Apps

YouTube will soon roll out a ‘Go Live Together’ co-streaming feature to select creators • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apps, Media & Entertainment, TikTok, Twitch, YouTubeNo Comments

YouTube is gearing up to roll out a new feature that will allow select creators to invite a guest to go live with them, the company announced on its Creator Insider channel and in a blog post. At launch, creators will only be able to co-stream via a phone, as the feature won’t available on the desktop version of YouTube. The new feature will initially only be available to a select group of creators, but YouTube plans to expand co-streaming to more creators in the future. Creators can schedule a live stream with a guest from their computer and then go live from a mobile phone. Or, they can go live immediately from their mobile phone. Although you can rotate guests on your live stream, you can only have one guest appear at a time. Once you invite a guest, your stream feed will show above your guest’s. In the next few weeks, some creators will be able to select the new “Go Live Together” button on their accounts. Creators need to start by entering their stream details, including the title, description, monetization settings, thumbnails and visibility settings. After selecting the “Invite a co-streamer” option, creators will be able to choose a guest to invite to their live stream. After the guest clicks the invite, they will be sent to a waiting room. When both people are ready, the host can tap the “Go Live” button. YouTube’s guest streams can run advertisements, but revenue will solely go to the host. It’s worth noting that the stream won’t appear on the guest’s channel, but YouTube says it’s aware that visibility on guest channels is important, which indicates that the company could potentially ship the feature in the future. The launch of the new feature comes as TikTok and Twitch recently launched their own co-streaming features. A few weeks ago, TikTok rolled out a new feature called “Multi-Guest” that lets hosts go live with up to five other people using a grid or panel layout. Last week, Twitch officially launched a new feature called Guest, which lets streamers easily pull other creators and fans into their streams for talk show-like experience. Guest Star makes it possible for anyone to pull up to five speakers into a stream at once. Unlike with YouTube’s co-streaming feature, TikTok and Twitch both allow you go live with more than one person. Given that YouTube’s co-streaming is still in the early stages, it’s possible that it may expand the limit to allow creators to go live with multiple people.

Etsy begins rolling out visual search, starting with iOS users • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apps, Commerce, eCommerce, EtsyNo Comments

Etsy is is launching a new image search feature that is designed to help users find what they’re looking for faster. Up until now, the only way to search on Etsy was through keywords. Now, users on iOS can tap the new camera icon in the search bar and upload or take a photo, after which Etsy will surface items that are visually similar to the image the user shared. Etsy didn’t share its plans regarding an Android launch. The company says the new feature aims to help users discover items when have trouble finding the right words to define a specific product. For example, say you’re looking for a mug in your favorite color, but don’t know how to describe the exact shade you want. Or, you see a unique piece of furniture and want to find a small business that can hand make something similar for you. The new image search feature should help you find what you’re looking for in instances like these. Image Credits: Etsy “With more than 100 million items in our marketplace, odds are that if you can dream it – or snap a photo of it – you’ll find something you love on Etsy,” the company said in a blog post. “We’re always investing in our marketplace to make it easier for sellers to grow their businesses. We’re excited for this new, innovative feature to make it easier for sellers to get discovered and connect with our built-in base of nearly 90 million buyers around the world.” Etsy says the new feature was developed as part of CodeMosaic, which is an annual Etsy Hackathon that gives engineers opportunities to try out new skills while building creative solutions. The launch of Etsy’s new feature comes as platforms like Google and Pinterest have had image search capabilities for quite some time now. Google recently added updates to its multisearch feature that lets users combine a photo and text to craft custom searches, initially around shopping. The search giant also added its Lens image search right into its home page this week, letting users access the advanced image recognition tool directly from the search box. Etsy released its third quarter earnings on Wednesday and reported a revenue bump of 11.7% over the same quarter of 2021 to $594.5 million. The bump was likely partially due to the platform’s increased transaction fee from 5% to 6.5%. The change saw sellers go on strike earlier this year after the fee increase was announced. Etsy had noted on its website that the increased fee supported its plans to make “significant investments in marketing, seller tools and creating a world-class customer experience.”

