YouTube Create, Google’s standalone mobile app aimed at creators, which helps them produce both Shorts and longer videos, is expanding to a broader set of markets after last fall’s launch into beta testing.
The idea behind Create is to offer video creators an easy-to-use suite of free tools for making videos on the go.
With Create, users can upload clips, split and trim videos, use effects, and access royalty-free music to complement their videos.
By offering a suite of tools just for YouTube creators, the company hopes to capture more of the market that prefers to use standalone tools for editing videos.
Starting today, the Create app is available in new markets including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Taiwan, Thailand, and Turky.
Dating app maker Bumble is rethinking its vision for the company’s future after announcing weak earnings and massive job cuts that will see the company cutting a third of its staff, or around 350 employees.
“Candidly, we have been slow to realize this broader vision with Bumble BFF thus far,” she told investors on Tuesday’s Q4 2023 earnings call.
The CEO noted that the current BFF product has a small, but strong following.
This is due to BFF using the same one-to-one match paradigm for friendships as Bumble uses for dating.
That could limit BFF’s ability to monetize as Bumble’s dating product does.
WhatsApp announced today that it is rolling out a “search by date” function for individual and group chats on Android devices.
Users can only search for a chat on a particular date instead of specifying a date range.
To use the feature, users have to go a one-on-one or group chat details by tapping on the contact or the group name.
To search by date, they have to tap on the search button and then tap the calendar icon.
Users can already search through conversations by media type such as links, media, and docs through the conversation detail page.
Telegram CEO and founder Pavel Durov announced today that the company is launching its ad platform next month, allowing channel owners to receive financial rewards.
In March, the Telegram Ad Platform will open to channel owners in nearly one hundred countries, marking a major shift toward content monetization.
“Similar to our approach with Telegram usernames on Fragment, we will sell ads and share revenue with channel owners in Toncoin.
YouTube offers a 55% share of ad revenue to creators in the YouTube Partner Program, while X started offering revenue sharing to users in July 2023.
Telegram has more than 800 million monthly active users around the world, and Telegram users generate over 500 billion views in broadcast channels every month.
Lightricks, the company that makes popular apps like Facetune and Videoleap, announced a new AI-powered filmmaking tool called LTX Studio today.
LTX Studio, which is currently inviting users to sign up for a waitlist, is a web-based tool.
Creators can first type an idea they have and LTX Studio will create a script and a storyboard for them along with characters through a prompt.
That thought process led the startup to make LTX Studio.
Plus, with the latest LTX studio launch, it is aiming to cater to more professionals.
Bumble, a once-powerful force in online dating, is facing a reckoning.
CEO Lidiane Jones announced that 37% of Bumble’s workforce, or about 350 employees, would be let go, and that Bumble would embark on an app overhaul targeted at reviving growth.
And many of the capabilities introduced in Bumble’s apps in the past 18 months haven’t resonated with the user base, Jones said during the call.
Jones, who joined from Slack in January, appointed four new C-suite executives at Bumble in the last week alone.
Dating apps generally — including Match Group’s — have seen declining revenue from users reluctant to fork over cash for premium add-ons.
Newsmast also credits the Mastodon app and Mozilla-backed startup Mammoth for the inspiration around Communities.
In addition, Newsmast offers a system where anyone can build their own Mastodon server with a selection of communities they’ve curated.
Users could then connect to that server in place of the Newsmast server within the Newsmast app.
Later this week, Newsmast will also open up its API to developers, which means your preferred Mastodon app could integrate with Newsmast’s Communities, too, for a more seamless experience.
(In fact, some Mastodon users were confused why Newsmast’s accounts were following them and boosting their content, without understanding the larger purpose.)
Ethiopian startup eQub is the winner of the fintech pitch-off at 4YFN 2024, Mobile World Congress’ startup event.
The startup’s name is an Amharic word referring to a local form of peer-to-peer credit, Michael said.
An Equb is a group of people who join forces to save money, which is then distributed on a rotating basis.
Starting with an app, it targets users among the growing number of Ethiopians who have bank accounts and mobile phones, but limited access to credit.
Making an Equb digital is an improvement in itself: For eQub members with bank accounts, they can add money without having to go to an ATM.
For example, on February 25, 2024, Threads saw 486,803 installs on Google Play and 342,228 on iOS.
X, by comparison, saw 225,408 Google Play downloads and 112,625 on iOS, Appfigures data shows.
That’s nearly triple the downloads on iOS for Threads and more than double the downloads on Google Play.
Then, Threads had 382,999 daily installs on iOS versus just 113,649 installs of X on the same platform — or more than triple.
Threads’ Google Play downloads were 660,882 at this time, versus just 210,475 for X on the Play Store — also more than triple.
It’s hard to keep track of crypto’s technical development, but one thing hasn’t changed much: blockchain applications are notoriously hard to build.
This stems in part from their decentralized nature, resulting in a lack of uniform standards across different infrastructure pieces.
Initia, founded by a group of developers in their late 20s, is trying to bring more interoperability to multi-chain networks and simplify the process of creating app-specific blockchains, or app chains.
In layman’s speak, Initia is abstracting away app chains’ technical complexity, aiming to make them more friendly to both end users and app developers.
They paused the project after the FTX implosion and eventually changed tack to work on blockchain infrastructure.
