Current Feed Content By Sajid Khan

• LinkedIn Rival Viadeo Exits China

  Posted:Mon, 28 Dec 2015 05:32:28 +0000

   Viadeo, the French rival to LinkedIn, is to exit China in order to focus on becoming a profitable business. In another cut-cutting move, it will also close its data center in California and migrate all data to the cloud. Read More

• Facebook Confronts The Free Internet Neutrality Dilemma

  Posted:Sun, 27 Dec 2015 20:47:41 +0000

   The subject of contention is Free Basics, Facebook and Internet.org‘s app that offers free data access but only to a limited section of the Internet. Free Basics is available in roughly 35 countries through Facebook’s partnerships with mobile carriers who see it as a way to persuade people to buy data plans. But Facebook’s control over the technical guidelines for what… Read More

• Twitter’s Fiscal 2015: Up, Flat, And Down

  Posted:Thu, 24 Dec 2015 20:00:30 +0000

   Twitter did not have a lovely 2015. The world-famous social company saw its revenue rise, its usage flatten, and its share price fall. The company failed to change the arc of its own narrative during the year: Strong financial performance, but continued failure to grow its user base, the latter of which the market appears to weight more strongly. It brought in a new CEO to turn things… Read More

• Bessemer Venture Partners’ Ethan Kurzweil Talks Video In 2016

  Posted:Thu, 24 Dec 2015 19:01:44 +0000

   2015 was a big year for video — especially when it came to user-generated video. Now there are services like Periscope and Meerkat, which are enabling users to broadcast the world around them live. We also saw YouTube launch a subscription model. And, according to Bessemer Venture Partners’ Ethan Kurzweil — who led the firm’s investment in Twitch — we’re… Read More

• Instagram Makes It Easier To Share From Boomerang

  Posted:Tue, 22 Dec 2015 19:01:35 +0000

   Right before the holidays, Instagram snuck in an update for its most second-most popular spun-out app, Boomerang. The app currently sits in the top 250 on the App Store’s free apps. The changes, although subtle, will probably make its users super happy. The premise of the app is to make little clipped-together videos, similar to an animated GIF or an Apple Live Photo. It feeds into… Read More

• Are Tweeting Drones On The Way? Twitter Patent Tips Off Potential Future Of Selfies

  Posted:Mon, 21 Dec 2015 23:58:16 +0000

   In today’s episode of “boring patents…wait, WHAT ARE THOSE???”, it looks like Twitter filed a patent for messaging with or from, or both, an unmanned vehicle (drone!) in June of this year. It was just published a few days ago. It’s probably something that was put together at a hackathon and someone at Twitter said “hey that’s cool let’s patent… Read More

• Pinball In Virtual Reality? Yes Please

  Posted:Mon, 21 Dec 2015 19:28:37 +0000

   OK, it doesn’t exist just yet, but one group called “Pinball Labs” has a new Kickstarter to bring back the feels you felt when you entered an arcade with tons of pinball games. There’s nothing like the sounds and visuals of old pinball machines (I love Addams Family) and it could become a…reality once again in VR. The Kickstarter recently went live and this video… Read More

• We Heart It, The Image-Sharing Site Used By 40 Million Teens, Launches Its Second App, Easel

  Posted:Mon, 21 Dec 2015 17:06:32 +0000

   We Heart It, an image bookmarking service popular with teenaged girls, is out now with its second mobile application called Easel. The new app is designed to complement We Heart It’s main app, as it serves as a way to quickly create images using quotes that can be shared on We Heart It’s service or elsewhere on social media, including Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.… Read More

• Coffee Meets Bagel Adds Its Own Version Of Super Like With ‘Send A Woo’

  Posted:Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:33:41 +0000

   In the past few months, Tinder has been working on a feature called Super Like, which let users tell one of their matches that the situation is more serious than simply swiping right. Today, Coffee Meets Bagel has added something similar in ‘Send A Woo’, letting CMB users express higher-than-usual interest in a potential match. Coffee Meets Bagel launched in 2013 with an… Read More

• Extroverts Rejoice! Now Facebook Finds You Parties

  Posted:Fri, 18 Dec 2015 21:48:25 +0000

   Facebook should tell me what to do tonight. It already knows what I like, where I live, and who I hang out with. Now it will. After accidentally becoming the most powerful force in party invitations, Facebook is jacking us into its omniscient view of the event landscape. Starting today on iOS, Facebook has a powerful new Event browsing experience. First, rather than suggesting Events on… Read More

