The Twitter feeds of most big companies are littered with gripes from customers trying to get someone to resolve their problem. Thing is, some companies either don’t monitor their Twitter feeds for customer service complaints, or only only respond to these Tweets during certain times. A new Twitter feature is intended to let businesses be more transparent about if and when they handle customer service on the social media platform.
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Twitter Now Lets Businesses Show When They Monitor Customer Service Tweets
By 9.15.16
You Can Now Order Domino’s Pizza Through A Facebook Messenger Bot
By 9.15.16
After successfully launching a Facebook messenger chatbot in the UK and Ireland that takes customers’ pizza orders, Domino’s is now making the feature available stateside. [More]
Facebook Internet Satellite Destroyed Spectacularly In Rocket Failure
By 9.1.16
There was an “anomaly” today during testing of a SpaceX rocket at Cape Canaveral… the kind of “anomaly” that creates a spectacular fireball, goes “BOOM,” and leaves a smoke plume in the sky. Happily, nobody was hurt during the incident. However, one very expensive piece of high-profile technology went BOOM along with. [More]
Consumer Privacy Groups File FTC Complaint Over Facebook, WhatsApp Data Sharing
By 8.30.16
It’s been less than a week since WhatsApp announced it would start sharing some user data with parent company Facebook, but in that short time, app users and privacy advocates alike have raised a ruckus over what they see as a broken promise. Now, some consumer privacy watchdog groups have filed a formal complaint with the FTC, asking them to look into it. [More]
Mark Zuckerberg Says Facebook Is “Not A Media Company,” But He May Be Mistaken
By 8.29.16
Amazon was once an online bookstore. Now it publishes books, and produces TV shows and movies (just like Netflix, which started as a DVD-by-mail company). Twitter is broadcasting political and sporting events, Apple will soon launch original streaming video content, and Snapchat has gone from a messaging service for sending self-destructing intimate photos to having a programming deal with NBC. Among all this shifting and pivoting, social media king Mark Zuckerberg claims that Facebook is not going to become a media company; he may be mistaken. [More]
Facebook Fires Humans, Hires Robots To Tell You What’s Hot Today
By 8.29.16
If you’ve ever looked at the Trending Topics in the top right of your Facebook newsfeed, just to see chatter about some video game character right next to news about a massive natural disaster, you’ve probably thought, “who on earth is deciding what shows up here?” Well, now it’s what, not a who, and it… might still need some refining. [More]
Facebook’s New High School App Does Not Actually Care If You Are In High School Or Have Privacy
By 8.26.16
Facebook isn’t just Facebook. The company is massive, and has a whole suite of other apps and businesses it launches (or acquires) from time to time. The latest is kind of a pared down social network aimed at busy teens on the go — but that comes along with massive, glaring privacy flaws that could leave kids at risk. [More]
Facebook Now Using Your WhatsApp Data For Advertising
By 8.25.16
Back in 2014, Facebook acquired messaging service WhatsApp in a headline-grabbing $16 billion deal. WhatsApp, though, had been built around respecting users’ privacy, while Facebook is, well, the exact opposite of that. [More]
Facebook Testing Autoplay Video Ads That Have The Sound Turned On By Default
By 8.24.16
If you scroll through your Facebook newsfeed right now, you might see video ads that start to play, but silently, at least until/if you decide to turn the sound on. But according to a new report, Facebook confirms that it’s testing ads that will blast sound at full volume as soon as you encounter them. Because that’s a pleasant experience. [More]
Facebook Opens Up A Little About The Very Many (Many Many) Ways It Targets You
By 8.22.16
Facebook is, primarily, an advertising business. It doesn’t just want you to grudgingly put up with its ads, and it certainly doesn’t want you to block them. No, it wants you to love its ads, to embrace its ads, and to beg to be targeted to selectively. [More]
Facebook Polling Users To Find “Most Informative” Stories For News Feed
By 8.12.16
In its quest to show users exactly what they want to see, when they want to see it, Facebook is tweaking its news feed algorithm yet again, this time based on user polling. [More]
That Was Fast: Ad-Blocker Announces Block For Facebook’s Ad-Blocker Blocking
By 8.11.16
You use Facebook as a place to post and store photos, dumb memes, and articles about the political foofaraw du jour. Facebook uses Facebook as a way to gather direct profiles for billions of souls that can be advertised to, and as a way to make money selling those ads. There’s a natural tension there, when Facebook wants you to be the product and you would rather not. These days, that tension is evolving into something like an advertising cold war. [More]
Facebook Thinks You Love Ads So Much, It’ll Helpfully Block Your Ad-Blocker For You
By 8.9.16
Facebook — one of the world’s largest advertising companies — magnanimously acknowledges that in your life on the internet, you’ve probably encountered some bad ads. And you almost certainly have, because online advertising can be obtrusive, creepy, and irritating to say the least. But Facebook thinks that they are so far ahead of the pack that you will actually want to see their ads, and so they’re going to circumvent your ad-blocker for your own good. [More]
You’ll Never Believe How Facebook Is Changing Its News Feed Algorithm To Reduce Clickbait… Again
By 8.4.16
Ah, Facebook’s News Feed. It changes frequently in order keep you better updated on your friends’ lives, the news of the world, and other events. But one thing you’re likely see a bit less of soon: those cleverly written headlines just begging to be clicked. The social network announced Thursday that it would revamp its News Feed algorithm to reduce the number of clickbait headlines you see. [More]
Facebook Will Let Small Companies In Emerging Markets Sell Directly Through Their Pages
By 8.3.16
In an effort to expand into online commerce in regions outside of the U.S. and Canada — and get the ad dollars that go with it — Facebook will let small companies in emerging markets sell their products directly through their account pages for free. [More]
Facebook Might Owe The IRS As Much As $5 Billion In Back Taxes
By 8.1.16
You know what giant corporations really hate to do? Spend lots of their revenue on taxes. And you know what they have to do anyway? Exactly that. But the IRS is saying that Facebook may not have done enough of it, in past years, and may be on the hook for a big fat chunk of cash overdue to the U.S. government. [More]
If Your Kid Made Unapproved App Purchases Using Facebook, You Could Get A Refund
By 7.27.16
It’s so easy to buy apps and then buy even more stuff within those apps, even a kid can do it. Which is exactly why a court has ordered Facebook to refund parents whose children made unapproved app purchases while using the social media network. [More]
Facebook To Pay For Live Videos From Internet Celebrities
By 7.19.16
YouTube stars and Instagram aficionados may soon pop-up on your Facebook feed in real-time: the social network is reportedly shelling out $2.2 million to dozens of internet personalities to create content for the recently launched Facebook Live. [More]
