Grindr revenue triples as CEO bets on 'everything app'
Grindr's revenue is on pace to roughly triple to a guided $540 million-plus this year as CEO George Arison rolls out a pricier "EDGE" subscription tier.
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Apps & Consumer
1167 storiesHollywood stars are betting on microdrama apps
U.S. revenue from microdramas — short, scripted series built for phones — is expected to reach $1.5 billion this year, and Hollywood actors and investors are increasingly getting involved.
Brave adds email aliases, one-upping Chrome on privacy
Brave has added an email alias feature that lets users sign up for websites without sharing their real email address, forwarding messages to their primary inbox instead.
Friend-focused photo app Retro raises more than $21M Series A
Retro, a friend-focused photo-sharing app founded by former Instagram engineers, raised more than $21 million in a Series A round led by Field Ventures and Thrive Capital.
Bluesky lets users opt their posts out of its Discover feed
Bluesky introduced a new setting that lets users keep their public posts out of the app's algorithmic Discover feed, which can otherwise surface any post on the network.
YouTube lets U.S. creators tag Amazon products for commissions
YouTube announced that eligible U.S. creators can now tag Amazon products directly in their videos and earn a commission on resulting sales.
Google's AI Mode adds flight-price tracking and hotel booking
Google added new travel features to AI Mode, letting users track flight prices, book hotels, and see flight and hotel costs in points or miles.
A new social network called 'Twitter.now' is testing early access at $20
A startup called Operation Bluebird, founded in part by former Twitter trademark counsel Stephen Coates, has launched a social network called Twitter.now that is currently in testing with $20 early access.
Google tightens Android app memory rules as chip shortage bites
Google is adding new Android app quality requirements, including stricter memory-usage thresholds, as an industrywide memory chip shortage tied to the AI data center boom squeezes device supply.
OpenAI to bring ChatGPT ads to India's free and Go tiers
OpenAI will start showing ads on ChatGPT's Free and Go tiers in India, targeting more than 100 million weekly active users there, the company said Thursday.
Gemini's branding clutter shows an industry-wide UX problem
Google's Wednesday Gemini Live announcement promises users won't have to guess which feature handles a task, but Gemini's own branded sub-features — chat, Spark, Daily Brief — undercut that promise.
Flipboard acquires feed-building startup Graze to grow the open social web
Flipboard has acquired Graze, a Portland-based startup that lets creators build and monetize custom Bluesky feeds, in an undisclosed deal.
Particle pivots to Radar, a podcast search engine built for AI agents
Particle, the AI newsreader startup founded by former Twitter engineers, launched Radar on Wednesday, a podcast search engine that transcribes and semantically indexes more than 130,000 shows for both human and AI-agent users.
Bluesky raises video length limit to 10 minutes
Bluesky increased its video upload limit from three minutes to 10 minutes, matching TikTok's default limit, and also raised the maximum file size and upload speed.
Instagram's 'First Draft' auto-edits Reels clips into a rough cut
Instagram is rolling out "First Draft," a feature that automatically trims clips and removes pauses to assemble a rough Reels cut in under 10 seconds, starting on iPhone.
Life360 launches $7.99 scannable pet tags with family alerts
Life360 is expanding its pet-tracking lineup with $7.99 scannable tags that notify a family's app when someone scans a lost pet's QR code, plus care-log and "Zoomies Alerts" features.
Apple reverses plan to change Hide My Email domain, keeping it on iCloud.com
Apple abandoned a planned change that would have moved Hide My Email addresses to a new domain, after users said it would make masked emails easier to detect.
Pie adds 'Community Homes' as it pivots from events app to social network
Andy Dunn's social app Pie launched 'Community Homes,' giving its roughly 300,000 users permanent group homepages and shifting its focus from events to communities.
Uber adds live video streaming so parents can watch teens' rides
Uber is rolling out a feature letting parents livestream a teen's ride via the driver's selfie camera, starting in nine markets and expanding nationwide in coming weeks.
WhatsApp strengthens two-step verification and adds multiple passkeys
WhatsApp is rolling out stronger account-security features, including a longer alphanumeric two-step verification option, support for multiple passkeys per account, and more context on calls from unknown numbers.