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Instagram's Playback feature retells the story of your 2021
It's not a baked-in top nine feature, but you can share up to 10 Stories that sum up your year.
Facebook may be cutting its budget for original Watch content
Facebook is reportedly reducing its budget for original programming on Watch. The company plans to spend less on originals and more on talk shows and licensing clips from TV networks and sports leagues, The Information reports. Facebook's investment in Watch overall will reach approximately $1.4 billion in 2020, up from the company's initial billion-dollar budget in 2017.
Facebook Watch gets more NFL highlights, news and analysis
The National Football League isn't done teaming up with tech companies. Today, the NFL announced it is extending its partnership with Facebook, a deal that began back in 2017, which will continue to bring highlights of all 256 regular season games, playoffs and the Super Bowl to Facebook Watch. In addition to these recaps, this year the league is serving even more snackable programming on Watch, including news and analysis clips, video versions of podcasts, classic game archives from NFL Films and special videos dedicated to 100th NFL season. Facebook says that, in 2017 and 2018, over 22 million people watched at least a minute of an NFL recap, a sign that people on its site have an appetite for this type of video content.
The NFL's new TikTok account is all about highlights and sideline moments
The National Football League is hyping up its 100th season with a TikTok partnership. Today, the NFL is launching an official TikTok account with packaged highlights, sideline moments and behind-the-scenes footage. To get things started, it's promoting a #WeReady challenge. Today through September 5th, the NFL is asking fans to share videos about their favorite teams with the hashtag.
Twitter teams up with NBC for live 2020 Olympics coverage
NBC is slightly loosening its firm grasp on its Olympic Games broadcast rights. It's teaming up with Twitter to bring limited live coverage and highlights, along with a daily 20-minute Olympics show, to Twitter's website and apps during the Tokyo 2020 Games.
Snapchat launches Creator Shows with Serena Williams and Kevin Hart
In the last year, the time spent watching Shows on Snapchat has tripled. The company wants to take advantage of that. Today, it announced Creator Shows, a new format that will deliver regularly published content from some of Snapchat's most popular stars. It's also adding a Highlights feature, which will let Creators add longer-lasting photos and videos to their profiles.
How to buy tech gifts for other people’s kids
Gift giving for kids has gotten a lot more complicated over the past two decades or so. Gone are the days when you could just buy a doll or toy truck and know that it would be enjoyed by the child and fairly noncontroversial with the parents. A lot of that recent complication comes from how tech-heavy toys have gotten, from robot kits to drones to AR-enabled playsets. And that's before you even consider video games and consoles like Xbox or PlayStation. When it's your kid it's a little easier: After all, you should know what they like, what they'll take care of and what rules you've set for them. But what about your best friends' kids, your nieces and nephews or young cousins? While there's no silver bullet gift since every kid is different, there are some general guidelines you can follow when purchasing a tech gift for kids, one that won't have the other adults glaring at you or the kids tossing it to the side in favor of something shinier.
Every shot from the Masters will be posted online within five minutes
Golf fans who are planning to watch the Masters this weekend will have yet more ways to check out the action. For the first time at a golf tournament, practically every one of the more than 20,000 shots from the first major of the year will be available to view on the Masters website and app within five minutes of a player striking the ball.
An Overwatch League preview show is coming to Twitter
Overwatch League and Twitter just struck a deal that will bring the league's competition to the social platform, starting with the upcoming All-Star Weekend. Twitter will host near real-time highlight clips from next season's matches -- including regular season matches, playoffs and finals -- as well as clips from this weekend's All-Star matchups. Additionally, beginning with the 2019 season, Twitter will stream a live a weekly preview show called Watchpoint.
Fox Sports' World Cup Highlight Machine is powered by IBM's Watson
We're only ten days away from the start of the FIFA World Cup 2018. And for soccer (er, football) fans in the US, Fox Sports will be the TV network responsible for bringing them all 64 games from Russia, at least if they want to watch them in English. But, beyond its broadcast offerings, Fox Sports wants to keep people engaged in the competition in different ways. Aside from its partnership with Twitter, which comes in the form of a show that'll stream live from Russia, Fox Sports has teamed up with IBM to build the ultimate World Cup Highlight Machine. Powered by Watson artificial intelligence, this video hub lets you create on-demand clips from every FIFA World Cup tournament dating back to 1958.
Facebook, Twitter and Snap all want rights to World Cup highlights
Three of the biggest social networks are trying to make a major move ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which is set to take place in Russia. According to Bloomberg, Facebook, Twitter and Snap Inc. (Snapchat's owner) are looking to acquire rights for highlights from the tournament, offering "tens of millions" of dollars to Fox, the content owner in the US for the next three World Cups. Fox reportedly hasn't decided whether any potential deal could be exclusive, but the company does relish the idea of Facebook, Twitter and Snap being able to reach audiences beyond the football (aka soccer) junkies.
