Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Software : Facebook hits 1 billion mobile monthly active users

Software : Facebook hits 1 billion mobile monthly active users

Facebook hits 1 billion mobile monthly active users

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Facebook hits 1 billion mobile monthly active users

Not only is Facebook forking over around $2 billion (about £1.2b, AU$2.1b) for the company that makes Oculus Rift, it's also stepping out with some pretty heady numbers for its longer-standing properties.

First up, Facebook's first true love: mobile. Zuckerberg revealed Facebook now has 1 billion active users on its mobile apps. The company repeated its December 2013 figure of 945 million monthly users just last week, but clearly it was time for an update.

Furthermore, Zuckerberg said that looking at all mobile phone usage, more than 20% of peoples' time is spent on Facebook.

The company has made much of its "mobile first" approach, and it appears to be paying off.

Insta-success

As for Instagram, Facebook's first big payout, the photo sharing service revealed today that it has over 200 million users, with over 50 million of those joining in the last six months.

Users sat at 100 million when Facebook purchased the then-tiny team in 2012.

During a call with analysts to discuss the Oculus purchase, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Instagram is "already ahead of where we want it to be."

He assured Facebook won't make multi-billion dollar purchases every few months a regular thing, but with Instagram growing, WhatsApp expected to reach 1 billion people and Oculus Rift's potential as the future of computing, there's certainly some things Zuck is wiling to spend his bucks on.

Instagram checks out scrapping Foursquare in favour of Facebook Places

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Instagram checks out scrapping Foursquare in favour of Facebook Places

Facebook-owned photo sharing service Instagram is testing a new version of its app, which sees the social network's Places platform replace Foursquare as the location provider.

As of this week, some of app users will notice the "name this location" tool sees Foursquare replaced by the in-house Facebook Places option.

In a statement, Instagram said users will continue to be able to access Foursquare check-ins, but it's significant that the Facebook is now in the loop.

It would make sense for Facebook to use its own (not quite as) effective platform rather than pass the task and the data onto a company is sees as a competitor in the important check in space.

'Great partner'

Instagram said: "Foursquare is a great partner, and people will continue to be able to share their check-ins to Foursquare from Instagram.

"We are constantly testing experiences throughout the app to provide the best possible user experience as part of future planning."

As well as offering its own app and check-in services, Foursquare also passes its location expertise to services like Vine, Instagram, Pinterest and Path.

A Foursquare spokesperson said: "We've worked with Facebook and Instagram for a while, and they're great partners.

"Like any company, they're testing new ways to provide a good user experience, however all users can still share check-ins via Instagram."

Instagram says otherwise, but are these tests the beginning of the end for Foursquare location tagging for our filtered snaps?

After snapping up the photo-sharing start-up in 2012, Facebook has slowly made its presence felt, adding advertisements and photo-tagging.

HTC lets third-party apps in on the BlinkFeed action

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HTC lets third-party apps in on the BlinkFeed action

HTC's latest flagship smartphone, the HTC One (M8), is at long last officially official, which means it's time to start digging into the nitty gritty of just what the company's updated Sense user interface has in store for us.

The Taiwanese smartphone maker plans to open its built-in skin ever so slightly by allowing developers of all shapes and sizes to make their content part of the new Sense 6.0.

To accomplish this goal, HTC has delivered a software development kit (SDK), allowing third-party companies to contribute to the tiled stream of data which appears in BlinkFeed on the new HTC One.

HTC appears to be taking baby steps by announcing only two SDK partners at launch: Geolocation-based social network service Foursquare and fitness wearables maker Fitbit.

SDK or bust

Foursquare will deliver location-specific suggestions to the BlinkFeed home screen, essentially an extension of what the dedicated Android app already does with notifications.

The inclusion of Fitbit is far more interesting given that it can sidestep the need to slap the company's wearable device onto your wrist and instead tap into the internal sensors of the HTC One (M8).

One such example of Fitbit SDK integration is seeing how many steps you've taken right from BlinkFeed, rather than having to open the standalone app to take a peek.

HTC will have its work cut out for it enlisting additional SDK partners in the months ahead, but the smartphone maker's confirmation that Sense 6.0 will soon be coming to last year's HTC One, HTC One Mini and HTC One Max handsets should encourage developers who might otherwise be on the fence.

  • Curious what Apple has in store for us with iPhone 6? We're keeping tabs on it!
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