Tag Archives: Social & Online Media

LinkedIn is developing in-app games to further distract you from your job hunt

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LinkedIn, a platform that surely everybody associates with fun, may soon offer puzzle-based games to give its users something to do besides networking. App researcher Nima Owji posted a series of screenshots on X this weekend showing some of the games LinkedIn is working on, and the company has since confirmed the plan to TechCrunch. Employees’ scores will reportedly affect how the companies they work for are ranked in the games.

Per TechCrunch, the titles LinkedIn is working on so far include “Queens,” “Inference” and “Crossclimb.” LinkedIn provided the publication with some newer images of the games, but for everyone just anxiously awaiting their rollout, there’s no timeline yet for when they’ll be released. It’s unclear if games will be available in full to free users or reserved for LinkedIn’s paid subscribers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/linkedin-is-developing-in-app-games-to-further-distract-you-from-your-job-hunt-205953683.html?src=rss

It took Starbucks a little too long to realize coffee NFTs aren’t it

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Starbucks is pulling the plug on Odyssey, its Web3 rewards program that gave members access to collectible NFTs. The company updated its FAQ on Friday to let members know that the beta program is closing on March 31, and they have a little over a week left to complete any remaining activities (called journeys). Those will shut down March 25. Users won’t lose their Stamps (Starbucks’ NFTs), which are hosted on Nifty Gateway, but they’ll have to sign up for Nifty using their Starbucks Rewards email to access them there, if they haven’t already.

Starbucks was late to the NFT game with Odyssey, which launched in beta in late 2022 — well after interest in the digital collectibles peaked. Unlike some other NFT ventures from major brands, though, it seemed to be aiming for more than a quick cash grab. It gamified the rewards system, offering activities and coffee-related mini-games that encouraged members’ ongoing participation.

In a conversation with TechCrunch published just last month, Odyssey community lead Steve Kaczynski emphasized the community element, saying, “I’ve seen that people who live in California in the Starbucks Odyssey community are really good friends with people in Chicago and they have met up in real life at times. This never would have happened if not for Web3.” But it’s 2024, and brands and consumers alike have long since moved on from NFTs. (Naturally, Forum3, which worked with Starbucks on Odyssey, seems to have pivoted to AI).

Starbucks says the Odyssey marketplace, where members could buy and sell their stamps, will move over to the Nifty marketplace. They can also withdraw their Stamps to trade them on other platforms.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/it-took-starbucks-a-little-too-long-to-realize-coffee-nfts-arent-it-170132305.html?src=rss

It took Starbucks a little too long to realize coffee NFTs aren’t it

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Starbucks is pulling the plug on Odyssey, its Web3 rewards program that gave members access to collectible NFTs. The company updated its FAQ on Friday to let members know that the beta program is closing on March 31, and they have a little over a week left to complete any remaining activities (called journeys). Those will shut down March 25. Users won’t lose their Stamps (Starbucks’ NFTs), which are hosted on Nifty Gateway, but they’ll have to sign up for Nifty using their Starbucks Rewards email to access them there, if they haven’t already.

Starbucks was late to the NFT game with Odyssey, which launched in beta in late 2022 — well after interest in the digital collectibles peaked. Unlike some other NFT ventures from major brands, though, it seemed to be aiming for more than a quick cash grab. It gamified the rewards system, offering activities and coffee-related mini-games that encouraged members’ ongoing participation.

In a conversation with TechCrunch published just last month, Odyssey community lead Steve Kaczynski emphasized the community element, saying, “I’ve seen that people who live in California in the Starbucks Odyssey community are really good friends with people in Chicago and they have met up in real life at times. This never would have happened if not for Web3.” But it’s 2024, and brands and consumers alike have long since moved on from NFTs. (Naturally, Forum3, which worked with Starbucks on Odyssey, seems to have pivoted to AI).

