Tag: Twitter

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Twitter rolls out ‘Unmentioning’ feature to let you easily leave conversations

Twitter has announced a new feature that is sure to make many users happy: ‘Unmentioning.’

With it, you can “take control of your mentions” by removing yourself from a conversation. To do this, click the three dots beside a tweet and select ‘Leave this conversation.’ This will untag you from the thread while preventing you from being re-added or receiving any notifications about it. You can, however, still see the conversation if you so choose.

This is a welcome feature for Twitter, as people often find themselves undesirably in the middle of discussions between others. Previously, the person replying would be the only one who could untag another user, effectively leaving you at the mercy of strangers. The only thing you yourself could do was mute a conversation, which hasn’t always been consistent.

Twitter says Unmentioning is rolling out now to all users on all devices.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Twitter asks staff to not tweet about the Elon Musk deal

Twitter has directed employees not to publicly comment on the Elon Musk acquisition after the Tesla CEO declared he wanted out of the deal late Friday.

As reported by The Verge, a memo sent to staff by Twitter’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, asked staff to “refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger agreement.” The Verge obtained a copy of the memo, which you can read in full below:

Team,

Today we received a notice of purported termination from Elon Musk, and the Twitter Board issued the following statement in response (see our Chairman Bret Taylor’s Tweet here):

“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

Given that this is an ongoing legal matter, you should refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger agreement. We will continue to share information when we are able, but please know we are going to be very limited on what we can share in the meantime.

I know this is an uncertain time, and we appreciate your patience and ongoing commitment to the important work we have underway.

Musk alleged that Twitter failed to provide information about the number of bots on its platform, which appears to be the basis for Musk pulling out of the deal. However, as has been pointed out repeatedly, that argument is pretty bogus considering Musk’s team kept asking for more details about bots and spam and Twitter kept providing the information, although not always as quickly or in the way that Musk wanted. Casey Newton has an excellent explanation of the strategy to bury Twitter in paperwork and get Musk out of the deal in his Platformer newsletter.

Following Musk’s attempt to pull out of the deal, Twitter announced it would sue to ensure the deal goes through as per the original agreement.

After the news broke, The Verge notes that Twitter employees were quick to mock the situation on Twitter, which may have prompted the memo.

Source: The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Elon Musk now officially attempting to terminate Twitter buyout deal

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is officially pulling out of his plans to acquire Twitter for $44 billion USD (about $60 billion CAD).

In a letter to the U.S.’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk’s legal team claimed that Twitter has “in material breach” of its contractual obligations in the deal.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,’” reads the letter. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.”

Musk previously said he didn’t believe Twitter’s “lax testing methodologies” and alleged that the company was refusing to provide him with accurate data. As a result, he threatened to pull out of the deal in June, although Twitter quickly said it would give him the information he seeks. It’s unclear what happened behind-the-scenes in the month since, but Musk clearly isn’t satisfied.

It should be noted, however, that it’s unclear whether Musk has legitimate legal ground to withdraw from the deal. To start, he did agree to pay $1 billion USD (about $1.3 billion CAD) — a small sum for the world’s richest man. More importantly, though, it remains to be seen whether Musk will be legally bound to honour the agreement. To that point, Twitter chairman Bret Taylor has said that the company is “committed” to seeing the deal through.

“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery,” said Taylor in a July 8th tweet.

Musk and Twitter first announced the acquisition on April 25th, following criticisms of the platform for not maintaining “free speech.” Specifically, Musk has questioned whether Twitter adheres to the “principle” that “free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.” During this time, Musk has also been contesting a 2018 court ruling that requires him to vet any tweets that could affect Tesla stock price by his lawyers.

At the time of writing, Musk — a prominent figure on Twitter with over 100 million followers — has not yet tweeted about his desire to pull out of the deal.

Source: SEC

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Some users are now testing out Twitter’s ‘CoTweet’ feature

Twitter is now testing a new ‘CoTweet’ feature this week that allows two accounts to co-write a tweet and both will be tagged as authors of the tweet. Twitter confirmed to The Verge that this feature is only live for some users for a limited time.

