Twitter expands live broadcasting portfolio with sports, news shows, and music concerts

Image: Reuters

Twitter Inc is expanding its live broadcasting portfolio with 12 new offerings that include WNBA games, a 24-hour Bloomberg News network and a show about gadgets from the tech news website The Verge, the company said on Monday. Twitter, which has struggled to win a major share of online advertising, planned to present its plans at a conference in New York City organized by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a digital ad trade group.

Shares of the San Francisco-based company jumped 6.4 percent earlier on Monday to close at $17.54 after the Wall Street Journal reported on plans for the Bloomberg News network, pleasing some investors who had wanted more exclusive live content on Twitter. The WNBA women’s basketball league will live-stream a regular-season game weekly on Twitter starting this month and continuing through the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons, Twitter said in a statement.

Other new sports-related programs will include a 360-degree video of the 17th hole at the PGA’s Players Championship golf tournament this month, and a weekly, live Major League Baseball show that has highlights and commentary. Twitter is already showing one Major League game a week this season. Music-promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc will stream some concerts, beginning this month with a show by Grammy-winning country performers Zac Brown Band, Twitter said.

BuzzFeed News will broadcast a morning show on Twitter for an audience “that wakes up hungry” for trending tweets, and video news start-up Cheddar will stream an “opening bell” show each morning from the New York Stock Exchange. Terms of the various deals were not disclosed. Twitter Chief Operating Officer Anthony Noto said in a statement: “Adding these 12 new live deals tonight is a testament to the success of our only-on-Twitter experience, combining high quality streaming video with our only-on-Twitter conversation.”

Reuters, a unit of Thomson Reuters Corp, competes with Bloomberg News in providing financial news and data. Twitter suffered a setback last month when it lost a deal to live-stream National Football League games to Amazon.com Inc.

Reuters

Publish date: May 2, 2017 2:21 pm| Modified date: May 2, 2017 2:21 pm

Twitter will now allow brands to request and share their location data with users using direct messages

Representational image

Microblogging site Twitter has launched a new tool that allows brands to request and share location data with users via direct messages in order to provide better customer service, the media reported on Tuesday. “It is no longer about social marketing teams, but core customer care teams [that are responding on Twitter]. Companies are running a serious business here and looking for help in scaling it,” Ian Cairns, product manager, Twitter was quoted as saying to VentureBeat.

Users have complete control over this new feature, the brand manager will get user’s permission to receive location data to direct users to the closest store, the report said. This new feature is available through Twitter’s developer programme to its partners offering customer service tools for brands. It can also be used in a customer interaction, within an automated message, or anywhere else.

Location data is also one of the most recent update to direct messages for brands. Support for location data comes days after Facebook announced that live location could be shared with friends and contacts within its Messenger app. This comes right after Twitter lost its head of Asia-Pacific business Aliza Knox after she decided to move on after a near-five year stint. Knox built out Twitter’s presence in Asia with an office in Singapore that currently spans nine locations with over 100 people on the payroll.

Publish date: April 4, 2017 3:16 pm| Modified date: April 4, 2017 3:15 pm

Yahoo and AOL will merge to form a new company called Oath

Image Credit: Twitter, Tim Armstrong, @timarmstrongaol

AOL and Yahoo will be combined into a unit called Oath after telecom titan Verizon buys the pioneering internet firm, according to a tweet Monday by the AOL chief. Confirmation of a new name for what the world has long known as Yahoo was tweeted from a verified @timarmstrongaol account after reports of the new name leaked in US media reports.

“Billion+ Consumers, 20+ Brands, Unstoppable Team. #TakeTheOath. Summer 2017,” the Twitter post read. A price cut early this year kept Verizon on track to consummate the purchase of Yahoo’s internet business, and share the costs from a pair of epic hacks that threatened to derail the deal.

Yahoo slashed the price of its core internet business by $350 million. Under revised terms of the delayed deal, Verizon’s purchase of Yahoo assets will total $4.48 billion. Yahoo announced in September that hackers in 2014 stole personal data from more than 500 million of its user accounts. And in December it admitted to another cyber attack from 2013 affecting more than a billion users.

The US Justice Department last month charged two Russian intelligence operatives and a pair of hackers over one of the largest cyber attacks in history, which had apparent twin goals of espionage and financial gain. The Kremlin denied any official Russian involvement in cybercrimes after the US indicted two FSB intelligence agents over cyber attacks on Yahoo that compromised 500 million accounts.

Under the terms of the revised acquisition agreement, Yahoo will continue to cover the cost of a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe into the breaches as well as shareholder lawsuits. However, other government investigations and third-party litigation related to the hacks will be shared by Verizon and Yahoo.

