Spotify is enhancing its audiobooks streaming service with a feature that may be familiar to the app’s music consumers: Countdown Pages.
For audiobooks, the Countdown Pages will allow Spotify’s users to pre-save books ahead of their release.
With the addition of the new Countdown Pages feature, Spotify hopes to grow the service’s adoption further by tapping into its larger global user base of over 600 million listeners.
Otherwise, Spotify’s free users can now opt into a standalone audiobooks subscription for $9.99 per month, which debuted earlier this month.
Countdown pages for audiobooks will launch in all markets where Spotify’s audiobooks are available, including the U.S., U.K. Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.
Stashpad, a developer-focused “DM to yourself”-styled notebook app, is now pivoting to a docs app that you can use without logging in.
The company will still maintain its original notes app and call it “Stashpad Lists.”StashPad Docs is the company’s new offering that doesn’t require any login and supports Markdown formatting.
The product is browser first and document history is stored locally, so users can search for docs without querying the server.
They might do so even without fully acknowledging that Google Docs remains a big part of their workflow.”With this new product, Stashpad aims to attract both technical and non-technical users.
Plus, it sees a venture-sized opportunity for the docs product.
The company’s vision for moderation is a stackable ecosystem of services, which is why it will start allowing users to install filters from independent moderation services on top of what Bluesky already requires.
For example, someone could create a moderation service that blocks images of spiders on the network.
Bluesky says installing filters from independent moderation services will be as easy as following another account.
People running moderation services will be able to set custom labels and determine what they do.
Moderation services aren’t tied to individual accounts, so multiple people can manage them together.
Nigeria is actively seeking information from Binance regarding its top 100 users in the country and all transaction history spanning the past six months, according to a Financial Times report.
As a result, the detained executives may allegedly face charges related to currency manipulation, tax evasion, and illegal operations, per a Bloomberg report.
FT says Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency was granted permission to detain both Binance executives for 14 days, which concluded on Tuesday; there’s a proposed hearing to extend the court order scheduled for Wednesday.
Nigeria’s request for Binance’s top users in the country is a focal point in negotiations between the largest crypto platform and the top African crypto market.
Meanwhile, documents reviewed by FT reveal that Nigeria, through its national security adviser, has requested that Binance address any outstanding tax liabilities.
Google announced a bunch of new features for Google Play listings for games including AI-powered FAQs, displaying the latest YouTube videos, new immersive ad formats, and support for native PC game publishing.
These announcements were made at the Google Games Developer Summit held at San Fransisco.
Play Pass and Play PointsTo drive more in-app purchases, Google is now allowing developers to set discounts for users who have the company’s Play Pass subscription.
Support for PC gamesIn the last few years, Google has made its Play Games for PC program available in more than 120 countries.
Now, the company is set to allow publishers to put native PC games on the Play Store.
Decentralized Twitter/X rival Bluesky is adding to its ranks by scooping up a member of its developer community.
London-based software engineer Samuel Newman, who built the well-received third-party Bluesky client, Graysky, is joining the startup, where he will now help develop Bluesky’s official app along with the rest of the frontend team.
Given his change in position, the future of the Graysky app is uncertain.
Late last year, Graysky also added Trending Topics and a Pro subscription to help the app monetize.
With Newman now joining Bluesky, the hope is that the official client will also gain support for more features.
Apple will allow iOS developers located in the European Union to distribute apps from the web, rather then via its App Store.
“Web Distribution, available in a software update later this spring, will let authorized developers distribute their iOS apps to EU users directly from a website the developer owns and operates,” it writes.
iOS users will also need to approve the developer installing apps from their site via their iPhone Settings.
Apple’s initial proposal for DMA compliance did not allow web based distribution for apps.
While its current attempt to force EU users to consent to tracking is being challenged via GDPR and consumer protection complaints.
The original version of Block Party was built on top of Twitter’s API to automate the process of blocking bad actors, trolls, harassers, and others.
However, Twitter’s API crackdown meant that Block Party’s ability to operate was immediately impacted.
That product, now on hiatus, has since been rebranded Block Party Classic.
Privacy Party will also act like middleware here, allowing users to interact with platforms and services to adjust their privacy settings with fewer clicks.
“They also present controls that you have including an additional level of control that automates finding and fixing privacy settings for you.”Chou did not say when Privacy Party would exit beta, but it’s free to use for the time being.
Would-be Twitter/X rival Bluesky is looking to more directly invest in its developer community in order to foster growth.
The company last week announced “AT Protocol Grants,” a new program that will dole out small grants to developers building on its new social networking protocol.
Initially, Bluesky said it would release $10,000 in grants of $500 to $2,000 per project apiece, based on factors like cost, usage, and more.
The concept of decentralized social networking has been around longer than Bluesky, however, with many projects, including Mastodon, Misskey, Pixelfed, and others, backed by the ActivityPub protocol.
Bluesky says the projects receiving the grants can be useful to either developers or end users and will be paid out via public GitHub Sponsorships.
Pinterest rolls out its ‘body type ranges’ tool to the USPinterest announced today that its tool for filtering searches by different body types has officially rolled out to users in the U.S.
To use the feature, users can type into the search bar and select the “Body Types” option to see four different body types at the top of the results page.
If a user selects the same option twice, the body type selection can be saved to their device.
Pinterest’s body type ranges feature is currently only available for women’s fashion and wedding ideas.
When testing the feature, Pinterest saw that users who used the tool had a 66% higher engagement rate per session, Pinterest chief product officer Sabrina Ellis shares.
