Stories as a service: Storyteller lets anyone add Stories to their own apps or website

Pioneered by Snapchat and cloned by Instagram, the “Stories” feature has become a staple for modern-day mobile apps from Google search to Pinterest to streaming apps and more. And while the addition doesn’t work for everyone — LinkedIn and Twitter recently shuttered their Stories features, for example — there’s enough demand for Stories out there […]

Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp are all down

Global users are experiencing outages on Facebook, including all social networks the company owns, which include Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. When navigating to these websites, a server error will appear — Instagram shows a “5xx server error,” which indicates that this is an issue with Facebook’s servers. Users are also unable to send messages or […]

Amazon will allow U.S. Prime members to send gifts using only an email or phone number

In preparation for the holiday shopping season, Amazon today convenient a new way to send gifts through its mobile app. Instead of entering in the recipient’s mailing address — a piece of information people often don’t know in today’s age of digital communications — Prime members can now send a gift to a friend via their […]

Indian edtech giant Byju’s valued at $18 billion in new funding

Byju’s has raised about $300 million as part of a larger round of new investment as the Indian edtech giant focuses on expanding its international business and aggressively explores merger and acquisition opportunities. A filing, supplied to TechCrunch by research firm Tofler, showed that the new investment values the startup at $18 billion, up from […]

This Week in Apps: TikTok shops for advertisers, Microsoft makes app store changes, Apple’s apps get reviews

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. […]

Clubhouse, Vimeo, DoubleVerify and others set to sign up to beefed-up disinformation code in the EU

Audio social network Clubhouse, video sharing platform Vimeo and anti-ad fraud startup DoubleVerify are among a clutch of tech companies and organzations preparing to sign up to a beefed-up version of the European Union’s Code of Practice on Online Disinformation, the Commission said today. Back in May the EU’s executive said it would be strengthening […]