A set of mini apps has gone live on Snapchat platform, marking the beginning of a new chapter for the Los Angeles-headquartered firm as it aims to emulate aspects of the popular Chinese “super-app” model. Unveiled last month, Snap Minis are lightweight, simplified versions of apps that live within Snap’s Chat section. These apps — […]
Earlier this month, Instagram began testing new navigation in its app that gave its shopping destination a more prominent position. Today, the company is moving forward with its plans to promote Instagram as a place to shop with the launch of its new Instagram Shop, a place to shop from inside Instagram Explore, as well […]
WhatsApp was briefly down Tuesday, with users unable to send or receive messages on the Facebook-owned end-to-end encrypted messaging app. Affected users may have seen that WhatsApp was “connecting” to the service when trying to send a message. The outage started at about 4 p.m. ET but appeared to be working again by 4:30 p.m. […]
Facebook is preparing to launch officially licensed music videos on its social network in the U.S. next month, in a direct challenge to YouTube. In materials reviewed by TechCrunch, Facebook informed Page owners linked to artists they’ll need to toggle on a new setting to add their music videos to their page ahead of an […]
Auditors were not impressed by Facebook’s civil rights work, Tinder tests video chat and a new nasal spray could reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission. Here’s your Daily Crunch for July 8, 2020. The big story: Facebook faces blistering civil rights audit The results are out in a multi-year audit of Facebook’s approach to civil […]
Instagram Stories has grown to become one of Facebook’s best products to date. As of last year, roughly half of Instagram’s users — or 500 million people — were interacting with Stories on a daily basis. That’s nearly double the entire daily active user base of all of Snapchat, which first popularized the Stories format. […]
Facebook is no longer betting on Lasso, an app it launched a year and a half ago, to take on TikTok . The social juggernaut’s TikTok clone is shutting down on July 10, Lasso alerted users on Wednesday. Launched in late 2018, Lasso was seen as Facebook’s answer to TikTok that’s gained ground with young users, […]
Facebook’s recently launched app, Hobbi, an experiment in short-form content creation around personal projects, hobbies and other Pinterest-y content, is already shutting down. The app first arrived on iOS in February as one of now several launches from Facebook’s internal R&D group, the NPE Team. Hobbi users have now been notified by way of push […]
Facebook Avatars, which lets users customize a virtual lookalike of themselves for use as stickers in chat and comments, is now available in India, the social juggernaut’s biggest market by user accounts. The American firm said Tuesday it had launched Avatars to India as more social interaction moves online amid a nationwide lockdown in the […]
Facebook is expanding the availability of the tools it offers to help game streamers and other online creators make money. The social network first launched fan subscriptions in early 2018, giving a small group of creators in the United States and the United Kingdom the ability to charge their fans a $4.99 monthly fee for […]