As Pinterest continues to ramp up the parts of its business that generate revenues (namely advertising), it’s also expanding the free features that might entice users and brands to linger around for longer and engage more on it’s image-based social network for sharing ideas. Today, Pinterest unveiled a new kind of dynamic Rich Pin called a How-to Pin, which provides… Read MorePinterest debuts step-by-step How-to Pins from 25+ brands to help keep users around longer
As Pinterest continues to ramp up the parts of its business that generate revenues (namely advertising), it’s also expanding the free features that might entice users and brands to linger around for longer and engage more on it’s image-based social network for sharing ideas. Today, Pinterest unveiled a new kind of dynamic Rich Pin called a How-to Pin, which provides… Read More
Vine, the six-second, looping video platform from Twitter, has just hired Hannah Donovan as the new general manager.
It didn’t quite add up when Fortune broke the news last week that Snapchat would spend a $100 million to acquire Bitstrips, the maker of personalized avatar stickers called Bitmoji. Snapchat didn’t have anywhere to put them. But today, Snapchat launched “Chat 2.0”, a huge product update that includes the ability to send over 200 stickers to friends. Now it’s… 
What do you call it when you have an app that lets your friends take a photo of you, using your own phone? It’s not a selfie… It’s not a portrait… Let’s call it a someone elsie. Shootlr today launched an iOS and Android app that is attempting to take this brave new frontier of photography to the masses: It enables you to compel your friends to take a selfie for… 
It wasn’t worth it for celebrities to respond to their endless digital fan mail until now. TipTalk lets them set a price for a private text, photo, or video response. The idea is that in their downtime, they could forge deeper relationships with their audience while earning enough to warrant at least a few seconds of their attention. Considering how the public comment reels light up… 
Instagram today is an endless sea of meaningless posts asking you to turn on post notifications for each account you follow. Brands and professional Instagrammers are worried that they are going to disappear from your Instagram feed once the company turns on its algorithmic feed. We’ve been there before. When Vine or YouTube switched to an algorithmic feed, brands, YouTubers and Viners… 
Today, the future became the present with the launch of the Oculus Rift. The reviews are in, but uncertainty hangs overhead with HTC and PlayStation’s VR headsets still on the way.
Yahoo-owned blogging platform Tumblr this morning announced two changes to its service designed to encourage more conversations and increase engagement around posts and other content. The company is bringing back its Replies feature, removed several months ago, and it’s rolling out an updated Notes design that makes it easier for the community to follow the commentary around a post.… 
Facebook has apologized for accidentally sending Safety Check notifications for the Lahore, Pakistan suicide bombing to people in other areas, including the United States and United Kingdom. Users who got notified by SMS were especially alarmed and confused because the text asked “Have you been affected by the explosion?” but did not say where it had happened. 
Fortune is reporting that Snapchat, the ephemeral messaging platform that has today become the number one free app on the App Store, has agreed to acquire Bitstrips, the folks behind popular emoji-creation service Bitmoji. Though we haven’t received confirmation from Bitstrips or Snapchat, Fortune’s sources say that the deal is “in the ballpark” of $100 million. The…