News

 Slack was being cheeky when yesterday it said voice chat would start testing “very, very soon”. Today the new “Calls” feature starting rolling out on Slack for desktop and on the Chrome browser.
It lets you start a private Slack Call or launch a conference call in a channel that anyone can join with a click. And in keeping with Slack’s lighthearted style, once… Read More

 Launched last July as “a social network for connecting with others to discuss polarizing topics such as politics, religion and social issues,” Roust releases their first iOS app today to give members of their network another way to connect and discuss topics. Given the crazy political year we are having in the USA, the timing couldn’t be better for something like this. I… Read More

 Facebook’s data harvesting practices are facing yet another probe in Europe. This time the German federal competition authority is initiating proceedings — rather than it being a European Member State’s national data protection watchdog. Read More

 Facebook at Work — the enterprise version of Facebook that lets businesses build their own secure social networks — has racked up over 60,000 companies on a waiting list while still in closed beta. And as it gears up for a full global launch and new features like an app platform later this year, Facebook is announcing its newest big customer. As of today, Telenor, the… Read More

 Social marketing company Nanigans announced today that it’s launching support for Twitter.
Nanigans is best known as a Facebook ad automation tool, but CEO Ric Calvillo said last year that one reason for raising the company’s $24 million Series B was to expand beyond Facebook. He’s also started to make good on that by launching on Instagram last August. Read More

 Slack is gunning for Skype and Google Hangouts with the 2016 product roadmap it revealed today. The biggest change coming: the ability to seamlessly turn a text chat into a voice or video chat will begin testing “very soon”. This builds on Slack’s January 2015 acquisition of Screenhero, when it said these features would eventually be released. At its customer conference in… Read More

 It doesn’t matter if it was Live if you missed it. And Facebook knows that people watch actually Live streams 3X longer than saved ones. So it’s changing the News Feed to prefer on-going broadcasts. Twitter’s big advantage with Periscope is that they’re both inherently real-time platforms. Periscopes generate notifications for all your followers there, and show up… Read More

 If you’re sick of running out of paper checks and stamps or hassling with routing numbers to send zero-fee payments, you can bank on Checkbook. The startup today launches its digital check service where you can send anyone a check with just their email address, and they can deposit it immediately online to get their money or even print it out. What’s remarkable is that… Read More

 Just in time for Super Tuesday, the AP has launched a new tool in partnership with Google and Twitter that helps voters visualize what people are saying about the current elections, candidates and issues, as well as how that interest has changed over time. Effectively, the product, called AP Election Buzz, is a lot like a political-focused Google Trends tool mashed up with Twitter data.… Read More