Twitter faces a class action lawsuit over mass employee layoffs with proper legal notice • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, Elon Musk, Government & Policy, Layoffs, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Twitter is being sued for not giving employees advanced written notice of a mass layoff, in violation of worker protection laws including the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act as well as the California WARN Act, both of which require 60 days of advance notice. Following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the company began mass layoffs early on Friday in an effort to reduce costs by eliminating 3,700 jobs, or 50% of its total workforce. Bloomberg first reported the news of the lawsuit, filed on November 3, 2022 in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California. The complaint notes that Twitter began its layoffs on November 1, when it terminated the plaintiff in the lawsuit, Emmanuel Cornet, without providing the proper written notice in violation of U.S. and California law. Additional plaintiffs, Justine De Caires, Jessica Pan, and Grae Kindel said they were terminated on November 3 by being locked out of their accounts. Twitter is also enacting widespread layoffs across its workforce today, on Nov. 4, 2022, it stated, adding that California’s Employment Development Department had not received a notice related to the event. The suit reminds the court that Musk had previously laid off employees without notice at another company he owns, Tesla. A federal judge later ruled that Tesla must inform workers of the proposed class action lawsuit, as the termination agreements they had signed may have been misleading and caused them to waive their rights under federal law, Reuters reported at the time. Musk had dismissed that lawsuit as “trivial,” when commenting on the lawsuit at the Qatar Economic Forum organized by Bloomberg. In the new complaint against Twitter, the plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that Twitter has violated the federal and California WARN Acts and certify the case as a class action suit. It’s also asking the court to stop Twitter from having the laid-off employees sign documents that would release their claims without informing them of this lawsuit. And it’s seeking a range of relief, including compensatory damages (including wages owed), as well as declaratory relief, pre- and post-judgment interest, plus other attorneys’ fees and costs. Under Twitter’s takeover deal terms, Musk had agreed to keep employee compensation and benefits the same. That means the laid-off employees should receive 60 days of salary and the cash value of the stock they were to receive within three months of their last date at the company, per law. “Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has made clear that he believes complying with federal labor laws is ‘trivial’ We have filed this federal complaint to ensure that Twitter should be held accountable to our laws and to prevent Twitter employees from unknowingly signing away their rights.” Shannon Liss-Riordan, one of the attorneys who filed the lawsuit told CNN in a statement. Twitter hasn’t responded to requests for comment — but that could also be because its comms staff has been included in the layoffs. The company has gone about its mass layoffs in a chaotic and fairly cold fashion. Instead of being informed personally, Twitter employees were to receive an email with an update about their employment status by Friday 9 AM PT. If they still had a job, the email would come to their work inbox. If not, they’d receive a personal email as access to internal systems was cut off. A number of Twitter employees around the world have already posted tweets indicating that they have been laid off and are sharing sympathies with their fellow “tweeps.” Twitter also closed its offices temporarily as the layoffs were underway by disabling badge access. The transition has been one of confusion for Twitter staff. It’s been reported that Twitter’s new owner hadn’t officially communicated with employees following the deal’s closure on Oct. 27, leading staff to learn of events by following Musk’s tweets, through private chats, on workplace gossip site Blind, and by reading news media reports. Immediately after the takeover, Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, General Counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde. Other top executives like Chief Consumer Officer Sarah Personette and Chief of People and Diversity Dalana Brand handed in their resignations the following day. General manager for core technologies Nick Caldwell, Chief marketing officer Leslie Berland, Twitter’s head of product Jay Sullivan, and its vice president of global sales, Jean-Philippe Maheu, have also left. The company canceled its upcoming developer conference Chirp and it appears that Twitter’s head of its developer platform, Amir Shevat, is also out, as he tweeted he’s “better out than in” and thanked the developer community for the amazing journey they had. In addition to reducing the number of employees, Musk has also been overhauling Twitter’s product at a rapid pace. Earlier this week, he announced his intention to enact a new version of the Twitter Blue paid subscription, which will cost $8 per month and offer users the verification check mark, fewer ads, and the ability to post longer videos. According to a report by The Platformer, Twitter is also planning to shut down its long-form writing product Notes and newsletter product Revue, which was acquired in 2021. Tweets indicate that staff that worked on Twitter Communities were also laid off, suggesting that product may also be shut down. The new legal complaint is embedded below. Twitter class action lawsuit over mass layoffs by ZebethMedia on Scribd

Meet Budibase, a low-code open-source web app builder with automations • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apps, Budibase, Enterprise, low-code, open sourceNo Comments

