social media app

This Week in Apps: Apple’s event brings a ‘Dynamic Island,’ new widgets and iOS 16

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. Global app spending reached $65 billion in th

Cameo now lets you have 10-minute calls with celebs

The dream to find out what actually happened on your favorite show last week, spill the tea with the Real Housewives or learn about your favorite artists’ creative process is now underway as Cam

WeAre8 launches crowdfunder for its social media app, where users are paid to watch ads

With Elon Musk’s recent interest in Twitter, Facebook’s growth flattening and TikTok’s meteoric rise, it feels like the world of social media is back into some kind of inflection point period. C

Voila raises $6M for its AI-powered storefronts for online creators

Voila, a startup building infrastructure for social commerce, is bringing concepts from China’s e-commerce market to the U.S. The company offers an alternative to the “link in bio” s

Netflix brings its shuffle mode feature, ‘Play Something,’ to Android users worldwide

Netflix is today officially launching a new feature for its Android users that will make it easier to find something to watch when you can’t make a decision. The feature, called “Play Some

Dispo launches a test to gauge user interest in selling their photos as NFTs

Dispo, the photo-sharing app that emulates disposable cameras, started rolling out a test yesterday that will record user interest in selling photos as NFTs. Some users will now see a sell button on t

Playbyte’s new app aims to become the ‘TikTok for games’

A startup called Playbyte wants to become the TikTok for games. The company’s newly launched iOS app offers tools that allow users to make and share simple games on their phone, as well as a ver

TikTok owner ByteDance buys a top virtual reality hardware startup

TikTok parent company ByteDance seems to be looking to one-up Facebook anywhere it can. After taking over the mantle of most-downloaded social media app in the world with TikTok, ByteDance is coming f

TikTok just gave itself permission to collect biometric data on US users, including ‘faceprints and voiceprints’

A change to TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy on Wednesday introduced a new section that says the social video app “may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information” from its u

Parler jumps to No. 1 on App Store after Facebook and Twitter ban Trump

Users are surging on small, conservative, social media platforms after President Donald Trump’s ban from the world’s largest social networks, even as those platforms are seeing access thro

This Week in Apps: The year’s best apps, 2020’s biggest downloads, the App Store’s newest hire

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry is as hot as ever, with a recor

President Trump reportedly has approved the Oracle deal for TikTok’s US operations

President Donald Trump said has has given his stamp of approval “in concept” on the Oracle bid for the U.S. operations of the wildly popular social media app, TikTok, according to a report

Report: WhatsApp has seen a 40% increase in usage due to COVID-19 pandemic

Social media usage has grown as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, as more users go online to stay connected with family, friends and colleagues. Now, new data from insights and consulting firm Kantar r

Into Africa: tech leaders weigh in on Jack Dorsey’s planned move to the continent

It’s not every day that the CEO of a large Silicon Valley tech company decides to relocate to a different part of the world in order to learn more about it — particularly when it has been

The five biggest rounds in tech in 2019 and what they mean

Funding for tech startups has been on an inevitable upswing for years, a result of a virtuous circle where wildly successful tech companies on the public markets whet the appetites of investors and in

Kudos wants to be a gentle introduction to social media sharing for kids

Just as pre-teens in the 1990s were warned away from dialing 1-900 numbers, kids now need to learn how to navigate social media responsibly. Kudos, an app for kids aged eight to 13 with around-the-clo