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Short video app Triller is set to go public via a reverse merger with video-tech company SeaChange International, the two companies announced on Wednesday. The combined entity will be valued at approximately $5 billion. The boards of both companies have approved the proposed merger and the deal is expected to close in the first quarter

Creator monetization startups are cropping up left and right as the tech world embraces the fast-growing creator economy. But Patreon, founded in 2013, has been around since before words like “influencer” were in our vocabulary — back when “Tik Tok” was a Kesha song, rather than the social platform that everyone is trying to emulate.

Supernova is a new app that has now gone live on the Apple and Android app stores billing itself as a new “ethical alternative” to Instagram and Facebook, where most of the ad revenues go to charities. Does it have a chance? It would be fair to say that after many years of either watching

In 2019, when LinkedIn began asking for Chinese users’ phone numbers, it was clear that the professional social network would have to follow a different set of rules in the country. But it realized simply setting up the real-name verification regime required by Chinese authorities wasn’t enough; it faced a mounting task of balancing Beijing’s

A new forecast has dubbed TikTok as the world’s third-largest social network, just behind Facebook and Instagram. In its inaugural forecast on TikTok’s global install base, Insider Intelligence — the firm previously known as eMarketer — predicts that TikTok will reach 755.0 million monthly users in 2022, after seeing 59.8% growth in 2020, followed by

The relentless march of social media apps’ algorithmic advertising hooks, influencer-leveraged social graphs and UX that begs for endless scrolling have led to viral success and mass-market engagement for the biggest players. But there remains a continuing gap in the market for products that let us create things like photos and share them with selected

A proliferation of ominous, non-specific TikTok rumors suggested that schools across the U.S. faced threats of violence on Friday, December 17. While a number of schools responded to the trend by closing their doors, many local law enforcement agencies and at least one federal one have weighed in, disclosing that the threat doesn’t appear to

Foursquare’s heyday is long over, but the problem of finding cool local stuff to do lives on. Most people seem to make it work through a sometimes reluctant combination of Facebook or Instagram and word of mouth, but the reality is that there aren’t many good apps that help us get off of apps and

John Callery Contributor The debate around social media’s impact on mental health is hardly new, but the conversation has recaptured the world’s attention in light of reports this fall that suggest Facebook has been well aware of the toxic mental health consequences of its platforms for teens. While this data — and the knowledge that

TikTok is preparing to launch a new service that will turn its viral food videos into meals you can actually order and enjoy. The social app is partnering with Virtual Dining Concepts to launch “TikTok Kitchen”-branded delivery-only restaurants across the United States next year, as first reported by Bloomberg. The menu at the restaurants will

In addition to announcing coming changes to its For You feed, TikTok today announced a handful of updates to its lineup of camera and editing tools, including new features for its popular Green Screen effect tool, as well as other updates to video enhancements and sound effects. Among the updates, one highlight is the update

Instagram is rolling out a new “Profile Embed” feature that allows users to embed a miniature version of their profile into a website. The new feature will allow users to further integrate their Instagram profiles into websites such as blogs and portfolios. The social media giant says the feature is currently only available in the

Snap announced today that it paid over $250 million to more than 12,000 creators this year on Spotlight, its TikTok clone. Unlike Snapchat’s friend-to-friend, ephemeral messaging, Spotlight allows users to reach a wide audience. Since last year when Spotlight launched, Snap says that creators are posting three times as often now. It’s no secret that

Most people have experienced the internet only through Web 2.0. Online applications, the social web and software as a service form the fabric of our lives. Lately, many have championed web3 as the internet’s next phase, but the term encompasses so much territory, conversations can be diffuse and there are valid concerns that its complexity

Grindr, a hook-up app for gay, bi, trans and queer people, has been fined around $7.1 million (65M NOK) by Norway’s data protection authority for passing user data to advertisers without consent — including highly sensitive information related to users’ sexual orientation. Specifically, the DPA found that Grindr breached Articles 6(1) and 9(1) of Europe’s

The Oversight Board, a group Facebook created to review its policy decisions, weighed in on a case of misinformation in war-torn Ethiopia Tuesday, warning the company about the risks of allowing hate speech and unverified information to spread freely in conflict zones. The Oversight Board reviewed a post in Amharic from an Ethiopia-based Facebook user

Jaime Bosch Contributor Jaime Bosch is the co-founder and CEO of Voicemod. In the many conversations around “the metaverse” sparked by the Facebook corporate name transition to Meta, much has focused on the visual elements. What’s hardly mentioned is audio. Yet voice really matters when making a virtual environment come to life. Sometimes, it’s everything.

