Social Media

Facebook’s standalone instant messaging app has been rumoured to receive a new chat bot feature which allows users to have conversations with company’s automated representatives. A new update to the Messenger shows a new heading added in the app – “Bots and Businesses” – seen when searching or as contacts when creating a new message. Engadget spotted the feature first ... Read More »

Facebook users will soon be able to buy tickets directly as the social networking giant expands further into e-commerce, company officials said Tuesday. Facebook will in the coming weeks connect to ticketing leaders Ticketmaster and Eventbrite, which will offer an option to buy tickets for selected US events listed on the networking site. Eventbrite said it would provide a QR ... Read More »

Online shopping is the top reason for Indians to access Internet followed by social networking, said a joint survey by American Express and Nielsen on Tuesday aimed at gaining consumer insights on online buying habits. Titled “Understanding Online Consumers”, the survey undertaken in six cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad – discovered banking, booking tickets and emailing ... Read More »

After taking to the air with drones to provide Internet to remote spots, Facebook on Wednesday unveiled new land-based systems to provide connectivity to people in urban settings. “We are really going at this problem from every possible angle,” Facebook co-founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg said of efforts by the social network to make Internet connectivity more widely available around ... Read More »

Facebook at its annual developer conference made several new announcements including introducingartificial intelligence powered bots into its Messenger apps. The social giant has now also confirmed plans to add a new feature that will allow users to enable the auto-tagging feature for videos. (Also see: Facebook F8: 10 Announcements You Need to Know About) Facebook emphasised that AI (artificial intelligence) ... Read More »

Germany, which launched an investigation into social network Facebook last week, is well placed to handle the case, Europe’s antitrust chief said on Monday. The comments by European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager came after the German competition office said last week it was investigating Facebook for suspected abuse of market power over breaches of data protection laws. The German cartel ... Read More »

Israel is to start collecting value added tax (VAT) and income taxes from foreign companies that do substantial business over the Internet in Israel. Under new guidelines issued by the Israel Tax Authority on Monday, foreign companies that operate websites and sell various services such as advertising and brokerage will be subject to 17 percent VAT as well as income ... Read More »

With hashtag activism, the micro-blogging site Twitter has triggered the biggest ever push for racial justice the US has seen in decades, researchers report. With hashtags like #Ferguson, #Blacklivesmatter, and the Online Struggle for Offline Justice, the social media activism fuelled the rise of “Black Lives Matter (BLM) – a nationwide movement dedicated to ending police brutality. The study by ... Read More »

Facebook has awarded a sum of $15,000 (roughly Rs. 10 lakhs) to an India-born security researcher. Anand Prakash received the bug bounty from Facebook after disclosing a vulnerability in the social juggernaut’s website that enabled an attacker to gain access to anyone’s account. Prakash discovered a vulnerability on Facebook website that allowed him to change the user account password for ... Read More »

The International Cricket Council (ICC) and social networking site Twitter are all set to introduce a range of new interactive experiences for the ICC World Twenty20 in India. Twitter Trump Cards (#WorldT20Heroes), #AskCaptain and some new Twitter emojis are part of the new initiatives, ICC has innovated with Twitter for cricket fans to get a Trump Card of their favourite ... Read More »