News

 Twitter is increasing its focus on live streaming today with the launch of a new Notification button on its app that lets you subscribe to be alerted when someone you follow starts live-streaming. When you receive the alert, you can immediately join the broadcast with just a tap. The feature works both for alerting users to new streams from Periscope, as well as for content from… Read More

 Earlier this summer, Facebook began to disable messaging in its mobile web app in order to push people to use its mobile Messenger app. However, this morning at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016, Messenger head David Marcus said that the option to use the mobile web experience isn’t going away entirely. Instead, the company is selectively disabling the mobile web view for users of certain… Read More

 Facebook today filled the biggest hole in its chatbot platform. Messenger bots can accept payments natively without sending users to an external website, Facebook’s head of Messenger David Marcus announced today onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2016. Finally, the credit card info people already have stored in Facebook or Messenger can be used to instantly make purchases in bots that are… Read More

 Instagram today is rolling out a feature to all its users that will allow everyone to decide for themselves how they want to moderate comments on the photo-sharing service. First launched for business accounts in July, the social network is now making its default and custom comment keyword blacklists available to all users. This new feature will allow people to either enable a filter that… Read More

 A San Diego startup called Portfolium has raised $6.6 million to help college students get jobs where they are likely to succeed. Portfolium CEO Adam Markowitz said he was inspired to build what he calls the “largest student talent showcase,” after his own job-hunting success. A former rocket scientist, he was able to land a dream job working on NASA’s space shuttle… Read More

 As LinkedIn continues to wait for the close of its $26.2 billion acquisition by Microsoft, it continues to build out its business, with the latest developments on the international front. Last week, LinkedIn announced that it had hit 100 million users in Asia Pacific (around one-quarter of its total), and today at an event in Bengaluru, India, it unveiled three new products it’s rolling… Read More

 Application development has long been fraught with peril: Projects become bloated, expensive and never ship. The “micro” trend in application development is focused on delivering bottoms-up, simple solutions to complex problems. Micro services, apps and flows offer a new way to weave existing systems in novel, organic ways in order to deliver solutions immediately. Read More

 There’s all manner of advice and guidance on the web for online publishers looking to optimize their social media efforts: CoSchedule, Fast Company, HubSpot, ShortStack, Forbes, Hootsuite, QuickSprout and others all claim to have the answer. However, many of the strategies used by publishers for optimizing engagement and boosting referral traffic from social are flawed. Read More

 Here come the fashbots, and this time they might actually be useful. Facebook’s seemingly half-baked chatbot platform soured many on the potential of conversation user interfaces. The first bots built by outside developers back in April were clumsy and more trouble than just using a website. So Facebook’s Creative Shop is getting involved, working with bot maker Msg.ai and the… Read More

 Facebook has backtracked on its decision to censor a Norwegian journalist and newspaper’s posts, reinstating the nude photo of a child fleeing napalm during the Vietnam war. Facebook had originally told The Guardian that “We try to find the right balance between enabling people to express themselves while maintaining a safe and respectful experience for our global community.”… Read More