Someone might want you to call them, but if you don’t have their random string of digits, you can’t. And you could miss something extremely important if a person you’ve never met really needs to reach you. Facebook Messenger has a plan to fix all that. And it’s born from the ashes of one of the social network’s worst products ever. No More Missed Connections… Read MoreFacebook Messenger Wants To BE Your Phone Number With New Message Requests
Someone might want you to call them, but if you don’t have their random string of digits, you can’t. And you could miss something extremely important if a person you’ve never met really needs to reach you. Facebook Messenger has a plan to fix all that. And it’s born from the ashes of one of the social network’s worst products ever. No More Missed Connections… Read More
To Be Useful, Or Interesting Google has a big head start, as it launched Now back in 2012. Now has tons of functionality, mostly surrounding objective data. It can pull relevant info like flight times and changes from your email, display breaking world news updates, or give you a heads up about traffic between your home and office. Its latest trick, Google Now On Tap, can surface… 
Twitter is expanding its analytics product with the launch of what it’s calling the Twitter Brand Hub. Even though it’s a tool for Twitter advertisers, the Brand Hub seems less focused on specific ads or campaigns and more on the broader conversation around different brands and products — though of course that data could help businesses see where they need to boost… 
Hoping to capitalize on its position as a real-time source for news as well as a place to comment on live events, Twitter announced this morning it has partnered with CBS News for the upcoming Democratic presidential debate taking place on November 14. Twitter says it will provide CBS News with real-time data and insights from the event, as well as bring in live reactions and questions… 
Earlier this year, Facebook took the wraps off Facebook at Work: an enterprise version of the social network that Facebook had designed for businesses that want to build social networks for their employees. After months of pilots, Facebook today is announcing its biggest customer yet: the Royal Bank of Scotland, which plans to have 30,000 workers on its FB@Work network by March of… 
It should be easy to tell whether or not something’s working on social media, right? I mean, if you’ve got a lot of likes and favorites, that’s great. If you don’t, that’s less great. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Well, not quite — at least according to DigitasLBi. The marketing agency worked with Wharton professor Jonah Berger to develop… 
It’s not a Twitter custom emoji, but it’s close. Looks like Periscope is playing around with the hearts that you can send folks who are livestreaming. For Halloween, it’s bats! Simply use “#Halloween” in your Periscope title and the bats will fly, the team tells me. This is the first customized icon (or themed hearts as Periscope calls them) that I’ve seen… 
Welcome to another episode of CrunchWeek, TechCrunch’s weekly roundup show where we talk the biggest things in tech.