Facebook puts friends above publishers in “News Feed Values” and ranking change

After the conservative trends fiasco, Facebook is pushing itself to a new standard of transparency. The company is publishing a formal “News Feed Values” document that details how it decides what shows up in your feed — a common question amongst users.

Those core values are that friends and family come first, that the feed should inform and entertain, that Facebook is a platform for all ideas, that authentic communication beats spam, that you have the controls to hide or highlight what you want, and that Facebook will keep iterating to improve the experience.

Facebook is also making a feed ranking change today that literally puts its primary value that “Friends and family come first” into practice. The News Feed will now show posts from friends higher up in the feed than posts from Pages like news outlets. Pages should expect a decline in reach and referral traffic, especially if they rely on clicks directly to their posts rather than re-shares by their followers.

While the News Feed is ranked by a computer algorithm, Facebook’s Adam Mosseri explains “News Feed is a system that’s designed and built by people, those people have values, and those values are reflected in how we make decisions on a regular basis.” By publicly solidifying those values, users may gain faith that Facebook doesn’t have ulterior motives when deciding the best content to show them.

Read Josh Constine's article at https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/29/facebook-news-feed-change/.

Dear millennials: Instagram doesn't owe you anything

Opinion

It's time to stop freaking out about your Instagram feed.

Yes, Instagram has started rolling out its new algorithmic-based feed, which may make posts appear "out of order." Yes, it's a big change and yes, people are freaking out about it.

But they shouldn't. Complaining on social media about an Instagram update is about as pointless as expecting your iPhone battery to last all day.

Read Karissa Bell's opinion at http://mashable.com/2016/06/03/stop-freaking-out-about-instagram-already/#jpZWiDVH.Oqx

Instagram now has more than a half a billion users

Instagram has reached a new milestone.

The photo sharing app now counts more than 500 million monthly active users, up from 400 million in September, Instagram announced Tuesday.

Of those, more than 300 million people use the app every day, according to a statement from the company.

Read Karissa Bell's article at http://mashable.com/2016/06/21/instagram-500-million-users/#iEcSjP8y55qX

Hover Camera is a personal drone for selfie lovers

If you’re done with selfie sticks and are looking for what comes next in the narcissistic world of self-photography, look no further than Hover Camera, a new “personal” drone that gives you a different — more aerial — view of you and your life.

Hover Camera is a tiny foldable drone that hovers around you, controlled by a compatible smartphone app, snapping 4k video and photos via a 13-megapixel camera. It is seriously portable, and made of carbon fiber so durable, too. Most impressive for those with young kids or pets around, its wings are enclosed and out of reach of hands, which probably makes it one of the safest drones around.

The device has been developed by U.S.-Chinese company Zero Zero Robotics for the past two years and is intended to go on sale over the next few months. There’s no confirmed price for Hover Camera right now, but Zero Zero Robotics CEO and founder Mengqiu Wang told us that the final cost will be sub-$600. The plan is to make it available in China and the U.S. first, before later going in sale in Europe and other parts of the world.

Read Jon Russell's article and see a short video at https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/27/hover-camera-is-a-personal-drone-for-selfie-lovers/.

Seven tips on keeping your phone safe while traveling

You may not think of it this way, but the phone in your pocket is really an extension of you -- it contains everything from personal photos and videos to critical contact information.

It's also valuable data that cyber criminals can exploit. This means you need to make sure your phone is protected. While your device can be compromised anywhere, you may expose yourself to additional risks while on a trip.

"When you're traveling, you may do some things differently than you'd do at home," said Michael Kaiser, executive director for the National Cyber Security Alliance or NCSA, a nonprofit public-private partnership that promotes safe and secure use of the internet.

For instance, Kaiser said you might be tempted to use an unprotected Wi-Fi network to save on roaming charges if you're traveling abroad. And you may not consider the risks of sharing your location via apps or pictures you post on social media.

"You might not want to share with the world that you're in Hawaii for the next two weeks and no one is at your house," he said.

You are in luck, NCSA has put together tons of tips that can help you be more secure online. Here's a summary of the tips most relevant to mobile devices to help ensure you don't become a victim of cybercrime while on vacation.

1. Clean up your device
2. Turn on password or biometric protection
3. Turn off location tracking on apps and manage privacy settings
4. Backup your data
5. Beware of public Wi-Fi hotspots
6. Turn off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when you're not using it
7. Turn on "find my phone" and remote wiping

Read Maggie Reardon's complete article at http://www.cnet.com/news/seven-tips-on-keeping-your-phone-safe-while-traveling/.

Twitter quietly launches tags to location feeds with Foursquare

Finally Twitter will let you see when tweets are from a specific place, like a business, sports stadium, or music festival. After a reader tipped us off, Twitter confirmed to TechCrunch it’s now rolling out this new location feature to all iOS users, with other platforms coming later.

Location feeds linked to from these tags could inspire people to tweet more while out and about, fuel Moments about particular places, and improve Twitter’s ad targeting data. Better location functionality could be an important building block for Twitter’s future products and revenue potential.

What’s new is that specific location tags now appear in the main Timeline and on profiles, clueing people in to the fact there are location feeds to browse. The Foursquare branding and design of the location feeds is new too. Despite confirming the news to us previously, Twitter says a basic version of location feeds was available before, but there was no way to tell a tweet was tagged with a location unless you opened its detail view.

Foursquare is powering precise place identification for the Twitter feature. In exchange it gets prominent branding, links back, and the ability to improve its own database.

Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck tells us “We’re excited about this integration, which has been getting deeper over time. Location can provide important context for any moment, and our location intelligence is best-in-class. We’re proud to support Twitter in the US, Canada, Brazil and many other geographies. Stay tuned for more to come.”

Twitter has always been obsessed with hosting the what and the when. Here it’s finally getting a grip on where.

Read Josh Constine's article at https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/24/what-when-where/.

Here's how your Facebook Messenger inbox is getting smarter

The Facebook Messenger app is about to be updated with a new design that also makes its inbox smarter.

The new look, which rolls out later this week, will change how the app's home tab is organized. Right now, it acts as a pretty standard inbox, showing all of your message threads with the most recent on top.

In the redesign, Messenger's home screen will still display some of your most recent conversations at the top — but it will also add more personalized information farther down.

At a Wired conference in New York, Facebook's Vice President of Messaging Products David Marcus described the update as a "first stab at reinventing the inbox."

Read Karissa Bell’s article at http://mashable.com/2016/06/16/facebook-messenger-home-redesign/.