Author: Max Milella

It’s become increasingly clear to most of the internet that Instagram has some pretty lofty ambitions of being the quintessential video-based social media platform, evolving out of its still-image roots. With that in mind, it’s going all-in on improvements to its currently available video options, this time around working on a mod-appointment system for live streams and a ‘like’ button for stories. Instagram’s video virality https://twitter.com/alex193a/status/1459041172865880066 There’s no official word on either of these updates from Instagram itself, but reliable leaker Alessandro Paluzzi unearthed and reported them via his Twitter account.  Regarding live video streams, it looks like hosts will…

“If you can monetise it, do,” is Meta/Facebook’s motto at this point, and that extends to its related products too. If recently-spotted App Store and Play Store listings are to be believed, Instagram appears to be working on a new subscription feature, which would probably go a decent way towards supporting big creators (as well as lining Zuck’s pockets).  Instagram IAP incoming According to app and data analyst Sensor Tower (via TechCrunch) Instagram recently began listing in-app purchase options on its US App Store and Play Store listings, apparently intended for subscription options. App analysts have observed this kind of…

In a surprising move, Facebook announced today that, from the beginning of next year, it would no longer serve targeted ads based on “sensitive” topics, such as those relating to gender, race, sexuality, religious identity or political stances. Within these topics, regarding ad material, are things like “same-sex marriage”, “LGBT culture”, religious holidays, “Health causes” and so on. At this point, just about everyone knows that Facebook/Meta’s prime directive is ad revenue, so narrowing its scope like this must have taken a lot of ruminating. Facebook tapers targeting In case you didn’t know, targeted advertising is Facebook’s main source of…

Google’s got a lot more going for it than Chrome, Search and Gmail these days, such as a range of platforms built for entertainment. For example, the Arts & Culture app. As you might expect, the app lets you browse fine arts from a number of museums around the world (over 2000 total). In 2018, the Arts & Culture app got an update that rolled out a new feature that let users find their lookalikes in fine works of art through a selfie. Now that feature is being expanded to include pets. Google loves your pets as much as you…

Big tech continues to score big on the stock market, despite (or perhaps even thanks to) the ongoing global pandemic. Alphabet, best known for managing Google, has had a particularly solid year, and climbed to a market value of $2 trillion this Monday. We doubt Sergey and Larry saw this coming back when they were starting up the search engine in their Stanford dorm rooms.  Google gangbusters Alphabet shares the monumental valuation with the two other members of the $2 trillion club, Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft joined the club this year too. According to Bloomberg, Alphabet hit its $1 trillion…

If you were one of the hopeful few fools who expected some level of consistency from Eskom with regards to load shedding implementation, we’re sorry to burst your bubble. The power utility announced that as of 1pm today load shedding would be bumped from Stage 2 to Stage 4. We’d tell you to bust out the inverters but you’ve probably had them out for over a week already. Eskom-placency  Eskom’s been jumping between Stage 2 and Stage 4 so often recently that we’re beginning to think they’re trying to confuse us. Or enrage us. Mission accomplished. What’s more, is in…

The update wheel turns on and on for WhatsApp, which has put out new features pretty consistently this year. The feature it’s currently working on is called “Communities”, and it’s basically an extension or expansion for regular group chats. We’re more than a WhatsApp group. We’re a community. XDA-Developers first spotted allusions to Communities a few weeks back, with WABetaInfo waiting until now to uncover more substantial details about the feature.  According to the latter, the Communities feature gives group admins more power in their chats, which strongly resemble regular group chats. The main selling point, it appears, is the…

A missing 16-year-old girl from North Carolina, USA, was found last week after a driver spotted her in the back of a silver Toyota passenger car near New London. The driver noted that the young girl “appeared to be in distress”, and recognised a hand signal she was making, popularised on TikTok, used to indicate “violence at home — I need help — domestic violence.”  TikTok tip-off The driver reported the vehicle to 911, after which local authorities were dispatched to investigate. After intercepting the South-bound vehicle near a Kentucky interstate border, they arrested the driver, 61-year-old James Herbert Brick. …

Twitter has had a stroke of genius when it comes to Spaces, its social-audio platform à la Clubhouse. Its newest idea to grow the platform’s audience: let anyone use it. Including those who don’t have or want an account.  From today, Spaces hosts can send anybody a link to a particular audio stream, allowing them to listen in via their web browsers. By extension, we imagine listeners who have received links directly can spread them around too, which could widen the feature’s reach pretty substantially. There’s Space for everyone Twitter made a tongue-in-cheek announcement, saying, “have friends not on Twitter?…

Apple and Google have both been under considerable fire for their less-than-popular in-app purchase systems for the past few months. South Korea launched a fairly substantial assault against the pair recently. Back in August, the South Korean government passed a law that forces both parties to allow developers to process in-app purchases through third-party billing systems, rather than through its proprietary system. Google explained how it would make that work today.  Google falls inline Google’s solution to comply with the new law is pretty simple. In a mockup, we can see a “Choose how to check out” page that lets…