A number of businesses use Twitter to interact with their customers and offer support. But that often means responding to angry tweets directed at their account, then switching users over to private messaging to deal with the issues at hand. Now the company is testing a new feature for brands that puts its “Messaging” button front-and-center, thereby encouraging customers to… Read MoreTwitter’s latest test encourages users to Direct Message brands, not tweet at them
A number of businesses use Twitter to interact with their customers and offer support. But that often means responding to angry tweets directed at their account, then switching users over to private messaging to deal with the issues at hand. Now the company is testing a new feature for brands that puts its “Messaging” button front-and-center, thereby encouraging customers to… Read More
One of the perils of text-based communication is the lack of cues that clearly signal irony being employed — no doubt we’ve all had our own mishaps behind this particular issue. Researchers from Portugal have had enough, though, and built a neural network that tries to determine whether you or your virtual interlocutor is being sarcastic. 
Facebook built its own version of Snapchat Stories, called Quick Updates, but will not release it. Though Instagram Stories launched this week, Facebook isn’t going to follow suit. Quick Updates created a special place to share within the Facebook app but outside of the News Feed. Accessible from a button at the top of the feed, Quick Updates would have let people share 24-hour… 
Disney today is wading into the mobile messaging market with a new chat application called Disney Mix, aimed at kids, tweens and families. While the app will compete to some extent with popular messaging clients like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat and others, the goal with Disney Mix is to provide a safer alternative that’s built with the needs of kids in mind. That means the… 
Jim Prosser, Twitter’s head of corporate, revenue, and policy communications, is leaving the company. He’s headed over to SoFi to run communications and policy, he said on Twitter. It’s noteworthy that three of Twitter’s top communications executives have left in the past month. The highest profile departure in the past few weeks was longtime Apple veteran PR… 
Facebook Pages and websites that frequently withhold, exaggerate or distort information in their link headlines will disappear from News Feed thanks to a new anti-clickbait algorithm that’s now rolling out. Facebook manually classified tens of thousands of headlines with a clickbaitiness score to train the new algorithm. Now it can detect headlines like “When She Looked Under… 
There are signs that a growing number of Brits are feeling overwhelmed by the neverending demands of digital technology, with many web users attempting to reset the balance between their online and offline lives by taking a temporary break from connected devices. 
Twitter today is debuting a new advertising format that will encourage its users to tweet more often, while talking about an advertiser’s brand. With the new ads, businesses and brands will now be able to post a call-to-action that offers some sort of exclusive content that can only be unlocked with a tweet – like the ability to preview the trailer from a new film, gain access to… 
This is where Facebook will prototype its solar drones, Internet-beaming lasers, VR headsets, and next-gen servers. The problem with moving faster than most companies is that Facebook was plagued by delays whenever it had to outsource prototyping and testing of its gadgets and gizmos. With so much hardware on its 10-year roadmap, and quarter after quarter of profits stacking up, it made sense…