Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Microsoft is going back to the basics for a joke at the expense of Windows Phone today. What do you do when your smartphone operating system has less than three percent market share worldwide? Reboot. While the software giant isn’t quite dramatically rebooting all over again, it has genuinely launched an MS-DOS mobile app for Windows Phone…
About three days after it received a lavish new funding round, Meerkat died an ugly and embarrassing death. It is hard to decide whether the Great Meerkat Debacle that has unfolded over the past week is a tragedy or a comedy — probably a bit of both. The mobile streaming app that had whipped U.S….
Begin: WordPress Article Content Slack, the super-slick team chat-room service, is getting popular fast. Word around the rumor mill is that it’s currently raising funds at a $2.8 billion valuation. And in the words of the late, great Biggie Smalls: Mo Money, Mo Problems. In the case of startups, success can make your databases a juicy…
Earlier this week the New York Times reported that Facebook was offering publishers a deal: With 1.4 billion users, the social media site has become a vital source of traffic for publishers looking to reach an increasingly fragmented audience glued to smartphones. In recent months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half…
Nothing attracts news organizations like Facebook. And nothing makes them more nervous. With 1.4 billion users, the social media site has become a vital source of traffic for publishers looking to reach an increasingly fragmented audience glued to smartphones. In recent months, Facebook has been quietly holding talks with at least half a dozen media…
In a disturbing story published today by Philadelphia magazine, a woman alleges that the Uber driver that picked her up in Philadelphia’s Old City last month “held her arms down, ripped her pants, and raped her.” The woman, 33, also claims that the driver held her in his car and continued to drive her around…
Tayser Abuhamdeh doesn’t have what most people would call an exciting job. He works behind the counter at a deli in Brooklyn, a small shop that does a brisk business in snacks, coffee, and cigarettes. In June of last year, on a whim and mostly out of boredom, Abuhamdeh mounted his phone next to the…
Apple calls its Health app “an entirely new way to use your health and fitness information.” But the app doesn’t support tracking one major kind of health information: The menstrual cycle. As Fusion’s Kashmir Hill points out, Apple rolled out an update to Health in iOS 8.2 that promised significant improvements. Unfortunately, those improvements didn’t come…
The New York Times “First Draft” and Politico Playbook picked up the “Meerkat Election” idea today, so get ready for the hype cycle to wash through the commentariat. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush “meerkatted” yesterday — which is to say, used an app integrated with Twitter on his smartphone to livestream an event online. If…
Photo Users of Facebook’s Messenger app will be able to link their debit cards to the service and use it to message money to each other. SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook‘s instant messaging service isn’t just for sending smiley faces and photos anymore. Now you can use it to send money instantly to your friends. Facebook,…