-
Twitter says Vine users’ emails and phone numbers were exposed for a day, but weren’t misused
Twitter is alerting Vine users of a bug that exposed their email addresses and, in some cases, phone numbers to third parties. It’s also advising affected users to be cautious about any emails from unknown senders as a result. The company says the bug was only active for 24 hours before being patched, and doesn’t believe that the data was misused in any way, at this… Read More
-
Facebook takes on Twitch with new live-streaming deal for esports
In addition to Facebook’s announcement of a new partnership with the MLB to live stream a number of regular season games, the social network this week also signed a deal with global esports company ESL to bring over 5,550 hours of esports events and other original content to Facebook, including 1,500 of original programming. The move will aid Facebook in challenging Amazon-owned Twitch… Read More
-
Twitter is down for some users
Twitter seems to be having some technical difficulties this morning, with the network going down for some folks. Down Detector’s live outage map shows Twitter suffering outages in Japan, the UK, and now parts of the East Coast in the United States.
Around 2am ET, Twitter’s Support account tweeted that some users may have had issues sending tweets, but that the issue had been… Read More -
Twitter hires a new GM of revenue products
Meanwhile, at Twitter HQ, the leadership revolving door at the entrance stops spinning clockwise for just a moment as a new face enters the building… Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey today announced that the company has hired Bruce Falck, previously the CEO of adtech firm Turn, as its head of revenue product. Read More
-
Facebook and MLB partner to bring live-streamed games to the social network
Facebook and the MLB announced today a new live-streaming partnership that will bring 20 live, regular season games to the social network. The games will air weekly on Facebook, with the first — Rockies at Reds — showing tomorrow night at 7:10 PM ET on the official MLB Facebook Page. Additional games and times will be announced later. Read More
-
Facebook, Messenger and Instagram unite with cross-app notifications
Facebook’s family of apps are moving in together. Facebook, Messenger and Instagram are each testing a feature that shows notification counters from the other apps and lets you instantly switch between them. Read More
-
Facebook fined $122M in Europe over misleading WhatsApp filing
Facebook’s 2014 acquisition of messaging app WhatsApp cost $19 billion when it was announced. Now the price tag has been bumped up a little more after European regulators slapped the company with a €110M (~$122M) fine for providing “incorrect or misleading” information at the time of the deal. Read More
-
Facebook Messenger debuts a new look focused on improving navigation
Facebook Messenger is getting a new look. No, it’s not getting rid of its Stories feature, Messenger Day, but is instead making a series a smaller changes to the way the content on its home screen is organized in an effort to speed navigation and help you pick up where you left off on your last visit. The update introduces new tabs to the top of Messenger’s main screen for… Read More
-
Patreon doubles in a year to 1M paying patrons and 50K creators
Patreon’s novel idea of fans just directly paying the artists they love is having its hockey stick moment. Patreon tells TechCrunch that in a year, it’s doubled the number of monthly active paying patrons to 1 million, and the number of active creators to 50,000. It’s now on track to pay out $150 million to creators in 2017. Read More
-
Facebook feed change fights clickbait post by post in 9 more languages
Facebook’s leverage over news publishers can be worrisome, but today it’s putting its muscle to good use. The social network is bringing its battle against clickbait abroad, getting more precise about which link headlines it downranks in News Feed, and starting to demote individual posts instead of just web domains and Facebook Pages. The updates are part of a News Feed… Read More
-
The Shade Room is profitable and not interested in acquisition
Angelica Nwandu, creator of The Shade Room, joined our own Anthony Ha on the stage of TechCrunch Disrupt to discuss the growth of her Instagram-first gossip blog. Despite growing The Shade Room to 9.3 million Instagram followers and profitability, Nwandu says she has no interest in an acquisition. Nwandu attributes her success to meme culture — the ability for large groups to effect… Read More
-
Slack adds screen sharing two years after acquiring Screenhero
For when a screen shot just won’t cut it, Slack’s paid users can now share live video of their screens during video calls. The addition of the feature comes a slow two years after Slack bought Screenhero, a startup that offered enterprise screenshare, in a cash-and-stock deal for its tech and six employees. The feature will roll out on Slack’s latest Mac and Windows apps over… Read More
-
Instagram on copying Snapchat: “This is the way the tech industry works”
“I think it would frankly be silly of us if we were to say “Oh see that good idea over there that’s actually fulfilling a need people have to share more moments of their life, oh because one person did that we can’t even go near that idea.” That’s Instagram’s VP of Product Kevin Weil’s perspective about cloning Snapchat. He’s the man in… Read More
-
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is returning to the company
Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter, just announced that he’s returning to the company he helped start. Stone left Twitter to pursue new projects in 2011. Read More
-
Instagram tests Location Stories
Instagram wants to let you see everything going on somewhere right now. TechCrunch has discovered that Instagram is testing a new Location Stories feature that compiles publicly shared Instagram Stories posts tagged with a location sticker. Users can then visit that business, landmark or place’s Instagram page and watch a slideshow Story of posts from there shared by strangers they… Read More
-
Instagram’s Kevin Weil says Instagram Stories are just one part of the product
Instagram’s head of product Kevin Weil came to Disrupt in New York to introduce selfie filters for Instagram Stories — read more about the new feature here. You can now choose between eight filters to add koala nose and ears to your face and more. This was clearly inspired by Snapchat, and Weil is aware of that. Read More
-
Symphony, a messaging app backed by Wall St, gets $63M at a $1B+ valuation
Symphony, a secure messaging app that counts 15 of the world’s biggest banks among its investors and 200,000 paying customers, has raised a new tranche of funding to fuel its expansion into new markets. Symphony has closed in on $63 million; and according to sources close to the company, the startup is now valued at over $1 billion — confirming our reporting from December. Read More
-
Instagram launches selfie filters, copying the last big Snapchat feature
Today Instagram Stories adds a more subtle and mature but error-prone copycat of Snapchat’s beloved augmented reality selfie filters. The eight initial “face filters,” as Instagram calls them, work exactly like Snapchat, and let you add virtual koala ears, nerd glasses, a butterfly crown or wrinkle-smooth makeup to yourself and friends in photos or videos. Read More
-
Sunrise gives mental health patients AI-guarded group chat
Between therapy sessions, mental health patients can feel alone. Sunrise Health is a new startup aiming to improve mental healthcare by combining the constant support of group chat, the openness afforded by anonymity, the guidance of professional therapists and the safeguard of artificial intelligence watching for abuse and emergencies. Read More
Message Us