Twitter doubles ‘word limit’ to 280 characters

After years of debate, micro-blogging website Twitter is testing a higher word limit for some of its users, including some in India. Users, particularly active ones with large following, have been pleasantly surprised to see the limit of 140 characters relaxed as of today morning. “This is a small change, but a big move for […]

Facebook joins Election Commission’s ‘No Voter Left Behind’ campaign

Social network Facebook said it has tied up with the Election Commission of India to remind Indians to register themselves to vote. “Starting from 1st July till 4th July, the voter registration reminder will be sent to people on Facebook in India who are eligible to vote,” Facebook said, on a day when the company […]

Facebook restores world’s biggest page for Atheists after outcry

Facebook has restored ‘Atheist Republic’, by far the biggest page operated by the Atheist community on any social media network, after it was shut down using ‘mass reporting’ by religious people. The move followed a big outcry among atheists and free-speech advocates online. The page was taken down about 24 hours ago, and remained inaccessible […]

Facebook stops chasing ‘Likes’, looks for ‘followers’ instead

Facebook has made a strategic change in the way it facilitates brands, organizations and celebrities interact with their followers on the social network. It has started de-emphasizing ‘likes’ and instead promoting ‘follows’. Unlike competing platforms like Google Plus and Twitter, Facebook has, for years, allowed users to follow a brand or celebrity or organization’s updates only […]

Facebook to start showing ads in Groups

Facebook, the biggest website in the world by amount of time spent, has started showing targeted advertising on ‘Groups’,  the social network’s equivalent of forums. The ads will be based on the interests of the user,  Facebook  said in a communication to group administrators. The move marks the coming of age of ‘Groups’, which Facebook […]

Quora imposes restrictions on anonymous users; to pre-screen anon content; stops likes, comments

Quora, the question and answer app that is very popular in certain pockets of population in India and abroad, said has made three crucial changes to its anonymity policy: installing a mandatory screening process, preventing anonymous users from liking and commenting, and removing direct linkage between anonymous content and their authors on the back-end systems. […]

Facebook biggest beneficiary of Reliance Jio free data

It’s common knowledge that Reliance Jio’s free data service has massively increased Internet usage in India, but a new report throws light on what categories have been benefited and which have not. The biggest beneficiary of the free data offer from Reliance Jio is — yes, you guessed it right — social media, which technically […]

Why Google’s takeover of Twitter is inevitable

When I started using social media about 8-9 years ago, Facebook and Twitter were largely equal in their cool factor. In fact, while it was not obvious what Facebook was (a more intrusive form of Orkut, anyone?), the possibilities of Twitter seemed as limitless as the places where your ‘contacts’ lived. Over the next nine years, Facebook […]

Facebook wants to become a platform for public content

Facebook wants to emerge as a platform for public content, and not just private or person-to-person content, but is not really offering a video platform for content providers like Youtube, Facebook’s vice president for media partnerships said. “We want to be a platform for sharing of public content,” Justin Osofsky said at India’s FICCI Frames […]

Facebook now has an exclusive newsfeed for Pages

Facebook has unveiled a new newsfeed feature dedicated exclusively to Facebook pages. The new feature, that can be accessed at www.facebook.com/pages/feed, shows ‘stories’ only from Facebook Pages that the user has subscribed to. The idea seems to be to allow users to track news more effectively, while keeping out personal updates from Facebook friends out […]