All posts tagged: users

Lapse, a photo app that forced users to invite friends, is running out of steam

Published by skeptic

Lapse, a photo-sharing app that growth hacked its way to the top of the App Store earlier this year, is starting to lose steam. The app, which had forced users to invite their friends in order to get in — a technique now being used by new social app ID by Amo, saw early success with this method of “going viral.” This September, the app jumped from No. 118 Overall to reach No. 1 on the U.S. App Store. However, growth hacks alone cannot sustain an app, a new report shows. Throughout this month and the last, Lapse’s downloads have started to drop and have now fallen as far as 70% down from their October peak. The data, which comes from app intelligence firm Appfigures, indicates that growth hacking your way to the top of the App Store isn’t a formula for ongoing success unless your product is capable of retaining its new users over the long term. Image Credits: Lapse downloads via Appfigures Originally launched in 2021, co-founders (and brothers) Dan and Ben Silvertown …

Evernote pushes users to upgrade with test of a free plan limited to only 50 notes

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After making steep cuts to personnel earlier this year, Evernote’s Milan-based owner Bending Spoons is now experimenting with a new plan that would push more users to upgrade to paid versions of its service. The company confirmed to TechCrunch it’s been running a small test that placed limits on the number of notes free users could create, but said the new plan is not yet finalized. TechCrunch was alerted to the test by an Evernote user who logged in to a pop-up message that informed them that unless they upgraded to a paid plan, they would now be limited to only 1 notebook and 50 notes. That change would dramatically limit the service for longtime Evernote users who have accumulated hundreds or thousands of notes over the years. Image Credits: Evernote Despite seeing the messaging in the app itself, the Evernote website’s pricing plans page didn’t indicate there was any such limit on free plans — which made the pricing bump seem like a hidden fee change that Evernote didn’t want to publicize. Instead, its …

North Korea-backed hackers target CyberLink users in supply-chain attack

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North Korean state-backed hackers are distributing a malicious version of a legitimate application developed by CyberLink, a Taiwanese software maker, to target downstream customers. Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence team said on Wednesday North Korean hackers had compromised CyberLink to distribute a modified installer file from the company as part of a wide-reaching supply-chain attack.  CyberLink is a software company headquartered in Taiwan that develops multimedia software, such as PowerDVD,  and AI facial recognition technology. According to the company’s website, CyberLink owns over 200 patented technologies and has shipped more than 400 million apps worldwide.   Microsoft said it observed suspicious activity associated with the modified CyberLink installer, tracked by the company as “LambLoad,” as early as October 20, 2023. It has so far detected the trojanized installer on more than 100 devices in multiple countries, including Japan, Taiwan, Canada, and the United States. The file is hosted on legitimate update infrastructure owned by CyberLink, according to Microsoft, and the attackers used a legitimate code signing certificate issued to CyberLink to sign the malicious executable, according to Microsoft. “This …

IRL founders allege investors sabotaged company with fake users claims

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The founders of IRL, Abraham Shafi and Genrikh Khachatryan, are suing their investors, claiming that they intentionally sabotaged the company. At its peak, IRL was poised to become an event organizing alternative for Gen Z, who are using Facebook less and less. Shafi, the CEO, was suspended from IRL in April to investigate claims of misconduct. In June, IRL’s board discovered in their investigation that 95% of the company’s 20 million users were fake. Now, the founders are alleging that that their investors made up the 95% figure “as an excuse to shut down the company and return capital to shareholders.” The lawsuit specifically names Chi-Hua Chien of Goodwater Capital, Serena Dayal of SoftBank and Mike Maples of Floodgate. From these investors, the social calendar app raised over $200 million, reaching a valuation of $1.17 billion; SoftBank in particular led IRL’s $170 million Series C round in 2021. Shafi and Khachatryan accused the investors of wanting to shut down the company because they “stood to cover the lion’s share of the company’s $40 million cash …

Twitch launches Privacy Center to educate users about their personal data

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In the name of transparency and accessibility, Twitch launched its new Privacy Center to educate users, after conducting “extensive research” and finding that many of its users had no idea how their personal data is collected and used. The Privacy Center, which launched on Thursday, breaks down how personal data is collected on Twitch and across the internet, and explains what users’ privacy choices actually mean. Seeking to go “beyond surface level transparency,” the company said in a press release, the Privacy Center is designed to provide “actionable information” about Twitch’s data use — without the “legalese and corporate speak.” “We think that privacy information has it be understandable, otherwise it isn’t really useful. Regardless of intention, if the info isn’t shared in a clear and accessible way, it’s a lot less valuable to the end user, and even less actionable,” Twitch continued. “We weren’t looking to create more work for our community, or provide a complex web to sift through under the guise of ‘transparency.’” Twitch’s user base skews younger; the company reports that …

