• Frontline Letting Viewers Share Scenes Via Social Media
    With its latest film, Frontline is testing new software that lets users highlight selected scenes, and share them with friends via social media or email. The film -- “Trump’s Road to the White House” -- originally aired on Tuesday night. “The project builds on work done by Phil Bennett, the former managing editor of The Washington Post and Frontline,” Nieman Lab reports.
  • Facebook Now Favoring Videos With Higher Completion Rates
    In users’ News Feeds, Facebook plans to start giving more visibility to videos with higher complete rates. “This is a shift … from Facebook, which kick-started its move into video by crediting video publishers with a ‘view’ if someone watched something for a minimum of three seconds,” Recode writes. “That reward system, coupled with the fact that Facebook automatically plays videos for people when they show up in their feeds, trained Facebook publishers to make videos with Things That Grab Your Attention Right Away.”
  • Facebook Adds Support For 'Security Keys'
    Facebook is adding support for security keys. In other words, the social giant is “giving users the chance secure their logins with a physical device,” The Verge reports. “Alongside the standard setup, Facebook also built support for a more experimental NFC login system, the first major deployment of its kind.” Going forward, security keys will serve as part of Facebook’s two-factor authentication system.
  • Apple To Join 'Partnership on AI'
    Apple is reportedly planning to join the Partnership on AI, which Bloomberg describes as “an artificial intelligence research group that includes Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook Inc. and Microsoft Corp.” More broadly, “While the introduction of the Siri virtual assistant in 2011 gave Apple an early presence in AI for consumers, it has since lost ground to rivals such as Google and Amazon,” Bloomberg writes.
  • Instagram To Introduce Live Stories
    The Facebook-owned platform said the feature will be offered to more countries next week. "From real-time makeup tutorials to live DJ sets, it's been exciting to watch as the community shares new sides of their lives," according to the blog post. It's been two months and a few days since Instagram first announced it was pursuing live video.
  • Facebook Changes Desktop Messaging
    Facebook appears to have changed up its messaging inbox for desktop users. Among other changes, “The previous inbox icon has been replaced with the Messenger icon in the blue navigation bar at the top of the screen,” TechCrunch reports. “Some users, of course, are demanding the old Inbox be returned.”
  • Snap Taps Oracle Data Cloud To Target Ads
    To better target users with ads, Snap has partnered with the company previously known as Datalogix -- now named Oracle Data Cloud. The deal “will help marketers use data from offline purchases, such as supermarket loyalty cards, to target consumers with potentially more relevant ads on the increasingly popular Snapchat mobile messaging app,” The Wall Street Journal reports. “The partnership will also help these marketers measure whether Snapchat ad campaigns result in real-world sales.”
  • Is Facebook Losing Interest In Live Video?
    Facebook is de-emphasizing live video in its ongoing discussions with partner publishers, Recode reports. “Instead, Facebook is pushing publishers to create longer, premium video content as part of a larger effort led by Facebook exec Ricky Van Veen,” it writes. “The hope is to get more high-quality video onto the platform and into your News Feed -- the kind of stuff, presumably, you might find on Netflix.”
  • Snap Founders Angle For Majority Control, Post IPO
    Post IPO, Snap’s founders plan to retain management control of the company, The Wall Street Journal reports. Regarding Snap co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, The Journal writes: “The men are going further than tech firms typically do: Investors won’t get any voting power with shares purchased in Snap’s initial public offering.” Under the proposed arrangement, “The two are expected to hold more than 70% of the voting power despite owning roughly 45% of the stock.”
  • Facebook Drops 'Edited' Note On Posts
    It looks like Facebook has removed the on-post “edited” label, which was previously attached to posts after users chose to amend them. Now, “In order to actually know whether or not your eyes were playing tricks on you when a friend's rant no longer has 15 spelling errors the second time you see it, you'll need to do some digging,” Mashable reports. As such, the move makes it "much more difficult to know when someone actually took the time to fix their mistake” – or change a stated position.
« Previous Entries