The deal with Verizon was expected to close by July, and will end Yahoo’s run of more than 20 years as an independent company. Yahoo is selling its main operating business as a way to separate that from its more valuable stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba, which will become a new entity, to be renamed Altaba, Inc., and will act as an investment company.

Yahoo boasted having more than a billion users monthly in 2016. Yahoo’s most recent earnings report showed the company swung to profit in the final three months of last year, after a massive $4.4 billion loss in the same period of 2015. Yahoo reported a loss of $214 million for 2016 on revenue that inched up to $5.2 billion from $5 billion in 2015.

Yahoo chief Marissa Mayer will quit the company’s board after the merger with Verizon that creates Oath, according to an SEC filing, though she is expected to remain with the core Yahoo business.

AFP

Publish date: April 4, 2017 2:49 pm| Modified date: April 4, 2017 2:49 pm

Twitter has updated its character limit as it stops counting usernames in replies

Image Credits: REUTERS

Giving its over 300 million users more room to reply to other people’s tweets, Twitter has announced that it will not count usernames towards a 140-character limit. “Now, when you reply to someone or a group, those @usernames won’t count toward your Tweet’s 140 characters,” Sasank Reddy, Product Manager at Twitter, said in a blog post late on Thursday.

With this change, Twitter has simplified conversations. “Who you are replying to will appear above the Tweet text rather than within the Tweet text itself, so you have more characters to have conversations,” Reddy posted. You can tap on “Replying to” to easily see and control who’s part of your conversation.

“When reading a conversation, you’ll actually see what people are saying, rather than seeing lots of @usernames at the start of a Tweet,” the post further read. Last year, media reports said that Twitter is building a new feature that will allow users to tweet longer – even in 10,000 characters – than its traditional 140-character limit. The 140-character limit has been around as long as Twitter has and has become part of the product’s personality.

Publish date: March 31, 2017 11:11 am| Modified date: March 31, 2017 11:24 am

Facebook Live is rolling out for desktop users; allows livestream of games

Image Credit: Facebook

Facebook users can now go live directly from their desktops using their webcams and also broadcast gameplay from their computers. According to a Facebook blog post on Wednesday, Facebook live on desktops was earlier available for pages only, but now the status update composer will feature a Live button also.

Facebook also added a new feature that makes it easy to use streaming software or external hardware when going live from a computer. “With this update, people can seamlessly share their screens, insert graphics, switch cameras, or use professional equipment in Facebook Live videos,” the social media giant said.

With this update, it is easier to stream your PC gameplay to friends and followers and engage with them while you play. “Opening up on desktop takes Facebook Live beyond Twitter and Periscope’s options, and brings it into competition with longer-running services like YouTube,” TechCrunch reported.

The report quoted Facebook as saying that the desktop streaming could be useful for activities like Q&As and vlogging where holding phone in hand could be inconvenient. “While the content on Live might not be great yet, and there’s been some troubling broadcasts of violence that Facebook promises it’s working to prevent, it’s still early for the medium,” the report added.

Publish date: March 23, 2017 12:57 pm| Modified date: March 23, 2017 12:57 pm

European Commission asks Facebook, Twitter and Google+ to comply with EU consumer rules

Image Credits: Reuters

By tech2 News Staff /  20 Mar 2017 , 12:13

Media reports last week indicated that the European Commission was on the verge of making social networks amend their terms of service to comply with European Union (EU) regulations. EU consumer authorities and the European Commission have met with the representatives of Facebook, Twitter and Google to discuss proposed solutions.

The European Commission has given the companies one month to finalise their proposals, after which the authorities will review them. The companies stand to face enforcement action if the final proposals are not satisfactory.

The companies have agreed to amend unfair terms of service, as well as take measures to protect consumers from frauds and scams that are perpetrated through the social networks. The social networks have been directed to ensure that the users can sue the companies in their respective states of residence, and it is illegal for the terms of service to deprive users of the right to take the companies to court. The social media companies also cannot deprive users of mandatory rights, such as the right to withdraw from an online purchase.

Social media companies cannot totally exclude themselves from the liability of providing adequate performance of the service. Sponsored content has to be easily identifiable as such, and cannot be hidden. The companies cannot change the terms of service without giving a notice period to users to withdraw from the contract if they choose to, and without providing clear reasoning behind the changes. The social media companies cannot have complete discretionary powers on the removal of content.

The social networks have been ordered to establish a direct channel of communication with consumer protection authorities. The channel will be used to alert the social networks of scams and frauds on the networks. The networks are required to pull down such content as and when they become aware of the misleading content.

