Publishers are in danger of becoming dumb content in the smart pipes of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The quest for smoother user experience seems to pose actually visiting a publisher’s site as friction. With content consumption being redfined, there’s plenty of eyeballs out there, but it’s getting tougher to win the hearts of readers. Previously, the platforms… Read MoreTwitter, Facebook, And The Case Of The Ghost Publisher
Publishers are in danger of becoming dumb content in the smart pipes of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The quest for smoother user experience seems to pose actually visiting a publisher’s site as friction. With content consumption being redfined, there’s plenty of eyeballs out there, but it’s getting tougher to win the hearts of readers. Previously, the platforms… Read More
Could Facebook’s experimental group, Facebook Creative Labs, finally have a hit on its hand with its private, photo-sharing app Facebook Moments? The early data looks promising. The app, which lets you get photos from friends and share photos in return, while also organizing them privately on your phone for safe-keeping, seems to have solved one of the long-standing challenges with… 
Co-founder Evan Doll is no longer at Flipboard, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch and has just announced in a blog post. He will be joining Redpoint Ventures as an entrepreneur-in-residence. His role as head of Flipboard’s head of client engineering will be taken over by Troy Brant, who has been handling the job lately. 
Skype is working to make is service more broadly accessible, Microsoft announced today, detailing a new feature that will allow users to invite anyone – even those who don’t have a Skype account – to use the service via the Skype for Web interface. Invitees won’t have to create an account or download an app, but can instead join a chat as a guest simply by clicking a link. 
Twitter is giving advertisers a new way to measure the effectiveness of their campaigns. The company is making this data available through what it’s calling conversion lift reports. Those reports are supposed to measure whether Twitter ads actually lead to an improvement in whatever business metric you’re focused on, whether it’s website clicks/signups, mobile app installs… 
Just about two months ago, the maker of the popular-with-nerds game Ingress, Niantic Labs, was spun out of Google. Last month, the newly formed Niantic, Inc. announced that it had begun working on a project called Pokémon GO. Today? The company is announcing a $20M Series A round of funding with investments from Pokémon Company Group, Google and Nintendo. It could see $10M more if it… 
It was only a matter of time — and frankly not that much time — before a developer stepped in to make it super simple for iPhone 6s/6s Plus users to spread their Live Photos all over the Internets. After all, what’s the point of having clips of your cat/kid doing cute stuff if they’re mostly languishing on your camera roll, rather than helping populate Giphy et al? 
Unlocking your door might not sound exciting, but once you’ve seen an August Smart Lock in action, you’ll change your mind. The company behind it, August, is doubling down on the connected home with a handful of new products and a partnership program that opens the door to new uses of their devices. 
Yet more changes afoot for Twitter as the social network continues its big turnaround effort. A day after the social network announced a large round of layoffs under its new CEO Jack Dorsey, it has now appointed a new executive chairman: Omid Kordestani, poaching him from Google, where was the company’s chief business officer. Kordestani is a long time Googler who had been the…