Goodbye Flash, goodbye FarmVille

While much of what made 2020 such an absolute nightmare will still be with us on January 1 (sorry!), we will really, truly be leaving Adobe Flash and FarmVille behind as we enter the new year. The end of Flash has been a long time coming. The plugin, which was first released in 1996 and once supported a broad swath online content, has become increasingly irrelevant in a smartphone-centric world: iPhones never supported Flash, and it’s been just over...

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How Niantic evolved Pokémon GO for the year no one could go anywhere

Pokémon GO was created to encourage players to explore the world while coordinating impromptu large group gatherings — activities we’ve all been encouraged to avoid since the pandemic began. And yet, analysts estimate that 2020 was Pokémon GO’s highest-earning year yet. By twisting some knobs and tweaking variables, Pokémon GO became much easier to play without leaving the house. Niantic’s approach to 2020 was full of carefully considered changes,...

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Daily Crunch: Telegram prepares to monetize

Telegram will introduce ads, TikTok’s parent company is moving into drug discovery and President Trump continues his battle against Section 230. This is your Daily Crunch for December 23, 2020. The big story: Telegram prepares to monetize Telegram founder Pavel Durov said the messaging app will introduce advertising next year on public one-to-many channels. Durov wrote on his Telegram channel the ad platform will be “one that is user-friendly, respects...

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Honk introduces a real-time, ephemeral messaging app aimed at Gen Z

A new mobile app called Honk aims to make messaging with friends a more interactive, real-time experience. Instead of sending texts off into the void and hoping for a response, friends on Honk communicate via messages that are shown live as you type, with no saved chat history and no send button. The end result is a feeling of being more present in a conversation, as Honk will notify users the moment someone leaves a chat. And if you really want...

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Telegram, nearing 500 million users, to begin monetizing the app

Instant messaging app Telegram is “approaching” 500 million users and plans to start generating revenue starting next year to keep the business afloat, its founder Pavel Durov said on Wednesday. Durov said he has personally bankrolled the seven-year-old business so far, but as the startup scales he is looking for ways to monetize the instant messaging service. “A project of our size needs at least a few hundred million dollars per year to keep going,”...

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Twitter’s POTUS account will reportedly be reset to zero followers when Biden takes over

In this country, we have a longstanding peaceful transfer of power for the executive office, even in the wake of the hardest-fought elections. Certain circumstances have led many to question whether the tradition will continue come January 20. Despite his very vocal protestations, however, the current president has agreed to step aside, should all of his legal maneuvers fall short (something that seems all but a certainty at this point). There is,...

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Twitter’s POTUS account will reportedly be reset to zero followers when Biden takes over

In this country, we have a longstanding peaceful transfer of power for the executive office, even in the wake of the hardest-fought elections. Certain circumstances have led many to question whether the tradition will continue come January 20. Despite his very vocal protestations, however, the current president has agreed to step aside, should all of his legal maneuvers fall short (something that seems all but a certainty at this point). There is,...

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What a Facebook Photos product manager thinks about antitrust

Samuel Odio Contributor Share on Twitter Samuel is a product leader and two-time founder, currently serving as VP of Product at Fivestars. He previously founded Divvyshot (acquired by Facebook) and co-founded Freshplum (acquired by TellApart). Leading up to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, I was the product manager in charge of Facebook Photos. Mark Zuckerberg had bought my previous company, Divvyshot, one of the first iOS photo-sharing...

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Twitter expands API features for developers tracking the public conversation

Twitter is rolling out new features to its developer community with an update to its recently rebuilt Twitter API. One addition to the now expanded collection of API v2 endpoints will allow app developers to eventually better support Twitter’s newer conversation controls — the feature that allows users to specify who can reply to their tweets. Other endpoints allow developers to track tweets by particular accounts, those mentioning a certain account,...

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TikTok launches its first personalized annual recap feature, ‘Year on TikTok’

Spotify users have Wrapped and Instagram users have their Top 9. And now TikTok users will have their own year-in-review feature, too. The company today announced the launch of its first personalized annual recap feature with the launch of “Year on TikTok,” a video highlight reel that showcases individual users’ own top TikTok moments. This includes things like how long you’ve been on TikTok, what sort of videos you watched most, your favorite tracks...

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Unfold launches lightweight, link-centric profiles called Bio Sites

Unfold, the social media startup acquired by Squarespace last year, is launching a new tool for users to share all the links that are important with them. This is the first step Unfold has taken beyond its story-format authoring tools. Co-founder Andy McCune told me that the team has a bigger vision now — just as Squarespace has become “the all-in-one platform for your web presence,” Unfold aims to become “the all-in-one platform for your social...

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Twitter bots and memorialized users will become ‘new account types’ in 2021

After a period of public feedback, Twitter adjusted some its plans for a new verification process, set to roll out next year. The company suspended public verification applications in 2017 and since appears to have rethought a few aspects of what information the platform should signal to its users, blue checks and beyond. One big verification-adjacent change around the corner: Twitter plans to add a way of distinguishing bots and other automated...

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Daily Crunch: Discord raises $100M

Discord announces a big funding round, Google gets European approval to acquire Fitbit and Twitter launches a new voice-based feature. This is your Daily Crunch for December 17, 2020. Discord raises $100M The popular gaming chat platform confirmed today that it has raised $100 million and also announced that it has 140 million monthly active users, twice as many as a year ago. “We are humbled and honored by the growth we’ve seen among so many incredible...

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Adobe brings over 10,000 design assets to Spark

Adobe is launching an update to its Spark social media design tool today that will bring more than 10,000 new design assets to the service. This update, which follows the launch of animations in Spark in September, also brings a small UI change with it to accommodate this new feature, but for the most part, you can think of design assets as an extension to what a lot of users were already doing with icons in Spark. Image Credits: Adobe “For our...

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Walmart to pilot test live-streamed video shopping on TikTok

Walmart and TikTok announced this morning they will be partnering on the first pilot test of a new shoppable product experience on TikTok’s social video app. Walmart, as you may recall, had planned to invest in TikTok when the app was being threatened with a ban from the U.S. market unless it sold its U.S. operations to an American company, per a Trump administration executive order —  a ban that’s now on pause after multiple legal challenges....

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