X rival Bluesky hits 2M users, says federation coming ‘early next year’

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Bluesky, the company building a decentralized alternative to Twitter/X, announced today it has hit 2 million users — up by another million since September, despite remaining an invite-only app. It also revealed its timeframe regarding other key goals, indicating that it planned to have a public web interface go live by the end of the month and would launch federation by early next year. The latter is one of the most important differentiating factors between Bluesky and X, as it would allow Bluesky to function as a more open social network. This means it will work more like Mastodon where users can pick and choose which servers to join and move their accounts around at will. This is what Bluesky today says makes it “billionaire-proof” —  a swipe at Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter, now called X. “You’ll always have the freedom to choose (and to exit) instead of being held to the whims of private companies or black box algorithms,” a company blog post explained. “And wherever you go, your friends and relationships will be …

iPhone 14 users get an additional free year of Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite feature

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Apple today announced it’s giving iPhone 14 users one more free year of its satellite-based Emergency SOS features. When the company initially announced the safety service, iPhone 14 customers recieved two free years. Apple didn’t extend the free period for iPhone 15 users, who have until September 2024 when their two years are up. Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite lets compatible iPhone users communicate with nearby emergency services when they’re off the grid. Users must point their phone at the satellite and choose from preset messages: what is the emergency, do people require medical help and so on. Apple also shows an orientation app that helps you pinpoint the location of the satellite in case it’s too far away to see. Apple has yet to reveal how much the feature will cost when the free period ends. However, this extension gives the company more time to decide on pricing. Last year, the feature became available on all iPhone 14 models in the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Ireland and the U.K. It recently rolled out to …

Amazon strikes deal with Snap to let users buy its products from ads on Snapchat

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Amazon has entered into a partnership with Snap to allow users to buy its products directly from ads on the social app, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. The news was first reported by The Information. The Amazon ads on Snapchat will display real-time pricing, delivery estimates, product details and Prime eligibility, the e-commerce giant told TechCrunch. Customers can choose to link their Snapchat account to their Amazon account through a one-time set-up. Once the accounts are linked, user can complete a checkout with Amazon in the product ad using their default Amazon shipping address and payment method, without leaving the social app. The company says in-app shopping with Amazon is available for select products advertised on Snapchat and sold by Amazon or by independent sellers in Amazon’s store. Amazon’s partnership with Snap will allow the e-commerce giant to better compete with TikTok, which recently launched TikTok Shop in the United States, allowing brands and creators to sell product directly on the social app. Although Amazon is massive and has a lot of clout, TikTok still …

Andreessen Horowitz backs Civitai, a generative AI content marketplace with millions of users

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AI image generator Stable Diffusion already has a lot of fans, and now those experimenting with the new AI technology to develop their own models have a place to share their work with other enthusiasts. A startup called Civitai — a play on the word Civitas, meaning community — has created a platform where members can post their own Stable Diffusion-based AI image models for others to discover, as well as the output of their work — AI photos — for consumers to browse and enjoy. Explain Civitai CEO Justin Maier, the idea for the startup came about because he identified there was a need for a place where people could share their models and others could find them. People, he said, would post images they had made but others didn’t know how to duplicate their work to make their own images. After wrapping up a project at Microsoft, where he had worked as a contractor on web development projects, Maier found himself intrigued by Midjourney. “It scratched that same itch that web development had …

Threads now lets users opt out of having their posts appear on Facebook and Instagram

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In response to user feedback, Instagram’s Threads will now let users turn off automatic sharing of their Threads posts to other apps, including Instagram and Facebook — a move that had not gone down well with Threads users. Hoping to gain more traction and interest in its Twitter/X rival, Meta in late August began displaying a carousel of suggested Threads on other Meta-owned apps. But many Threads users were angry that they had been opted in by default to have their Threads posts shared externally, particularly because their audience on Threads was quite different from the real-life friends and family they connected with on Facebook and Instagram. Some even threatened to leave Threads if their posts reached their family on Facebook — an audience they demanded to keep separate. Others complained about the qualify of the suggested Threads, which often seemed to be those “designed to get comments,” or odd clickbait lacking context, as some put it. By leveraging its billions of users across Instagram and Facebook, Threads could potentially grow its user base further, …