WhatsApp has grown increasingly popular over the years. Even being owned by Facebook has not slowed the messaging platform down. Can advertisements shoved into the app change that? We'll find out beginning in 2020.
We use apps every single day, and the general hope is that most of them aren't tools to be used to spy on us. Even the ones that are built around a social networking platform. Snapchat, for instance, which is one of the biggest and most popular social networks out there. But it turns out Snap used to have tools accessible by employees to spy on users.
The Facebook-owned Instagram launched its long-form video content platform, IGTV, back in 2018. Since then, the company has been all-in with vertical video, meant to be viewed on smartphones without switching to landscape. But it looks like that focus has shifted, and landscape video will finally be supported.
After admitting in April that millions of Instagram and Facebook passwords were stored in plaintext, researchers have now discovered a flaw on the Instagram website that has reportedly leaked users' phone numbers and email addresses for months.
It has been just under a year since the Facebook-owned Instagram launched IGTV, its platform for creators to publish original content for the platform. Since then, there have been changes along the way in an effort to get more people to use it. Instagram's latest effort takes a more dramatic approach.
Solid evidence surfaced today regarding the native Facebook Messenger app that will be hitting the Mac platform later this year, with leaked images and videos depicting a user interface that looks like a cross between the Skype app and Apple's Messages software.
One of the ways Facebook is working to regain user trust lost amid privacy scandals involves a new effort to provide better transparency as to how its News Feed algorithms work.
Twitter today announced a major camera-focused update to its app for iPhone and iPad, arriving just days after the company released a new app for testing upcoming new features.
Twitter announced today a new feature that allows customers to provide more details when they report a tweet that contains personal information.
Apple has showed Facebook who has the power in a controversial app dispute that erupted following discovery that the social network not only distributed a data-collecting research app that was approved only for internal use but paid people ages 13 to 35 to install it.
Facebook is reportedly planning to integrate chats from its three major properties: WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.
This was reported Friday by The New York Times. A Facebook spokesperson has confirmed the report's findings via a written statement to the newspaper.
The different chats should be merged sometime in 2020.
According to sources, Facebook's boss and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg recently summoned WhatsApp employees to announce the merging of the company's messagings services.
They balked at the plan, the article reads:
On December 7, employees gathered around microphones at WhatsApp’s offices to ask Mr. Zuckerberg why he was so invested in merging the services. Some said his answers were vague and meandering. Several WhatsApp employees have left or plan to leave because of Mr. Zuckerberg’s plans, the people said.
If Facebook proceeds with the plan, customers will be able to start a chat with another user irrespective of whether they're on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Instagram. As an example, a Messenger user could start chatting with a friend of Instagram, or vice versa. In another instance, a WhatsApp user would be able to chat directly with a contact on Instagram.
From the article:
By stitching the apps’ infrastructure together, Mr. Zuckerberg wants to increase the utility of the social network, keeping its billions of users highly engaged inside its ecosystem. If people turn more regularly to Facebook-owned properties for texting, they may forgo rival messaging services, such as those from Apple and Google, said the people, who declined to be identified because the moves are confidential.
Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp will remain separate apps: the company will not merge them into a unified mega-app for chatting.
This integration would include end-to-end encryption to protect communications as the messages are transmitted between the three different chat services.
It was however unclear at post time how this would work in practice considering that people go by their real name on Facebook versus the anonymity that Instagram and WhatsApp provide.
Today, WhatsApp requires people to register only a phone number to sign up for the service. By contrast, Facebook and Facebook Messenger ask users to provide their real identities. Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give pause to those who prefer keeping their use of each app compartmentalized.
Is this a good idea, do you think?
Let us know in the comments!
In another attempt to nuke fake news out of orbit and help you distinguish the real Elon Musk or Donald Trump from their false copies, Twitter is testing a new "Original Tweeter" tag.
The company yesterday confirmed the test to TechCrunch, saying that the new label has rolled out to a “small percentage” of iOS and Android users across multiple markets.
Sara Haider, Twitter’s Director of Product Management, said:
Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. As part of this work, we’re exploring adding more context to discussions by highlighting relevant replies—like those from the original tweeter.
Not only does this new feature make it easier to distinguish the person who started a thread, it also helps curb certain types of abuse on the platform.
Accounts masquerading as other Twitter users has been an annoying problem for sure. That being said, any effort to curb this kind of behavior deserves a thumbs-up, wouldn't you agree?
Just be careful not to confuse the new "Original Tweeter" tag with Twitter's existing blue verified badge which lets people know that an account of public interest is authentic.
As you probably know, Twitter's somehow managed to botch the roll-out of verified badges.
At first, the little blue badge was exclusive to celebrities and well-known users with millions of followers. But when the company expanded the program beyond public figures, it found itself in trouble after it verified accounts belonging to conspiracy theorists and Neo nazi groups.
Because of those woes and missteps, the company's verified account program is currently on hold and not accepting any new requests at this time.
On a related noted, we reported yesterday that Twitter's Night Mode, which enables a darkened interface, might soon introduce a pure black setting following user complaints that the app's Night Mode theme was too blue-ish and not dark or black enough.
So, has this new "Original Tweeter" tag appeared for you yet?
Let us know by leaving a comment down below.