The numbers of Facebook video viewership is increasing substantially by the day. This figure currently stands at 500 million viewers watching 8 billion average daily views by the day.

This is a clear jump from 4 billion view per day – a figure that was collected in April.

This announcement was made by Mark Zuckerberg when speaking with investors who were following the Facebook’s Q3 2015 earnings report.

Of course, some people might say that these stats are accurate as Facebook considers 3 seconds of watching as a view. Still, with 100% growth in just seven months, it is clear that users continue to increase their consumption of video content.

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For that matter, even at 3 seconds per view, Facebook is generating 760 years of watch time every other day. This means that there’s massive amounts of space for Facebook to attract TV commercial dollars. Another experiment to increase viewership has been undertaken where it pays revenue to top video creators too.

Also, it is running a Suggested Video interface on both mobile and web which recommends certain videos considering all the information it has on people and their interests. It’s obvious that this discovery will give Facebook an edge over YouTube.

There’s another video feed in the works which people can use to browse different channels of videos that are shared by friends whether trending on Facebook or based on themes.

Other tests involve picture-in-picture viewing which allows people to also check what’s happening in the News Feed. Another option that is being offered is to Save a Video for later.

So, it should be obvious that with all this attention to videos, this type of media is critical to both Facebook’s mission and business.


There are a host of companies that are in the document collaboration market – Microsoft, Google, Box, Quip, Evernote among others.

Only now, Dropbox has joined the fray with its public beta release of Paper. Both Engadget and Wired have reviewed this simple but effective cloud-base editor.

Of course, that’s not to say that Paper is simple: when you open a new file, what you will see both a title and body field. Yet it can also preview files that are stored in both Dropbox and Google Drive.

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Apart from this, Paper can also be used to create to-do lists while assigning these tasks using the ‘@’ symbol. In fact, coders can also get more out of it given that Paper will format code that is typed into one of these documents too. Obviously, a number collaborators can work on a document simultaneously where live contributions are marked by a color-coded cursor too.

According to experts, this looks very similar to Google Wave. Yet this product failed since Google was unable to explain what the collaboration tool was all about. Of course, Dropbox might be doing things differently with it.

And how this is being done is by placing users on a waiting list where user feedback will be instrumental in making changes to the product they are offering.

Yet it must be pointed out that the features that Dropbox offers doesn’t make it stand out from the competition which unfortunately it needs, in order to get a big win that it desperately needs.

Of course, experts believe that Paper could be that product that Dropbox offers – but it has to offer up something extra.


Given how Facebook has been fond of the 24-hours news cycle, it’s also clear through Facebook Stories as to how they’d like to be seen as a primary but dynamic source.

It’s also also obvious that through Instant Articles and Trending section that they are serious about presenting the latest news to users without them having to leave the site.

And now, Facebook has introduced a new platform called Signal that will help journalists to not only discover but embed their content.

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A company blog post by Andy Mitchell, introduces the tool, in saying, “Today we’re excited to introduce Signal, for Facebook and Instagram, a free discovery and curation tool for journalists who want to source, gather, and embed newsworthy content from Facebook and Instagram, across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and more—all in one place.”

This is clearly also the latest move to target professional content creators. It was only last week that Facebook introduced its new Mentions app to all of its verified profiles. This app allows both journalists and celebrities to not only broadcast live video streams but also prepare posts that only their followers can see.

One reason why Signal is so useful is because it offers journalists a highly sorted list of newsfeeds of public content.

At this point, Trending topics are based on users personal interests and what they like but with Signal, journalists will get a broader spread of what is trending. Journalists will also know which topics are going viral through a new feature called Emerging Trends.

Even if it looks like Tweetdeck, this tool marks a major move towards Facebook becoming a major hub for news discovery. This tool can only help journalists publish their articles using Facebook as a result – a symbiotic relationship of sorts.


Twitter is releasing a number of new features for advertisers who are interested in their campaign going beyond Twitter itself. The new name of the program is called the Twitter Audience Platform.

It was only last year when the company launched the Twitter Publisher Network which offered an interface to publishers to buy campaigns that were running on Twitter apps and websites but also with publishers acquired by MoPub – a company that Twitter acquired.

gigatech2Ameet Ranadive, senior director of revenue products, recently stated that the network had reached 700 million people. Also, this new name is a result of what publishers like about it.

As he puts it so succinctly, “It’s really around audience — their goal is to reach a particular audience and leverage the unique data and signals that Twitter has.”

This approach is no different with Facebook since it has also revamped its advertising beyond the social network itself through the Atlas platform. Of course, providing publishers with a broader reach is important but challenging for Twitter since it has issues with user growth itself.

As for the new Twitter features, publishers don’t have to worry about drive mobile app installs or re-engagements either. Best part: they can also set objectives to to drive video views or tweet engagements. Apart from this, Twitter are introducing new ad formats too.

What this change means for Twitter is that the social network has become appealing to a wider group of advertisers. A couple of brands have tried out the new formats with positive results such as JBL, Macy’s and Samsung Mobile in the United Kingdom.

Finally, a study by MediaScience showed that users spent more time with Twitter Audience Platform ads compared to normal mobile interstitials.


As a part of the Office 2013 update, Microsoft’s Skype for Business, which was released recently, will replace Lync – the older enterprise communication tool currently offered to its Office 365 customers.

It was only a few weeks ago that Microsoft had released a version for technical preview and for that reason also acknowledges that the software might need additional testing. So, customers (and admins in particular) can switch between the older Lync user interface and the new Skype for Business that was just rolled out in the meanwhile.

That said, Microsoft states that this transition to Skype for Business will happen until the end of May.

Now with this software rolled out, customers will have access to Skype which resembles the popular consumer application in look and feel but has added benefits such as compliance features and enterprise-grade security.

All Skype for Business accounts are authenticated through Active Directory and encrypted as well with the IT department being able to both deploy and manage the organization’s respective user accounts. This system can also work with companies and their legacy video teleconferencing systems as well as PBX systems.

Also, Skype for Business customers will now be able to communicate via video, audio and chat within their own company as well as the 300 million customers who have a Skype ID and that use apps in Mac, iOS, Windows, Android and the web.

Finally, Skype for Business has also been built into Office which will make features such as IM, voice, presence and video calls along with online calls a part of Microsoft Office.