Along with some new features, Facebook just expanded the purview of Messenger’s payments service to include New York City. “Now, if you’re having a conversation with someone in Messenger and type out a dollar amount, it automatically turns into a hyperlink,” Gizmodo writes. “Click it, and you’ll instantly be prompted to pay the person that amount.” 

Twitter apparently isn’t the only tech giant kicking Flipboard’s tires. “In recent weeks, Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. have both reached out and held early discussions with Flipboard,” The Wall Street Journal reports, citing sources. “Those talks have involved ideas around how products could be integrated, but they haven’t evolved to a price.” 

Trying to reengage dormant users, Instagram is sending out emails featuring photo “Highlights” from people they follow. “It could rope back in users who’ve strayed from the photo network,” TechCrunch reports. “This is the first time [Instagram has] sent any type of promotional or re-engagement email.” 

Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s press-shy CEO, tells Bloomberg Businessweek how he plans to turn his brainchild into a “real business.” “After starting to run select video ads earlier this year, Snapchat is about to begin soliciting other big advertisers with some new numbers that assert its audience is bigger, younger, and more obsessive than anything on television,” Bloomberg writes. 

Despite its attention to advertiser needs, Twitter’s business model just isn’t cutting it, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. “Revenue missed estimates in the first quarter, and the company scaled back expectations for the current period and this year,” it writes. Meanwhile, “Twitter executives … can’t deny some hard facts: The company’s user base is still small, and its technology for tracking and measuring ads is still relatively primitive.” 

QuizUp -- a trivia app that lets users compete with complete strangers -- is introducing some social networking features. “It's also laying the groundwork to expand beyond trivia into other games,” The Verge reports. “But for starters, it's debuting profile pages, the ability to follow other users and topic pages around quiz genres that feel more like tiny Reddit communities than something associated with casual gaming.” 

In a significant setback to its anti-bullying efforts, Twitter let a troll use promoted tweets to insert abuse targeting transgender people into their feeds. “The troll account, pretending to be that of Australian activist and feminist campaigner Caitlin Roper, posted abuse and graphic images and promoted a tweet using Twitter’s paid-for native advertising service which called for trans people to kill themselves,” The Guardian reports. 

Separate and apart from Google+, Google is reportedly readying a new picture sharing and storage service. “The new photo tool … will let users post images to Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.,” Bloomberg Businessweek reports, citing sources. “Google … has been seeking new ways to bolster its product lineup as it battles Facebook and other rivals for users.” 

Facebook is facing a growing chorus of critics over its Internet.org initiative. “A total of 67 digital rights groups … have signed a letter to Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, stating concerns about the initiative,” BBC News reports. “They say the project threatens freedom of expression, privacy and the principle of Net neutrality.” Internet.org lets subscribers of partner mobile networks use a limited number of online services, including Facebook, without paying for the cost of the data. 

To build great apps and other digital products, it’s not enough to identify a problem, build a strategy, and go execute. No, “If you want greatness, you need to work from the people who are executing back to the strategy and vision to what you’re building,” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp tells TechCrunch. “People who deeply understand the tech capabilities and limitations, they should be having the conversation of what the vision is.”