Chatbots, Live video, and VR technology are all on the docket for Facebook’s F8 developer conference, and you can watch the livestream here at 9:30am PST with Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote starting at 10am. There’ll also be more streamed sessions all day today. Read MoreWatch Facebook’s F8 conference here, plus what to expect
Chatbots, Live video, and VR technology are all on the docket for Facebook’s F8 developer conference, and you can watch the livestream here at 9:30am PST with Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote starting at 10am. There’ll also be more streamed sessions all day today. Read More
“You never slow down, you never grow old.” Tom Petty isn’t playing the F8 after-party, but his song encapsulates the point of Facebook’s conference — a social network won’t go extinct if it’s reactive, personalized, and urgent. Everything launched today is designed to eschew the generic. To wrap around the user and bend to their whims to create a… 
There’s an epidemic of stolen videos on Facebook. Business Pages rip videos from YouTube, TV or other Pages, and then post them on Facebook as their own to gain more engagement and fans. This is known as “freebooting.” Video makers were pissed off about it because they were losing video views to others who didn’t have permission to use their clips. Slate sounded the… 
Facebook launched its Messenger chatbot platform today, but how will it make money on it? By charging businesses to send re-engagement messages to people who’ve already voluntarily started a conversation with them. These “Sponsored Messages” are currently in testing, with a small test of advertisers, and are being heavily monitored by Facebook to prevent them getting spammy.… 
Messenger is all about bots now. As expected, Facebook unveiled the Send and Receive API at its F8 conference. It lets you create bots for Messenger to search for things and interact with businesses. But what if you want to use machine learning and create more complex scenarios? Meet the Bot Engine, Facebook’s more powerful bot framework. 
Facebook Live could take live video to a new level of popularity. Now third-party developers will get a chance to participate. Today at Facebook’s F8 developer conference, the company said it’s releasing an API for developers who want to plug into Facebook Live, and it also announced the first partners — including Livestream (maker of the Mevo camera), BuzzFeed, Vidpresso… 
Good news, everyone. Facebook Messenger has two new features! No sense saving them for below the fold: it’s Dropbox integration and live video Chat Heads. It’s even in the headline. 
The problem with Facebook isn’t the amount of pictures of dogs, it’s the lack of pictures by dogs. Finally someone is addressing this scourge — unfortunately, it’s an ad agency. So this isn’t a sponsored post, but it may as well be. 
“Why do you need money from me when you have every great investor on earth?” That’s the question that caused Backplane to buckle under the weight of its own early buzz. Lady Gaga’s social network builder startup has run out of money, gone out of business, and sold its assets to a group of previous and new investors who will try to restart it. That’s according…