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Twitter today is introducing a revamped version of its website, which the company says will make the site more accessible, less cluttered and easier to use. Among the changes, the site is implementing Twitter’s new font, “Chirp,” and it’s changing various elements to become more high-contrast, among other things. Soon, it will roll out new

Cynthia Luo Contributor Cynthia Luo is the head of Marketing at Epsilo, an all-in-one e-commerce SaaS solution for marketplace sellers in Southeast Asia. Cynthia also runs CAOSE, a boutique e-commerce and digital consulting firm working with clients such as ExxonMobil, Criteo and Shippit. Most businesses by now are well versed with the consequences of the

Instagram today is rolling out a set of new features aimed at helping people protect their accounts from abuse, including offensive and unwanted comments and messages. The company will introduce tools for filtering abusive direct message (DM) requests as well as a way for users to limit other people from posting comments or sending DMs

The encrypted chat app Signal is adding a few new options for users looking to lock down their messages. The app will now allow anyone to turn on a default timer for disappearing messages, automatically applying the settings to any newly initiated conversations. Signal’s disappearing messages option deletes chats for both the sender and receiver

Twitter is now complying with India’s new IT rules, New Delhi told a court Tuesday, in a move that is expected to ease months-long tension between the American social media network and the government of the key overseas market. A lawyer representing the Indian government told the Delhi High Court that Twitter’s recent steps — appointment

Match today is introducing new features that aim to address some of users’ complaints with modern-day dating apps — like how much time it takes to find a relevant match and how frustrating it is when users ghost one another after the initial conversation fades. As part of a new strategy to better position Match

Ariana Grande strutted and soared around a candy-colored series of Fortnite sets in Epic’s latest major in-game live music event. The multi-day “tour” offered gamers and Grande fans alike plenty to enjoy while showcasing Epic’s impressively smooth and visually inventive vision for live events that millions of people can enjoy simultaneously. Fortnite players have known

YouTube earlier this year announced its plans to significantly invest in original creator content for its TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, with the introduction of a $100 million YouTube Shorts Fund. The fund will reward creators for their most engaging and most viewed short-form videos over the course of 2021 to 2022, with the goal of quickly

For mobile users, Discord is adding one new feature that you’d find on a more traditional social app. The company rolled out an option for users to customize their profiles across its iOS and Android apps Tuesday, following the feature’s release on the desktop version of Discord in late June. The new option lives in

Dating app maker and Tinder parent, Match Group, said during its Q2 earnings it will bring audio and video chat, including group live video, and other livestreaming technologies to several of the company’s brands over the next 12 to 24 months. The developments will be powered by innovations from Hyperconnect, the social networking company that

Fleets weren’t long for this world, but Twitter’s product teams aren’t slowing down on bringing new stuff to Spaces, the company’s own take on audio rooms. Twitter introduced Spaces in a limited test last year, expanding the Clubhouse copycat feature more broadly to anyone with at least 600 followers in May. Now, Twitter is giving

Twitter may have shut down its Stories features known as Fleets, but the Stories format will continue to invade other social platforms. TikTok today confirmed it’s piloting a new feature, TikTok Stories, which will allow it to explore additional ways for its community to bring their creative ideas to life. The company notes the new

Ever considerate of its users, Facebook has determined that its privacy settings needed a bit of a shuffle to keep things clear and easy to find. To that end they’ve taken the “privacy settings” settings and scattered them mischievously among the other categories. “We’ve redesigned our entire settings menu on mobile devices from top to

Facebook shut down accounts belonging to two academic researchers late Tuesday, cutting off their ability to study political ads and misinformation on the world’s biggest social network. The company accused the academics of engaging in “unauthorized scraping” and compromising user privacy on the platform, claims that Facebook’s many critics are slamming as a thin pretense

Kuaishou Technology, a Chinese firm perceived as a ByteDance rival by many, said on Wednesday it will shut down its controversial short video app Zynn later this month. The app was only available in the U.S. The firm, which last month said it had amassed 1 billion monthly active users, didn’t offer an explanation for