Relive monster dunks and other NBA finals highlights in VR
The NBA has been bolder with virtual reality than most other leagues, producing weekly VR games on its League Pass on-demand network with NextVR. If you're interested in checking it out without paying for a pass or the $7 à la carte price, NextVR is offering highlights for each game of the finals between Cleveland and Golden State. All you need is a GearVR or Google Daydream headset, plus the NextVR app, available on Google Play or Oculus Stores.
Even Skype is copying Snapchat
Despite its smaller-than-expected user-base, everyone keeps trying to ape Snapchat. The latest in that trend is none other than Skype. Yes, the VOIP and chat app is trying its hand at being an ephemeral social network. Microsoft is calling its Stories clone "Highlights," and the posting process sounds really similar to Snapchat. From the main screen, swipe to access the camera to capture a photo or video. Once posted, the people in your network can comment with emoticon reactions or text. Oh, right: Texts within the app now support emoji reactions and colored banners. Skype's other effort to be all things to all people includes built-in chatbots and a colorful redesign. Sure!
Google Photo's Mother's Day video tool is no substitute for a card
Google often likes to dip its toes into holidays and notable days to remind everyone what its apps can do (and could you use them, please?), and it's recently added a special Mother's Day assistant to its Photos app. Given that Google selects the photos and cuts it all together, it's possibly the lowest-effort Mother's Day 'gift' if you've totally forgotten and / or have no intention of buying a genuine card or seeing mom in person next weekend. (But seriously, you have a week and two days left to sort something, pull it together.)
Periscope videos can now be embedded with a tweet
One key thing was missing from Periscope's live video option: the ability to embed the video streams and archived footage in other places rather than sharing a link. Twitter's livestreaming option is doing something about that today as Periscope videos can now be posted in a tweet. This means that so long as you're willing to embed the tweet than contains the live video, you'll be able to post them wherever you like. The app also got a Highlights feature, but it's different from what Facebook's live videos offer.
YouTube will offer classic NFL games as part of a new deal
The National Football League and YouTube have expanded a deal that allows the site to play previews, highlights and recaps. In 2016, YouTube will not only carry more content and expand its search options, but also show entire classic games. "Three of the most memorable games for each of the 32 clubs in the NFL will be posted to the NFL's official channel on YouTube prior to the start of the 2016 season," according to the NFL's blog. In other words, the site will soon host dozens of vintage matches.
Sky will show Premier League highlights on-demand next season
It might have lost the Champions League and Europa League to BT, but Sky still dominates when it comes to the Premier League. Along with live coverage for 126 matches, the broadcaster has announced that it'll be offering "extended highlights" for every game on-demand starting next season. While Sky has offered these condensed replays before, they've been limited to its traditional TV channels. Now, starting with the 2016/17 season, football fans will be able to watch abridged matches whenever they like. Almost whenever they like, that is. Sky will release one full match -- with no edits whatsoever -- at 8pm each Saturday, followed by "extensive highlights" from the remaining fixtures at 10:30pm. Similarly, highlights from weekday fixtures will be available after 10pm.
NFL highlights return to your Twitter feed this season
If you enjoy seeing NFL highlights in your Twitter feed on Sundays (and Mondays, Thursdays and some Saturdays, too), you can rest easy as those clips are staying put. The 140-character social network signed a new two-year deal with the NFL that'll bring even more action from the gridiron as part of its focus on live-event coverage. Twitter was already working with the National Football League with deals in 2013 and 2014, but this will be the first multi-year agreement between the two. If you'll recall, the league also has deals in place with Facebook and YouTube for highlight clips, so there's more than one place to follow along. Twitter also rolled out curated timelines last season to provide a dedicated feed for the team(s) or game(s) that you're most interested in without the clutter of your main timeline. [Image credit: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images]
Sky app to offer Premier League highlights from 2016-17 season
Although Sky spent a record £4.2 billion for Premier League TV rights for three seasons from 2016, the company wasn't able to secure access to online and app highlights at the same time. For over half a decade, those rights have been owned by ESPN and News International (now News UK). However, that will all change from the 2016-17 season, when Sky finally gets its hands on near real-time video clips for all Premier League matches and adds to the 126 live games it already has plans to broadcast.
All the news you need to know from the final day of E3 2015
From Day Minus-1 to now, it's been one of the most exciting E3s in recent memory. No new consoles, but lots of actually exciting sequels, ideas, games and cos-players. As we rub lotion into our lanyard rashes, we present our picks from the last day of madness. We'll be delivering our final doses of gaming news today from LA, but we'll all be talking about what was announced this week for at least the next year. Check out everything that game from our LA stint right here. Thanks for following along -- now hit it!