Starbucks says the Odyssey marketplace, where members could buy and sell their stamps, will move over to the Nifty marketplace. They can also withdraw their Stamps to trade them on other platforms.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/it-took-starbucks-a-little-too-long-to-realize-coffee-nfts-arent-it-170132305.html?src=rss

Meta sets a date for killing off CrowdTangle

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CrowdTangle saw its team disbanded in 2021, new user registrations cut off in 2022 and now the site will officially shut down on August 14, the Wall Street Journal reports. Journalists and academics alike have used CrowdTangle to study the flow of content on Facebook and Instagram, including conspiracy theories and fake news. Meta, which bought the company in 2016, choosing to shutter the company is an entirely unsurprising move given it has been the source for many of the social media conglomerate's failings.

A tool called Meta Content Library will replace CrowdTangle, but only academics and nonprofit researchers can use it. That's right — for-profit news organizations can't apply for access to what sounds like a watered-down version of CrowdTangle. Meta claims that its Content Library — which is the company's answer for the European Union's Digital Markets Act — has new features like data on public comments and searching content based on views. However, early testers found it lacked geography-based activity data or the ability to download data from public posts.

Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg certainly benefit from limiting how much people — especially reporters — can view about their doings. We recently published a deep dive into Zuckerberg's dangerous decisions, including going against warnings from experts and personally intervening to block a ban on Instagram's plastic surgery filters. Other horrors under his watch include Instagram's recommendation algorithm promoting content featuring child sexual exploitation and regularly dismissing requests from top lieutenants to further prioritize safety. Then, in court, his lawyers have claimed he should hold no responsibility for the lawsuits involving harm caused by Meta's platforms.

On Thursday, Crowdtangle’s former co-founder and CEO Brandon Silverman criticized the Meta’s decision to shut down the service. In a blog post, Silverman said that turning off Crowdtangle 12 weeks before the US Presidential election was “incredibly irresponsible.” He added, however, that he was optimistic that the legacy of Crowdtangle would help to “inspire a permanent set of regulations that make real-time access to public data a legal requirement and an ongoing part of how we manage the internet responsibly & collaboratively.”

Update, March 14 2024, 8:24 PM ET: This story has been updated to include Silverman's reaction to Meta's decision to kill Crowdtangle.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-sets-a-date-for-killing-off-crowdtangle-125106862.html?src=rss

YouTube’s redesigned TV app focuses on everything but video

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YouTube just announced that it’ll be rolling out a redesign for its TV app over the next few weeks. Concrete details are scant, but the streaming platform says the new design will “open the door for a broad range of new experiences such as shopping for your creators’ favorite products.”

Beyond the pivot to shopping, the update should also improve existing features, with easier access to “video descriptions and comments.” To that end, both the descriptions and comment feed will take up a larger amount of room, when selected, with the actual video shrinking in size. YouTube says that users regularly request a smaller video feed and a prioritization of comments. As it stands, the comment feed lays over the video, so this refresh will allow users to engage with comments without covering up the actual content. 

I use the YouTube app on my TV every single day, and I want improved search, an easier way to refresh my personal feed and, most importantly, the ability to look for what I want to watch next as the current video plays. You know, just like with a phone. YouTube acknowledges that the push and pull between the TV-based “lean back” experience and the smartphone-adjacent “lean in” experience was at the heart of this redesign, but there’s no mention of anything I just brought up. You will, however, be able to buy a shirt someone is wearing in a video with a simple click of the remote.

YouTube did tease that sports fans will be able to check on live scores without interrupting a video, but didn’t get into the how of it all. We reached out to the the platform and a spokesperson told us it's working on adding the feature but has nothing to announce at this time. It also said that the redesign will make it easier to both see and access video chapters, which should be useful.

It’s worth noting that these updates are for the standard YouTube app for TVs, and not the live-service YouTube TV platform. However, the latter is getting its own update in a few days, with the ability to peruse Views without interrupting live content like sporting events.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtubes-redesigned-tv-app-focuses-on-everything-but-video-183722152.html?src=rss

YouTube’s redesigned TV app focuses on everything but video

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YouTube just announced that it’ll be rolling out a redesign for its TV app over the next few weeks. Concrete details are scant, but the streaming platform says the new design will “open the door for a broad range of new experiences such as shopping for your creators’ favorite products.”

