Social Media

What Is Ello and Should I Even Bother?

In the past week you may have heard people start to talk about something called Ello. Though it sounds like a cockney-accented greeting, it’s actually a new social network with one major selling point: It doesn’t have any ads. Ello is setting itself up to be the anti-Facebook, and apparently people are flooding it—it’s at…

Facebook’s Wi-Fi Drones Start Testing Next Year

By this stage, Facebook’s plan to bring internet to the whole world with a fleet of drones and lasers is pretty well documented: what’s a little vague has been the details — until now. Speaking at the Social Good Summit in New York, Yael Maguire, the engineering director at Facebook Connectivity Lab, spilled a few…

Oculus Doesn’t Know How To Build a VR Game Controller Yet

Some of the biggest brains behind the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset are on stage right now chatting about the future of VR, and they’ve got some bittersweet news. They just don’t yet see any way to build a proper controller to go with their incredible headset. https://gizmodo.com/watch-the-oculus-keynote-live-right-here-right-now-1637183320 Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and famed video…

Judge: Yes, You Can Serve Legal Papers Over Facebook

It used to be that, when you wanted to slap someone with a lawsuit, you’d have to hunt them down the old-fashioned way—on foot, just like mom used to do. But now, a Family Court official has ruled for the very first time in the United States (it’s already common practice in Europe) that yes,…

Facebook Will Try to Stop Showing You Old, Irrelevant Posts

Facebook just announced its latest plan to fix Newsfeed, promising to show more timely content. Out with the old, in with the relevant and new. It looks like the change was spurred by everyone complaining when old crap kept popping to the top of their Newsfeeds: We’ve heard feedback that there are some instances where…

Report: Facebook Prepping New App for Private Sharing Called “Moments”

Facebook is reportedly testing an app codenamed “Moments” so people can share posts with a smaller circle of friends. TechCrunch reports multiple sources have confirmed the existence of this app, including one who has seen a live internal version. Here’s what they know so far: The product is currently being “dogfooded” by Facebook employees to…

Facebook’s Revamped App Settings Page Makes It Easy To Unhook Apps

If you head over to your Facebook Apps Settings page, you’ll be shocked to know how many useless apps you’ve got attached to your account. My account, for instance, is hooked up to 448 apps (there’s something called “are u in love?!?!?

Grandmas on Facebook Are Tagging Themselves Grandmaster Flash

Here’s a great social media trend: Grandmas on Facebook are accidentally tagging themselves as Grandmaster Flash. Apparently Nana didn’t get the message. To be fair, it’s easy to tag the wrong name in a post, thanks to Facebook’s auto-tagging feature. You’ve done it before, but the difference is you almost definitely correct your post. A…

Facebook’s Messenger App Logs Way More Data Than You Realize

Ever since Facebook first started pushing users over to its standalone messaging app (whether they liked it or not), there have been cries of outrage over what’s seemed like an inordinately large amount of required permissions. And while there’s still no indication that Facebook has any sort of bad intent, the company is collecting a…

Facebook Is Testing Self-Destructing Posts

Spotted by The Next Web, Facebook is testing a new feature that would allow people to schedule a time for their posts to be scrubbed from their timeline. This “Choose Expiration” feature lets you choose a life expectancy from 1 hour up to 7 days, based on user screenshots. Facebook has said they were testing…

Play Counts Are Coming To Facebook Videos This Week

Facebook is adding two new features to be more like Youtube. Starting this week, the social network will start displaying video view counts, so you can instantly tell how popular a certain clip is. You will also be presented with a list of related videos, just like YouTube, once you finish watching something. Facebook announced…

Facebook has backtracked on the only feature that differentiated its Slingshot app from competitors like Snapchat. When you receive a photo or a video now, you’re not required to send something back to “unlock” it. Senders can now choose whether they want you to send them a shot in return to unlock their content. [GigaOm]

The Complete Guide to Locking Down Facebook Privacy for Good

Facebook’s privacy settings are notorious for being convoluted and downright confusing—even Zuck’s own kin have had issues. Which is why Facebook has officially rolled out a “privacy checkup” to help you make sure you’re sharing exactly what you want. But since the checkup only goes so deep, here’s how to make sure your Facebook privacy…

The Final Version of the Oculus Rift Could Be As Cheap As $200

The version of the Oculus Rift that you or I might buy could sell for as cheap as $200, according to Oculus founder Palmer Luckey. Luckey told Eurogamer that Oculus plans to sell its eventual consumer version for between $200 and $400, though he noted that may change based on scale, pre-orders, and a number…

Facebook Is Down, Here Are Some Coping Mechanisms (Update: It’s Back!)

Facebook is down (again)! Who knows for how long? Honestly it’ll probably be back by the time you read this post. But just in case, here’s a Facebook-like experience to get you through. A compilation of ice bucket fails! Someone’s cute baby! An ad for a t-shirt with your name on it! Opinions about politics!…

You Can Now Send a Netflix Rec to a Friend in a Facebook Message

Netflix indecision is the worst, so from time to time you’ll ask your friends what they’re watching. And then you forget what they told you and you’re back at square one. Now Netflix is making your life easier, by letting you recommend a show or movie to a friend directly from Netflix in a Facebook…

What separates a social network from a messaging application? The EU is about to find out, having sent a 70-page long questionnaire to competitors and customers of Facebook to work out if its WhatsApp purchase is legit in terms of competition law.

Keywords Are Going To Make Facebook Search on Mobile a Lot Better

Search on Facebook sucks so hard it would be funny if it wasn’t frustrating. Now it looks like Facebook is finally doing something about it, so allow me a minute bounce around my living room in joy. The social network is testing a feature for its mobile app that lets people search through old posts…

Facebook Really Wants You to Stop Being Pissed About Messenger

Facebook wants you to know Messenger isn’t spying on you. After people got mad about the company’s decision to make downloading Facebook Messenger necessary to use Facebook Chat on mobile, the backlash got so bad Facebook’s Peter Martinazzi issued an official “calm the eff down” announcement. You might have heard the rumors going around about…

Social Media Users Unlikely to Disagree With Consensus, Online and Off

In the utopian vision of the internet, social media provides a platform where we can share opinions, debate and argue; a space for free discussion and constructive discourse. Turns out, the opposite is true. A new report from Pew Research aimed to investigate whether our digital realm alleviates the social phenomenon that is the “spiral…