News site Semafor has teamed with Microsoft to create a new breaking news product called Signals it says is a template for “the newsroom of the future.” Using AI tools from Microsoft and OpenAI to assist its journalists, the multi-source Signals will offer “perspectives and insights on the biggest stories in the world as they develop,” Semafor says. Microsoft simultaneously announced deals with the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and the Online News Association. “In a year where billions of people will vote in democratic elections worldwide, journalism is critical to creating healthy information ecosystems,” Microsoft says. Continue reading Semafor Teams with Microsoft on AI-Driven Newsfeed Signals

Spotify is testing a feature that lets podcast discovery platform Podz help people find new podcasts they may like. Now, Spotify is taking the algo-driven audio newsfeed for which Podz became known and turning it into a more personalized discovery experience. The big idea here is to extrapolate. Podz provided machine-curated audio samples. As part of its Spotify integration it is targeting the next level: letting users tap to read an audio transcript, review show graphics or hear more of the podcast. Spotify acquired Podz last summer for approximately $49.4 million. Continue reading Spotify Puts Podz Acquisition to Test with Discovery Feature

Facebook Gaming has been invaded by spammers and infomercials, according to recent reports that found Ukrainian war footage and video clips featuring individuals hawking foot callus removal kits and diet pill purveyors posted on what was supposed to be Meta Platforms’ answer to Amazon’s Twitch. Some of the videos masquerading as “live” featured up to 11 hours of looped recordings. In late 2021, Facebook Gaming listed seven such spurious accounts in the Top 10, sometimes attracting as many as 50,000 simultaneous viewers, according to data analytics firm Stream Hatchet. Continue reading Facebook Gaming Inundated by Spam, Strange Infomercials

Facebook’s internal experiments with turning off its News Feed algorithm revealed that users benefit from the often-controversial ranking system. Documents recently parsed by the news media indicate Facebook’s digital formula knows more about what users want than the users themselves when it comes to deciding which posts people see and in what order. The news comes as both the House of Representatives and Senate consider bills that would require social media platforms to offer users the option of disabling what’s known as “automated content recommendations.” The bills follow whistleblower allegations that Facebook’s News Feed is damaging to users. Continue reading Automated News Feed May Be Good for Facebook and Users

Facebook debuted Facebook Showcase, a premium video-ad program to let buyers for online video/TV ads nail down guaranteed rates and impressions up to one year in advance. With the program, Facebook makes a more aggressive move into upfront buys for its content; its previous program only let advertisers buy video ads one quarter in advance. The Showcase program, which is now only available for ad campaigns aimed at U.S. audiences, coincides with the company’s increase in original content for its Watch video service. Continue reading Facebook Debuts Showcase Upfront-Style Advertising Sales

Following in the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is on the verge of changing its newsfeed. But, unlike Facebook, Instagram plans to roll out its changes slowly, as a series of small tests to a single-digit percentage of user groups. The new feed will be algorithm-based and personalized, much like that found at its parent company Facebook. The result would be a shift away from reverse chronology list to the photos/videos Instagram thinks you will most want to see from among those you follow. Continue reading Instagram to Slowly Introduce New Algorithm-Based Newsfeed

Twitter is now making its TV Timelines feature available to more users in an attempt to draw in more TV fans, networks and advertisers. TV Timelines, which aggregates TV-related content with a dedicated page for each TV show, is accessed via a separate interface within the Twitter app. When Twitter first debuted TV Timelines, it was only available to a select group of users and for a handful of TV shows. After several months of experimentation, Twitter has tweaked the feature, including adding shortcuts to users’ tweets. Continue reading Twitter Tweaks TV Timelines, Expanding Pages and Availability

Facebook introduced a new 360-degree spherical video feature this week for the social platform’s newsfeed. At launch, users can roam an immersive trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” by dragging their mouse over the video in order to access different vantage points. Mobile users can change their angle within clips featuring NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and workouts by NBA star LeBron James by simply tilting their smartphone or swiping their finger across the screen. Continue reading Facebook Betting On VR with New 360-Degree Video Feature

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has called virtual reality the next computing platform after mobile devices. His company also shelled out $2 billion to acquire Oculus VR last year; the company will ship its Rift headset for consumers in early 2016. So it’s no surprise that the company is reportedly working on a standalone video app to support 360-degree video on multiple platforms, including Apple and Android devices. Zuckerberg has also stated that Facebook would support 360-degree video in its newsfeed. Continue reading Facebook’s Standalone Video App to Support 360-Degree Video

Facebook is expected to generate about $3.8 billion in revenue from video advertising by 2017. That figure represents triple what the company is projected to take in this year. Nomura analyst Anthony DiClemente wrote that Facebook has the potential to boost video ad sales “with only modest cannibalization of other ad revenue sources.” Nomura also projects that Google-owned YouTube will more than double its 2014 revenue to $8.5 billion by 2017. Increased spending for online video ads could impact traditional spending areas such as TV. Continue reading Online Video Ad Sales Are Expected to Take Bite Out of TV

According to Facebook, its users have watched an average of more than one billion videos per day on the social network since June, with more than 65 percent of video views occurring on mobile devices. Facebook is planning new YouTube-like features that should appeal to content producers. Starting this week, users will be able to see the number of views a video has received, which could help people discover popular new videos. Facebook is also testing the ability to display related videos once a clip has ended. Continue reading Short-Form Video a Top Priority at Facebook, Says Zuckerberg

Twitter profiles will receive a significant design overhaul in the coming weeks. Profile pages will include a large horizontal cover photo and a prominent profile picture, which are unmistakably similar to the look of Facebook profiles. The most popular tweets will also appear larger in the timeline and users can now pin a favorite tweet to the top of their page. Visitors to profiles will be able to filter timelines to include only tweets with photos, videos or replies. Continue reading New Twitter Redesign Emulates Facebook for Mainstream Appeal

According to Facebook, referral traffic from the social network to news and publishing sites has increased by more than 170 percent in a year’s time. This number is just an average, for the percentage is greater for certain sites. Partners including Time, BuzzFeed and BleacherReport have experienced significant increases. Numbers released by social Web tracker SimpleReach indicate that Facebook drives more traffic than any other social platform. Continue reading Facebook Leads Social Platforms in Driving Referral Traffic

Los Angeles and Israel-based startup Social Studios has teamed with actress Noa Tishby to produce an “Entertainment Tonight”-like show featuring videos, status updates and photos from users’ Facebook timelines. “Your Show,” which launched Monday night, gets information from a Facebook app that collects data from news feeds, mixes it with pre-produced segments with Tishby and creates seven-minute episodes. Continue reading Startup Launches TV Show Based on Your Facebook Timeline