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The coronavirus pandemic has sent record numbers of new users to video chat apps. Now, video messaging app Marco Polo aims to capitalize on the increases it’s also seeing to launch its new subscription business, Marco Polo Plus. The service delivers a handful of new features — including support for HD video, voice-only messaging options,

Twitter is making it possible for developers and researchers to study the public conversation around COVID-19 in real time with an update to its API platform. The company is introducing a new COVID-19 stream endpoint to those participating in Twitter Developer Labs — a program that offers access to new API endpoints and other features

The coronavirus pandemic is significantly slowing the growth of Facebook’s ads business, but investors seem pleased with the company’s performance in Q1 after Facebook released its earnings report Wednesday. The company beat Wall Street expectations on revenues, sharing that they had made $17.74 billion while falling short on earnings per share at $1.71. The company

Facebook is today rolling out a tool that will allow users in the U.S. and Canada to export their Facebook photos and videos to Google Photos. This data portability tool was first introduced in Ireland in December, and has since been made available to other international markets. To use the feature, Facebook users will need

Despite traffic for many online properties being at an all-time high, advertising has fallen off a cliff because of the downturn in consumer activity outside the home and the wider economic pressures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. And today, Twitter reported quarterly earnings that bore this trend out. The ad-based social networking and media company said that

The quarantine lockdown is driving a record number of users to Facebook’s products. On a conference call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg disclosed a number of new metrics highlighting a significant bump in Facebook usage during the broader quarantine lockdown. In the past month, more than 3 billion internet users logged onto a Facebook service, including its

Researchers at NYU have identified hundreds of groups of Instagram users, some with thousands of members, that systematically exchange likes and comments in order to game the service’s algorithms and boost visibility. In the process, they also trained machine learning agent to identify whether a post has been juiced in this way. “Pods,” as they’ve

Twitter has said that tweets posted early Tuesday morning by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk that irresponsibly call for restrictions put in place to defend against the spread of COVID-19 don’t violate its guidelines around inaccurate or disputed information about the coronavirus that could cause harm. Musk tweeted a series of things on Tuesday,

Graduation goes virtual, more details emerge about the U.K.’s contact tracing app and Shopify launches a mobile commerce app. Here’s your Daily Crunch for April 28, 2020. 1. Facebook will stream a virtual graduation ceremony featuring Oprah and Miley Cyrus Here’s some consolation for the Class of 2020: a virtual graduation ceremony, which kicks off

Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has forced millions into isolation, video games are seeing a surge in usage as people seek entertainment and social interaction. When we surveyed gaming-focused VCs in October, Andreessen Horowitz partner Jonathan Lai predicted that “next-generation games will be bigger than anything we’ve seen yet,” eventually reaching “Facebook scale.” This month,

TikTok is making it easier for creators and their fans to donate to favorite charities amid the coronavirus pandemic. The company today announced the launch of a new, interactive feature, Donation Stickers, that creators can use on their videos and live streams in order to raise funds for favorite charities directly in the TikTok app.

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WhatsApp’s bid on cutting virality of messages circulating on its platform by introducing an additional limit earlier this month has already started to pay off. The Facebook -owned service said on Monday that spread of “highly forwarded” messages sent on WhatsApp had dropped by 70% globally in weeks after introducing a new restriction earlier this

Jay Prasad Contributor Jay Prasad is chief strategy officer for LiveRamp TV, a data-connectivity platform leveraged by brands and their partners to deliver exceptional experiences. As the nation struggles with a pandemic and economic uncertainty, fundamental shifts in consumer habits are leading marketers to rethink existing strategies and budgets allocated to influencers and streaming TV.