While there are differing perspectives on the degree to which no-code and low-code development tools could eventually supplant human software developers, it’s clear that any software that takes care of the technical “heavylifting” is having a huge impact within businesses — in terms of opening app-building to more personnel, plugging the talent gap, and helping existing developers focus on more demanding tasks. A quick peek across the recent funding landscape shows little sign of the no-code / low-code movement slowing. In 2022 alone we’ve seen the likes of Webflow draw in $120 million for a no-code website builder; Softr raise a $13.5 million Series A to help companies build apps on top of Airtable databases; Appsmith secure a $41 million Series B to power customized internal business apps; Retool attract a $45 million cash injection for a similar proposition; and Thunkable lock down a $30 million investment for a no-code mobile app development platform. So despite the broader downturn, it seems that 2022 may have been relatively kind to startups operating in the no- and low-code sphere, something that fledgling Northern Irish startup Budibase is capitalizing on with the announcement of a fresh $7 million tranche of funding to further develop an open source web app builder. Founded out of Belfast in 2019, Budibase allows users to connect to an external data source — such as Postgres, MySQL, Oracle, Google Sheets, or Airtable — and develop internal tools or business apps in minutes. Such apps may include anything from customer helpdesk applications, application tracking systems, and inventory management systems, to admin panels, portals, and forms. Budibase: Example business application in action It’s also worth noting that Budibase also packs its own built-in database based on CouchDB, for those looking to build apps entirely from scratch. “Every enterprise we speak with says the same thing — ‘we have a long backlog of internal tool tickets that are holding us back’,” Budibase cofounder Joe Johnston told ZebethMedia. “With Budibase, enterprises are building internal tools and transforming workflows in days, not months, which is a huge cost-saving and catalyst for innovation.” Open sourced One of Budibase’s core selling points is that it’s open source, which gives companies more flexibility and extensibility, but also allows them to host everything themselves — this is particularly important for enterprises with sensitive data they may wish to protect from the SaaS-y clutches of third-party infrastructure. In addition to the free self-hosted version of Budibase, the company also offers a range of premium and enterprise plans with add-on features (such as SLAs and unlimited automation logs) and a fully-managed hosted incarnation. Budibase is somewhat similar to other players in the open source low-code development space, including the aforementioned Appsmith and Joget which, as it happens, announced its first institutional funding earlier this year via a $2.2 million pre-Series A investment. So this highlights the demand not only for no- and low-code app builders, but also the ability to retain full control over company data and gain full insights into what’s going on under the hood. “Enterprises like this because they have access to the codebase, and they can patch it if they need to [which is useful for] risk mitigation,” Johnston said. Automation for the people Budibase is looking to set itself apart in a number of ways, through more subjective elements such as usability, but also through specific differentiators such as built-in automations comparable to something like Zapier. Indeed, Budibase includes automations that are powered by webhooks and actions that are good to go out-the-box, but which can also be customized by the more technically-minded that want to throw their own scripts into the pot. Such automations can cover any number of use-cases, such as automatically approving (or denying) an employee’s leave request through an internal form, or issuing a new inbound lead notification to the sales team at the start of their shift. “We want to deliver a platform that helps developers and non-developers — but technical employees — innovate and accelerate their workplace,” Johnston said. Budibase automation in action A quick peek at Budibase’s homepage reveals a fairly impressive roster of company logos, from Google and Netflix, to Tesla and Disney. At first glance, it would appear that these are fully signed-up Budibase customers, but alas this is not the case — Budibase uses a tracking tool called Scarf to detect which domains are downloading the open source Budibase software. So this doesn’t really tell us all that much about how Budibase is being used at these companies, whether it’s being tested internally or whether it’s simply curious employees downloading it for their own interests. “Employees from some of the companies mentioned are active in our community,” Johnston said. “For example, Scarf told us Google has pulled down the Budibase Docker image over 150 times.” Budibase had raised $1.8 million in seed funding prior to now, and its latest $7 million “seed II” funding round included investments from SignalFire, Angular Ventures, Techstart, and a slew of angel backers.