“We’re continuing to explore new ways for people to collaborate on Twitter,” explained Twitter spokesperson Joseph J. Nuñez in a statement to The Verge. “We’re testing CoTweets for a limited time to learn how people and brands may use this feature to grow and reach new audiences, and strengthen their collaborations with other accounts.”

The process seems easy if you have the feature enabled. Tap the collaborator button, invite any public account that follows you and if they accept, the tweet will be published by both authors.

Oddly, when you embed someone’s tweet, it appears only one person is still considered the main author.

Twitter originally started testing this feature back in March, which was discovered by tipster Alessandro Paluzzi.

Additionally, Instagram has a similar co-author feature that it added last year.

Source: The Verge

Categories
Mobile Syrup

TikTok is reportedly on pace to rake in $12 billion this year

TikTok, the subsidiary of China-based Bytedance, is projected to bring in nearly $12 billion USD (about $15.5 billion CAD) this year. If the estimations from research firm EMarketer are correct, TikTok will become larger than Twitter and Snap combined thanks to ad revenue.

TikTok is still relatively new to the app space. The video creation and sharing app skyrocketed during COVID-19, becoming the number one most downloaded app in 2020. It also rose to gain well over one billion global users. From the looks of it, this upward momentum is continuing.

In 2021, TikTok brought in nearly $4 billion USD (about $5.16 billion CAD), much of it in part from ad revenue. In 2022, TikTok is projected to triple that and hit the $12 billion USD mark. With this in mind, TikTok is becoming an unexpected rival to Google and Meta, both of which are dominant forces in the ad space.

With that said, however, TikTok’s userbase still pales in comparison to Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. The former has roughly 2.9 billion active users while the latter falls a smidge short with 2 billion. However, given TikTok’s rapid growth, there’s no telling what sort of growth the next few years will bring the company.

TikTok’s ad strategy is proving to be quick and lucrative. The company finds itself in a position where it can charge as much as $2.6 million USD (about $3.36 million CAD) for a one-day run of a TopView advertisement. This is the ad or video that’s first shown when a user opens the app. That total is roughly four times what it charged in 2021.

TikTok’s business model is not only focusing on ad revenue but on added content. In May, the company announced its plans to expand into gaming. This new initiative sees the company providing games for users to play on its platform. Testing is already underway in Vietnam. If and when it expands, it will surely fold into user engagement and app adoption.

Source: The Globe and Mail

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Twitter rolls out caption feature on iOS and Android

Twitter has made its closed caption toggle available on iOS and Android.

The feature, which has long been available on the web, allows users to turn on captions for its video player. Users can tap the “CC” button on videos with captions available to activate the feature.

The company started testing the feature in April with a small group of iOS users.

While available in the past, accessing captions wasn’t simple. A variety of factors went into play, including turning captions on through accessibility settings or ensuring that the sound on your device was turned off.

While the update certainly makes it easier to access captions, it’s important to remember video creators play an important role in delivering the feature, as they’re responsible for adding captions that will show up on Twitter’s mobile app.

Source: The Verge 

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Beware, everyone: Murph, Nerf’s horrifying new mascot, has joined Twitter

Murph, the bizarre new mascot for Nerf that’s taken the internet by storm, now has his own Twitter account.

On June 23rd, the toy weapons company’s demonic foam creature, which has the handle of @MurphFromNerf, made their first tweet. (Nerf says Murph is non-binary and uses “they/them” pronouns.)

“Ok Twitter, I’m here now. I had foam-o,” tweeted Murph with a selfie.

Murph is part of Nerf’s new “Unleash the Play in You” campaign, which aims to get people to go outside and play.

“We wanted to introduce a mascot that represents this ageless, unbridled fun that lives in all of us and creates a physical embodiment of that feeling you get when you play with Nerf,” Adam Kleinman, Hasbro’s senior vice president and general manager, recently said in a press statement.

It’s unclear how this Nerf dart-covered entity is meant to do that, exactly. In fact, it seems as though this would be a monster that terrorizes children, Pennywise the Clown-style, rather than fill them with excitement. Now, Murph can haunt adults on Twitter, as well.