WhatsApp said that it would soon let users send disappearing photos and videos and this week the feature will be rolling out to everybody. Anyone using the Facebook-owned messaging app can share a photo or video in “view once” mode, allowing a single viewing before the media in question goes poof. Media shared with “view

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. After a fittingly fleeting time in the wild, Twitter is banishing its ephemeral stories feature known as Fleets, which debuted in November 2020. Twitter began testing Fleets back in March of last year. The company thought that it might be able to lure people who were

Epic Games is teasing the biggest in-game event since Travis Scott psychedelically stomped through Fortnite’s virtual meadows. The mysterious new event, which Fortnite-maker Epic is calling the “Rift Tour,” will kick off on Friday, August 6 and run through Sunday, August 8. In the teaser announcement, Epic invites players to “take a musical journey into

Alanna Gregory Contributor Alanna Gregory is a marketing executive and is currently senior global director at Afterpay. Previously, she was VP at Hairstory, the founder and CEO of VIVE Lifestyle, and was an AVP at Barclays. More posts by this contributor E-commerce roll-ups are the next wave of disruption in consumer packaged goods What comes

As more people are venturing out into the world this summer (safely, we hope!), Snapchat wants to make it easier for people to find restaurants, stores, parks and other interesting spots in their neighborhood. Today, Snapchat is starting to roll out the My Places feature on its Snap Map, which connects users with over 30

Facebook posted its second quarter earnings Wednesday, beating expectations with $29 billion in revenue. The world’s biggest social media company was expected to report $27.8 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 50 percent increase from the same period in 2020. Facebook reported earnings per share of $3.61, which also bested expectations. The company’s revenue

Just two weeks after reopening its New York and San Francisco offices, social media giant Twitter said Wednesday that it will be closing those offices “immediately.” The decision came “after careful consideration of the CDC’s updated guidelines, and in light of current conditions,” a spokesperson said. “Twitter has made the decision to close our opened

Twitter this morning will launch a pilot in the U.S. aimed at testing the potential for e-commerce on its platform. The company is introducing a new “Shop Module” that offers brands, businesses and other retailers the ability to showcase their products to Twitter users directly on the business’ profile. Users will then be able to

Early in the pandemic, Nick Gerard, Steven Layne, and Samantha Safer Valentine had a hit on their hands. In the era before Zoom fatigue set in, the trio launched Mainstream Live, a website and newsletter that curated live virtual events across platforms and gave people text-based reminders to check them out.  “We started with the

TikTok announced this morning it’s expanding its TikTok LIVE platform, which currently allows creators to livestream to fans while responding to viewer comments and questions and accept virtual gifts. Now, the LIVE experience will include a number of new features for creators to make it more competitive with platforms like Instagram Live, including the ability

After announcing that threads were on the way earlier this year, Discord is now introducing the long-requested way to make conversations in bustling servers more comprehensible. Starting today, any server with “community” features enabled will be able to transform messages into threaded conversations. Threads are designated by their own subject name, making it easy to

Indian social media platform ShareChat said on Tuesday it has raised an additional $145 million and is now valued at nearly $3 billion, less than three months after it secured $502 million at a valuation of $2.1 billion. Temasek and Moore Strategic Ventures led the new tranche of investment while Mirae-Naver Asia Growth fund participated in

If you’ve started using Snapchat more regularly this year, you’re not alone. At yesterday’s Q2 earnings call, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel announced that the platform grew both revenue and daily active users at the highest rates it has achieved in the last four years. Snapchat now has 293 million daily active users, growing 23% since

The Tumblr community often refers to itself as the Wild West of the internet, and they’re not wrong. A text post with over 70,000 notes puts it best: “Tumblr is my favorite social media site because this place is literally uninhabitable for celebrities. No verification system, no algorithm that boosts their posts, it’s a completely

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed to investors that bitcoin will be a “big part” of the company’s future, as he sees opportunities to integrate the cryptocurrency into existing Twitter products and services, including commerce, subscriptions and other new additions like the Twitter Tip Jar and Super Follows. Dorsey has been a staunch bitcoin advocate for