Telegram tops 1 billion downloads

Popular instant messaging app Telegram has joined the elite club of apps that have been downloaded over 1 billion times globally, according to Sensor Tower. The Dubai-headquartered app, which was launched in late 2013, surpassed the milestone on Friday, the mobile insight firm told TechCrunch. As is the case with the app’s chief rival, WhatsApp, India is the largest market for Telegram. The world’s second largest internet market represents approximately...

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Instagram will require users to provide their birthday

Instagram will begin prodding users to share their birthday with the service, if they haven’t already done so. The company today announced it will now start popping up a notification that asks you to add your birthday to “personalize your experience.” But the prompt can only be dismissed a handful of times before becoming a requirement. The move is a part of Instagram’s larger goal to create new safety features aimed at younger users, the company...

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Clubhouse is adding spatial audio effects to make users feel like they’re really in the room

It’s been a busy summer for Clubhouse. The hit social audio app rolled out new messaging features and an Android app over the last few months and now the company is turning its attention to enhancing its core audio experience. Clubhouse announced Sunday that its rooms will now be infused with spatial audio to give the app’s listeners a richer sense of hanging out live with a group of other people. TechCrunch spoke with Clubhouse’s Justin Uberti about...

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Move fast and break Facebook: A bull case for antitrust enforcement

Daniel Liss Contributor Share on Twitter Daniel Liss is the founder and CEO of Dispo, the digital disposable camera social network. This is the second post in a series on the Facebook monopoly. The first post explored how the U.S. Federal Trade Commission should define the Facebook monopoly. I am inspired by Cloudflare’s recent post explaining the impact of Amazon’s monopoly in its industry. Perhaps it was a competitive tactic, but...

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Stipop offers developers and creators instant access to a huge global sticker library

With more than 270,000 stickers, Stipop’s library of colorful, character-driven expressions has a little something for everyone. The company offers keyboard and social app stickers through ad-supported mobile apps on iOS and Android, but it’s recently focused more on providing stickers to developers, creators and other online businesses. “We were able to gather so many artists because we actually began as our own app that provided stickers,” Stipop...

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Twitter experiencing widespread outages

Twitter users in Canada and parts of the U.S. appear to be having trouble accessing the social media platform on Friday morning. Reports from third-party web monitoring service Downdetector indicate the issue is impacting users across Canada and mainly the eastern parts of the U.S. near the Canadian border, though users from more states continue to report outages as well. The outage began at around 8:30 AM ET according to most reports, lasting for...

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Twitter starts to roll out paid Ticketed Spaces on iOS

Twitter announced today that some hosts on Spaces, its live audio feature, will now be able to sell access to Ticketed Spaces. Applications for Ticketed Spaces first opened in June for users who are over 18, hosted three Spaces in the last 30 days, and have at least 1,000 followers. “We’re continuing to work closely with people who are already hosting Spaces for Ticketed Spaces,” a Twitter representative told TechCrunch. Twitter declined to say how...

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Facebook will reportedly launch its own advisory group for election policy decisions

Facebook is looking to create a standalone advisory committee for election-related policy decisions, according to a new report from The New York Times. The company has reportedly approached a number of policy experts and academics it is interested in recruiting for the group, which could give the company cover for some of its most consequential choices. The group, which the Times characterizes as a commission, would potentially be empowered to weigh...

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LOVE unveils a modern video messaging app with a business model that puts users in control

A London-headquartered startup called LOVE, valued at $17 million following its pre-seed funding, aims to redefine how people stay in touch with close family and friends. The company is launching a messaging app that offers a combination of video calling as well as asynchronous video and audio messaging, in an ad-free, privacy-focused experience with a number of bells and whistles, including artistic filters and real-time transcription and translation...

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Bright raises $15M for its live video platform that lets you Zoom with top creators

Bright, a live video platform that lets fans Zoom with their favorite creators and celebs, has raised $15 million in new funding, the company announced today. The round was co-led by co-founder and talent manager Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, the fund he founded with Ashton Kutcher. RIT Capital and Regah Ventures also co-led. Other investors in the new round include Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures, Globo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Shawn Mendes...

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Messenger celebrates its 10th anniversary with new features and a plan to become the ‘connective tissue’ for real-time experiences

To celebrate its ten year anniversary, Messenger today announced a handful of new features: poll games, word effects, contact sharing, and birthday gifting via Facebook Pay. But beyond the fun features, Facebook has been testing a way to add voice and video calls back into the Facebook app, rather than on Messenger. “We are testing audio and video calls within the Facebook app messaging experience so people can make and receive calls regardless of...

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NBA All-Star Chris Paul joins digital media startup Greenfly’s growth round

Greenfly’s latest funding round has a new face: Phoenix Suns point guard Chris Paul joined as a strategic investor and partner in the company, which developed digital media flow management software. Paul’s investment is part of an $8.4 million strategic growth round that also includes Verance Capital, Higher Ground Labs, DD Venture Capital, SW19 Ventures, LinkinFirm and Allievo Capital, as well as existing investors Go4it Capital, Elysian Park Ventures,...

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Substack acqui-hires team behind subscription social app Cocoon

Subscription newsletter platform kingpin Substack shared today that they’ve acqui-hired the team behind Cocoon, a subscription social media app built for close friends. We covered the Y Combinator-backed startup’s initial $3 million seed raise led by Lerer Hippeau back in November 2019, shortly before the pandemic dramatically reconfigured how people used social media to communicate with the people nearest and dearest to them. Cocoon’s initial pitch...

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TikTok expands Shopify partnership, pilots TikTok Shopping in US, UK and Canada

TikTok is moving into e-commerce. The company announced this morning an expanded partnership with e-commerce platform Shopify, as well as a pilot test of TikTok Shopping among select Shopify merchants across the U.S., U.K. and Canada in the weeks to come. The social video platform first announced its plans to partner with Shopify last October, with the introduction of new tools that allowed Shopify merchants to create, run and optimize their TikTok...

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Infinite Canvas raises $2.8M for a metaverse creator group modeled after esports teams

With the promise of an interconnected virtual world coming into focus and user-crafted gaming content exploding, Infinite Canvas is looking to apply lessons learned in the esports boom to the metaverse. “Metaverse” is the hot buzzword right now, but it’s not an empty term. Ten different people would probably define the metaverse in ten different ways, but it’s generally used as shorthand for the web of emerging virtual spaces full of personalized...

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