Image credit: Nerf

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Elon Musk desperately wants to be a Bond villain, plans to build underground hideout

Elon Musk has applied to build a ‘private tunnel’ under Tesla’s Austin, Texas Gigafactory.

The application filed by Musk’s Boring Company (via Electrek) doesn’t outline what the billionaire intends to do with the giant underground lair tunnel, but the filing is currently with the city of Austin.

The project is called the ‘Colorado River Connector Tunnel’ and its description only includes the following alongside 12733 Tesla Rd being listed as its address:

“The applicant is proposing a private access tunnel along with associated improvements.”

The Boring Company continues to work on its ‘Loop’ in Las Vegas, Nevada, a system of tunnels that utilizes Tesla’s electric vehicles to move people between stations in order to avoid above-ground traffic. The concept is kind of like a subway, but with electric vehicles (EVs) capable of making more stops. It’s worth noting that the Loop also isn’t remotely like what Musk had promised, and is basically a narrow tunnel full of Tesla cars.

It’s likely that Musk has a similar plan for his mysterious Colorado River Connector Tunnel but that it could be designed for internal use at Tesla, including moving employees across the Gigafactory’s campus — or, Musk just wants to build a super villain lair.

Electrek has a full copy of the application up on its website.

In other Musk-related news, the billionaire’s quest to acquire Twitter is still underway, his trans daughter has filed to cut ties with him and Tesla plans to fire 3.5 percent of its workforce this year.

Source: Electrek Via: Gizmodo

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Twitter launches ‘Notes’ for long-form writing, Canada is a test market

After news broke about Twitter’s rumoured new long-form writing feature ‘Notes,’ Twitter confirmed the feature and that Canada will be one of the test markets for it.

Twitter describes Notes as a way for “writers of all kinds go longform directly on Twitter” with a new rich-text editor for capturing “articles, thought pieces, and other kinds of content.” In examples sent to MobileSyrup, the feature appears to be almost like a blog interface that’s built into Twitter. Writers can write in it as they would in, say, WordPress, then publish to Twitter.

Published Notes show up in the Twitter feed in a little card that looks a lot like how links appear, but clicking a Note doesn’t take you off Twitter. That said, Twitter touts that Notes are “readable on and off Twitter,” so you also don’t need Twitter to enjoy a good Note.

Oh, and you can edit Notes after you publish them, so clearly Twitter knows how to make editing content work (editable tweets please).

Starting June 22nd, Twitter says it partnered with a small group of writers from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Chana to test-drive Notes. Although writers will only come from these regions, anyone on Twitter will be able to view Notes.

Case in point, Twitter shared a Note from Rembert Browne, the editorial director of the company’s ‘Twitter Write’ team. The Note details the vision behind Notes. It’s worth reading for a little insight into Notes. Plus, the new Twitter Write account has a thread of the first Notes you can check out here.

The Twitter Write team will focus on “building tools and community so readers and writers can get the most out of Twitter.”

You can learn more about Notes on Twitter’s help page here or from this Twitter Write thread.

Images credit: Twitter

Source: @TwitterWrite, @rembert

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Twitter board recommends shareholders vote for Musk purchase

Twitter’s board of directors unanimously recommended that shareholders approve Elon Musk’s proposed acquisition of the company for $44 billion USD.

The news came via a regulatory filing on June 21st, reported by CNN Business. Twitter plans to hold a special shareholder meeting in the coming months to vote on the acquisition. CNN notes that the vote is one of the final steps needed to close the deal.

In the filing, the Twitter board said it determined none of the alternatives to the Musk acquisition would be better for shareholders. Alternatives included staying independent or pursuing another acquisition.

The filing comes after the Twitter board unanimously agreed to sell the company to Musk in April. However, Musk has repeatedly threatened to cancel the deal in the weeks since.

Most notably, Musk suggested he would walk away from the deal over Twitter’s alleged refusal to provide data about the number of fake accounts and bots on the platform. Twitter later offered Musk the access he requested.

Although the board thinks Musk’s offer is the best option for shareholders, it’s unclear if it’d be good for Twitter employees. Musk indicated he’d lay off Twitter employees following the acquisition in a recent meeting with company employees.

Source: CNN Business