Social

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced today that board member Peter Thiel will not seek reelection to his post, effectively ending his tenure in the top echelon of the social media company’s leadership. The move is not an enormous surprise. Thiel has been increasingly publicly involved with political activities, including backing several Congressional candidates.

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been worst-affected by Meta’s plan to discontinue its low-cost Express Wi-Fi internet, launched five years ago to drive connectivity in underserved regions. Meta (formerly Facebook) quietly issued this notice saying that it plans to wind down the program later this year. In countries like Kenya, however, the service has been

John S. Kim Contributor John S. Kim is the CEO of Sendbird, the leading API provider to embed chat, voice and video experiences inside of mobile apps. More posts by this contributor Leasing Creative Office Space? Don’t Get Screwed Social is not just what you do on Facebook anymore; it’s what you do in every

The scrap between Joe Rogan, Spotify, and their detractors has resurfaced the simmering debate concerning creator monetization. Given that creators include everyone TikTok performers mega-podcasters, YouTube celebrities, and Instagram influencers, no single revenue model will work for them all. But do creators have to employ all revenue models to make their business math-out? Being cross-platform

Discord will start testing a handful of new features in some of its biggest communities this week. The social audio and chat platform got its start connecting gamers for online play, but it’s grown into one of the main ways to build a thriving online community, complete with custom emoji, live events, topic channels and

Sound the horns, unveil the banners, cue the parade. Snap is profitable. And we don’t mean adjusted-EBITDA profitable, adjusted-operating-income profitable, or even the infamous non-GAAP-net-income profitable. It’s real-profit profitable. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Snap reported $1.3 billion in revenue (up 42% year over year), an operating loss of $25.1 million, and GAAP net

Founded by alums of Hinge and Bumble, Sunroom is a creator platform that throws out the stuff that makes mainstream social media apps such a hostile place for women. And, ideally, it wants to help them get paid in the process. The app was co-founded by Lucy Mort, former design director at Hinge, and Michelle

The biggest social network in the world isn’t getting any bigger. Meta posted its fourth quarter earnings Wednesday, sharing financials that disappointed Wall Street enough to send its stock into a nose dive. Shares of the company, still trading under the ticker symbol FB for now, plunged 20% as the numbers hit. While Meta’s last

Livestream shopping platform Whatnot has come a long from being run out of a garage in Phoenix to now a 120-person company, valued at $1.5 billion, that’s expected to grow to over 300 people by year-end as its business explodes. To aid on that front, Whatnot is making two key hires, one of which involves

The shipping business in Africa has for years been inefficient and costly due to the traditional ways of managing operations – traditional in the sense that a shipper has to physically look for a transporter, sometimes through a middle-man, and often, once goods are delivered, the trucks almost always make the return trip empty. For

Meta is bringing its 3D avatars to Instagram and is also rolling out updated avatars to Facebook and Messenger, the company announced on Monday. Users in the United States, Canada and Mexico can now show up as their virtual selves in stickers, feed posts, Facebook profile pictures and more. Today’s update adds Cochlear implants and

South Korean internet conglomerate Naver Group continues to ride the hottest internet trends targeting young users. It has been the name behind messaging giant Line and popular selfie app Snow. And now, it’s charging into the metaverse, the red hot concept that makes Roblox, Epic Games and other gaming giants the talk of the town.

Although default end-to-end encryption won’t fully arrive on Facebook Messenger until sometime in 2023, the company says today its feature offering end-to-end encrypted group chats and calls in Messenger is now fully rolled out. In addition, Messenger is adding another security feature with the launch of screenshot notifications in end-to-end encrypted chats, similar to rival

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, TikTok launched a portal on its Discover page this morning, intended to educate users about the historic catastrophe, as well as the ongoing threat of antisemitism. The platform also hosted a similar portal last year. When users navigate to the Discover page on the TikTok mobile app, they

A growing number of U.S. consumers are getting scammed on social media according to a new report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which revealed that consumers lost $770 million to social media scams in 2021 — a figure that accounted for about one-fourth of all fraud losses for the year. That number has also

Reddit is testing a feature that would allow its users to set any NFT they own as their profile picture — not only its own Ethereum-based NFTs, called “CryptoSnoos,” released in limited quantities last year. A similar feature allowing users to set their NFTs as profile pictures recently launched on Twitter, where the photos themselves

Instagram is introducing a new profile banner that will display a user’s upcoming livestreams, the company announced on Wednesday. Instagram head Adam Mosseri detailed the new feature in a video published to his social media profiles and noted that users can now display a badge on their profile to let others know that they have a

As a result of its ongoing partnership with nonprofit and anti-sexual assault organization RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), Tinder today announced a handful of product improvements as well as training for internal teams at the dating app maker designed to better support survivors of abuse and harassment. Soon, Tinder also says its members

When the company first revealed that it’s considering adding a trusted friends feature, it also presented another concept that would allow you to take on different personas within the same account. It’s unclear if that version of the feature is no longer in development. Twitter is also testing a feature called Communities that gives you

In a letter published today by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the executive suggests the video-sharing platform may embrace Web3 technologies, including NFTs — or non-fungible tokens, a way to certify digital assets stored on the blockchain — as a means of helping YouTube creators make money. While no concrete plans were shared, nor any sense

Two years into the pandemic, online conversations are for many of us still the primary interactions that we are having every day, and we are collectively having billions of them. But as many of us have discovered, not all of those are squeaky clean, positive experiences. Today, a startup called Spectrum Labs — which provides

Meta might be the next to hop on the NFT bandwagon. The Financial Times’ sources claim Meta is developing ways to create, display and sell NFTs on Facebook and Instagram. The company’s Novi wallet technology would power much of the “supporting functionality,” one tipster said. Instagram is reportedly testing a way to showcase NFTs, while

Instagram announced today it will allow users to remix any video content on the app, not just short-form reels videos. The company officially launched Remix, its version of TikTok Duets, last March. The feature lets users record their reels video alongside a video from another user, as a means of interacting, reacting, collaborating, or highlighting

Workplace — the app originally built as a version of Facebook for employees to communicate with each other — now has more than 7 million users, carving out a place for itself as an app help companies communicate internally using essentially the same tools that have proven sticky in their lives with friends and family.

Twitter is bringing its Communities feature to Android four months after it launched on iOS and the web. The social media giant says Android users can now engage in Communities via the Twitter app as long as they’ve updated to the latest version. Once users join their first community, a new Communities tab will appear

A major Senate bill that would prevent tech companies from giving preference to their own products and services just passed a significant hurdle in Congress, bringing it one step closer to becoming law. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted today on the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, moving the prominent antitrust bill toward a vote

TikTok is testing support for paid subscriptions, the company confirmed to TechCrunch on Thursday. As first reported by The Information, the popular short-form video app is exploring the option for creators to charge subscriptions for their content. The feature is part of a limited test for the time being and is not broadly available. TikTok

What a roller coaster day for China’s tech industry. TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has dissolved its strategic investment team, sending worrying messages to other internet giants that have expanded aggressively by investing in other companies. At the beginning of this year, ByteDance reviewed its “businesses’ needs” and decided to “reduce investments in areas that are

Instagram is giving creators more ways to make money with today’s launch of Instagram Subscriptions. The feature, which was spotted hitting the App Store back in November, is now officially in early testing with a small group of U.S. creators who will be able to offer their followers paid access to exclusive Instagram Live videos

Last August, Twitter introduced a new feature in select markets, including the U.S., that invited users to report misinformation they encountered on its platform — including things like election-related or COVID-19 misinformation, for example. Now the company is rolling out the feature to more markets as its test expands. In addition to the U.S., Australia