ByteDance’s music app Resso offers hints about TikTok Music’s launch • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apps, bytedance, resso, Spotify, TikTokNo Comments

TikTok owner ByteDance is moving towards a launch its music streaming service TikTok Music, rivaling Spotify and YouTube Music, reports have stated. In addition to recent discoveries of TikTok Music trademarks in global markets, ZebethMedia has now discovered newly added references regarding a “TikTok Music” service in the Resso streaming app, owned by TikTok’s parent ByteDance. The code appears to suggest that user activity may sync between the Resso app and TikTok Music, and specifically refers to a “music.tiktok.com” URL, as well. ByteDance today already operates the streaming music service named Resso in markets including in India, Brazil, and Indonesia. But the references to TikTok Music in the Resso app hint that the China-based company might sync user activity between the two apps. In addition, the code refers to TikTok Music as part of TikTok. Image Credits: ZebethMedia It’s unclear whether TikTok will test its music service under the Resso moniker globally, or launch a separate app for that. The company has also launched a site “music.tiktok.com” for certain regions — references of which were also found in the code — suggesting that the service may launch first in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Malaysia, and Singapore. You can’t download the client yet, and if you try to click on the download button a pop will tell you “We are working hard to bring you the desktop version. Check back soon.” The mobile version of the site suggests that the download button will take users to the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store. Image Credits: TikTok The site’s terms of service also uses the brand “TikTok Music,” we found. “Welcome to TikTok Music! TikTok Music, one of our Services defined under the TikTok Terms, is a music streaming service that allows users to listen to music,” the term page reads. Many of the pages on the site have placeholder text indicating that it is still under development. This could mean that ByteDance is preparing to start testing the service in certain geographies. The code references aren’t the only hints that a TikTok Music brand is in the works. The company has also recently registered verified “TikTok Music”-branded social media handles on Twitter and Instagram, as well as region-specific handles for areas like Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, and Asia, and countries like Singapore, and Malaysia. These accounts have posted similar creative teasers saying “Welcome to a new way to experience music,” “discover your new favorite song,” and “stay tuned” between April and May. These moves fall in line with information a former ByteDance employee told ZebethMedia earlier this year. They told us ByteDance had previously considered bringing the Resso service to more markets under a “TikTok Music” branding. More specifically, it had been weighing launches in mature markets like the U.K. and Australia, the source had said. Last month, The Wall Street Journal also reported that ByteDance was in talks with notable music labels to expand its streaming service to global markets. A TikTok Music service would make sense for ByteDance as many hit songs first become viral on TikTok and drive streams on Spotify and YouTube. A report released by the company last year suggested that 175 songs that trended on the short-video platform ended up on the Billboard 100 chart. If ByteDance launches its own music service, it could drive these streams toward its own app — whether that’s Resso or TikTok Music — allowing it to earn advertising and subscription revenue. ByteDance has shown interest in furthering its music investments. Earlier this year, it launched its own music distribution solution called SoundOn. With this service, the company pays 100% royalties to the artists for the first year, then 90% royalties from the second year. The platform also allows artists to drop teasers on TikTok to get early feedback. TikTok Music’s popularity will depend its ability to score deals with major labels, allowing it to offer users access to popular songs in addition to the original songs that launch first on TikTok. This could prove difficult. In September, Sony Music pulled its catalog from Resso, resulting in user backlash, for example. TikTok didn’t reply to requests for comment on this story.

Formula 1’s Toto Wolff looks for fresh edge in 2023 through remote software • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apps, Enterprise, formula 1, teamviewer, TransportationNo Comments

