‘Link-in-bio’ company Linktree raises $45M Series B for its social commerce features
If you browse Instagram, you are probably familiar with the term “link in bio.” Links aren’t allowed in post captions, and users are only allowed one URL in their bios, so many create a
Instagram and WhatsApp hit by outage
Instagram and WhatsApp experienced an apparent outage on Friday. It began around 1:40 p.m. ET and lasted for more than half an hour. WhatsApp was unable to connect to the server, and messages were not
Instagram adds new teen safety tools as competition with TikTok heats up
Earlier this year, TikTok made an update to its privacy settings and defaults to further lock down the app for its teenage users. This morning, Instagram followed suit with teen-focused privacy update
Facebook to label all COVID-19 vaccine posts with pointer to official info
Facebook will soon label all posts discussing the coronavirus vaccination with a pointer to official information about COVID-19, it said today. It also revealed it has implemented some new “temp
Facebook targets emerging markets with the launch of Instagram Lite, an Android app that takes up just 2MB, in 170 countries
Growth for Facebook is coming from the developing world, and so the social network today made another key move to cater better to consumers in those countries. After nearly three years in the planning
Instagram launches ‘Live Rooms’ for live broadcasts with up to four creators
Instagram today announced it’s adding a much-requested feature to its app with the launch of “Live Rooms,” which allow up to four people to broadcast live together at the same time.
Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp face tougher rules in India
India announced sweeping rules to regulate social media firms, streaming services and digital news outlets on Thursday, posing new challenges for giants such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and Netflix t
Twitter explored buying India’s ShareChat and turning Moj into a global TikTok rival
Twitter recently held talks to acquire Indian social media startup ShareChat as the company explored ways to expand its presence in the world’s second-largest internet market and build a global riva
A webcam app left thousands of user accounts exposed online
A webcam app installed by thousands of users left an exposed database packed with user data on the internet without a password. The Elasticsearch database belonged to Adorcam, an app for viewing and c
Shopify expands its payment option, Shop Pay, to its merchants on Facebook and Instagram
Shopify announced this morning it’s partnered with Facebook to expand its payment option, Shop Pay, to all Shopify merchants selling across both Facebook and Instagram. This is the first time Sh
Daily Crunch: Myanmar blocks Twitter and Instagram
Myanmar’s government extends its internet crackdown, Microsoft’s lobbying arm blacklists presidential election objectors and Dublin’s Frontline Ventures raises a new fund. This is yo
Myanmar’s new military government orders to temporarily block internet access
Updated at 1.46AM PT February 6: Telenor says Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has directed all mobile operators to temporarily shut down the data network in Myanmar. Voice and
Instagram confirms it’s working on a ‘Vertical Stories’ feed
Instagram is developing a new feature that could give its app more of a TikTok-like feel: Vertical Instagram Stories. Today, users browse through Stories through taps and horizontal swipes — a f
The biggest exit for this L.A. venture firm may wind up being . . . canned water
Earlier this week, Science Inc, the 10-year-old, L.A.-based incubator and venture firm, rolled out a blank-check company onto the Nasdaq, raising $310.5 million for what firm founders Peter Pham and M
Augmented reality’s awkward phase will be long and painful
Howdy friends, this is the web version of my Week in Review newsletter, it’s here to entice you to sign up and get it in your inbox every week. Last week, I showcased how Twitter was looking at
Facebook and Instagram’s AI-generated image captions now offer far more details
Every picture posted to Facebook and Instagram gets evaluated by an image analysis AI in order to create a caption, and that AI just got a lot smarter. The improved system should be a treat for visual
Snapchat permanently bans President Trump’s account
Quite a bit has happened since Snap announced last week that it was indefinitely locking President Trump’s Snapchat account. But after temporary bans from his Facebook, Instagram and YouTube acc
App stores saw record 218 billion downloads in 2020, consumer spend of $143 billion
Mobile adoption continued to grow in 2020, in part due to the market forces of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to App Annie’s annual “State of Mobile” industry report, mobile app do
Healthvana’s digital COVID-19 vaccination records are about communication, not passports for the immune
As the vaccination campaign to counter COVID-19 gets underway (albeit with a rocky start), a number of companies are attempting to support its rollout in a variety of ways. Healthvana, a health tech s
The deplatforming of President Trump
After years of placid admonishments, the tech world came out in force against President Trump this past week following the violent assault of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.