Misleading discounts, fake promotions, free apps with hidden costs, are some of the kinds of content that the EU wants to protect its users from. Sale of counterfeit products through social networks has also been banned.

New press images of Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ in ‘Black Sky’, ‘Orchid Grey’ and ‘Arctic Silver’ leak

Image Credit: Reuters

By tech2 News Staff /  20 Mar 2017 , 12:07

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus leaks are coming out at a constant pace with no signs of slowing down. Latest leaks involve new press images posted by prolific tipster Evan Blass on Twitter. The new photos show how Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will look like in the three colour variants, ‘Black Sky’, ‘Orchid Grey, and Arctic Silver. This is not the first time that we have seen the photos of the upcoming flagship but this is the first time we are seeing images of other colour variants in renders.

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Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus (top to bottom) in black sky, orchid grey and arctic silver (left to right)

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According to previous leaks, the standard Galaxy S8 would feature a 5.8-inch screen while the larger smartphone tagged as the Galaxy S8+ would come with a 6.2-inch display. Both displays would feature a WQHD+ resolution of 2,960 x 2,400 pixels and would also come with dual-edge curved displays.

Coming to the batteries, the S8 features a 3,000mAh unit while the bigger S8+ would feature a 3,500mAh unit. Other details are to do with availability. Ming-Chi Kuo has revealed that users in the United States, Japan and China will get the Galaxy S8 smartphones that are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset, while the European and Asian markets would get the Exynos 8895 chipset. Higher 6GB RAM versions are expected to only be available in South Korea and China and not in the international variants of the smartphones. The standard versions are to come with 4GB RAM.

Additionally, Samsung is not going in for a dual lens, dual ISP format either. According to Kuo, Samsung thinks that the current day dual-camera ISP design is “immature” so both the S8 and S8+ will arrive with 12MP rear camera and an 8MP front-facing unit. As previously reported, the company may add a rear camera with embedded DRAM that can allow slow-mo recording up to 1000 frames per second.

This is not the first time that a smartphone is equipped with embedded DRAM in the rear camera, as Sony has been using this in their cameras and other products. Sony launched its flagship Sony Xperia XZ Premium with the same embedded DRAM technology giving it the ability to shoot slow motion video up to 960 frames per second.

Last but not the least, Kuo also claims that a new Type-C USB port (not present on the current model) will also allow the smartphone to be used in ‘Desktop Mode’. The Dex feature is supposed to offer a Windows Continuum like experience, that will let the user connect the phone to a display and use a mouse a keyboard emulating a desktop experience.

Twitter’s Periscope adds ‘Proudly made in America by immigrants’ to app loading screen

  31 Jan 2017 , 16:13

As a mark of protest against the US President Donald Trump’s recent executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations, Twitter’s live-streaming app Periscope has updated its loading screen with a small text that reads “Proudly made in America by immigrants”. In a statement, Periscope said on Tuesday that the recent executive order to halt immigration from seven countries in the Middle East and Africa forced them to consider a disturbing alternate reality in which the Periscope team is irreparably changed.

“Periscope is built, maintained, and operated by people from many faiths and countries. Without immigrants and refugees, Periscope would not exist. For this reason, we are updating the Periscope loading screen to make a simple true statement: ‘Proudly made in America by immigrants’,” the statement read. According to a report in VentureBeat, messaging giant Viber revealed it would be offering free calls from the US to the seven countries affected by the executive order.

Google has pledged $4 million to four organisations that support immigrants, while Uber will help drivers with their immigration defence by contributing a $3 million pot. Airbnb has announced free temporary housing to those affected by the order. Earlier, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in his support to the immigrants termed the executive order’s impact as upsetting.

“The Executive Order’s humanitarian and economic impact is real and upsetting. We benefit from what refugees and immigrants bring to the US,” @jack tweeted. The executive order bans immigration from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen under measures to “keep radical Islamic terrorists out”. “I am establishing new vetting measures to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of the US,” Trump said during the signing at the Pentagon after the swearing-in of Defence Secretary James Mattis.

IANS

Twitter releases letters that reveal extent of US Government’s demands for user data

  28 Jan 2017 , 12:20

Twitter on Saturday became the latest tech giant after Yahoo, Cloudflare and Google to release national security letters (NSLs) from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that forced them to reveal user data to the government.

The tech companies have been speaking up since the last eight months about the NSLs “that came with gag orders that prevented Twitter from telling the public or the targeted users about the government’s demands in two letters it received in 2015 and 2016”, Tech Crunch reported.