Facebook is co-opting some of the top video chat innovations like Zoom’s gallery view for large groups and Houseparty’s spontaneous hangouts for a new feature called Rooms. It could usher in a new era of unplanned togetherness via video. Launching today on mobile and desktop, you can start a video chat Room that friends can

Instant messaging service Telegram has amassed 400 million monthly active users, it said today, up from 300 million active users the seven-year-old service disclosed to the SEC last October. The service — founded by Pavel Durov, who also created Russian social networking site VK — said it adds about 1.5 million users each day and

WhatsApp is deepening its collaboration with the World Health Organization as people across the globe grapple with the coronavirus pandemic. The Facebook -owned service said today it is attempting to appeal to users in a language that they speak “billions” of times a day on its platform: Stickers. The service, with more than 2 billion

Even as Mark Zuckerberg touted the “hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation related to COVID-19” that the site had pulled in recent months, Facebook continued to offer targeted ads classified as “pseudoscience.” It was an odd choice from a social network so publicly declaring its own campaigns to remove junk science amid a global

Facebook today is introducing another feature aimed at making it easier to see who’s behind the posts published across Facebook and Instagram. The company says it will now display the location of the Facebook Page or Instagram account with a large audience on every post it shares, so end users have a better understanding of

Ever since it first started rolling out, 5G skeptics have attempted to link the next-gen cellular technology to all manner of health issues. Most recently, it’s become an easy scapegoat for the global COVID-19 pandemic, given the rapid rise of both. Conspiracy theories have gained such a foothold that vigilantes have taken matters into their

Facebook’s major bet on Jio Platforms could create a headache for mobile payments services that have amassed tens of millions of users while struggling to find a business model in the world’s second-largest internet market. The $5.7 billion investment, Facebook’s second-largest to date, could also further its dominance in India — its biggest market by

Facebook has enjoyed unparalleled reach in India for more than a decade. But as China’s fast-growing ByteDance emerges as a formidable competitor in what has become the world’s second largest internet market, the American giant has found the horse it wants to bet on in the new decade. Facebook announced today it has invested $5.7

Facebook has agreed to block access to certain anti-government content to users in Vietnam, following months of having its services throttled there, reportedly by state-owned telecoms. Reuters, citing sources within the company, reported that Vietnam requested earlier in the year that Facebook restrict a variety of content it deemed illegal, such as posts critical of

Facebook has already come under fire for hosting groups organizing anti-quarantine protests in response to government lockdowns amid the coronavirus outbreak, and those promoting fake coronavirus cures and misinformation. Now it’s trying to figure out what to do with the growing number of COVID-19 community groups on its platform worldwide. In hopes of better educating

Facebook Avatars, which lets users customize a virtual lookalike of themselves for use as stickers in chat and comments, is now available across Europe, the company said today. The social giant’s Avatars, a clone of Snapchat’s popular Bitmoji, was first unveiled last year. The feature, which Facebook sees as an expression tool, is aimed at

Levi’s is leveraging its advertising partnership with TikTok to connect online shoppers with the denim brand amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced retailers to close their doors — including most of Levi’s own stores. The company announced today its success as one of the first retailers to use TikTok’s “Shop Now” buttons that allow consumers

Facebook confirmed this week that it will be pulling down a number of posts promoting stay-at-home protests. CNN was the first to report the news, which finds the social media giant pulling down events in a variety of different states, including California, Nebraska and New Jersey. The news follows a spike in events across the

Facebook has expanded Fundraisers to India and is working with several additional state governments to provide authoritative information about the coronavirus to more people in the country, it said today. Fundraisers, which was available in the U.S. and Europe prior to Monday’s announcement, allows people to collectively contribute towards the community. The social juggernaut, which

Home fitness and games as gathering places are a few of the startup verticals propelled by unprecedented shifts in behavior due to shelter-in-place orders. We surveyed the top investors in consumer and social apps to learn about 2020’s startup trends, the M&A climate, the threat of incumbents copying new entrants, underserved demographics and which features

Facebook this morning announced its latest step in effort to combat the spread of misinformation around the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Chief among them is a new message targeting users who have commented on, reacted to or liked false content about the virus. The social network will pop up a message from the World Health Organization