Toto Wolff, the 50-year-old Austrian chief executive, team principal and part-owner of the Mercedes Formula 1 team who was recently described by the New Yorker as someone who might breeze “past you in the airport, smelling good, wearing loafers and no socks,” talked openly yesterday about his team’s terrible, no-good year. Sitting with Oliver Steil, the CEO of the German company TeamViewer, a popular maker of remote support software, Wolff also described how the troubled racing team is counting, in part, on TeamViewer’s tech to give it an edge in its bid to recapture its former glory. The two were speaking at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon, and Wolff was cheered when he appeared before the crowd, owing in no small part to “Drive to Survive,” the Netflix series that has made him famous. (He told the New Yorker he enjoyed this, recounting to writer Sam Knight how a young woman threw herself through the open window of his car to get her picture taken.) Wolff also immediately acknowledged the obvious. “We won the championship eight times in a row,” he said, “but that is the past.” Mercedes, he continued, “just got the physics wrong . . . and got the concept of the car not in the right place,” he said, referring to the design of its floor, which he has previously pointed to as the root of the team’s surprisingly lackluster year. (Every few years, Mercedes and the other F1 teams — there are currently 10 altogether — are forced by the body overseeing Grand Prix racing to redesign their cars.) Indeed, it’s largely because it “takes a a long time to unwind things that are built into the car,” said Wolff, that his team last year turned to TeamViewer, a 17-year-old, publicly traded company whose software can remotely access and connect any computer, tablet, laptop, mobile device, and IoT endpoint like an industrial machine — or race car — to allow the remote control, management, and monitoring of these devices. It’s a match made in heaven, suggested Steil, who said that TeamView is working closely with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team to make it more efficient, including running lab tests out of hours and supporting the trackside crew via remote engineers. “We really try to go through a system, like we have at Formula 1, like a team. We see the different parts, and we see what can we do differently if we connect in real time, in addition to what we do maybe on trackside and in the back office. We’re really working through the different parts of the organization, on testing obviously, production maintenance, wind tunnel, all these kinds of applications where we try to see where can be better . . .” Wolff chimed in separately to paint the bigger picture. “We are racing 23 times around the world, around the globe [during the racing season], and our core team is just 90 engineers [with] 2,000 back at the factory with 2000,” including 1,000 people focused on the chassis side and another 1,000 focused on the engine. “Operating in the field, or we call it surgery in the field, is not always trivial because if you open up an engine or a complicated cooling system, you want to have the resource from back at home, and TeamViewer is the only technology that allows us today in having the guy back at home look through the same borescope into the cylinder head, then [help] the mechanic on the field.” As an added and not inconsequential benefit, said both men, the partnership cuts down on emissions because it means moving fewer people around at a time when Mercedes is focusing increasingly on sustainability. In fact, Wolff said, the team has cut its emissions by nearly 90% in recent years. “It is our responsibility to show our global audience of billions of spectators that if we can do it, everyone can do it,” he said. Certainly, the appearance was a great moment for TeamViewer, whose other clients range from telecommunications companies to the fast-food franchise Wendy’s. There’s nothing like having the best team boss in the recent history of Formula 1 sing your praises. Of course, what racing fans want to know is: will its tech give Mercedes — which has yet to win a race in 2022 — enough of an edge to overcome the team’s arch-rivals, Red Bull and Ferrari? While Wolff is looking to “tomorrow,” as he said yesterday, it could take a while, even with the faster feedback loops that TeamViewer’s technology provides the team. As he recently told the outlet RacingNews365, Mercedes is still “eight to 10 months” behind Red Bull in terms of Formula 1 development after its frustrating 2022 season. “There is definitely a challenge,” he added, “but we are playing the long game, all of us.”

After Stripe and Square, Venmo and PayPal are set to support Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhones • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 4, 2022Posted in Apple, Apple Pay, Apps, PayPal, Tap to pay, VenmoNo Comments

PayPal announced Thursday that it will soon support Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhones. The company said in its Q3 2022 earnings report that both PayPal and Venmo will soon support this tech as a part of its offering. Merchants will be able to accept contactless card payments as well as payments via Apple Pay and other digital wallets (Google Pay). Apple first announced Tap to Pay on iPhone in February to let merchants accept payments without any additional hardware. The company had Stripe as a launch partner with Jack Dorsey-led Square coming on board later in September. Now, with Venmo and PayPal joining the fray, merchants will have varied options of apps and services to choose from to accept payments. “We’re very pleased to be working with Apple to enhance our offerings for our PayPal and Venmo merchants and consumers,” the company’s President and CEO Dan Schulman said in a statement. Apart from Tap to Pay, PayPal is also working on a few other Apple-related programs. The San Jose-based fintech said it will add Apple Pay as a payment option for the fintech’s unbranded checkout flows on merchant platforms, including the PayPal Commerce Platform. What’s more, it said that U.S.-based consumers will be able to load PayPal and Venmo network-branded credit cards to Apple Wallet and use them with Apple Pay next year. Last month, Amazon added Venmo as a payment option for U.S.-based customers ahead of the Black Friday sales. In its Q3 2022 report, PayPal registered $6.85 billion in revenue with 11% year-on-year growth.

