Bluesky, the decentralized social media app spun out by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey that is poised to become a competitor to that platform’s successor, X, has passed the 2 million users milestone just 10 months after its launch. Although still in private beta, and accessible only through an invite code, Bluesky has been making headlines recently, first for what was criticized as lax content moderation, and also for announcing a public web interface that would allow anyone (and everyone) to view posts by the private network’s members, a policy decision that has reportedly been reversed. Continue reading Bluesky Adds Automated Moderation, Rethinks Web Visibility

Spotify is rolling out its new Confidence software development product in private beta. Based on its learnings from more than 10 years of experience experimenting at scale, the company says Confidence aims to make it simple for teams to set up, run and analyze their own user tests so they can quickly perfect and productize ideas. “Whether it’s automatically coordinating simultaneous A/B tests or orchestrating the rollout of an AI recommendation system across mobile, desktop, and web, the platform we built scales experimentation best practices and capabilities,” Spotify explains, adding that it plans to make the technology available soon to all companies. Continue reading Spotify’s Confidence Development Platform Is in Private Beta

For the most part, exhibitors in the Gaming and Metaverse areas at CES 2023 didn’t touch on the latent problems with consumer adoption of the metaverse. While worlds like “Fortnite” and “Roblox” that draw consistently high MAUs do so because they offer fun mechanics, the many metaverse platforms on exhibit generally did not provide compelling reasons for why companies — much less consumers — should spend time in their worlds. Dimension X’s booth was a standout on the floor, however, as it showcased Bonfire, a soon-to-be-released tool to enable the seamless creation of narrative mechanics within virtual worlds. Continue reading CES: Dimension X Demos Bonfire Virtual Story Creation Tools

Stacy Spikes, a co-founder and former CEO of MoviePass, just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund PreShow, an app that lets users receive free movie tickets in exchange for watching 15 to 20 minutes of advertising. But there’s a catch: PreShow is based on facial recognition; Spikes said it is to prevent users from gaming the system. While the user watches ads, her smartphone’s camera keeps track of her level of attention. The ad pauses after five seconds should the user walk away or even hide part of her face. Continue reading Former MoviePass Exec Kickstarts Service for Free Movies

Dish’s Sling TV is rolling out its new Cloud DVR to customers with Amazon devices through an early access program. The feature has been in private beta for Roku users since November. While one potential advantage of the cloud is never running out of storage space, “Sling TV isn’t offering infinite storage or even different storage capacities,” reports TechCrunch. “Instead, ‘First Look’ customers pay an extra $5 per month for up to 50 hours of storage, with no expiration on those programs. When capacity runs out, the oldest ‘watched’ recordings are removed first, to make room for others.” Sling TV’s Cloud DVR also allows users to record multiple programs simultaneously (although limited based on rights deals with broadcasters). Continue reading Sling TV Expands Cloud DVR Access in Early Access Program