it’s the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, counting from the airing of the first episode of the original 1966 Star Trek series starring William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. Facebook is marking the occasion, in a few different ways. First, there’s a personalized greeting appearing atop News Feeds of users who’ve liked or otherwise interacted with Star […]
This is the ultimate guide to how Facebook chooses what to show in your News Feed, and how you can get your content seen by more people. Understanding how the News Feed works is tough because the algorithm is always changing. So TechCrunch launched this research project for today’s 10th anniversary of News Feed, interviewing […]
A study (conveniently co-written by Facebook) has found that “personal interactions on Facebook can have a major impact on a person’s feelings of well-being and satisfaction with life just as much as getting married or having a baby.” That’s right: it seems that clicking “Like” on a picture of someone’s soup is akin to the […]
Facebook’s goal of tracking ads all the way through to a customer’s purchase at point-of-sale is getting a big boost today with a makeover of the Facebook Offers program. Now designed to be more mobile-friendly, Facebook is allowing businesses to create two kinds of offers – those customers can redeem online and those they redeem in-store – while also […]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is in Nigeria. News of his unannounced trip broke Tuesday with social media photos of him visiting the Co-Creation Hub (Cchub) innovation center in Lagos. Zuckerberg then dropped in at Andela, a software developer accelerator, in which he and his wife’s foundation invested $24million earlier this year. It seems Zuckerberg travels a bit like the president, […]
Today, Facebook is releasing its Zstandard compression algorithm into the wild as open source. The lossless compression technology is aimed at replacing existing libraries like zlib that are powered by the outdated Deflate compression algorithm. In addition to Zstandard, Facebook is also dropping its MyRocks storage engine as open source. MyRocks is currently being used by Facebook […]
Facebook can’t stop copying Snapchat, it seems. Remember how Instagram shamelessly injected Snapchat Stories into its service last month? Well now Messenger is getting a very Snapchat-like new feature: instant video. Messenger already includes video calling, but, acknowledging that this is often saved for “special occasions,” Facebook has added a new broadcast option that sits above a text […]
Earlier today, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded on the launch pad for no apparent reason. While we’re still trying to learn more about what happened, we already know that the company was doing a test, and an anomaly created a big mess. Fortunately, all personnel were clear of the launch pad. But this incident […]
With new 360 video cameras hitting the shelves — alongside matching headsets — in time for the holiday season, millions of new users will be looking to consume VR content. Facebook recognizes that one of the biggest impediments to the enjoyment of 360 video is excess motion. The company released a demo today of its new 360 video stabilization […]
WhatsApp will finally take a step to becoming a platform after the Facebook-owned company revealed it will begin to integrate businesses services into its app before the end of this year. The company first announced plans to connect its userbase — which stands at more than one billion — with businesses back in January, and it today it […]