Substack targets Twitter with launch of discussions feature, Substack Chat • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, chat, newsletters, Social, Substack, TwitterNo Comments

Another company hoping to capitalize on Twitter’s upheaval in the wake of Elon Musk’s takeover is the newsletter platform Substack. The company has openly targeted Twitter’s user base over the past few days and has now thrown its hat into the ring as a more direct competitor with the launch of Substack Chat. The new feature allows Substack writers to communicate directly with their most avid and loyal readers right in the Substack mobile app. With Chat, Substack is not only taking on Twitter, where many back-and-forth threaded discussions between writers and readers already take place, but also other online communities where writers have been building out networks of their own, like Discord, Slack and Telegram. The company says the new Chat feature will eliminate the need for its writers to “frankenstein together different software tools and cross-reference subscriber lists,” it explains in its announcement. Image Credits: Substack Chat is not a Twitter clone by any means — though there is overlap with how writers have used Twitter in the past. For starters, the Chat feature will be opt-in, meaning not every newsletter may have chats enabled at this time. Publications will have to first enable the feature on their Settings page or by simply starting a new thread in the Substack app for iOS. Already, Substack says writers including sports journalist Joe Posnanski, pop culture writer Hunter Harris, and comics writers 3 Worlds / 3 Moons have launched chats on the service. In some cases, these chats have been used to discuss live events — like Game 3 of the World Series — or they’ve been used in place of email or other ways writers may have chosen to interact with their readers in the past. Readers can react to posts using emojis and add their own comments in the chat threads. The feature could benefit those who spend a lot of time reading on Substack or those who want to more closely network with fellow creators or readers. However, it isn’t really a direct replacement for tweeting more publicly as it lacks Twitter’s reach. Plus, the user interface is designed more like a traditional chat app — not a timeline you scroll. Still, the launch could relocate some of the discussions that would have normally taken place on Twitter to a more private networking space. Combined with the ongoing exodus to alternative social networks like Mastodon, and later perhaps, Bluesky, Twitter may lose access to some of the conversations that it would have otherwise hosted. Chat’s launch isn’t the only way Substack has attempted to capitalize on the Twitter chaos in recent days. It also took a more direct shot at Twitter, when it warned in a post on Oct. 31 that “Twitter is changing, and it’s tough to predict what might be next.” The post had encouraged creators of all sorts to port their Twitter follower base to Substack, given the current uncertainty around Twitter’s future. The launch of Chat arrives at a time when there’s been a broader shift to more personal and private social networks, which we’ve seen with the rise of friends-only apps like BeReal as well as the launch of private discussion groups on WhatsApp, called Communities. Substack Chat also reflects Substack’s larger goal of becoming a more private social network itself. The company alludes to its plan, writing in its post that “these are just the early days for Chat and all of Substack’s social features,” and adding there’s “more to come” in the future. Given the company’s propensity to host controversial writers and the otherwise deplatformed, however, this direction could see it wading even deeper into the culture wars surrounding what constitutes free speech — an area Musk’s Twitter is also having to grapple with. The more Substack associates its brand with the more extreme personal brands of divisive media personalities, the less it will be able to attract the larger (and typically more moderate) readers that constitute the majority of any network’s user base. That could limit Substack’s ability to go mainstream, no matter how clever its social features may be. Substack Chat is only available in the Substack iOS app at launch but will come to Android soon, the company says.

Decentralized social network Mastodon grows to 655K users in wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, elon buys twitter, mastodon, Social, TwitterNo Comments

