In summer 2018, Instagram officially launched IGTV, its relatively new platform for sharing and finding videos. Though several million people have downloaded the app, that number only represents a tiny percentage of the company's more than one billion users, meaning it isn't terribly popular. Seemingly underscoring that fact is Instagram's decision to remove the IGTV button from within its app.
Facebook was canceled two of its original scripted shows, both of which were available to stream exclusively on its Facebook Watch video platform. Both Limetown and Sorry For Your Loss have been given the axe despite critical praise and two well-known leading actresses. Though Facebook isn't entirely ditching the scripted video market, it is cutting down on the number of scripted shows it will offer.
If you're interested in checking out the Oculus Go but you've held off on buying one thus far, it looks like your patience has paid off. Facebook and Oculus have cut the price of the Go, bringing it down to a starting price of $149. This is a permanent price cut too, and it applies to both of the Oculus Go models Facebook offers.
Facebook as ditched plans to fill WhatsApp with advertisements, according to a new report, instead choosing to focus on paid features designed for companies. The sources behind the leak claim that Facebook has gone so far as to scrub the code from WhatsApp that would have been used to implement the advertisements. This doesn't, however, mean that Facebook will never bring ads into WhatsApp.
The updated desktop interface first promised in April has started appearing for some Facebook users. The design finally updates Facebook's increasingly archaic and messy interface with a clean, sleeker alternative that ditches many of the colorful elements and cluttered sidebar. More users will get access to the updated interface over the next few months.
Entering into a new decade tends to elicit a bunch of forward-looking thoughts and ambitions from people, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Today he shared his goals not only for the next year, but the next decade. Zuckerberg generally spoke in very broad terms, but what he said today does give us an idea of what Facebook will look to do over the next ten years.
A handful of years ago, Facebook made a change with its Messenger app that was largely praised: it no longer required users to have a Facebook account in order to sign up for the messaging service. This was great news for people who weren't interested in having a Facebook account, but who struggled to get their friends to use a different chat app. Now, less than five years later, Facebook has reversed its decision.
Facebook is a giant company with such an immense amount of cash and roster of forces that a future Facebook OS is inevitable. Today we're taking a moment to run down three key predictions having to do with a Facebook operating system, based on what we know about Facebook now and the most likely paths we'll take politically in the next several governmental bodies in the United States.
A lot of gaming news of late has been grabbed either by Google Stadia or the Xbox Series X. Those, of course, aren't the only game in town, pardon the pun, and it's unsurprising to see some getting a tad jealous for some attention. Perhaps to help make a splash, Facebook is riding the Pokemon wave by announcing two new Pokemon titles that you can play on and only on Facebook, reminding both users and gamers that Facebook Gaming is still a thing.
News of Facebook working to create its own operating system has probably raised a lot of eyebrows and ruffled many feathers. The social giant made no secret that its goal is to be independent of Google and its ecosystem, particularly Android. At a time when Huawei is trying and struggling to do the same due to political circumstances, there will definitely be doubts about whether Facebook can pull it off. It definitely can and that's the most frightening part about it.
Facebook is currently in talks to bring major music videos to its Watch video platform, sources claim. The company is said to be in discussions with a number of major record labels, including Sony Music and Universal Music Group, to offer them an alternative to Google's dominating YouTube platform. The sources claim that Facebook has already been testing music videos on Watch in smaller foreign markets.
Facebook is ending one of its most frustrating growth practices, promising to no longer use phone numbers provided by users for extra security to also suggest potential friends on the social network. The company admitted last year that it used numbers registered as part of two-factor authentication (2FA) to also power the "people you may know" feature that attempts to bolster users' friends lists.
