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Twitter adds ads to Moments
Well that didn't take long. Twitter announced Friday that it will begin monetizing its new Moments feature, which launched at the start of the month. The company will begin leasing a single Moments channel for 24 hours to advertisers who will be free to curate and post both tweets and video content.
Twitter's curated Moments slows down the newsfeed for new users
Twitter moves at the speed of human consciousness. With our attention span more and more resembling that of a gnat, that's pretty quick. That's partially the reason that the social network is finding it difficult for new users grasp. Breaking news on the service has a life cycle of about an hour or two before the collective moves on to another topic. Meanwhile Facebook will keep a topic in a person's newsfeed for days with its algorithm. While Twitter's not going to start controlling your feed (at least not yet) what it has done is add Moments, a new feature that makes keeping up with the trending topics and news items easier.
Facebook's Moments app now automatically creates movies from your photos
Facebook's relatively new Moments app started life as a way to privately share photos with friends -- it groups pictures you've taken into, well, moments and then suggests you share them with your Facebook friends who are in the pictures. Today, Facebook is releasing the app's first major update, and the headlining new feature is that the app can now auto-generate video collages based on your groups of photos. By default, any moment with six or more photos will automatically have a short video generated from the pictures; you can customize it by changing the soundtrack (there are 11 different music options), adding or removing photos and tagging your friends.
Share event photos with friends via another new Facebook app
Facebook's Creative Labs has produced yet another app that feels like it should be a feature within the main Facebook app rather than another icon taking up space on your smartphone. The new Moments app creates shared photo albums from a group of people at an event. Photos are curated using location information and facial recognition, individuals can share and see photos from friends that were at the same place at the same time. So instead of everyone taking a photo of a sunset, one person can take it and share it with the group via the standalone app. The technology used in the app is based on the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) team's work. While the pitch is to share photos privately, shared photos can be uploaded to Instagram and downloaded to a user's camera roll. So they're private until a friend decides to put that weird face you made on their Instagram feed. Moments is available today for iOS and Android in the United States and will be rolling out to other regions over time.
Facebook's rumored 'Moments' app will help you share privately
Facebook's megaphone-like approach to sharing makes it less than ideal for more private missives. Sharing private images or jokes with select people is something of a test of nerves. One slip of a drop-down menu, and your intimate photo could go global, rather than just to your "mates" privacy group. But, Facebook wants you to share in anyway, and to anyone you like with confidence it seems. According to TechCrunch, the social network's working on a "Moments" mobile app to help. Once again, Facebook would be taking a single-focused idea out of the main mobile app into a standalone one if sources are correct. The Moments app will reportedly use a visual, tile-based interface for you select the group or sub groups of people you wish to share your -- we assume -- moment with. If this sounds a lot like Google+'s "circles" mechanism, that's because it does. There's no word when Moments could find its way onto phones, so for now, you'll just have to run the gauntlet with current tools to avoid having your mom comment on bachelor(ette?) party photos.
Tinder takes a hint from Snapchat with self-destructing photo feature Moments
Tinder figured out a way to make casual, location-based hookups a little less creepy. But apparently connecting you with someone 30 feet away who just happens to like the cut of your jib isn't enough. Now the service is getting in to the so-called "ephemeral photo" game. Moments is a new feature being added to the matchmaking app for posting self-destructing photos. But this isn't exactly a Snapchat killer. The idea is less about sharing photos of your private parts and more about letting your matches get to know you a bit better. When you view your matches you'll see a new button allowing you to share a photo, then people either swipe left or right for "like" or "nope," just like they do with a person's profile photo. Plus, rather than a matter of seconds, images survive in Moments for a full 24 hours. (Oh, and you're sending them to all your matches... not just the ones that happen to enjoy the fine art of sexting.)
The Daily Grind: Have a favorite roleplaying moment?
Recently on the Grind, we asked about your favorite in-game moments. Some of you gave us some really awesome moments, others laughed it off, and others gave us... well... moments. Yes... we'll just refer to them as moments... Anyway, bad eye-gouging memories aside and on to the topic at hand, today we have another question along those lines for all of you roleplayers out there: What's your favorite roleplaying moment? Many RPers seem to have that one story-arc or character, or great scene that sticks in their minds. It's a story that comes out when you ask what's your favorite moment in a game. Today, we want to hear more of those moments, but specifically of the RP variety. Toss them out into the comment box below, as we can't wait to read them!
First Look: Moments
Have you wanted to remember an event, or just remember a small bit of information for later? On the Mac there's a cool application called Stickies, but there really wasn't a great application for doing this same thing on the iPhone ... until now. [Where's the love for Evernote and the built-in Notes app, Cory? :-) -Ed.]Enter Moments [iTunes link]. This small application is your one stop for remembering small pieces of information or events.Even though this application has a simple agenda and interface, it is executed beautifully. Moments has an interface composed of three gorgeous themes: corkboard, steel, and a fabric print. Sticky notes are aligned in a grid of 2 x 3 across the screen. You can reorder your stickies, and when you run out of room a new screen will be created that is similar to the layout of the iPhone home screen. When you create a new sticky, you are able to create just a note, or a "moment." A moment has a date associated with it, and can be something in the past or future. A note just has a larger text area that will let you add more information. Overall, this application is really nice for remembering things, and looks just as good as built-in iPhone apps. However, there are three things that I would like to see: (1) User selected sticky note colors, (2) A place to add more details about a specific note or email the note, and (3) More themes to choose from. This application is really great the way it is, and is well worth $.99 US in the App Store. You can check Moments out on the App Store, or check out our gallery of pictures.%Gallery-51763%
Great guild traditions and where they come from
Neth wants to know your guild's traditions over on the forums. We've talked about funny guild moments and traditions before as well, too, but there seems to be a never-ending supply of them. There are as many different memories out there as there are guilds, and each one is a little different: even all of the guilds I've joined up with for any significant amount of time (there have probably been four, I think, in my WoW career? It's not that I'm a guild jumper, just that I've switched servers and factions a few times for various reasons) has had their own moods and well-known members and busy times and special things they do while raiding or leveling together.While it would be great if Neth was asking this to get some input on guild housing or the upcoming guild battlegrounds features, she's probably just asking to hear it -- it's definitely fun to look inside the other groups in the game and see what they do the same and different. For all of the drama that tends to attract our attention, the truth is that Blizzard's ad hoc ingame guild system has created some pretty strong ties between us. I like reading through that thread and seeing just what people have come up with just as much as Neth probably does.
