Talk about a moon shot. Facebook has completed production on a full-scale version of its experimental connectivity drone. It’s a “V-shaped high-altitude device meant to connect people [to the Web] in under-served areas,” Fast Company reports. “Its eventual fleet of drones will be part of the company’s plan to bring Internet service to billions of people around the world.” 

The search for Twitter’s next CEO apparently isn’t going very well. For starters, as Re/code reports, a list of outside candidates produced by an independent consultancy didn’t wow anyone inside Twitter. Regarding said list, one source said: “It’s a lot of Google people who will never leave and a handful of the usual suspects.” 

At the expense of some existing partners, Snapchat is reportedly adding new publishers to its Discover feature. “The social network is planning to add two or three new media partners … while simultaneously cutting ties with the same number of existing partners to make room,” Re/Code writes, citing sources. “Among those scheduled to join Discover are BuzzFeed and Vox.com.” However, Warner Music and Food Network could be getting the shaft. 

The New York Times has been testing a feature that lets readers “follow” favorite columns and columnists, as well as receive notifications on the desktop version of the site. “The feature, which began alpha testing for internal users in December, was enabled for Times Premier subscribers this May in its beta version,” Poynter reports. “The Times is presently rolling out the beta feature to users in batches.” 

Twitter supporters are hoping for something to get excited about on October 21, when the social giant plans to host its second annual Twitter Flight conference. “At the event, Twitter says developers will be the first to know about some of its core platforms, like Fabric, Gnip and the Twitter API,” The Next Web reports. 

Facebook is reportedly having trouble attracting top amateur video producers. “Many top YouTube creators are keeping Facebook at arm’s length -- if they even bother with the social network at all,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “For example, [according to Tubular Labs] 68% of the top creators on YouTube posted a video to Facebook in May, and exactly zero of them generated more views on Facebook than YouTube that month.”

Is Facebook doing enough to help the transgender community, and other individuals who have a legitimate reason for breaking its “real name” policy? Buzzfeed suggests not. “People who are reported as ‘real name’ violators can find themselves locked in a bureaucratic mess, responding to emails that are essentially form letters from faceless Facebook employees, with no opportunity to talk live despite the complexities of the policy and the harshness of its enforcement.”

What does Ellen Pao think of her ouster from Reddit? Telling her side of the story -- and offering a warning about the rise of trolls -- Pao just penned an opinion piece in The Washington Post. “I have just endured one of the largest trolling attacks in history,” she writes. “The trolls are winning … Fully 40 percent of online users have experienced bullying, harassment and intimidation, according to Pew Research.” 

Flipgram has raised a $70 billion in a new funding round led by Sequoia Capital. Flipgram is “a mix of Instagram and YouTube,” TechCrunch writes. “A very youthful audience -- think Snapchat -- is putting together these under one minute ‘Flipagrams’ which can include photos, text, audio and music to the tune of over 14M a month.” 

Twitter is testing the auto-expansion of link content, Buzzfeed reports. “The changes, visible today for at least some users, show content previews automatically for links to outside sites,” it writes. “In other words, links shared on Twitter this way look a lot more like links shared on Facebook.”