-
Mobile savings and investment service Acorns is on track to do 1 billion trades in 2017
Acorns is quickly turning into an oak tree in the financial services space. The company now boasts more than 2 million investment accounts (with 600,000 opened in 2017 alone) and is on track to do 1 billion trades in 2017 through the proprietary broker-dealer that it created. Read More
-
The IAB finalizes its new ad standards
The Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group representing online publishers and advertisers, has released new standards around mobile and web advertisers. Not every publisher and advertiser will follow these standards, but the standards are important because they help establish best practices around what is and isn’t acceptable for the industry. If done right, they help maintain… Read More
-
Legendary Pokémon are headed to Pokémon Go
Pokémon Go’s getting Legendary Pokémon, those ultra rare, ultra powerful pocket monsters that typically figure prominently in the narrative arc for the main series console games. The Legendary Pokémon will appear as Eggs at gyms, and they’ll act as bosses for the new Raids that the game recently introduced – once defeated, you’ll get a chance to catch them, much like… Read More
-
Viber acquires Chatter Commerce, the startup behind its shopping keyboard
Messaging app Viber earlier this year made its first foray into shopping services with Instant Shopping, a feature that lets you search for items for sale via a keyboard when you have the messaging app open. Today, the company is announcing some more e-commerce related news: it’s buying the startup that helped build that feature. Viber has acquired Chatter Commerce, maker of a… Read More
-
Facebook ‘Groups for Pages’ unlocks fan clubs
With Facebook’s newest feature, a musician could run an on-site fan club, a brand could organize its ambassadors and a newspaper could discuss articles with just its top readers. Today Facebook globally launched Groups for Pages, allowing the 70 million Pages on Facebook to create their own distinct communities and feeds. Read More
-
Facebook tries to prove Instant Articles beat mobile web
One-third of all link clicks on Facebook already go to its self-hosted Instant Articles. Facebook claims they drive more referral traffic click-for-click because people don’t abandon them mid-click as they do with slow-loading mobile websites. Now Facebook is teaming up with Nielsen to prove that individual publishers benefit when they post with the Instant Articles format. Read More
-
Google’s brave new friendless feed
It’s like Facebook without all those annoying “friends.” Instead of having to look at what weird things other people are interested in, like their babies, Google shows me the weird things I’m interested in, like Legend of Zelda and Elon Musk. It’s a fundamental shift in content consumption, and it could unlock our niche fascinations without us ever having to… Read More
-
Samsung’s Bixby assistant finally comes to the Galaxy S8 and S8+ in the US
After much delay, Samsung has begun rolling out its Bixby smart assistant to users in the U.S. The company said today that an update will allow owners of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ to gain voice capabilities for the service. Read More
-
Amazon launches Spark, a shoppable feed of stories and photos aimed at Prime members
Amazon today is launching Amazon Spark, a new feature aimed at improving product discovery, which is seemingly inspired by Instagram and its use of shoppable photos. Similarly, Amazon Spark users are encouraged to post stories, ideas and images of products they love, which others can react to with comments and “smiles” – Amazon’s own version of the Like or Favorite… Read More
-
Literacy XPRIZE starts field tests of semifinalist apps in LA, Philadelphia and Dallas
Literacy is a serious problem all over the world — even in our little utopia. While a touch-up of our education and support systems would probably be the best fix in the long term, we all know that’s not likely. So in the meantime we have creative private attempts to alleviate the issue: Today, a $7 million XPRIZE for literacy-improving apps enters the field-testing phase. Read More
-
With new tappable gestures, Tinder’s photos become more like Stories
Tinder today is rolling out a new navigational experience for users of its mobile application that’s designed to make it easier to move between profile photos and profile text. In the updated app, photos now take up more screen real estate – that is, they extend to the edge of your phone’s screen. The way you move between photos and profiles has changed too, as you now tap… Read More
-
NewStore raises $50 million for mobile commerce
Demandware founder Stephen Schambach has moved on to his next startup and investors are betting $50 million. NewStore, an enterprise platform for mobile commerce, has raised a Series B from Activant Capital, General Catalyst and Schambach's own money. The company previously raised $40 million since 2015, but just launched the business late last year. While Magento, Shopify and others… Read More
-
Netflix’s subscribers are surging as it blows away Wall Street’s expectations
For the second quarter in a row, Netflix has handily beaten industry watchers — and its own expectations — in adding a mountain of additional new subscribers. Netflix today said it added 5.2 million additional new subscribers this quarter, a number well above the 3.2 million new subscriber additions that it set itself — and the stock promptly jumped nearly 9 percent. Read More
-
Blue Apron is having another awful day and its shares are crashing
Since going public last month, things have not gone particularly well for Blue Apron, thanks to the specter of Amazon and its $13.7 billion acquisition bid for Whole Foods. The bad news, again, continues to roll in as what may have been a competitor in theory now seems more and more like an existential threat. Read More
-
Apple shows off some of its new emoji on World Emoji Day
Apple has revealed a few of the emoji it’ll be releasing on iOS, watchOS and macOS later this year, a little gift just in time for World Emoji Day. The new expressive icons include a T-Rex and an Elf for Jurassic Park and LOTR fans tired of typing out the names of their heroes, as well as some new emoji that encourage more diverse communication, including a women a wearing a headscarf… Read More
-
PayPal to become a payment option in Samsung Pay, including in-app, online and in-store
Samsung users will be able to choose PayPal as their preferred method of payment in-app, online and in retail stores through the Samsung Pay mobile payments platform, the companies announced today. The strategic partnership will initially be available to Samsung Pay users in the United States before expanding to other countries, says Samsung. In addition to supporting PayPal at point-of-sale… Read More
-
Snapchat’s Foursquare and Factual partnerships double geofilter usage
Borrowed location databases are paying off big time for Snapchat. They allow users to turn any nearby landmark or business into a stylized geofilter that they can overlay on their photos and videos. Before Snapchat partnered with location data providers Foursquare and Factual, only a few popular neighborhoods, cities, and places had their own geofilters. It also recently added a user… Read More
-
Microsoft’s Path Guide is an unconventional approach to indoor navigation
Indoor mapping is one of those problems that seems to only have solutions that involve a great deal of money and infrastructure: beacons, lasers, emitters, scanners… who wants to install those in malls across the world? Microsoft Research has produced an indoor navigation app that keeps things simple, using existing sensors and the fact that people already go most of the places you want… Read More
Message Us