Articles about Messaging and Collaboration

If you're a Snapchat user, you'll know that it's possible to save someone's snaps forever by grabbing a screenshot of it. The problem is, this goes against the idea of Snapchat which is supposed to be about temporary, transient posts; that said, it's not against the rules.

One of the new features of iOS 11 is a screen recording tool that makes it possible to save a video of what's going on on-screen. This can be used to make a recording of snaps, and it seems that a warning notification is not always sent out to the other party.

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In the modern day and age, customers expect nothing less than a light speed response to their queries. How is that possible, you might ask? One word: chatbots.

In B2C services the workforce needed to handle communications is hard to manage. Sometimes you need less, sometimes you need more, and sometimes you just get swarmed. For a startup, an issue like this is hard to micromanage. On the other hand, the price for failing to do so can be heavy. Luckily, B2C online conversations are similar enough, meaning that developers can pre-program a response for any type of conversation within their scope. This is the baseline that opens up great opportunities for automation via chatbots.

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WhatsApp users have many requests for new features that would improve the way the app works for them. One that is most frequently requested is the ability to unsend messages that have been fired off in haste, or contain mistakes.

Users of the Facebook-owned messaging tool will be pleased to hear that the unsend option -- also known as Delete For Everyone -- is undergoing testing, and could be on the verge of rolling out to all.

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Not content with amassing over a billion users, WhatsApp is branching out into new territory, testing out a new free WhatsApp Business app. The app will be free for small to medium-sized companies, but larger enterprises will be charged.

The announcement comes just days after it emerged that WhatsApp was introducing verified accounts for some business users. The new app is part of WhatsApp's drive to monetize the platform, and it will provide a line of communication between businesses and customers.

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A Romanian worker's "right to a private life" was breached when his employer read private messages sent using his work Yahoo Messenger account. The European Court of Human Rights agreed with Bogdan Bărbulescu that previous court hearings had failed to address the issue correctly.

A majority of 11 out of 17 judges said that Bărbulescu's right to a private life was infringed upon when his employer read through chat logs containing both private and professional content.

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A new study by content management and collaboration specialist Egnyte has analyzed 25 Petabytes of customer data and four billion of the activities they performed.

This has been used to uncover unique insights about the way businesses are managing their data and how their employees are collaborating on it.

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The UK government has made no secret of its desire to exert greater control over the internet, and home secretary Amber Rudd has gone as far as suggesting that encryption should be weakened -- and backdoors should be included in software -- to make it easier to carry out surveillance on terrorists.

Lord Jonathan Evans, the former chief of MI5 in the UK, acknowledged that encryption had got in the way of monitoring communication between extremists, but said this should not be used as an excuse to weaken security.

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If you’re anything like us, you land after a long plane journey, slightly shattered and attempting to adjust to your new time zone then once you’ve finally left passport control and picked up your bags, you simply want to grab a taxi and get to your hotel as quickly as possible.

To achieve this, many of course choose to book an Uber. When the process works smoothly, everything is fine. But, sadly, Uber drivers aren’t always offered the same privileges as regular taxis, so you have to somehow navigate your way to a pickup location. To do this, a phone call from the driver is often required.

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All of the messaging services worth their salt feature a live video option, and Instagram is no different. But the company is keen to get more people using it and is worried that going live alone is too intimidating for some people.

To overcome this problem, Instagram is testing a new split-screen option that gives users the chance to go live with a friend. While this is billed as a way to make live video more accessible, there's far greater potential for this form of shared live video than Instagram is currently hinting at.

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As consumers become bombarded with more and more advertising both online and in the real world, the challenge of directly appealing to customers is a challenge facing businesses both large and small.

Combining the intelligence of machine learning and AI systems with the personal touch of technology platforms such as instant messaging apps or mobile devices, chatbots could soon be the best way for businesses to directly reach out to their individual customers.

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Chatbots on Facebook's Messenger have helped companies increase their sales more than expected, meaning the technology could soon become widespread.

The news was announced during Facebook's F8 keynote, with its VP of messaging products David Marcus discussing a number of big-name brands such as Sephora, SnapTravel and Tommy Hilfiger.

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WhatsApp is slowly but surely strengthening its position in the messaging space, now boasting one billion daily users. It joins a very select club that includes parent company Facebook.

WhatsApp has also seen a significant increase in the number of monthly users. It has 1.3 billion monthly users, 300 million more than early last year when it broke the one billion monthly users mark.

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While certain corners of the software arena have been, well, cornered by a single big name, there are others in which there is choice aplenty. Case in point -- messaging tools.

The number of messaging tools vying for attention is nothing short of bewildering, with everyone from Apple and Microsoft to Google and Facebook offering ways to communicate with other users of the same platforms. Choice may be a good thing -- up to a point -- but now it seems that Amazon has been feeling left out, and may be working on a messaging app of its own, called Anytime, further adding to the plethora of options.

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WhatsApp is now rolling out a new update for its messaging app that finally gives users the ability to send any type of file that they want. This feature was first seen in the beta channel last month.

That means that, among other types of files, users can now share items with extensions like APK (Android apps), DOC (Word files), XLS (Excel files), and so on. It is not the only change in the latest version of WhatsApp though.

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Following a more limited testing phase in Thailand and Australia, Facebook is rolling out ads globally in Facebook Messenger. The beta program is being extended meaning that Facebook is now able to target Messenger's 1.2 billion monthly users.

When users click or tap an ad in Messenger, they will either be transported to the advertiser's website, or taken to a chat with the company in question. Facebook's latest ad drive is the company's attempt to squeeze money from its Messenger platform.

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