Don’t you just hate that Facebook won’t let you create a shared album where everyone invited could upload their event photographs? Well now you can as the social networking giant this morning announced a self-explanatory new capability dubbed Shared Photo albums. Facebook’s Bob Baldwin took a rather uncharacteristical step of formally launching the new feature in an interview with Mashable, here’s what you need to know… Read More
In another indication it’s taking smartphone photography and videography seriously, Facebook-owned Instagram today bought a small Silicon Valley startup Luma, formerly known as Midnox.
The transaction represents Instagram’s first acquisition since joining Facebook’s fold in April 2012. The startup is behind Luma Camera, an iOS app designed to make it easy to record and share high-quality video.
This isn’t your typical acqui-hire: Instagram is both after Luma’s talented engineers and its advanced technology which makes possible real-time cinematic processing such as filters, effects and video stabilization. As you could imagine, the promising app got immediately pulled fom the App Store following the deal… Read More
Facebook has rolled out some nice little changes to the way third-party apps request permissions from users when. The move, it says, is part of an effort to get users to post more to its social network from other apps.
The changes will require third-party applications that connect with Facebook to request separate permissions to ‘read’ information from your FB account, and to write, or publish any app activity on your Timeline… Read More
Facebook’s Pages Manager mobile app has seen little action since May’s 2.0 update which has brought it in line with popular features seen elsewhere, such as stickers and the omnipresent photo filters.
But don’t worry, the software isn’t going anywhere nor has the social networking giant forgotten about it. Matter of fact, Facebook’s mobile team has just pushed an incremental 2.1 update to Pages Manager containing half a dozen tweaks and new capabilities.
For starters, you can now use the app to edit the cover photo of your Facebook Page, which previously required visiting the web interface. Additionally, the new Pages Manager now allows for the creation of a new Page in-app as well as events that are hosted by your Page (this is an iPhone-only feature).
Additional goodies are right after the break… Read More
Following in the footsteps of Twitter’s Vine and its own Instagram – both of which have recently started supporting embed codes for posts – the social networking giant Facebook in late-July launched the new Embedded Posts feature. These embeddable public posts could be initially seen only on websites of top publications which signed up as launch partners, like CNN, Huffington Post, Bleacher Report, People and Mashable.
After nearly two months of testing, the feature is now ready for prime time as Facebook today started rolling out Embedded Posts to everyone… Read More
Your favorite Instagram-connected app could be changing soon, or worse, it could be shutting down. The photo-sharing network just updated its brand guidelines, stating that it’s going to start banning apps that use either the word ‘Insta’ or ‘Gram’ in their names.
In fact, according to a new report, it looks like Instagram has already begun sending emails out to developers of existing apps, requesting that they change these trademark-infringing components ‘within a reasonable period’ or risk losing their apps’ API access… Read More
Facebook is testing a new payments product that would allow online shoppers to make purchases using their login info, according to a new report from AllThingsD. The move is reportedly an effort to simplify online checkout processes.
Citing sources, the site describes the service as one that allows shoppers who have provided Facebook with their credit card credentials to make purchases on partnering e-commerce sites without having to enter their billing information… Read More
Facebook is working on a new mobile app, but you probably won’t be able to use it. That is, unless you happen to be a Hollywood A-lister or a high-profile professional athlete. That’s because the app is for VIPs only, or very important people.
The project is Facebook’s latest attempt to entice famous people to share more stuff on their site—a move which is part of an even larger plan to compete more directly with Twitter for the attention of celebrities and their legions of followers… Read More
Facebook has announced this afternoon that it has acquired Mobile Technologies, a private company that develops speech recognition and machine translation technology. The move reiterates the social network’s commitment to its mobile strategy.
Honestly, I hadn’t heard of the company before today. But some quick digging shows that Mobile Technologies is behind the popular Jibbigo translation app, which the developers claim is the ”world’s first” online/offline speech-to-speech translator… Read More
Facebook just posted a significant update for its iOS client, bringing the app to version 6.4. The update brings about a number of new features and improvements, including support for the social network’s new hashtag feature.
