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WhatsApp reiterates Facebook purchase will not affect user privacy; company ‘values and beliefs will not change’

Mar17
by on March 17, 2014 at 6:05 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Social Media

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Almost a month after announcing Facebook’s plan to acquire it, WhatsApp today published a blog post titled “Setting the record straight” in which co-founder and CEO Jan Koum attempts to address concerns about how the transaction will impact the popular messaging app. Koum starts off by thanking everyone who covered the news, but quickly moves to discuss the “inaccurate and careless information circulating about what our future partnership would mean for WhatsApp users’ data and privacy.” Koum explains that private communication is personally important to him since he grew up in the USSR during the 1980s, where his family couldn’t…

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Pocket Casts for Android gets Chromecast support, an improved interface and ‘Up Next’ playlist

Mar17
by on March 17, 2014 at 5:55 pm
Posted In: Apps, Around the Web

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Pocket Castsa is already one of the best podcast apps for Android and iOS, but if you’re running a device with Google’s mobile operating system it now has an extra trick up its sleeve: Chromecast streaming. So if you have one of Google’s streaming dongles attached to the back of your TV, it’s now possible to send your favorite shows and episodes across with a single tap. It’s a welcome feature, especially if your TV has a high-end speaker set up and you want to ditch your headphones and the tiny speakers found in your Android smartphone or tablet. Elsewhere,…

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Update: Google says the problems with Hangouts and Spreadsheets should now be resolved

Mar17
by on March 17, 2014 at 4:57 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Google

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If you’re unable to access Google Hangouts at the moment, you’re not alone. The cross-platform messaging service is down for a large number of users across Google+, Gmail, the Chrome extension and mobile apps. Google has recognized the problem in the Apps Status Dashboard: “We’re investigating reports of an issue with Google+ Hangouts. We will provide more information shortly.” Some users are also reporting problems with Google Spreadsheets within Google Drive. Other parts of Google’s cloud-based storage platform and productivity suite, including Google Docs, is currently unaffected though. The company says it’s investigating these issues too. “We’re investigating reports of…

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10 simple rules to make email (within teams) more efficient

Mar17
by on March 17, 2014 at 4:42 pm
Posted In: Analysis and Opinion, Around the Web, LifeHacks

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You don’t need an interoffice communications manual to get people to communicate better. Just lead by example, and come up with some simple pointers to improve things. Here are a few of the rules I set myself and which I hope people on my team start copying. Don’t reply to everything This sounds counterintuitive but you really don’t have to reply ‘Thanks’, ‘Got it’ or ‘Let me get back to you on that’ to every email. When I ask you a question feel free to not answer until you know the reply. If it is a simple FYI just consider…

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Facebook analyzes how users feel after DST change: More ‘tired’ and ‘sleepy’ but also ‘wonderful’ and ‘great’

Mar17
by on March 17, 2014 at 4:00 pm
Posted In: Around the Web, Social Media

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Following the recent Daylight Saving Time (DST) change in the US, the Facebook Data Science team decided to analyze how users of the social network reacted after losing an hour of sleep over the weekend and gaining more sunlight during the day. Expectedly, Americans seem unhappy with the former and happy with the latter, at least based on the feelings or actions they added to status updates in the Facebook post composer. Thanks to the hour of sleep lost, Facebook saw significantly increased usage of “tired” across the US in the days following the DST change: compared to the previous…

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