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Snapchat has launched a new promotional campaign, where it has highlighted how its platform is “different” from others in the present era of social media.

 

Snapchat asserts that social media, in its “adolescence” age, has begun to lose its essential purpose of connection and support. Instead, according to Snapchat, social media platforms and the way we share our moments on them, have become more curated now, and friends have started to feel more like strangers.

 

Well, Snapchat is not really wrong here. But what is it that its platform is doing differently? One aspect that Snapchat could be seen as distinguishable from in its usage is the absence of a feed. Unlike other platforms, Snapchat’s goal is not to make a user’s content reach as many people as possible.

Snapchat’s Recent Promotional Campaign Shows the Platform as “Less Social Media”



According to reports, Microsoft’s employees were surprised by a newly added custom emoji feature on Teams after they spotted an emoji of Pepe the Frog in reactions and messages in the primitive internal versions of Teams.

 

Pepe the Frog has been a trademark in itself for a very long time and emojis of the character have been integrated in Discord servers and on Twitch, representing cheerful responses.

 

Currently, Teams only supports a Unicode emoji panel for videos and messages, along with a Giphy service. Although the custom emoji feature is expected to roll out, that doesn’t mean that the functionality will appear to users in the form of Pepe the Frog memes. Ultimately, the IT admins will control how custom emojis will be accessed and used in Teams.

Microsoft Employees Discover A New Custom Emoji Feature in Teams



Hulu is updating its Terms of Service to disallow password sharing among friends, family, and freeloaders. The streaming service is sending out emails to notify users of the new policy, which will go into effect on March 14th. This means that you can only stream on Hulu if you have signed up for its service.

 

More precisely, Hulu is banning its users from sharing their subscriptions outside of their “household.” The term household, according to Hulu, implies “the collection of devices associated with your primary personal residence that are used by the individuals who reside therein.”

Hulu is Putting an End to Password Sharing with a New Agreement



Microsoft’s new OneDrive cloud storage service design that made its first appearance last year, will be available to consumers at the end of February.


The new OneDrive UI not just enhances the visual experience of the cloud service but also makes things easier to organize and access. It ‘ll make the content stand out more and look neater by reducing clutter and distractions, Microsoft’s product manager explains.

 

The visual element of the new OneDrive interface is more in alignment with those of Windows 11, while the overall interface appears more modernized and streamlined.

Microsoft Plans to Roll out the New OneDrive Design at the End of February

 

After an unsuccessful attempt at reaching a new rights agreement, TikTok and Universal Music are parting ways, which will likely have a significant impact on TikTok, considering that music is a key element on the platform.

 

The decision was announced by Universal Music, revealing that it will pull out from TikTok on the 1st of February, after a partnership of 3 years. The music company also claimed that the reason behind its withdrawal has been due to TikTok’s offered deal being insufficient to compensate for its artists and protection regarding generative AI. 

 

“Upon expiration of the current agreement, Universal Music Group, including Universal Music Publishing Group, will cease licensing content to TikTok and TikTok Music services,” adds the music company.

TikTok and Universal Music End Partnership following Failed Negotiations



As a way to celebrate black history, TikTok has announced a Black History Month program, which will highlight some of the top talent from the black community in the app. This program is part of TikTok’s larger initiative ‘Visionary Voices’ that has been running for three years now – where TikTok shares the best performing and most influential creators on its app.

 

TikTok’s 2024 #BlackTikTok Visionary Voices List shines a spotlight on black creators, business owners, as well as industry disruptors that have used their creativity to generate a positive influence across TikTok and other platforms.

 



TikTok Introduces a Bunch of Initiatives and Activities in Celebration of Black History



AT&T plans to launch a new call screening service that enables businesses to make “branded calls.” This means that if a business signs up for the service, then a call that it makes to any AT&T user will show the receiver the name and logo of the business. 

 


The service is called “TruContact Branded Call Display” and it is available via credit reporting firm TransUnion. The technology is based on the STIR/SHAKEN protocol, which ensures that a number hasn’t been illegally hoaxed.

AT&T is Making it Possible for Customers to Screen Spammy Calls with a New Service



TikTok seems to be moving away from one of its core elements: vertical format for videos. Some creators have reported that they are being prompted by TikTok to post videos in a horizontal format. The pop-up message says that posting videos longer than 1 minute and in landscape mode would boost views within the first 72 hours after they are posted.

 

In fact, TikTok is asserting that these videos will be the only “eligible” ones to get increased views. Considering that vertical, full-screen videos are an essential visual element of the app, it doesn’t leave much room to see why TikTok is promoting landscape format.

TikTok is Encouraging Creators to Post Landscape-Shot Clips for Increased Views



Despite the integration of Community Notes in X (formerly Twitter), which were expected to help in reducing the spread of false information, it seems like plenty of harmful content could still easily spread across the platform.

 

This has been especially evident from a recent occurrence involving singer Taylor Swift, whose fake and controversial AI-generated images gained more than 27 million views and 260,000 likes on X, eventually leading to the account responsible for them being taken down by X. Failing to control the spreading of the images, X adopted a rather poor approach of entirely blocking searches for ‘Taylor Swift’ in the app.

X Reveals it is Setting up a Content Moderation Center in Texas



X has announced that it is experimenting with its new video promotion offering: Amplify program. The company has also confirmed that MrBeast is the first partner of the program during its testing phase. This explains why MrBeast has been able to earn $260k from ad revenue share in just a week after reposting an old clip of his on the platform, unlike other X creators who don’t yet have access to the program.

X Begins Testing its New ‘Amplify’ Monetization Program with Select Creators



An Arm version of Google Chrome is currently in testing, as confirmed by an X user Pedro Justo, who spotted an ARM64 version of the browser in the Canary channel. It is an ARM64 version of Chrome built for Windows 11 Arm-based devices.

Google is Reportedly Testing a Native Version of Chrome for Windows’ Arm-Based Devices



Gaming and streaming services like Xbox Cloud Streaming and GeForce Now, that were previously only available on iOS web, can now be accessed as apps on iOS devices. This is because Apple is allowing developers to submit apps that contain all the games offered in their catalogue in one place on the App Store.

 

Although earlier in 2020, Apple had opened the gates for these cloud gaming services in the App Store, it required all games offered via each service to be submitted and reviewed as standalone apps. The proposal couldn’t turn into a reality and therefore the present change is a significant one.

Apple Enables Access of Gaming and Streaming Services as Apps in the App Store

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