Instagram Stories Beats Snapchat at Its Own Game
So many apps have ripped off Snapchat’s popular Stories feature that it’s become something of a joke among mobile app developers. Even Snapchat itself is in on it, as the company proved with its April Fool’s Day-exclusive Instagram filter. But the laughter may be catching in Snap’s throat. The company’s most direct competitor Instagram Stories […]
Google Spotlights Fact-Checkers to Manage Misinformation
Last week, Facebook announced its News Integrity Initiative, another gesture toward fixing the internet’s misinformation epidemic. While the social media giant has received most of the flak for the explosion of fake news, NYC app developers are well aware that it’s not the only platform guilty of disseminating false information. As the search engine, Google […]
Facebook Looks for New Approaches to the Fake News Problem
Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2016 was “surreal.” The Oxford English Dictionary went with “post-truth.” The Australian Macquarie Dictionary settled on “fake news.” No matter what term social media app developers prefer to use to define it, 2016 was the year that the conspiracies, propaganda, and outright hooey that used to be the purview […]
Facebook Raids Snapchat’s Stories Feature for Its Main App
Facebook has not been subtle in its desire to cut into whatever edge Snapchat has in the startup world, blatantly copying the ephemeral messaging app’s Stories feature for Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Now the company’s mobile app development team is rolling out its take on Snapchat’s innovations on the latest update of the main Facebook […]
Google Vows Change After Ad Firms Exit Over Offensive Videos
Mobile app developers who have found themselves lost in a YouTube hole can attest to the existence of the platform’s dark corners. Really you don’t have to plunge all that far to find vile content — just look at the comments on even the most innocuous videos (although you’d be better off if you didn’t). […]
Apple’s New Clips App Creates Another Way to Tell Stories
It seems as if everybody wants to play the Snapchat game these days, which is understandable given the ephemeral image messaging app’s popularity with young people (and investors, of course). Instagram and Facebook have already looted the Stories feature, and now it appears as if Apple is doing a little borrowing of its own with […]
EU Cracks Down on Consumer Rights Violations on Social Media
In this era of “fake news,” hateful trolling, and increasing privacy concerns, the negative aspects of social networking have never been more clear. While social media app developers scramble to address these issues, governments around the world are becoming more involved with proposed laws and regulations designed to turn up the heat on the major […]
Looking Back on Looking Forward: Ray and Amy Kurzweil at SXSW
In the business of predicting future trends, there are few who can touch Ray Kurzweil. Among all the panels on offer at this year’s SXSW Interactive, we at Dogtown Media knew this was one we couldn’t afford to miss. Beyond his groundbreaking work as the primary inventor of technologies as disparate as the charge-coupled device […]
Facebook Introduces Stories on the Heels of Snapchat IPO
Facebook has grown to the point where virtually every smartphone user on the planet has the app on their phone — and those who don’t almost certainly use it at home. That popularity has come at a price for the company’s app developers, though, as the original use cases that brought users to the platform […]
SNAP’s IPO Has an Odd Footnote: The ‘Camera Company’ Clause
Snapchat’s IPO was one of the most anticipated tech events of the year. So you can bet that when $SNAP went live this Thursday, app developers were watching. Would it soar or sink? Will traders benefit, or only underwriters? And why is the social media titan listed as, of all things, a “camera company?” You […]