Social

Facebook is now called Meta, the company said on Thursday, in a rebrand that focuses on building the “metaverse,” a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the successor to the mobile internet. The name change comes as the world’s largest social media company battles criticisms from lawmakers and regulators over its market power,

Facebook on Thursday announced it was changing the parent company’s name to “Meta.” Following the move, many people saw the rebranding exercise as an excuse to have a go at the social media giant. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was among them. He suggested that the new name of the company was confusing and it was

Australia’s competition regulator allowed a body representing 261 radio stations to negotiate a content deal with Facebook and Google on Friday, as part of the country’s new law to compel the tech giants to pay for news content. The body, Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), will now have 10 years to negotiate with the tech giants

WhatsApp will no longer support a list of Android devices starting Monday, November 1. As a result of the update, affected users will lose all their chats if they have not yet been backed up and exported. WhatsApp has also recommended the users to switch to a supported device to continue to use its instant

Zoom has now extended its live translation feature to all users —  free and paid. The feature that auto-generates closed captions during video calls was earlier only available to paid Zoom Meetings users. The option to enable subtitles will be available for Zoom video calls and as well as webinars. The San Jose, California-based video

Instagram Link Stickers, which let users include hyperlinks in Stories in the form of stickers, will now be available to use for everyone on the popular photo-sharing platform. The Facebook-owned social media platform announced the news via Twitter on October 27. Instagram had started testing Link Stickers in June, but until now the feature has

Twitter on Tuesday reported its quarterly revenue grew 37 percent and avoided the brunt of Apple privacy changes on advertising that hobbled its rivals, sending its shares up 3 percent. The social networking site has been working to add new features such as audio chat rooms to attract users, and also rolled out improvements to its advertising

In the technology industry, the concept of metaverse — a range of virtual experiences — is becoming a buzzword. It generally refers to shared virtual environments that people can access via the internet. Most technology companies, including Facebook, have invested heavily in it. The social media giant says it is planning to invest up to

Snapchat has hit the 100-million-user milestone India on a monthly basis, Snap Co-Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel announced at the virtual Snap for India 2021 event on Wednesday. The Santa Monica, California-headquartered company also revealed its local partnerships at the second edition of its India-centric event to further grow the social media camera app that

WhatsApp is reportedly working on a message rating feature for business accounts. This feature will allow users to rate messages from businesses to give them feedback. This feature is reportedly rolling out for beta users on Android, and a few iOS users have mentioned seeing it as well. This message rating feature will allow users

Twitter is tipped to be developing an in-app tab called Collectible, which will allow users to show off their NFT collections and holdings on the micro-blogging platform. The tab will allow NFT owners to link their crypto wallet from platforms such as Coinbase and MetaMask. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are virtual collectibles inspired by real

Two years ago, Apple threatened to pull Facebook and Instagram from its app store over concerns about the platform being used as a tool to trade and sell maids in the Mideast. After publicly promising to crack down, Facebook acknowledged in internal documents obtained by The Associated Press that it was “under-enforcing on confirmed abusive

Australia plans to make social media companies obtain parental consent for users under the age of 16 and threaten fines of up to AUD 10 million (roughly Rs. 55 crores) for Internet platforms which fail to comply, under draft legislation published on Monday. Social media companies, which include anonymous forums like Reddit and smartphone dating

WhatsApp is reportedly getting a new method to view a business account’s status update. As per a new report by a WhatsApp features tracker, users can view a business account’s status updates by tapping the profile picture in the ‘business info’ page. The feature is currently being released for beta testers and is expected to

PayPal is not pursuing an acquisition of Pinterest at this time, the payments company said, responding to media reports that it was in talks to buy the digital pinboard site for as much as $45 billion (roughly Rs. Rs. 3,36,770 crore). Pinterest did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside of business

PayPal has offered to buy Pinterest for $45 billion (roughly Rs. 3,36,770 crore), people familiar with the matter said, a combination that could herald more financial technology and social media tie-ups in e-ecommerce. It would be the biggest acquisition of a social media company, surpassing Microsoft’s $26.2 billion (roughly Rs. 1,95,990 crore) purchase of LinkedIn in 2016.

