PartyWith’s new app is part event-finder, part friend-finder
I can’t quite wrap my head around the need for a dedicated app for travelers wanting to meet locals to hang out with — doesn’t this just happen naturally? But that, at least in part, is the premise behind today’s official launch of PartyWith, a revamped version of the app previously known as Party with a Local. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/rZP9IbpNc18/
Twitter users join 24hr boycott to protest online harassment
A number of Twitter users are joining in a 24 hour boycott of the platform today, organized around the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter, to draw attention to online harassment on social media, including how women’s voices are silenced by bullying and abuse. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/dw1TexqRWrM/
Facebook’s ‘Order Food’ feature officially launches across the US
Facebook today formally announced its new feature that allows users to order food from local restaurants using its app. Instead of competing directly with other food ordering services, Facebook is partnering with several industry players on this effort, including EatStreet, Delivery.com, DoorDash, ChowNow, Olo, Zuppler and Slice. It’s also working with restaurant chains directly. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/p1ZWrpF1JC8/
Facebook’s ad targeting tools could be a valuable supplement to census data
Official census forms are an invaluable source for demographic data throughout the country, but for trends that occur on the scale of weeks or months rather than years, they’re a bit lacking. But a new study shows that similar data used by Facebook to target ads could help fill in that blind spot. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/Lb4vK_FxdeY/
South Park slams Facebook for selling fake news
“I make money from Facebook for my fake content in order to pay Facebook to promote my fake stories,” said Professor Chaos in one of the most brutal and succinct criticisms of the social network to date. The latest episode of South Park pulled no punches in its take-down of the Facebook fake news scandal. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/DIAJmXHpDFk/
Twitter breaks its silence on McGowan suspension
Twitter has abruptly broken its own policy of not commenting on individual accounts to explain why it temporarily suspended the account of actress Rose McGowan late yesterday, after she had been tweeting about allegations of sexual abuse and harassment which have been surfacing against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/XXZ5fRR763w/
Facebook Stories open to Pages, bringing brands to the ghost town
No one’s posting to Facebook Stories. Only eight of my 2,800 friends have Stories up right now, and three came from the new “cross-post from Instagram Stories” feature. It’s slow adoption for a feature cloned from Snapchat that’s proven wildly popular elsewhere, and lives prominently at the top of perhaps the world’s most-used app. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/wg9_comAiig/
Toonstar lets you bring cartoon characters to life thanks to facial recognition
John Attanasio, CEO of Toonstar, said his goal is to create “a new Cartoon Network.” Attanasio said the key to Toonstar’s approach is to create animated content that’s “mobile, snackable, interactive.” The startup’s iOS app allows users to customize cartoon characters and then animate them using their own facial expressions. The resulting cartoons can… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/7qrnMmOECEo/
The trouble with Sandberg saying Facebook allows fake news ads
If the Russian-bought election interference ads hadn’t been bought by fraudulent accounts, “Most of them would be allowed to run” Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said this morning. “The responsibility of an open platform is to allow people to express themselves” she said during the first of an Axios interview series with Facebook execs.
“The thing about free… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/a3hCw3ay8o0/
Twitter’s abuse problem is absolutely a failure of leadership
Twitter has blundered into yet another moderation crisis after it temporarily suspended the account of actress Rose McGowan as she was using its platform to speak out against sexual harassment of women in the wake of sexual abuse allegations coming out against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/RcgQxevetq0/
Kudos wants to be a gentle introduction to social media sharing for kids
Just as pre-teens in the 1990s were warned away from dialing 1-900 numbers, kids now need to learn how to navigate social media responsibly. Kudos, an app for kids aged eight to 13 with around-the-clock moderation, positions itself as a safe introduction to social media that also teaches its young users, some of whom were born before the first iPhone was released, how to be “good… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/SwAPtuWkxU4/
Everything announced at Oculus’ Connect 4 VR conference
Standalone headsets, VR replacements for your computer monitor and ways to share VR to the News Feed were highlights of today’s big Oculus conference. Click through or scroll down to get just the need-to-know info and GIFs from our in-depth coverage of Facebook’s vision for the future of virtual reality.
Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/dfi9ZozCGy4/
Facebook’s new virtual reality strategy: self-reliance
Today, Facebook’s VR ambitions looked inwards. The newly announced $199 Oculus Go headset and upcoming high-end “Santa Cruz” standalone will come with something past headsets haven’t: power buttons. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/dVRcYMXeFR4/
Facebook ‘3D posts’ let you play with VR objects in News Feed
Facebook wants to let you create virtual objects in its Oculus Medium sculpting platform or Facebook Spaces VR hangouts and then share them with friends who don’t have a VR headset. Today at Oculus Connect 4, Facebook previewed 3D posts, a new type of News Feed post where users can grab, spin and interact with a 3D object to look at it from all angles. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/OJlKNTyTs_k/
Oculus ‘Dash’ replaces your computer monitor with VR
Oculus Rift has a whole new user interface that lets you customize your VR Home space and replace your traditional computer monitor with nearly unlimited VR screenspace. Oculus Core 2.0 is rolling out in beta in December. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/gMkWm2RtY4c/
PornHub uses computer vision to ID actors, acts in its videos
They say porn adopts new technologies first and PornHub [NSFW], a site that is as NSFW as it sounds, is proving that old adage true. The site – which receives 80 million visitors a day – found that its old, antiquated methods of tagging videos by hand was not sufficient. Rather than hire someone to go through the hundreds of thousands of videos and tag them by hand, the team at… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/SOB0Sjc7kg4/
Google shuts YouTube channel implicated in Kremlin political propaganda ops
A YouTube channel that had been implicated in Russia disinformation operations to target the U.S. 2016 election has been taken down by Google. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/s4ysSPZ-kF8/
Twitter says it may “refine” its policies after reversing position on Blackburn campaign ad
For the second time in less than three weeks, Twitter has said it will look at its policies following controversy over tweets by a politician. On Tuesday, Twitter reversed a decision it made the day before to block a campaign video from Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican representative from Tennessee, for breaking its ad policies. In a media statement, a Twitter spokesperson said “While… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/WQWridHnMio/
Facebook seriously needs its own Bitmoji
Your Facebook profile used to be the online version of “you”. But over the past year, Bitmoji has usurped Facebook to become the preferred way to share your identity over the web. The Facebook profile assembles a collection of text and real-world photos into a fixed set of poses, making it more of a snapshot of the offline you ported into the digital realm rather than a vision of… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/sAHNUb1CWY0/
Social media monitor Brandwatch acquires content marketing platform BuzzSumo
Brandwatch, a social media monitoring company, has acquired BuzzSumo, a content marketing and influencer identification platform, for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition adds an important arrow into Brandwatch’s quiver. Expect more from this company, which seems intent on creating a suite of powerful tools for online marketers. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/LbItfYCX144/ Source: https://techcrunch.com/