Version 6.4 also includes a new feature that allows users to make restaurant reservations from within the Facebook app. So if you see a place you’d like to try in the local business Pages, you can set that up with a single click… Read More
Instagram just announced its first major app update since it introduced its new video capture and posting feature last month. Today’s update brings the client to version 4.1, and it includes a handful of some highly requested enhancements.
Easily the biggest change in today’s update is the ability to import videos from your Camera Roll (though jailbreakers have been able to do this for a while now). This means you can now upload clips shot outside of the app to Instagram’s network… Read More
Facebook updated its popular Messenger app for iPhone this afternoon, for the first time since May. The update brings the app to version 2.6, and brings about a handful of useful improvements and bug fixes.
Among the improvements is deeper integration with Instagram. Users can now pick photos from their Instagram albums, as well as any other album, on their iPhone and attache them in a Facebook message… Read More
I don’t consider myself a big Facebook user, but I do check it from time to time. I live across the country from a lot of friends and family, so it’s nice to see how they’re doing every now and then. And for the most part, I don’t mind the social network, except for the stupid News Feed.
It seems like every time I login, it’s serving up posts in a different way, when I’d really just like them to be in chronological order. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s about to change again. Facebook announced this morning that it’s rolling out a new News Feed story bumping feature… Read More
I’ve always liked embed codes. For someone who blogs for a living, being able to accentuate my writing with punchy YouTube videos, detailed Scribd documents, obnoxious Vine clips, pretty Instagrams, Twitter outbursts and other kinds of embeddable media more often than not makes a marked difference between mindless re-writes and stories that entertains readers while providing a deeper understanding of the topic at hand.
Twitter’s Vine and Facebook’s Instagram, for instance, have just recently begun supporting embed codes. Not to be outdone by (primarily) Twitter, the world’s dominant social network is now permitting users to inject whole statuses and photos into blog posts, web pages, instant messages and just about anywhere on the web… Read More
Facebook has posted a small update for its iOS application this afternoon, bringing the mobile client to version 6.3. The update only brings about a handful of improvements, but one of them could have major implications for the social network.
New in version 6.3 are blue check mark icons for verified accounts—similar to what you see on Twitter. This makes it easier to find pages of celebrities, public figures and brands that have been officially confirmed and authenticated by Facebook… Read More
According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Facebook has been quietly working on a new service for the past year that displays content from users and publishers in a format, tailored for mobile devices, similar to Flipboard.
We’ve seen a number of new products this year from Zuckerberg’s team, as the company continues to try and evolve from being ‘just a social networking service.’ There was the search graph, then Facebook Home, and now there’s Reader… Read More
As anyone within 5 miles of a computer can tell you, popular photo sharing service Instagram unveiled a new video capture and upload feature yesterday. The Facebook-owned app can now shoot and post 15-second, Vine-like videos.
And apparently people love it. Today, Facebook flexed its muscles in the direction of Twitter’s Vine team, announcing that Instagram users uploaded a staggering 5 million video clips in the first 24 hours of the feature’s existence… Read More
Last week, Facebook started sending out mysterious invitations to press members via snail mail for a June 20th event. At the time, no one knew what it was planning to unveil at the presser, since it’s already taken the wraps off its Home project.
Today, though, it looks like we finally have our answer. According to a new report from AllThingsD, the rumors are true—Instagram has been working on a new video sharing service. And Facebook is going to show it off during Thursday’s event… Read More
Is social networking giant Facebook looking for a new deal with South Korean smartphone giant Samsung? Speculation allegedly erupted on that front following a face-to-face meeting between a suit-and-tie Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Samsung President Shin Jong Kyun.
Although officially, the Samsung head would only say the conversation dealt with possible partnerships between the two firms, reports suggested Facebook may be looking to Samsung to bolster its floundering Facebook First on smartphones… Read More
Facebook last week sent out invitations for its June 20 press event snail mail style, down to clean white envelopes. The graphics alludes the social networking giant has been working on “big ideas” and today TechCrunch chimes in to claim knowledge of the event’s agenda.
What Facebook apparently has in store is a video sharing feature for the Instagram generation. Rather boldly proclaiming that “Instagram will get video on June 20″, the story cites sketchy sources as asserting that the Instagram video service is much like Twitter’s Vine, which focuses on short six-second videos… Read More
