Facebook buys WhatsApp

follow @moshbyte on twitter for more or like on facebook Mosh Byte

Facebook announced today it will buy messaging app WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash and stock.
Facebook says it's buying WhatsApp because the startup has over 450 million active users and still growing. Both companies say they have similar missions, which is to connect as many people as possible.
Read what Mark has got to say.

I’m excited to announce that we’ve agreed to acquire WhatsApp and that their entire team will be joining us at Facebook. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected. We do this by building services that help people share any type of content with any group of people they want. WhatsApp will help us do this by continuing to develop a service that people around the world love to use every day.
WhatsApp is a simple, fast and reliable mobile messaging service that is used by over 450 million people on every major mobile platform. More than 1 million people sign up for WhatsApp every day and it is on its way to connecting one billion people. More and more people rely on WhatsApp to communicate with all of their contacts every day.

WhatsApp will continue to operate independently within Facebook. The product roadmap will remain unchanged and the team is going to stay in Mountain View. Over the next few years, we're going to work hard to help WhatsApp grow and connect the whole world. We also expect that WhatsApp will add to our efforts forInternet.org, our partnership to make basic internet services affordable for everyone.
WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community. Facebook Messenger is widely used for chatting with your Facebook friends, and WhatsApp for communicating with all of your contacts and small groups of people. Since WhatsApp and Messenger serve such different and important uses, we will continue investing in both and making them each great products for everyone.
WhatsApp had every option in the world, so I’m thrilled that they chose to work with us. I’m looking forward to what Facebook and WhatsApp can do together, and to developing great new mobile services that give people even more options for connecting.

I've also known Jan for a long time, and I know that we both share the vision of making the world more open and connected. I'm particularly happy that Jan has agreed to join the Facebook board and partner with me to shape Facebook's future as well as WhatsApp's.
Jan and the WhatsApp team have done some amazing work to connect almost half a billion people. I can’t wait for them to join Facebook and help us connect the rest of the world.

I am sure you can't wait to see the best service ever brought to you by these two famous companies coming together. Me to, though. Well, let's keep our eyes on the watch.

Follow Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook here.

Facebook Knows When You're Going To Fall In Love

follow @moshbyte on twitter for more or like on facebook Mosh Byte.

Facebook data scientist Carlos Diuk breaks down what happens in the days leading up to two Facebook users beginning a relationship.
Here's what Facebook sees when you fall in love.

Up until the day you two make it official, Facebook notices an uptick in the number of timeline posts you and your soon-to-be significant other make on each other's walls. This is the metric that gives it all away, apparently.

Diuk writes, "We observe a peak of 1.67 posts per day 12 days before the relationship begins, and a lowest point of 1.53 posts per day 85 days into the relationship. Presumably, couples decide to spend more time together, courtship is off, and online interactions give way to more interactions in the physical world."

Even though there are fewer messages being sent between star-crossed lovers the longer they're in a relationship, Diuk says " the content of the interactions gets sweeter and more positive." By using "statistical methods to automatically analyze a set of aggregated, anonymized timeline interactions[...] we counted the proportion of words expressing positive emotions (like 'love', 'nice', 'happy', etc.) minus the proportion of words expressing negative ones (like 'hate', 'hurt', 'bad', etc.)."

Diuk's conclusion: before a relationship officially kicks off, the two soon-to-be participants are communicating often via Facebook. They later use the site to say fewer things to each other, but those things tend to be more positive.

But, is that really true? I think it is. 

Source

China 'Unblocks' Twitter And Others

follow @moshbyte on twitter for more or like on facebook Mosh Byte

 

The Chinese government could be about to relax its strict censorship laws, albeit only in a small area of one of its cities.

Facebook, Twitter and other websites will be unblocked in a free-trade zone of Shanghai, the South China Morning Post reports.

An unnamed official said the move was to make foreigners "feel at home".

Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg To Visit Nigeria In August

follow @moshbyte on twitter for more or like on facebook Mosh Byte


Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is to visit Akwa Ibom in next month, the Niger Delta Young Professionals, a non governmental group, has said.
Facebook is a social networking service launched in February, 2004, with over one billion active users.
The Chairman of the Niger Delta Young Professional, Mr Moses Siasia, made the announcement when he paid a courtesy visit on Gov. Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom on Friday.

Facebook announces video for Instagram

Facebook today announced video for Instagram,
saying it aimed to make video as easy to create
and share as possible. The overall look and feel
of the updated app are the same, but next to the
main capture icon is now a video camera icon.
The user taps the button to begin recording up to
15 seconds of video, and when published it
appeared in the main Instagram feed. The
updated app is available for iOS and Android
today.
The official release;
Over the past two and a half years, Instagram
has become a community where you can capture
and share the world’s moments simply and
beautifully. Some moments, however, need more
than a static image to come to life. Until now
these stories have been missing from Instagram.
Today, we’re thrilled to introduce Video on
Instagram and bring you another way to share
your stories. When you go to take a photo on
Instagram, you’ll now see a movie camera icon.
Tap it to enter video mode, where you can take
up to fifteen seconds of video through the
Instagram camera.
You’ll also find that we’ve added thirteen filters
built specifically for video so you can keep
sharing beautiful content on Instagram. When
you post a video, you’ll also be able to select your
favorite scene from what you’ve recorded as your
cover image so your videos are beautiful even
when they’re not playing.
We’re excited to see what the community will
bring to video, whether it’s your local cafe
showing you just how they made your latte art
this morning or an Instagrammer on the other
side of the world taking you on a tour of their
city, a mother sharing her joys in parenting as her
children laugh and play or your favorite athlete
taking you behind the scenes.
So what does this mean for your content?
Nothing’s different from photos. We’re still
committed to making sure you have control over
all of your content. Only the people who you let
see your photos will be able to see your videos.
And as with photos, you own your videos. You
can learn more about Video on Instagram—
including our new Cinema feature—by visiting
the Instagram Help Center.
We can’t wait to see what you’ll create.

LinkedIn Adds Facebook-Like 'Mention' Feature

follow @moshmustapha on twitter for more or like on facebook Mosh Byte




It's about to get a lot more chatty over on LinkedIn.
The business-focused social network on Thursday began rolling out a new feature that lets you mention and hyperlink other LinkedIn users and companies in status updates and conversations. The feature is similar to what's already available on services like Facebook and Twitter, and is intended to make it easier to start conversations with your peers on LinkedIn.

Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s Android OS to be called “Facebook Home”

follow @moshmustapha on twitter for more or like on facebook Mosh Byte

In the previous week, it was reported that Facebook Inc(NASDAQ:FB) is likely to reveal its own version of Google Android Operating System which would be customized. The social networking giant would be bringing out the “special” version of Android Operating System for an HTC device.
It is also speculated that it would be launching this on the new HTC device but there are some reports stating that the operating system would also be running on even HTC’s older handsets as well as for the new handset, HTC One.