November 12, 2023

The Verge: Signal tests usernames so you can avoid sharing your phone number

The Verge: Signal tests usernames so you can avoid sharing your phone number . “Signal is publicly testing letting users add usernames to their accounts so they don’t have to share their phone number to connect via the encrypted messaging service. The test was announced via a post on the Signal forums by VP of engineering Jim O’Leary, who referred to the feature as ‘pre-beta’ and warned that there’ll be rough edges including crashes and broken push notifications.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
November 7, 2023

CogDogBlog: Mastodon Link Play

CogDogBlog: Mastodon Link Play . “One of the Mastodon new user bumps is getting your head around the extra layer of your name or handle being doubled with the place you call home, both a positive for appreciating federation but maybe a complexity in unraveling names and links…. Here are a few things I’ve worked through or are trying to for a focus on fedispaces, over the single letter algebra variable one 😉”

Useful Stuff 0
August 11, 2023

WIRED: By Seizing @Music, Elon Musk Shows He Doesn’t Know What Made Twitter Good

WIRED: By Seizing @Music, Elon Musk Shows He Doesn’t Know What Made Twitter Good. “The confiscation is entirely within X’s terms of service. As the company tries to turn itself into an everything app, from music to video to finance, it’s likely it will need to stake a claim to handles related to its new business lines. But unilaterally taking a popular handle off a user could be bad business and another demonstration of how X under Musk is stripping away the things that made Twitter, Twitter.”

Research & Opinion 0
August 5, 2023

Rolling Stone: X, Formerly Twitter, Seizes @Music Handle From Its Longtime User, Who Is ‘Super Pissed’

Rolling Stone: X, Formerly Twitter, Seizes @Music Handle From Its Longtime User, Who Is ‘Super Pissed’. “AS ELON MUSK continues Twitter’s confounding rebrand into ‘X,’ the social media platform has now seized the account handle for @Music, much to the chagrin of the username’s original user. X user Jeremy Vaught shared a message the company had sent him on Thursday, notifying him that the account name he created about a year into Twitter’s existence is no longer his as the handle is now affiliated with X Corp.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
June 2, 2023

Ubergizmo: WhatsApp Usernames Are Coming As A New Way To Protect Your Privacy

Ubergizmo: WhatsApp Usernames Are Coming As A New Way To Protect Your Privacy. “WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world (with over 2 billion users), even so, one of the drawbacks of using the app is that you have to share your phone number with anyone you want to chat with — yup, even if you use the QR code option. This can definitely be a privacy concern for some users, especially if they want to communicate with strangers or businesses without having to reveal their personal info, and that’s why WhatsApp is working on a new feature that will allow users to create unique usernames for their accounts, according to WABetaInfo.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
November 8, 2021

Mashable: TikTok users are holding their university accounts hostage

Mashable: TikTok users are holding their university accounts hostage. “Colleges better step up their social media game — or they risk students taking them over. Federal student loan borrowers don’t have to make payments until January 2022, thanks to COVID-19 emergency relief funds and an extension from the Biden administration. But they’re still going to have to make those payments, despite a massive movement to end the repayments that have left more than 40 million Americans in debt. But some people are getting creative.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0

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