Chris Cox To Chief Product Officer

Chris Cox helped invent News Feed and devised Facebook’s “Social By Design” strategy,  so now the company is recognizing his critical contributions by promoting the VP Of Product to Chief Product Officer. The new title won’t come with any organizational change, but cements the 31-year-old Cox as a leader of Facebook alongside COO Sheryl Sandberg. Mark Zuckerberg delivered the news to the company in an internal announcement this afternoon.

Cox has been part of the special “M-team” that regularly meets with Zuckerberg to define the direction of Facebook. He stood right behind his CEO and close friend when Zuck rung the NASDAQ bell the day of Facebook’s IPO.

Twitter Demolish The "Town Square"

The social network is experiencing slow growth. Sure, Twitter is implementing a slew of changes that will transform it into a website very different from the text-based social network we've come to love. And maybe you've gotten bored with it. That doesn't mean we'll be attending its funeral any time soon. 

Early adopters will no doubt decry Twitter's evolution—and I'm one of them. I'm not a fan of the new Twitter that copies features from Facebook with abandon, and I'm definitely not alone. People who have used the service for years have become accustomed to the way it looks and operates; we've become the Twitter elite that gets how Twitter works, with all the silly hashtags and Twitter canoes, and we don't want more people coming in to rock the boat. 

Twitter itself is acknowledging the changes. It's come to realize the "town square" metaphor doesn't resonate with the masses, and it needs to reposition itself as an accompaniment to, rather than an authority on, what's happening around its users.

Twitter as a companion service means that people don’t necessarily have to tweet or contribute all the time just to enjoy the greater community that solely exists on Twitter.

The company’s move to become the most popular “second screen” experience is a perfect example. Twitter wants to be the application everyone is using while watching television, but that doesn’t necessarily mean people must tweet simultaneously. Sometimes just following their favorite celebrities' statuses or reading hashtag threads will be enough.

For instance, on Monday’s "The Voice," banter between coaches Blake Shelton and Adam Levine found its way to Twitter. Shelton tweeted rival coach Levine’s cell phone number, which was retweeted almost 40,000 times. As a fan of "The Voice," watching the duo tease each other without being privy to it firsthand might produce a bit of FOMO—or fear of missing out—and could prompt new Twitter users to sign up just to take part in the fun.

Twitter also announced Tuesday it has grown to 255 million monthly active users, up from 241 million last quarter. Still, investors don't feel Twitter is growing fast enough: Those growth numbers fell below analyst expectations, and as a result, Twitter shares fell shortly after the company released its earnings.

The company has made significant changes to its core product in an effort attract a broader audience and boost user growth. Most notably, the company completely redesigned user profiles by ripping off a more user-friendly service—Facebook. The Facebookification of Twitter certainly has its downsides—we don't want another place for friends. But as its slow growth demonstrates, Twitter, as it is right now, isn't enough. 

Twitter also hinted at more tweaks to its direct message product, a feature that has seen its own share of updates in recent months. A more robust messaging service that complements its companion app strategy will hopefully encourage even more people to use the application.

Try as it might to convince users otherwise, Twitter still faces an identity problem. It’s struggling to become a must-have application for everyone, while those of us who rely on it for news and events are slowly becoming dissatisfied with the way it seems to be diluting itself to appeal to a broader audience.

Steve Ballmer Now Biggest Microsoft Shareholder

Bill Gates is no longer the largest individual shareholder of Microsoft, the computer software company he founded with Paul Allen in 1975.
That title now goes to Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft who recently ceded the lead job to Satya Nadella.
Ballmer, who stepped down in February, holds 333.2 million stock positions in Microsoft, edging Gates by a few million shares. A couple institutional shareholders have larger positions, such as Vanguard Group (372.6 million shares) and State Street (343 million shares).

Gates still easily outpaces Ballmer in overall net worth, $77.2 billion to $20.1 billion, according to Forbes.

Long URLs From Chrome

Google Chrome may eventually hide long URLs from the address bar. That is, if a recent update to Google's experimental browser is any indication.

A recent update to Chrome's publicly available Canary browser added a feature that hides long URLs. Instead, when users view webpages, the browser only reveals the website name and domain, not the entire URL.

Canary is Google's experimental version of Chrome. The Chrome team updates it daily with new features, many of which have not been previously tested. Google often uses it to test new features and builds before even rolling them out to the Chrome Dev Channel.

Given its experimental nature, seeing this URL tweak in Canary doesn't necessarily mean this is a feature Google is considering for the full version of Chrome but should Canary's small user base react positively, it could get a full launch.

Move Fast And Stable Infra - CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg was referring to the social network's new login features, including anonymous login, which he said will help developers draw more users to their apps.
With the new login features, Facebook is unbundling app permissions. This means when users log in with Facebook, they will be able to control exactly which permissions they grant to apps, or log in anonymously, if the developer makes the option available. What's more, developers will have to prove to Facebook that the permissions their apps are requesting are actually necessary.

Facebook will be implementing the login changes by adding an extra step to the app-review process that all developers go through: login review.

Login review will evaluate apps on three main points: whether the permissions an app is requesting are actually necessary, that apps must clearly ask for permission to post on a user's behalf, and how well the login process itself works by checking for crashes or errors.

 

 

Facebook knows that implementing these changes will be a lengthy process, so developers will have a year to make their existing apps compliant with the new login standards. However, the new login-review step will be effective immediately for any new apps.