Tweet threads — also known as "tweetstorms" — will now be easier to create thanks to a new button the company is rolling out.
Background: Threads, which Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen helped popularize a few years ago (before he quit Twitter last year), have become the go-to format for expressing longer and more nuanced thoughts on the service. Even with the recent doubling of the character limit for tweets, users are still using threads to post longer messages, so it's no surprise it's been working on a way to make them easier to create.
Congress is under the gun to reauthorize a major surveillance law in a debate that has been overshadowed by other major policy fights, like net neutrality and the investigation into online Russian election meddling.
Why it matters: The law — known as Section 702 — expires at the end of the year. Intelligence agencies say it would be ultimately catastrophic if it isn't reauthorized. Privacy-minded lawmakers and advocates, however, say that if it is reauthorized without reforms it will perpetuate a sprawling surveillance system that ensnares Americans' information without a warrant.
Just days after TechCrunch first reported that Apple was close to acquiring music-identification app Shazam, the companies have confirmed the deal (a somewhat unusual move for Apple). No terms have been disclosed but it was reportedly for about $400 million, according to several outlets.
Why it matters: Shazam's technology is a natural fit to continue driving downloads to iTunes, subscriptions to Apple Music, and to help with music (and voice) recognition as part of Siri and Apple's upcoming HomePod home speaker.
Facebook’s former vice president for user growth Chamath Palihapitiya reportedly spoke out against the company he helped created, staying he feels "tremendous guilt" for the influence the social media giant now has before urging users to take a "hard break" from social media.
Why it matters: His comments came a month after Facebook's founding president Sean Parker echoed similar concerns at an Axios event about Facebook "exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology." These accounts come on the heels of mounting debate about the power and effects of the social media platform after it was revealed that it helped manipulate the 2016 presidential election with propaganda ads. These accounts could also gives more ammunition for other Facebook alumni to come forward with their perspectives while the social media giant works its issues out.
Amazon has quietly become the second-largest seller of apparel in the United States, investing heavily in its own private-label offerings, which customers have flocked to for their value. As designer Jackie Wilson tells Bloomberg:
They are not concerned at all about how many units they sell, and they’re not focused on margins. They’re concerned about customer satisfaction. They want five-star reviews.
Why it matters: Younger shoppers have become much less loyal to name brands, and retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Kohls have capitalized by recruting designers and Asian manufacturers to create their own lines of apparel. Amazon's clothes are so popular that 40% of all e-commerce clothing sales go through the platform.