Open-source, decentralized social network Mastodon has been benefiting from the chaotic Twitter takeover by Elon Musk. In addition to seeing a record number of downloads for the Mastodon mobile app this past weekend, the non-profit company today announced a new milestone. In a post on Twitter — where Mastodon has been successfully marketing its app to those now considering leaving the service — it noted that 230,000 people have joined Mastodon in the last week alone. Thanks to these new sign-ups as well as people returning to old accounts they had set up previously, the network now has 655,000 active users, the post noted. This is the highest number of users Mastodon has seen to date, Mastodon said. The number of people who switched over to #Mastodon in the last week alone has surpassed 230 thousand, along with many returning to old accounts bumping the network to over 655 thousand active users, highest it’s ever been! Why? 👉 — Mastodon (@joinmastodon) November 3, 2022 This follows the recent news that the open-source network had gained over 70,000 new sign-ups on Friday, Oct. 28 — the day after Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter had closed. From Friday through Sunday, the Mastodon mobile app also saw around 91,000 new installs, third-party data from Sensor Tower indicated — a 658% increase from the 12,000 installs it saw the three days prior. This rapid growth has not been without its downsides for the Twitter alternative, however. This week, one of the most popular servers on the Mastodon network, mastodon.social, has been experiencing lags and downtime as it struggled to accommodate the influx of new users. This could turn some people off from using Mastodon as their initial experience was sub-par. Though Mastodon founder and CEO Eugen Rochko has been working long hours to optimize the service and even ordered new hardware, the upgrade process has taken time at this crucial moment for Mastodon’s future. Often, when new users who try a service for the first time get frustrated by bugs and other issues, they don’t come back a second time. Plus, some users came to Mastodon without a full understanding of how a decentralized social network works and have found the process confusing or overly technical. Unlike on Twitter, or any other traditional social network, users don’t just create an account and start posting. They have to first pick a server to join as their Mastodon home. This is the part that causes people to stumble, as they don’t know where to find a server list, how to choose the right one, or whether or not they’re limited to chatting with people only on that server. This could also turn them off from exploring Mastodon further. It’s unfortunate because this is actually the key selling point for Mastodon — you join a server that best fits your interests. And by distributing the load across a network of servers, running Mastodon doesn’t require the infrastructure and engineering — or the massive amount of capital — that a network like Twitter does. That means Mastodon can be supported through smaller revenue streams, like sponsorships and donations, instead of ads. It also means Mastodon can’t be bought or sold to someone like Musk. Each Mastodon server is operated by a different individual or organization and can set its own moderation policies. But users aren’t limited to only communicating with friends on their own server — you can find and follow friends anywhere on the network. However, you can view your server’s timeline feed and the larger, “Federated” feed separately from your own Home feed of people you follow. This is particularly helpful if the server you’ve joined is filled with community members who post about things you’re interested in. There are a number of topic-based servers to choose from, too, to help with this. For example, some topic-based servers focus on areas like technology, music, gaming, art, activism, LGBTQ+, food, and more, in addition to general servers for socializing. This allows everyone to find their own niche. Of note, decentralization is the direction that Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey is going with his new social networking protocol Bluesky, which now has over 30,000 sign-ups on its waitlist, pre-launch. A Bluesky mobile app will help people to connect using this technology in the days to come. But the open source community — including those who have been doing the hard work on Mastodon over the years — have been frustrated with the Silicon Valley exec’s decision to go his own way with Bluesky, instead of using established protocols like ActivityPub, which powers Mastodon and others. Soon, it seems, users will have to choose what sort of decentralized social networking future they want — or whether the action on Twitter, regardless of its owner, is too enticing to give up.

Snapchat now lets you share your Strava activities in snaps and stories • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 3, 2022Posted in Apps, Snapchat, Social, StravaNo Comments

Snapchat is partnering with activity and fitness tracking platform Strava to launch a new Lens that lets users share their fitness journey on Snapchat. The new Strava Activity Lens works by connecting directly to your Strava profile, giving you access to stats and activity maps from your recent workouts. Each time you a workout, it will be automatically loaded into Snapchat. To share your activity from Strava to Snapchat, you need to open the Strava app and find your profile. From there, you have to select the “Activities” tab and scroll to the workout you want to share. Shareable activities must be visible to “Everyone” or “Followers only” on Strava and include a visible map. On Snapchat, you can find the Strava Lens in the app’s Lens Explorer or on Strava’s public profile. Your most recent workout will automatically appear, or you can toggle through different activities to pick one to share. Once you’ve chosen a workout to share, you can create a snap or story. The post will include a link back to your Strava workout so your friends and family can learn more through the Strava app. You can also share a slideshow from your camera roll by tapping “Memories” to access photos from your workout. Snapchat notes that you can press and slide the capture button to the left to lock and record hands free. You also have the option to narrate while you go through photos from workout. The new Lens is available globally to all Strava and Snapchat users on iOS and Android. The launch of the new partnership comes a day after Snapchat announced that it’s partnering with Amazon to give Snapchat users the ability to digitally try on eyewear styles from a range of popular brands. The new partnership will see brands including Maui Jim, Persol, Oakley, Ray-Ban, Costa Del Mar and others made available for virtual try-on.