Beyond the pivot to shopping, the update should also improve existing features, with easier access to “video descriptions and comments.” To that end, both the descriptions and comment feed will take up a larger amount of room, when selected, with the actual video shrinking in size. YouTube says that users regularly request a smaller video feed and a prioritization of comments. As it stands, the comment feed lays over the video, so this refresh will allow users to engage with comments without covering up the actual content. 

I use the YouTube app on my TV every single day, and I want improved search, an easier way to refresh my personal feed and, most importantly, the ability to look for what I want to watch next as the current video plays. You know, just like with a phone. YouTube acknowledges that the push and pull between the TV-based “lean back” experience and the smartphone-adjacent “lean in” experience was at the heart of this redesign, but there’s no mention of anything I just brought up. You will, however, be able to buy a shirt someone is wearing in a video with a simple click of the remote.

YouTube did tease that sports fans will be able to check on live scores without interrupting a video, but didn’t get into the how of it all. We reached out to the the platform and a spokesperson told us it's working on adding the feature but has nothing to announce at this time. It also said that the redesign will make it easier to both see and access video chapters, which should be useful.

It’s worth noting that these updates are for the standard YouTube app for TVs, and not the live-service YouTube TV platform. However, the latter is getting its own update in a few days, with the ability to peruse Views without interrupting live content like sporting events.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/youtubes-redesigned-tv-app-focuses-on-everything-but-video-183722152.html?src=rss

You can write long-form articles on X if you pay for Premium+

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Journalists, creators and long-winded VCs on X now have a new way to be exhausting on main. X now allows verified organizations and Premium+ subscribers to publish long-form “Articles."

The feature adds a basic text-editing interface that includes embedded media and some text formatting options, like the ability to make bulleted lists. It also appears that articles can be longer than the 25,000-character limit currently in place for premium subscribers’ “longer posts” feature. According to my initial tests, I hit the character limit for articles at just over 100,000 characters or about 15,000 words.

Here’s what the editing interface looks like:

The text editor.
Screenshot via X

Notably, Twitter began working on longer form posts long before Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The company showed off an early version, originally called “Notes” in 2022, as it looked to lure newsletter writers and other creators to the service. Musk confirmed last summer that the publishing tools were still in the works.

The rollout of publishing tools is notable as Musk has often been hostile to journalists on his platform. Last year, Musk directed a change to X’s recommendation algorithm so that links to newsletter platform Substack would not appear in users’ “For You” feeds, which has throttled many independent writers’ reach on the service. X also stripped headlines from news stories shared on the platform last fall (headlines eventually returned, in a much smaller font).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-write-long-form-articles-on-x-if-you-pay-for-premium-005707599.html?src=rss

You can write long-form articles on X if you pay for Premium+

Posted on by

Journalists, creators and long-winded VCs on X now have a new way to be exhausting on main. X now allows verified organizations and Premium+ subscribers to publish long-form “Articles."

The feature adds a basic text-editing interface that includes embedded media and some text formatting options, like the ability to make bulleted lists. It also appears that articles can be longer than the 25,000-character limit currently in place for premium subscribers’ “longer posts” feature. According to my initial tests, I hit the character limit for articles at just over 100,000 characters or about 15,000 words.

Here’s what the editing interface looks like:

The text editor.
Screenshot via X

Notably, Twitter began working on longer form posts long before Elon Musk’s takeover of the company. The company showed off an early version, originally called “Notes” in 2022, as it looked to lure newsletter writers and other creators to the service. Musk confirmed last summer that the publishing tools were still in the works.

The rollout of publishing tools is notable as Musk has often been hostile to journalists on his platform. Last year, Musk directed a change to X’s recommendation algorithm so that links to newsletter platform Substack would not appear in users’ “For You” feeds, which has throttled many independent writers’ reach on the service. X also stripped headlines from news stories shared on the platform last fall (headlines eventually returned, in a much smaller font).