The FBI recently lifted these gag orders, allowing Twitter to acknowledge the NSLs for the first time.

In the newly published NSLs, the FBI asked Twitter to turn over “the name, address, length of service, and electronic communications transactional records” of two users.

The micro-blogging site said it gave a “very limited set of data” in response to the requests and demanded more freedom in keeping their point.

“Twitter remains unsatisfied with restrictions on our right to speak more freely about national security requests we may receive, Twitter associate general counsel Elizabeth Banker wrote in a blog post.

“We would like a meaningful opportunity to challenge government restrictions when ‘classification’ prevents speech on issues of public importance,” Banker added.

Twitter has already disclosed these two letters and informed the targeted users and is suing the Department of Justice in an effort to speak more publicly about secret requests for user data.

IANS

Twitter will livestream US President Donald Trump’s inauguration

Image: AP

  13 Jan 2017 , 13:43

Despite being excluded from the recently held Trump-tech meeting, Twitter will live-stream US President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration here on 20 January.

“Twitter and PBS @NewsHour Partner to Live Stream Coverage of Inauguration Day 2017 #golive,” @TwitterComms tweeted on Thursday.

According to a report in CNET, the six-hour coverage would be anchored by Judy Woodruff and feature several correspondents and analysts commenting on the swearing-in of Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence on the steps of the US Capitol.

“Streaming public broadcasting’s thoughtful coverage on Twitter will allow more Americans to experience the inauguration and join in discussion around it,” Sara Just, Executive Producer, NewsHour, was quoted as saying by the report.

She called the transition of power to a new president a ‘powerful moment’ in America’s democratic process.

IANS

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter data was shared with Geofeedia; was used by authorities for snooping

Representative image.

By tech2 News Staff /  11 Jan 2017 , 10:10

Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter pride themselves when it comes to sharing data with government authorities. But in a report released by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in California in October last year, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were found guilty of sharing user data with Geofeedia. This is a location-based analytics platform that is known to be used by American law enforcement agencies as a surveillance tool to track and monitor protest activity.

All three social media networks provided Geofeedia with access to its APIs. For instance, Facebook gave access to its data feed called Topic Feed API, which is a tool used by media companies to access public posts on Facebook related to specific topics or hashtags or events or places. Instagram provided access to its stream of public Instagram posts including location data associated with these posts. Twitter on the other hand provided access to its public database via a subsidiary.

Now Geofeedia calls itself a cloud-based, location-based analytics platform with the expertise in predicting, analysing and acting on real-time social media content by location. It provides this data not only to law enforcement agencies, but also to marketers and advertisers, education and corporate security and so on. According to this particular report, the data was shared with around 500 law enforcement agencies, which helped them track activist groups and monitor protests.

All three social media networks have since terminated their contracts with Geofeedia, and do not share any APIs with the Geofeedia. According to Facebook and Twitter, they were not aware of what activities Geofeedia was up to, which sounds quite hollow.

But the problem lies in the fact that, like Geofeedia, there are several other companies which offer surveillance tools using Facebook and Twitter data. According to this Forbes comment, the ACLU was able to get access to Geofeedia’s contracts was because the police departments directly made the purchase. Considering there are many other surveillance service providers, the authorities will take a very discreet approach when finalising such contracts, making it difficult for anyone to lead these surveillance tactics back to them.

Golden Globe Awards 2017: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter to be part of red carpet and backstage at the awards

  08 Jan 2017 , 15:04

For the first time, social media giant Facbook and its photo-sharing service Instagram will showcase videos and photos from the red carpet as well as from backstage during the 74th Golden Globe Awards 2017.

In a partnership with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), Facebook will let fans watch full 360-degree videos of celebrities’ red-carpet experience while Instagram is teaming up with fashion photography duo Mert and Marcus to shoot the action backstage as the Golden Globe Awards goes live from California on January 8 (4:30AM India time on Monday).

“The goal is to make Facebook and Instagram go-to hubs for video and other content from the Golden Globes and celebrities — and further the company’s broader aims of boosting user engagement and growth on both platforms,” a report in Variety said on Friday.

Twitter has also partnered with HFPA to host a live-stream of the red carpet.

The collaboration comes after Facebook served as an exclusive streaming platform for the 2017 Golden Globes nominations.

Instagram will post photos from the show exclusively to the Golden Globes’ account on Instagram throughout the event.

“Instagram is also curating an exclusive video experience on the app’s “explore” tab that will go live on 8 January. Throughout the day, the Golden Globes channel will present exclusive video content from celebrities, media personalities and industry insiders,” the report added.

IANS