You know the moment: You’ve just spent the last few minutes telling your friends how great — nay! — how utterly life-changing this video you watched last night and how they just have to watch it immediately. Your audience primed, you find it on YouTube, hit “Play”… and then everyone is forced to watch a 30-second ad that cannot be skipped. Buzz. Kill. [More]
videos
Instagram Adds Mentions, Links, And Boomerang Tool To Stories Feature
By 11.10.16
Well, well, well, what do we have here? A photo-sharing app adding features that Snapchat doesn’t have? Yes, that’s actually happening: Instagram is updating its Stories feature to allow users to tag their friends, add links, and apply its Boomerang effect to photos. [More]
Twitter’s Expanded Character Count Coming Sept. 19
By 9.13.16
Your zany uncle’s Tweets are about to get a bit more long-winded, even with those photos, GIFs, and other add-ons. After announcing last spring that it would revamp the way it counts characters in Tweets, Twitter has reportedly put a date on when this change will kick in. [More]
Snapchat Killing Off “Local Stories” In Favor Of Live Event Feeds
By 9.7.16
If you like checking out “Local Stories” to see what other folks in your city are posting on Snapchat, well, prepare to say farewell: Snapchat is ditching that feature so the company can focus more on its live event channels. [More]
Tech Would Allow Users To Touch, Interact With Objects In Video
By 8.3.16
Just when you thought virtual reality couldn’t be any more like reality, engineers go and find a way to let you actually touch and interact with the objects coming at you from your VR headset. [More]
Facebook Wants To Interrupt Your Live Broadcast With Ads
By 8.2.16
Facebook Live is becoming an increasingly popular way for Facebook users to broadcast live feeds to the world, so it was only a matter of time until the social media giant tried to monetize these streams by occasionally interrupting them for commercial breaks. [More]
Why Are There Seatbelt Demos On Airplanes?
By 7.12.16
A seatbelt is a fairly intuitive safety device: insert the flat end into the other piece and you’re secure in your seat — it’s fairly simple. We’ve all snapped one together, whether flying, driving or riding. So with the process likely engrained in our minds, why do airlines continue to include the simple instructions in their pre-takeoff safety demos? [More]
Twitter Will Now Let Users Post Up To 140 Seconds Of Video
By 6.21.16
Twitter is upping its video game with a few announcements this week, including the news that all users can now post videos up to 140 seconds in length, up from 30 seconds. [More]
Let’s Watch Some Promotional Videos From Makers Of ATM Skimmers
By 6.14.16 — Updated: 2.28.17
Legitimate businesses create video ads to promote their products, so why shouldn’t companies that can provide you with the supplies to commit crimes? Here are some videos where sellers of the tools of the ATM skimmer trade show off how their products work, in case you’ve always wondered how to insert and remove a super-thin ATM skimmer. [More]
Will DIY Air Conditioners Really Keep You Cool This Summer?
By 5.25.16
Don’t feel like plunking down upwards of a few hundred bucks for a window unit air conditioner? No, of course you don’t; that was a silly question. At the same time, you probably don’t want to spend the next few months baking in the summer heat. You could McGyver one using ice and some stuff that’s sitting in your garage gathering dust, but will it make your life any more tolerable? [More]
Video Makers Unhappy With Facebook’s Slow Response To Allegedly Pirated Videos
By 3.31.16
Chances are you’ve seen a few of those popular, captivating videos on Facebook — you know, the ones of the cooking demonstrations or the science experiments. While those videos can be fun for you to watch, they’re often part of a longer video that was posted somewhere else first. And the creators behind them don’t enjoy seeing them repurposed by someone else. [More]
Instagram Videos Can Now Be Up To A Minute Long
By 3.30.16
If you’ve been wishing for longer videos of cute cats, dogs, and kids saying the darndest things on Instagram, the social media gods have heard your prayers. Instagram users will now be able to post videos that are up to one minute long, adding 45 seconds to the previous video length limits. [More]
Instagram Revamps Timeline, Will Show Photos By Relevance
By 3.16.16
Instagram is taking a page straight out of its big brother Facebook’s playbook: reconfiguring its timeline to show posts that are most relevant to them first, not those that happened just moments ago. [More]
Netflix Dropping Its “One-Size-Fits-All” Streaming Algorithm
By 12.14.15
The shows you watch and the shows your five-year-old niece watch probably differ: she might prefer short 30-minute animated cartoons about an exploring adolescent, and you might go for something with more action or political backstabbing. While you both deserve to have a high quality product streaming on your screen, Netflix announced today that it might have found a better way to make sure that still happens, while using less data. [More]
Facebook Bringing 360-Degree Video To iOS Newsfeeds
By 11.12.15
While we once wondered why Facebook would spend $2 billion to buy virtual reality company Oculus, we’re starting to get answers. Two months after Facebook said it was working to bring virtual reality to consumers’ phones via newsfeed ads, the social media company unveiled an iOS version. [More]
YouTube Launches $9.99/Month “Red” Ad-Free Subscription Service
By 10.21.15
Six months after reports began to swirl that YouTube would offer users an option to watch videos sans ads, the company officially unveiled its $9.99/month subscription service. [More]
Facebook Is Testing 7-Second Video Profile Pictures
By 9.30.15
Because torturing yourself by gazing at your ex’s profile pic on Facebook might not be punishment enough, Facebook is now testing video profile photos (really, profile videos) that can be up to seven seconds and will be set to loop over and over while you keep staring/crying. [More]
Facebook Reportedly Working On A Virtual Reality Video Smartphone App
By 9.14.15
Nearly a year and a half after Facebook paid $2 billion to buy virtual reality company Oculus, the online behemoth is apparently ready to bring some virtual reality technology to its social media platform. [More]
