaworks, and more inve … | Continue reading
Any modern age marketer worth his salt is under substantial pressure to prove the ROI (return on investment) behind his marketing activities and endeavors. Awash in endless reams of data from dozens of sources, and countless different metrics or signs he/she can measure, it’s no … | Continue reading
GUEST: 2016 will be the year social storytelling shifts from “me” to “we”, where one-off posts focused on me, me, me, will give way to people using social media and technology to not just link their stories but collaborate in sharing the story of our lives and society in real-tim … | Continue reading
Microsoft’s Xbox Live is once again experiencing issues. Users are unable to sign in, and Microsoft is investigating what the problem might be. Ironically, we first spotted the issue without even being on an Xbox. At 9:23 a.m. Pacific, we tried playing Minecraft for Windows. The … | Continue reading
Today Meerkat, the app that generated much of the attention last year around live streaming video from a mobile device, is going public with the news that it’s officially changing course and building a new product toward that end. It was a long time coming. Meerkat definitely had … | Continue reading
A new app from David Barnard, the developer behind the popular Launch Center Pro, promises to be the cure for boredom. Rando, as the app is called, offers a crazy twist on our carefully curated online personas – instead of allowing you to choose a photo or GIF to share with frien … | Continue reading
Welcome to another GamesBeat weekly roundup! This time, we continue our celebration of Pokémon’s 20th anniversary, Nintendo announces some new games, and we get an early look at Quantum Break. Enjoy, and have a great weekend! Pieces of flair and opinion The DeanBeat: I’m surrende … | Continue reading
LONDON (By Tom Bergin and Michael Holden, Reuters) – Facebook said it would stop booking sales to UK clients via Ireland, a practice which reduced its taxes, following the British government’s introduction of a new tax on profits shifted offshore. In future, Facebook will report … | Continue reading
ANALYSIS: Facebook released its new interactive, full-screen mobile ad unit called Canvas last week. It gives advertisers an elegant, rich-media way to engage users directly within Facebook’s page. Agencies are already lapping it up and experimenting with it to showcase their pro … | Continue reading
Facebook Messenger has added support for Spotify, allowing you to share your favorite songs and playlists with friends. It’s the first music-based service integration for the messaging platform. This is rolling out today and Facebook said will be “available broadly soon.” When … | Continue reading
First came the Transportation hub with Uber, and now Facebook Messenger is launching “its very first music integration” with Spotify. Inside the Messenger “More” section in chat threads, all iOS and Android users will now find a Spotify option. Tap it, and they’ll be shuttled int … | Continue reading
Thanks to smartphones and the rise of apps like Snapchat and Periscope, vertical videos have gone from being an annoyance requiring a workaround to a popular and often preferred video file format. That shift has inspired a number of startups to focus on the medium, in an effort t … | Continue reading
LinkedIn today announced that it’s open-sourcing a piece of its software called WhereHows, which allows anyone in a company to learn about and share information on data that company has under management. The software is now available on GitHub under an open-source Apache license. … | Continue reading
Apple has expanded its presence on Twitter, adding an English-language general support channel — called simply @AppleSupport — which it says will be tweeting out tips and tricks, as well as offering to help users with any Apple-related questions they may have. Read More | Continue reading
Life is hard enough for teens, so Shots sidestepped bullies with a selfie sharing app that doesn’t allow commenting. Now the 6.6 million daily active user social network wants to boost kids’ spirits by refocusing around comedy. Today’s iOS and Android update lets users share any … | Continue reading
Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform Instagram is flexing its platform muscle by shutting down deeplinking to other social media services. Previously Instagram users were able to include ‘add me’/’follow me’ links on their profile page, directly linking out to any other profiles … | Continue reading
Zynga’s stock price rose 4 percent to $2.25 a share in the first full day of trading on Wall Street after the company announced that it had appointed ex-Electronic Arts veteran Frank Gibeau as its new chief executive officer. Game industry analysts also said that they believed Ma … | Continue reading