Rotten Tomatoes announced today that it’s partnering with TikTok to launch a TikTok Jump that will allow users to link to movies and TV trailers, ratings, reviews, information on where to watch, clips, cast information and more. TikTok Jump is the short-form video app’s third-party integration tool that aims to deepen its relationships with third-party

Manish Maheshwari, the former head of Twitter India who recently moved to San Francisco to work at a different division within the company, is leaving the firm to launch an edtech startup, according to nine people familiar with the matter. Maheshwari and Twitter didn’t respond to a request for comment two weeks ago. Sources requested

Instagram has rolled out a new “Reels Visual Replies” feature that lets users reply to comments on posts with Reels. Now, when users choose to reply to a comment, they’ll see a new option that allows them to select the Reels button to create a video reply. The social media giant notes that the video

The Twitter account of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was “briefly compromised” on Sunday, his office said. Modi’s account — whose handle is @narendramodi — tweeted after the midnight that India had officially adopted bitcoin as a legal tender, prompting suspicions about a hack because of the timing of the announcement and also as New

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, is testifying before the Senate today about the impact of Instagram on teens’ mental health. His first appearance before the Senate, this is just one of several hearings that have taken place ever since whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked documents from Facebook — now Meta — showing that the company knew

Instagram is bringing back a chronological feed, according to statements made by Instagram head Adam Mosseri during his testimony today before a Senate panel over the harms to young people using the app. Mosseri was asked if he believed consumers should be able to use the Instagram app without “being manipulated by algorithms,” and the

Meta (formerly Facebook) today is introducing a number of Facebook Live updates that will allow creators to engage with fans during their live broadcasts, including new features like Polls, support for four-person co-broadcasting via the “Live With” feature, new commenting features, a new post format, support for adding links to broadcasts and “Live in Stories,”

Wisdom, a social audio app that’s focused on surfacing “life advice” and broadening access to mentorship — and whose iOS app launched we covered back in October — has nabbed $2 million in seed funding off the back of early traction. The seed is led by First Round Capital, with participation from a number of

Tinder is partnering with Spotify to launch a new “Music Mode” feature where users will hear a 30-second looped preview of a potential matches’ chosen song while checking out their profile. Users who link their Spotify accounts and add a chosen song, called an “Anthem,” to their Tinder profiles will be able to enter Music

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has rolled out “Year in Review” features for both Facebook and Instagram. On Facebook, users can share their personalized “Year Together” card, which highlights the friends, feelings, places and people that mattered most to them in 2021. The new in-feed experience reflects on people’s year on the platform and curates

Jonathan Metrick Contributor Jonathan Metrick is the chief growth officer at Sagard & Portage Ventures, where he helps build some of the world’s leading fintech companies. More posts by this contributor Use cohort analysis to drive smarter startup growth Simon Lejeune Contributor Simon Lejeune leads user acquisition at Wealthsimple, the largest fintech in Canada. The

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri testified before Congress for the first time Wednesday, defending the app’s impacts on teens and its aspirations to bring younger children formally into the fold. In September, leaked documents from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen painted a picture of a company that knows it takes a toll on the mental health

The Kenyan fintech Kwara was launched in 2019 to help credit unions (savings and credit cooperatives societies, SACCOs) in the East African country shift to digital platforms by providing them with its proprietary Back-end-as-a-service (BaaS) software. The startup’s trajectory has been steep, as its clientele shot up from two to 50 in just over two