First, everyone was talking about “Squid Game,” the Korean psychological thriller that became Netflix’s biggest series launch ever, with 142 million viewers. Now, everyone’s talking about YouTuber MrBeast’s recreation of the show’s titular fight-to-the-death, which racked up 142 million views in eight days. (Don’t worry, no one was killed). Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast), the 23-year-old who […]
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri will testify before the Senate on teen mental heath
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri will testify before the Senate for the first time as part of a series of hearings about online safety for children and teens. Per The New York Times, Mosseri’s hearing will take place on December 6. Mosseri’s upcoming testimony comes after Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) wrote a letter to Facebook […]
Waldo brings its ad-free, private photo-sharing service direct to consumers
Waldo, a photo-sharing platform that has historically targeted businesses, schools, camps, sports leagues, and other organizations, is capitalizing on the growing anti-Facebook sentiment to promote its newly launched consumer product. The company today is introducing a service aimed at private photo-sharing among family and friends which it’s promoting as an “ad-free, non-toxic” and private alternative […]
Instagram will shut down its companion app Threads by year end
Instagram’s standalone messaging app Threads is shutting down. The app will no longer be supported by the end of December 2021, the company confirmed to TechCrunch after reports began circulating via social media of its impending closure. Instagram is planning to alert its existing Threads users with an in-app notice beginning on November 23, which […]
Spotify’s new Podcast Subscriptions expand to global markets
Just a few months after launching support for podcast subscriptions to U.S. creators, Spotify today is making the service available to creators in global markets. The company says the service, which allows creators to mark episodes as “subscriber-only” content, will now become available in 33 new markets worldwide. When podcast subscriptions publicly launched in the […]
Call Of Duty Cheaters ‘May’ Be Banned From Every Call Of Duty Game Ever Made
In a blog post published last week innocuously titled Ricochet Anti-Cheat Progress Report, the Call of Duty team slipped in some drastic news about how their anti-cheat system is going to work going forwards.Read more…
Twitter acquires Threader, an app that compiles and shares threads
Twitter announced today that it’s acquiring Threader, an app that lets people compile Twitter threads and share their favorites, making it easier to help people find long threads on the platform. When users reply to a thread, tag Threader’s profile and write the word “compile,” the Threader bot creates a link that presents the thread […]
It’s OK to borrow ideas when building your startup’s website
It was a light week for the Experts program, but what we missed in quantity, we made up for in quality: Joey Noble, community manager for DemandCurve, shared a teardown of Zapier’s homepage that contains insights you can use to improve the storytelling techniques on your own website, including more effective copywriting and calls to […]
Spotify expands into audiobooks with acquisition of Findaway
In an effort to expand beyond music, Spotify has been investing hundreds of millions to build out its podcasts business. Now the company has set its sights on another form of audio, with today’s acquisition of digital audiobook distributor Findaway. Spotify declined to share the financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close […]
Google reorg moves AR, VR, Starline and Area 120 into new ‘Labs’ team
Google Labs is back, but this time around, it’s not a consumer-facing brand delivering a range of experimental products. Instead, it’s the internal name given to a new team at Google created under a reorganization that aims to gather the company’s many innovative projects and long-term bets under one roof. The new group will be […]