Instagram recently introduced the ability to schedule livestreams. Called Live Scheduling, the feature lets you schedule your stream for up to 90 days in advance and followers can set reminders to tune in. Instagram offers the ability to start a live video via Stories. This feature is great for building engagement, especially for aspiring creators.

WhatsApp recently introduced a range of stickers in payments to make transacting money a fun affair. The instant messaging app even collaborated with five Indian women artists to offer a new pack of Payments stickers for its users in India. These stickers are essentially built on various cultural expressions related to money exchange. While stickers

Former US President Donald Trump will launch his own social media app, TRUTH Social, that he said would “stand up to Big Tech” companies such as Twitter and Facebook that have barred him from their platforms. TRUTH Social will be created through a new company formed by a merger of the Trump Media and Technology Group

A former Facebook worker reportedly told US authorities Friday the platform has put profits before stopping problematic content, weeks after another whistleblower helped stoke the firm’s latest crisis with similar claims. The unnamed new whistleblower filed a complaint with US financial regulator Securities and Exchange Commission that could add to the company’s distress, said a

A common refrain about social media is that a major part of it toxic. It is often said to be a result of people following in the footsteps of social media influencers. A new study claims that banning or removing ‘extremists’ from social media can reduce the spread of anti-social ideas and conspiracy theories. In

Facebook is rolling out a new Group Effects feature on Messenger video calls and Messenger Rooms. Group Effects bring new AR filters and effects that can be applied to everyone on a video call, at the same time. These Group Effects will be rolled out soon to Instagram, Facebook says. The social media giant says

Tencent’s WeChat has fixed a glitch that allowed some of its content to be searchable by external search engines, the owner of China’s most popular messaging app said on Friday, raising questions over regulators’ latest attempt to crackdown on the internet sector. Some of WeChat’s content, including articles on its public accounts page, was briefly

Shares of Snap plummeted 25 percent on Thursday after the owner of photo messaging app Snapchat said privacy changes implemented by Apple Inc on iOS devices hurt the company’s ability to target and measure its digital advertising. The Santa Monica, California-based company, which earns the vast majority of its revenue from selling digital advertising on the

Zuckerverse. Timesuck. Faceplant. They’re just a few of the suggestions being bandied around online following reports that Facebook plans to rebrand itself with a new group name. The company refused to comment on rumor or speculation, of course, but the Twitterati had no problem. The debate careered from sensible to screwball to strange. “Meta” was

Twitter on Thursday introduced a live cricket scorecard and extended its Communities feature to India by bringing the country’s first community focussed on cricket fans called Cricket Twitter – India. The updates from the microblogging platform come in the midst of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 tournament that kicked off earlier this week

Renaming Facebook is unlikely to enable the tech giant to distance itself from regulatory and public scrutiny around the potential harms caused by its social media apps, marketing and branding experts told Reuters. Tech publication The Verge reported on Tuesday that the California-based firm is planning to change its corporate branding to reflect that as well

Instagram is adding a bunch of new features to its Feed and Reels. The Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform has announced that it is testing the Collabs feature to strengthen the relationship between content creators. With the latest feature, users on the platform can co-author Feed posts and Reels with others. In the shared post, both the

Britain’s competition regulator has fined Facebook GBP 50.5 million (roughly Rs. 520 crores) for breaching an order imposed during its investigation into the US social media giant’s purchase of GIF platform Giphy, the agency said. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Facebook had deliberately failed to comply with its order, and the penalty served

Snap said on Tuesday it is launching a studio to help brands create augmented reality advertising and experiences, part of a move to popularise the use of technology that can overlay computer-generated images onto a person’s view of the real world. The owner of photo messaging app Snapchat first became popular with young users for