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Richard Nieva / CNET : Zuckerberg opens F8 reiterating Facebook's new focus on privacy and shift toward a “privacy-focused communications platform” prioritizing end-to-end encryption — Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook is doubling down on privacy. — “I believe the future is private,” Zuckerberg said at F8 … from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2UQyYeP

Facebook launches a major redesign that ditches the blue bar at the top, features Groups and Stories more prominently, and debuts Meet New Friends feature (Rob Price/Business Insider)

April 30, 2019

Rob Price / Business Insider : Facebook launches a major redesign that ditches the blue bar at the top, features Groups and Stories more prominently, and debuts Meet New Friends feature — - The social network has ditched its iconic red bar and now looks more similar to Messenger and Instagram. from Techmeme http://bit.ly/2Ld1ach

Aperture dies the true death in Apple’s next macOS update

April 30, 2019

Aperture was a great application for editing photos back in the day, but it hasn’t been supported by Apple for years. You can, however, still run it on the latest Macs, should you need to. But that won’t be the case for long, the company has announced. In a support page pointed out by MacRumors , Apple explains that “for technical reasons, Aperture will not run in future versions of macOS after macOS Mojave.” What exactly those technical reasons are only Apple knows, but it isn’t hard to imagine the various file structures, architectures, libraries and so on that Aperture relied on are simply no longer compatible with the changes the company has made to the OS. macOS has come quite a distance since Aperture was abandoned in 2014, and it’s actually kind of impressive that the app still runs. Apple To Cease Development Of Aperture And Transition Users To Photos For OS X You can of course keep a machine running Mojave around if you really need to use Aperture for some reason or...

Old Facebook finally wants you to ‘Meet New Friends’

April 30, 2019

Facebook’s social graph is aging, full of long-lost acquaintances and hometown friends you don’t care much about seeing in the News Feed any more. But Facebook is now testing a pivot away from its core identity of connecting you with existing friends so it can revitalize the social graph and keep people coming back. Facebook’s “Meet New Friends” lets you browse people from shared communities such as your school, workplace or city who’ve also opted in to the feature. It’s now in testing in a few markets before it’s rolled out more widely soon. Meet New Friends could give people fresh pals to follow in their News Feed, or help recently registered users grow their network until they have access to enough content to keep them busy. And eventually, Facebook could layer on monetization features similar to dating apps where users pay to be shown more prominently to potential connections. Fidji Simo, the head of Facebook’s main app, tells me Meet New Friends was based on emerging behaviors...

Microsoft’s Mixer now lets streamers reward fans for participation, not just subscriptions

April 30, 2019

On game streaming platforms today, there’s really only one way to earn status within a creator’s community: you have to become a subscriber. Microsoft’s game streaming service Mixer is today aiming to offering a third path to status through loyalty and participation. In doing so, it hopes to better differentiate itself from larger rivals like Twitch and YouTube. Channel Progression, as this new feature is called, is a system that rewards community members and a streamer’s fans for more than just their financial contributions. It also takes into account other activity within the channel and on Mixer as a whole. Members can level up by participating in the stream’s chat, by their repeat visits, by using Skills (aka other forms of expression like stickers, effects and GIFs that are used in chats), and more. That means that viewers will be able to earn rewards and raise their rank by just participating — watching, chatting, following, subscribing, and later, through other actions, as w...

Facebook Dating opens to friends with Secret Crush

April 30, 2019

Facebook built Dating to be privacy-safe, hoping to avoid the awkwardness of friends or family checking out your romance profile. But now Facebook has found a way to let you silently express your affection for a friend without them knowing unless they reciprocate. Facebook Dating is opening in 14 more countries, bringing the total to 19. It will launch in the US before the end of the year. Dating brings with it a new feature called Secret Crush that expands it beyond strangers and friends-of-friends. Choose up to 9 friends you like-like. If they’ve opted into Facebook Dating, they’ll get a notification that some friend has a crush on them. If they add you as a Secret Crush too, you’re both notified and can chat on Messenger. Facebook Dating product manager Charmaine Hung tells me that “I have 2000 Facebook friends. I’m not best friends with all 2000 people, and there’s a good chance that one of that could be a really good match with me. I trust them, I appreciate them, and I know w...

Instagram officially tests hiding Like counts

April 30, 2019

Would we feel less envious, shameful and competitive if Instagram didn’t tell us how many Likes a post received? That’s the idea behind Instagram now hiding Like counts from both a post’s viewers and its author as part of an experiment in Canada. A post’s creator can still open the Likers window to see the names of everyone who hearted their post, but they’d have to count them manually. Even though Like totals would still impact how the algorithm ranks a post in the feed, if rolled out, the change would refocus Instagram on self-expression instead of being a popularity contest. Users might be less likely to delete a photo or video because it didn’t get enough Likes, or resort to their Finsta account to post something authentic but less “perfect.” It could make us less likely to envy-spiral because we wouldn’t see friends or influencers getting more Likes than us. And people might be more willing to post what truly represents their complicated identities because they’re not battling f...