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-can-write-long-form-articles-on-x-if-you-pay-for-premium-005707599.html?src=rss

Facebook is using AI to supercharge the algorithm that recommends you videos

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Meta is revamping how Facebook recommends videos across Reels, Groups, and the main Facebook Feed, by using AI to power its video recommendation algorithm, Facebook head Tom Alison revealed on Wednesday. The world's largest social network has already switched Reels, its TikTok competitor, to the new engine, and plans to use it in all places within Facebook that show video — the main Facebook feed and Groups — as part of a "technology roadmap" through 2026, Alison said at a Morgan Stanley tech conference in San Francisco.

Meta has made competing with TikTok a top priority ever since the app, which serves up vertical video clips and is known for its powerful recommendation engine that seems to know exactly what will keep users hooked, started exploding in popularity in the US in the last few years. When Facebook tested the new AI-powered recommendation engine with Reels, watch time went up by roughly 8 to 10 percent, Alison revealed. “So what that told us was this new model architecture is learning from the data much more efficiently than the previous generation,” Alison said. “So that was like a good sign that says, OK, we’re on the right track.”

So far, Facebook used different video recommendation engines for Reels, Groups, and the Facebook feed. But after seeing success with Reels, the company plans to use the same AI-powered engine across all these products.

“Instead of just powering Reels, we’re working on a project to power our entire video ecosystem with this single model, and then can we add our Feed recommendation product to also be served by this model,” Alison said. “If we get this right, not only will the recommendations be kind of more engaging and more relevant, but we think the responsiveness of them can improve as well.”

The move is a part of Meta’s strategy to infuse AI into all its products after the technology exploded with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the end of 2022. The company is spending billions of dollars to buy up hundreds of thousands of pricey NVIDIA GPUs used to train and power AI models, Zuckerberg said in a video earlier this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/facebook-is-using-ai-to-supercharge-the-algorithm-that-recommends-you-videos-033027002.html?src=rss

Facebook is using AI to supercharge the algorithm that recommends you videos

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Meta is revamping how Facebook recommends videos across Reels, Groups, and the main Facebook Feed, by using AI to power its video recommendation algorithm, Facebook head Tom Alison revealed on Wednesday. The world's largest social network has already switched Reels, its TikTok competitor, to the new engine, and plans to use it in all places within Facebook that show video — the main Facebook feed and Groups — as part of a "technology roadmap" through 2026, Alison said at a Morgan Stanley tech conference in San Francisco.

Meta has made competing with TikTok a top priority ever since the app, which serves up vertical video clips and is known for its powerful recommendation engine that seems to know exactly what will keep users hooked, started exploding in popularity in the US in the last few years. When Facebook tested the new AI-powered recommendation engine with Reels, watch time went up by roughly 8 to 10 percent, Alison revealed. “So what that told us was this new model architecture is learning from the data much more efficiently than the previous generation,” Alison said. “So that was like a good sign that says, OK, we’re on the right track.”

So far, Facebook used different video recommendation engines for Reels, Groups, and the Facebook feed. But after seeing success with Reels, the company plans to use the same AI-powered engine across all these products.

“Instead of just powering Reels, we’re working on a project to power our entire video ecosystem with this single model, and then can we add our Feed recommendation product to also be served by this model,” Alison said. “If we get this right, not only will the recommendations be kind of more engaging and more relevant, but we think the responsiveness of them can improve as well.”

The move is a part of Meta’s strategy to infuse AI into all its products after the technology exploded with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT at the end of 2022. The company is spending billions of dollars to buy up hundreds of thousands of pricey NVIDIA GPUs used to train and power AI models, Zuckerberg said in a video earlier this year.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/facebook-is-using-ai-to-supercharge-the-algorithm-that-recommends-you-videos-033027002.html?src=rss