• Snapchat’s Snap Map comes to the web, including in embeddable form

    Snapchat’s Snap Map comes to the web, including in embeddable form

    The Snap Map is a feature that received a mixed response when it landed in the Snapchat app, since it basically let you see where all your friends on the platform were at any given time – provided they were okay with sharing that info. Now, there’s a version of Snap Map available for anyone…

  • Instagram is testing screenshot alerts for stories

    Instagram is testing screenshot alerts for stories

    Instagram is testing a feature that will show users when someone else takes a screenshot of their story. Users included in the test are getting a warning that the next time they take a screenshot of a friend’s story the friend will be able to see it, as shown below: And users who are participating in…

  • How Reggie Brown invented Snapchat

    How Reggie Brown invented Snapchat

    Billy Gallagher Contributor More posts by this contributor Zero To One: How Blake Masters Went From Being Peter Thiel’s Student To Co-Author Mashr Resurrects A Tinder Experiment To Make You A Matchmaker Reggie Brown carefully ran his fingers over the blunt, admiring its tightly rolled perfection. It was almost a shame to smoke such a…

  • Script’s app lets parents digitally sign school permission slips and pay for field trips

    Script’s app lets parents digitally sign school permission slips and pay for field trips

    Schools are often late to taking advantage of new technologies, so today still do much of their business over paper forms. One pain point in particular – for school administrators, teachers and parents alike – is handling permission forms for activities and field trips. A young startup called Script aims to help. Schools can use…

  • Snapchat almost acqui-hired anonymous app Secret

    Snapchat almost acqui-hired anonymous app Secret

    Evan Spiegel secretly tried to hire away the team at Secret, but the price was too high. That’s according to three sources familiar with the deal who spoke to TechCrunch. The information expands and clarifies a report from the new book about Snapchat’s origin story coming out next week called “How to Turn Down a…

  • Whip the llama’s ass with this Javascript WinAmp emulator

    Whip the llama’s ass with this Javascript WinAmp emulator

    If you were an early Internet kid you’ll recall a little app called WinAmp that was, in short, the best MP3 player ever made ever. The little program looked like skeuomorphic stereo receiver with a full range of equalizer sliders and included an important MP3 that explained WinAmp’s primary mission: whipping the llama’s ass. A…

  • Facebook’s plan to build community with hiring and $10M in grants

    Facebook’s plan to build community with hiring and $10M in grants

    Facebook will award up to $1 million to five community leaders and $50,000 to 100 more to fund their ideas for how to strengthen people’s online and offline connections. Facebook will also hire double the number of engineers currently working on safety-related causes in its London office. These were a few of the big announcements…

  • Toyota invests $69M in Japanese Uber rival backed by the taxi industry

    Toyota invests $69M in Japanese Uber rival backed by the taxi industry

    This week isn’t turning out to be great one for Uber in Japan. Two of its investors — Didi and SoftBank — are teaming up to launch a rival service, while one of its existing competitors has just landed a big cash infusion and highly influential backer after Toyota backed JapanTaxi. The auto giant said it…

  • Facebook confirms test of a downvote button for flagging comments

    Facebook confirms test of a downvote button for flagging comments

    How can Facebook promote meaningful interaction between users? By letting them downvote inappropriate comments to hide them. Facebook is now testing a downvote button on a limited set of public Page post comment reels, the company confirms to TechCrunch. But what Facebook does with signals about problematic comments could raise new questions about censorship, and…

  • WhatsApp has launched person-to-person payments into beta in India

    WhatsApp has launched person-to-person payments into beta in India

    WhatsApp has begun testing a new payments feature in India that will allow people to send money to other WhatsApp users, excluding merchant accounts. The feature is currently in beta, according to sources familiar with the company’s plans, but hasn’t been publicly announced because it’s not widely available at this time. The company has been  working…