Facebook plans to change its name as part of company rebrand – report
Facebook plans to make a dramatic break with its past by rebranding the company next week, according to a report.
Facebook’s founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is preparing to talk about the name change at a company event next week, but it could be unveiled sooner, reported the Verge, a US tech news website.
Under the plans, Facebook would change the name of its holding company but not that of its eponymous social media platform, known internally as the “big blue app”. As well as its founding site, the company also owns Instagram, WhatsApp and the virtual reality brand Oculus.
The Verge reported that the new name for the holding company could be linked to Horizon, a word used in at least two virtual reality products that the company is developing. Zuckerberg launched his company as TheFacebook 17 years ago.
Source: Facebook plans to change its name as part of company rebrand – report
PayPal Offers $45 Billion For Social Photo Sharing Network Pinterest
PayPal Holdings Inc. is looking to acquire social media company Pinterest Inc. for $45 billion, according to reports from both Reuters and Bloomberg (each of whom cites anonymous people familiar with the matter).
The pandemic and resultant acceleration of ecommerce adoption have left PayPal in a position to finance the deal “mostly with stock,” their sources say.
PayPal stock is up 36% in the last 12 months, giving the O.G. fintech brand a market cap of almost $320 billion.
Pinterest has grown its audience to over 400 million monthly active users.
That audience could prove incredibly lucrative for PayPal, given that Pinterest’s userbase is more than 60% female and consists of 45% of people in the U.S. with an annual household income over $100,000.
Rumors Coincide With Launch Of More Shoppable Idea Pins & Creator Rewards
News of the potential acquisition broke just as Pinterest announced the launch of:
- A redesigned home feed with Browse and Watch tabs.
- Takes, a new engagement tool available on iOS and Android for Pinners and creators worldwide.
- Creator Rewards, Pinterest’s first in-product monetization program for creators.
- Augmented reality integration for Idea Pins, via AR Try on.
- Creator Originals, a new content series of 100 episodes featuring 10 different Pinners.
- Amazon Associates Program product tagging for U.S. Pinners, who are now able to add affiliate links from Amazon and earn commission on qualifying purchases.
Pinterest Adds Visual Search to Video Content
Pinterest’s new features start rolling out on iOS, Android, web, and desktop today.
Even in a record-breaking year for M&As, this is certainly one to watch.
Source: PayPal Offers $45 Billion For Social Photo Sharing Network Pinterest
Gutenberg Contributors Propose Renaming Reusable Blocks
WordPress’ Reusable blocks may soon be getting re-named, as the feature’s distinct capabilities are less recognizable from its name following the introduction of patterns.
When the Gutenberg project first took off, nobody had any idea how important patterns would become in the page building experience, or that they would be getting their own directory on WordPress.org. During a demo at WordCamp Europe 2021, Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura commented on how transformative patterns have been for making page design approachable for users.
“Perhaps it was a smaller part of the roadmap initially but it’s becoming a centerpiece – especially because it allows…world class designers to provide a starting point for users and users get to learn design as they are interacting with themes,” Ventura said.
A year later, patterns have made their way to the forefront of theme design and development with an excitement that rivals the introduction of widgets in WordPress’ earlier days. WordPress 5.9 will feature pattern insertion directly from the Pattern Directory so users will be able to change their patterns as often as they like, without having to switch themes. Coming in Gutenberg 11.8, the pattern inserter will highlight featured patterns from the directory in the initial view, instead of displaying the first alphabetical category. Contributors are also considering a path for allowing themes to surface specific patterns from the directory instead of bundling them.
Source: Gutenberg Contributors Propose Renaming Reusable Blocks
Instagram Collabs: Team Up & Boost Engagement
Instagram is introducing a way for users to publish content together as a “collab.”
Engagement signals earned from the collab are shared between each user.
A Facebook representative confirms the ability to co-author content on Instagram is being tested for feed posts and Reels.
Collabs offer an easy way for users to get in front of new audiences while strengthening their relationships with other creators.
One use case that immediately comes to mind is influencer marketing.
If you’re a brand launching a product you collaborated on with a popular influencer, you can co-author an announcement post and share all the engagement signals generated by their larger audience.
How to Use Instagram Collabs
You can check if your account has access to Collabs in the account tagging screen.
Create a post and select the option to tag people.
If you have Collabs you’ll see a new button on the tagging screen that says: “Invite Collaborator.”
After selecting that option you can invite another Instagram account to be an official collaborator on the post.
Co-Author, Not Co-Create
Instagram makes it clear Collabs is designed for co-authoring content— not co-creating it.
The content has to already be created. Then Collabs can be utilized to give both parties credit for the work.
To illustrate the difference, a good example of a feature designed for co-creating content is TikTok’s Duets.
Will Collabs Help Instagram Be More Like TikTok?
That’s a pain point for Mosseri, who wants Instagram to be as good as TikTok at spotlighting new creators.
“Instagram is much better at helping creators that have already made a name for themselves do more online. TikTok is better at identifying new and young talent and helping them break out in the first place.
And we want to be really good at that. We have historically focused on that less, but I’m pushing my teams hard at getting better at doing well by the little guy.”
Source: Instagram Collabs: Team Up & Boost Engagement
WordPress Cache Plugin Exploit Affects +1 Million Websites
WP Fastest Cache Plugin Vulnerabilities Description
WP Fastest Cache is a WordPress plugin used by over a million WordPress websites. The plugin creates a static HTML version of the website.
There are multiple vulnerabilities that were discovered:
- Authenticated SQL Injection
- Stored XSS via Cross-Site Request Forgery
Authenticated SQL Injection
The Authenticated SQL Injection allows a logged-in users to access administrator level information through the database.
A SQL Injection vulnerability is an attack that’s directed at the database, which is where the website elements, including passwords, are stored.
A successful SQL Injection attack could lead to a full website takeover.
Stored XSS via Cross-Site Request Forgery
XSS (Cross-site Scripting) vulnerabilities is a somewhat common vulnerability that results from a flaw in how inputs to the website are validated. Anywhere a user can input something to a website, like a contact form, can be vulnerable to an XSS attack if the input isn’t sanitized.
Jetpack Security Research Warning
The security researchers at Jetpack recommend that all users of WP Fastest Cache WordPress plugin updated their plugin right away.
The Jetpack security researchers posted:
“We recommend that you check which version of the WP Fastest Cache plugin your site is using, and if it is less than 0.9.5, update it as soon as possible!”
Source: WordPress Cache Plugin Exploit Affects +1 Million Websites
More News:
Podcast knowledge panels go live in Google Search
Microsoft will shutter LinkedIn in China by the end of the year
Google is Developing ‘Big Moments’ Feature For Breaking News
