Pokemon Go has been continuing its global rollout fairly slowly, with a launch in Canada just this past Sunday, and even without an official debut in some key markets like Japan, it already dominates. In the course of winning so winningly, Pokemon Go has also achieved – almost as a side-effect – the kind of success some celebrated (but ultimately shuttered) startups have pursued in… Read MoreHow Pokemon Go did what these 3 hype-heavy startups couldn’t
Pokemon Go has been continuing its global rollout fairly slowly, with a launch in Canada just this past Sunday, and even without an official debut in some key markets like Japan, it already dominates. In the course of winning so winningly, Pokemon Go has also achieved – almost as a side-effect – the kind of success some celebrated (but ultimately shuttered) startups have pursued in… Read More
As the internet social turf wars continue to mature, the land grab is becoming much better understood. With a few companies controlling 95 percent of the social data, the internet is more closed and much more controlled than ever before. 
The Turkish military has deployed in Istanbul and Ankara, and the government has apparently blocked social media in response to what is being reported as an attempted coup. 
Just in time for the weekend, Netflix today announced the launch of a new service called Flixtape, which the company describes as a way to make short playlists of your favorite Netflix titles. “It’s like a mixtape, but for Netflix,” the site explains. The new tool lets you create these lists based on a genre or theme of some sort, then share them with friends or family… 
Reading the links your friends share with you in Messenger is getting a little easier, starting today. Facebook says it’s beginning to roll out support for “Instant Articles” – the fast-loading, distraction-free versions of publishers’ sites – in its popular mobile messaging app. The Android version of Messenger will be the first to receive this… 
Pinterest today said it was acquiring the team behind Math Camp, the creators of Highlight, and will be sunsetting its applications Roll and Shorts in the next few weeks. The acquisition shouldn’t seem like a twist — Highlight captured a ton of buzz at SXSW a few years ago, but the reality is Highlight and Math Camp’s later applications never really blew up in such a way… 
One of the more interesting side effects from the explosion of new mobile AR game Pokémon Go is physical movement: a lot of people are finding themselves walking miles and miles (and miles) more than they normally would as they search for PokéStops, load up on PokéBalls, and (of course) track down more Pokémon. Now the game itself — which originally launched in Australia, New… 
Ants are really good at lots of things. Lifting, communicating, ruining picnics. Turns out they’ve got the whole voting thing down to a science, too. When time comes to move nests, the plucky little insects vote by quorum. The democratic process is determined, at least in part, by how often they bump into one another.
Even though TechCrunch readers can get really busy with their jobs, their side hustles and everything else in their lives, you’ll probably still have a few moments of downtime today — maybe when you’re driving home from work. A new startup called SpareMin aims to help you fill that time with phone calls. The app, which is available for both iOS and Android, was created by… 
Google has made another small acquisition to help it continue building out its latest efforts in social apps. The search and Android giant has hired the team behind Kifi, a startup that was building extensions to collect and search links shared in social apps, as well as provide recommendations for further links — such as this tool, Kifi for Twitter. Terms of the deal are not…