• Facebook Tests “Click For More” To Boost Video Views On Desktop

  Posted:Fri, 18 Dec 2015 13:57:26 +0000

   Facebook says it now gets around 8 billion video views on its platform each day, and the social network has made no secret of its plans to make it an even bigger part of the experience in the future. Now Facebook is testing a new “click for more” feature for desktop users of the service. Currently, clicking not just on the words — which appear in a place where they will… Read More

• Colopl Launches $50M Global Fund Dedicated To Virtual Reality

  Posted:Thu, 17 Dec 2015 19:12:16 +0000

   There’s no shortage of ideas and projects in the virtual reality space. There are tons of studios popping up all over the world to create immersive content for the platform. With the Oculus, HTC and Sony offerings coming next year, now’s a better time than any to dabble in the space. If only there was money to be raised. Welp, Colopl, a company deeply rooted in mobile gaming,… Read More

• Build Or Buy? Anatomy Of An Acquisition — Or Why Buffer Just Bought Respondly

  Posted:Thu, 17 Dec 2015 17:00:23 +0000

   Radically transparent social media scheduling firm Buffer, which does stuff like publish its staff salaries and publicly detail its company revenue, has announced its first major acquisition — buying social media customer support tool Respondly for — wait for it — an undisclosed amount… Read More

• Social Ad Startup Funnely Raises Seed Funding From Verizon Ventures

  Posted:Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:57:19 +0000

   Funnely, a startup that helps e-commerce companies automate and improve their ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram, has raised $988,000 in a seed round led by Verizon Ventures. The product uses businesses’ customer data to create and target ads. The goal is to effectively reach consumers throughout the sales funnel, whether it’s first getting their attention through lead… Read More

• First Round’s Holiday Video Will Have You Reaching For Your Cell Phone

  Posted:Thu, 17 Dec 2015 15:00:48 +0000

   In the tech world it’s just not the holidays until First Round Capital drops its annual holiday video. It’s that time again, folks. The annual festivities started way back in 2008, the year of our blog. Then it happened again and again. If you’d like to sing along, you’ll find the lyrics below the video. They are most certainly…special. I won’t ruin anything… Read More

• Telegram Gets 1.5M+ Download Spike As Brazil WhatsApp Shutdown Kicks In

  Posted:Thu, 17 Dec 2015 12:31:38 +0000

   Messaging app Telegram is currently experiencing a bump in downloads in Brazil thanks to a local court ruling forcing a 48 hour shutdown of WhatsApp. Read More

• CAH’s Max Temkin On ‘Secret Hitler’ And Making Fun Games For Money

  Posted:Wed, 16 Dec 2015 21:13:52 +0000

   If you’re a maker, getting people excited about what you’re doing can be difficult — no matter what it is you’re making. One guy, Max Temkin, has been “lucky” enough to strike gold with his project Cards Against Humanity. His next act? A game called “Secret Hitler.” In case you haven’t heard about it, it’s a card game for 5-10 players… Read More

• Facebook Filters Out Sadness And Adds Editing To Your Year In Review Photoset

  Posted:Wed, 16 Dec 2015 19:00:12 +0000

   Facebook broke some hearts in 2014 when its algorithmically selected Your Year In Review photosets accidentally included depressing photos of people’s exes, blocked friends and deceased loved ones. To avoid the same bad feels, Facebook “applied a unique set of filters” to prevent these people from showing up in this year’s stylized vertical card of 10 photos. Read More

• Hit Or Miss, A Tinder-Like Curated Fashion Shopping App, Looks To Keep Shopping Simple

  Posted:Wed, 16 Dec 2015 18:57:05 +0000

   Amber Reyngoudt and Dave Peck want to figure out how to perfect the mobile shopping experience — and they thinks it’s flipping through fewer products, not more. Skull Ninja Labs’ first product is Hit or Miss — a tinder-like interface where users can swipe through a curated set of products and quickly build a profile of the things they like. But the catch is that the… Read More

• MIT Researchers Train An Algorithm To Predict How Boring Your Selfie Is

  Posted:Wed, 16 Dec 2015 15:00:55 +0000

   Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have created an algorithm they claim can predict how memorable or forgettable an image is almost as accurately as a human — which is to say that their tech can predict how likely a person would be to remember or forget a particular photo. Read More