Category Archive

 Comment reels can become cesspools, especially on celebrity social media posts that get replies by the thousands. But now Instagram is letting its new business pages take out the trash with a new Comment Moderation option. It “Blocks comments with words or phrases often reported as offensive from appearing on your posts.” Instagram confirms to me that the feature rolled out… Read More

 The developing world can’t join the age of social video since streaming sucks up too much costly data and is sluggish on slow connections. But Facebook wants to change that with a new video download option it will start testing on July 11th with a small percentage of users in India. While on WiFi, people can sync videos to their device for offline viewing within Facebook’s… Read More

 Facebook is clearly very serious about its mission to connect the world and in the process, it has launched solar-powered drones that use lasers to connect to each other and the ground, and more prosaic efforts like new antennas for covering both urban and rural areas. Today, Facebook is expanding this work with the launch of OpenCellular, a new open source hardware and software project that… Read More

 Memories fundamentally shifts Snapchat to encompass the past rather than only being about the present. Yet by allowing you to modify previously shot content and add it to your story with a white border that signifies it’s a memory, Snapchat lets you share later and stay in the now Capture now, live, then share later. Snapchat tells me it set out to create the most human camera, and… Read More

 Twitter announced today that Bret Taylor is joining its board of directors. Taylor is best-known as one of the founders of social networking startup FriendFeed — and then as the chief technology officer of Facebook, which acquired FriendFeed in 2009. After departing Facebook three years later, he became co-founder and CEO at mobile word processing company Quip. News!: @btaylor is… Read More

 A new SEC filing posted Friday gives more clarity about what led up to Microsoft acquiring LinkedIn for over $26 billion. And they prove that Microsoft wasn’t the only prospective buyer. It shows that the talks between LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella began on February 16 of this year, just 12 days after the earnings debacle where LinkedIn shares plummeted. And… Read More

 Around $6 million in Facebook’s Brazilian bank account has been frozen on court order in another dispute about encrypted data involving local police authorities and Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp, according to the local Globo G1 news service. Read More

 “What do I type?” is the big question making chatbots hard to use. So today Facebook Messenger is giving chatbot developers new “Quick Reply” buttons and persistent menu options to make their bots easier to navigate. Messenger bots can also now send videos, audio, GIFs, and files so they can encompass wider range of use cases. People can now rate bots with one to five… Read More

 Facebook Paper could have given publishers the reach they lost yesterday in the News Feed, but no one wanted the standalone news reading app. Facebook has pulled the Paper app from the app store and will discontinue support for existing downloads of it on July 29th, according to a message show to all user. Despite it’s eye-catching, progressive design, the experience proved unnecessary… Read More

 Google is bringing long awaited multi-stop directions to mobile with its new summer update. Travelers can now hit as many tourist traps as they want on their cross country treks. Just like in the web version, users can swiftly rearrange the order of stops. Android users will get the feature first, followed by iOS in the near future. The summer update caps off an active week for Maps.… Read More