Despite Facebook’s effort to rapidly self-regulate in the wake of Russian interference in the U.S. election using Facebook ads, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he would support government regulation if implemented properly. Meanwhile, Facebook elevated its expense estimates for 2018 to fund security hiring. Read More
Category: Apps
Facebook beats in Q3 with $4.7B profit, record share price despite Russia
Facebook is still in the middle of its House Intelligence Committee hearing about Russian election interference, but the looming concerns over misuse haven’t dampened its business as profits continue to soar and its share price hits an all-time high. Still, CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw it fit to break from his traditional “Our business is doing well” script to add “But none… Read More
Periscope ups payouts to broadcasters on sales of Super Hearts, adds holiday bonuses
Twitter’s Periscope is going after live broadcasters in a big way, as it’s now promising to give back more of their earnings from the sales of Super Hearts in their live video streams.
Introduced in June, Super Hearts are in-app virtual goods that offer a form of virtual tipping.
The idea is similar to Twitch’s or YouTube’s emotes, but instead of custom emoji… Read More
Trump and Clinton spent $81M on US election Facebook ads, Russian agency $46K
Russian information troll farm the Internert Research Agency spent just 0.05% as much on Facebook ads as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s campaigns combined in the run up to the 2016 US presidential election. Clinton and Trump spent $81 million, while the IRA spent $46,000. Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch revealed these figures today during the Senate Intelligence… Read More
120K Instagrams by Russian election attackers hit 20M Americans
Facebook detailed the extent of Russia’s election interference campaign on Instagram today during its second congressional hearing. Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch said that 120,000 posts by Russian election attackers reached 16 million Americans from October through the election, and the posts reached an additional 4 million Americans prior to October. That’s on top of the… Read More
Robinhood stock trading comes to web with finance news for its 3M users
You know what’s cool? Not just being worth over $1 billion, but saving your customers $1 billion. Today, zero-fee stock trading app Robinhood announced that it’s hit 3 million registered accounts, $100 billion transacted in its app, and $1 billion in saved commissions considering competitors like E*Trade cost $7 per trade.
And now, Robinhood is getting a web version where beyond… Read More
Amazon adds an AR shopping feature to its iOS app
Amazon today is introducing a new feature called AR View that lets customers visualize online products in their own living space, using their smartphone camera. Launched today in the Amazon app for iOS devices, AR View offers the ability to view thousands of products for the home or office – including furniture, electronics, toys, games, home décor and more – in augmented reality.… Read More
Grab, the Uber rival in Southeast Asia, is now officially also a digital payments company
Grab is best known for rivaling Uber in Southeast Asia, but today the company took a major step into becoming a fintech player, too.
That’s because the ride-sharing firm, which recently raised $2 billion from SoftBank and China’s Didi Chuxing, rolled out support for its GrabPay service among third-party merchants for the first time today.
Grab is present in seven markets across… Read More
Grab, the Uber rival in Southeast Asia, is now officially also a digital payments company
Grab is best known for rivaling Uber in Southeast Asia, but today the company took a major step into becoming a fintech player, too.
That’s because the ride-sharing firm, which recently raised $2 billion from SoftBank and China’s Didi Chuxing, rolled out support for its GrabPay service among third-party merchants for the first time today.
Grab is present in seven markets across… Read More
Signal escapes the confines of the browser with a standalone desktop app
If you’re an active Signal user (and why aren’t you?) you likely already know about the desktop app — or what passes for one. It’s actually Chrome App, requiring Google’s browser to function. Well, that nightmare is over, as Signal has released a standalone app with no troubling dependencies on billion-dollar companies. Read More
Creative-focused app PicsArt hits 100M MAUs, attracting brands tired of trolls
You would think that social networks are more or less “done” now. What would be the point of another in a world filled with so many options? But in fact, there remains a niche which has been growing steadily in the creative corners of the Internet. PicsArt has been building growing since it was started in 2011. It’s now announced new growth figures which have hit 100… Read More
Congress grills Facebook, Twitter, Google on shells hiding election meddlers
How can Internet giants know that innocent-seeming US companies aren’t actually shell vehicles for malicious foreign actors to buy ads to interfere with elections? The short answer is they can’t, and that drew questioning from a congressional probe today into Facebook, Twitter, and Google being used to manipulate the 2016 presidential election. The hearing saw Facebook’s… Read More