Techmeme
November 19, 2013, 11:50 PM

Top News

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:
The Great Snapchat Mirage  —  We don't know a single useful number about the hottest company in tech .  Why Snapchat may be much smaller than it sounds.  —  Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images  —  Every few months, since late 2012, Snapchat has released a new number to the public.
TechCrunch:
Reverse Engineering Snapchat's Size Is Impossible...But Here Goes  —  Acquirers and investors fear (missing out on) what they don't understand.  That's one reason Snapchat might not be revealing its user count.  But everyone wants to know.  The problem is that ephemeral messaging isn't like posting to Facebook or texting.
Tweets: @mattzeitlin and @jwherrman
Lance Whitney / CNET:
Snapchat says it's delivering over 400M snaps daily while Facebook sees 350M photo uploads daily  —  Snapchat surpasses Facebook in photo uploads  —  Snapchat users are snapping past their Facebook counterparts when it comes to uploading photos.  —  A Snapchat represenative told CNET …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Brian X. Chen / NYT Bits:
Carriers Reject a ‘Kill Switch’ for Preventing Cellphone Theft  —  Lawmakers in San Francisco and New York are pushing cellphone makers to adopt a so-called kill switch that would allow users to deactivate their phone remotely, discouraging criminals from stealing phones.  But the cellphone carriers are not on board.
Kaylene Hong / The Next Web:
Twitter backtracks and removes option to let users receive direct messages from any follower  —  Last month, Twitter quietly rolled out a new feature to give users the choice to receive private messages from any of their followers, but that option has now been removed.
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
Sony's PlayStation 4 Costs $381 to Build — Only $18 Under Retail Price — In Teardown  —  When PlayStation 3 was first released by electronics giant Sony in 2006, it was sold at a loss with the hope of making money back on individual games.  —  That's pretty close to what Sony is doing again with the PS4 …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Xbox One SmartGlass lets you snap apps from your phone or tablet  —  Microsoft has started rolling out an Xbox One version of its SmartGlass app for Windows Phone.  While many of the features, including remote control and SmartGlass companions, are the same as the separate and existing SmartGlass …
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Peter Delevett / Mercury News:
Changes afoot at DFJ: Tim Draper won't be partner in next fund but denies he's leaving  —  Venture firm DFJ denies report that co-founders Tim Draper and John Fisher are on the way out  —  Venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson is denying a report by Fortune Magazine that co-founders Tim Draper …
More: Fortune, Digits and AllThingsD
Tweets: @timdraper and @megan
Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:
Google releases ‘sneak peek’ of Glass app development kit  —  Back at SXSW, Google announced the Glass Mirror API — the first step in allowing developers to build apps, or “Glassware” for its wearable computing device.  Now, developers will have a whole new set of tools at their disposal: the long-awaited Glass Development Kit (GDK).
Cyrus Farivar / Ars Technica:
Wikipedia wants PR firm to stop paid editing services, hints at lawsuit  —  For months, Wikipedia has been battling a company called “Wiki-PR,” which purportedly sells paid editing services on the well-known online encyclopedia.  In October 2013, Wikipedia announced it blocked or banned hundreds of editor accounts in response.
Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:
Twitter for Android and iOS get search filters, toggle between top and all tweets, trends and events timeline  —  Twitter today updated its apps for Android and iOS with a slew of new features, focusing in particular on search and discovery.  You can download the new version now directly from Google Play and Apple's App Store.
Edward Wyatt / New York Times:
F.C.C. Chairman Calls for Transforming the Technology Used by Phone Systems  —  WASHINGTON — Americans could soon be one step closer to getting that videophone they were promised in the 1960s.  —  The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday that the agency would begin …
More: FCC.gov, Gigaom and TheHill
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Quora Will Push Its Most Link-Baity Content to BuzzFeed (Though It Would Never Call It That)  —  On Quora, answers to the question “What are the most surreal places one can ever visit?” are a fantastical mix of caves and mountains and formations and reefs.  The page has more than half a million views.

Sponsor Posts

Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
All new Zoho Workerly 2024  —  Staffing businesses around the world face a unique set of challenges when it comes to managing their temporary workforce.  With a constantly shifting job market and changing staffing needs …
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
The Kevin Rose Show:
Henry Shukman, Lessons from an Authentic Zen Master
Gain unconventional wisdom and insights through conversations with top expert in AI, investing, wellness, technology, and culture.
Techmeme Ride Home:
Thu. 03/28 - Claude 3 Opus Surpasses GPT-4 For The First Time
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or RSS.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 11:50 PM ET, November 19, 2013.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Russ Frushtick / Polygon:
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Earlier Picks

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge: