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There's a tendency to give Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) the benefit of the doubt whenever it looks to enter any new market, because the company's track record of disruption across industries speaks for itself. For example, freshly public Blue Apron has already fallen victim to this perception, with the stock now down about 35% from its IPO price. Today, shares of the meal-kit deliverer are getting crushed on reportsthat Amazon has filed for a meal kit trademark.

But what about messaging?

Image source: Getty Images.

AFTVnews is reporting that Amazon is developing a messaging app called Anytime. The e-commerce giant has reportedly started sending out surveys to customers to gauge interest in specific features. In terms of those features, Amazon ambitiously wants to offer just about everything that existing messaging services offer, all in one place. Anytime might even be comparable to full-blown social networks.

We're talking about a potential service that includes voice and video calls, group messaging, @ mentions, photo and video filters, location sharing, interacting with businesses for customer service, cross-platform support, gaming, expressive GIFs and emojis, and even peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. The new Echo Show also offers video calling and messaging, underscoring Amazon's ambitions.

On one hand, you could argue that messaging is a core area that all the other major tech giants have jumped into, so Amazon is just keeping pace with its peers. On the other hand, messaging is already an overcrowded market, with an abundance of apps and services offered by established companies as well as smaller start-ups.

It's worth acknowledging where other companies have failed -- perhaps Amazon can learn from these missteps.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has tried to break into social networking a couple of times, and has failed spectacularly each time. The Mac maker has seemingly accepted this fate, and now leaves social networking to the pros, now integrating various third-party services instead of building its own. However, Apple is making progress with turning iMessage into a platform, adding a dedicated iMessage App Store last year, with P2P payments coming later this year. The company's biggest advantage is that iMessage is the default messaging service in iOS, and as such enjoys deep integrations.

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) subsidiary Google has never had a clear messaging strategy, offering no less than fivedifferent apps currently (Allo, Duo, Hangouts, Android Messages, and Voice). There was a sixth, Spaces, that was shutdown a couple months ago. Google's internal incubator Area120 released yet anothermessaging app, Supersonic, earlier this year that turned text into emojis, which has also been shut down. There's no compelling reason to have so many disparate apps. Each has a different purpose, but some feature overlap is inevitable. The consequence is consumer confusion, diluting each app's branding.

Getting into messaging on the enterprise side is much more promising. Amazon was reportedly considering acquiring Slack, and the company introduced Chime earlier this year, a video conferencing service. Given the sheer dominance of Amazon Web Services (AWS), expanding further into enterprise productivity software makes an awful lot of sense for cross-selling opportunities.

On the consumer side, it's hard to imagine Amazon making a dent in such a crowded space, particularly since it's so late to the game. Besides, no one is asking for yet another mobile messaging app.

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Link:
Why Would Amazon Get Into Messaging? - Madison.com

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HYDERABAD: Konakalla Subrahmanyam alias Omer, who was arrested recently by the Hyderabad Special Investigation Team (SIT) for having links with Islamic State, was allegedly influenced by reading three books on Islam.

In his confessional statement, the 24-year-old Omer said he had met one Abdul Shukur, who worked in a madrasa in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh and gifted him three booksShrushtini Kaadu, Shrushti Kartanau Poojinchu, O Manishi Nee Shrushti Kartanu Gurtinchu and Life History of Prophet Mohammed and Laailaahailla-Illaihu Mahummadur - Rasoolu-Illahwhich influenced him to convert to Islam.

I got circumcision (Kathana) at Machilipatnam with the help of Dr Chand Pasha. I also attended prayers at Tabligh Jamath Masjid there. Later, I attended Tablig Jamat at Siddipur in Gujarat where I met one Mohammed Shafi of Hyderabad. I underwent training in rituals at Darul-ul-Uloom madrasa for nine months at Khali village near Siddipur, he told investigators.

Omer also allegedly assisted a Srinagar youth in collecting funds in Hyderabad. In May, Mohammed Amir of Islamic Global School of Srinagar told him that they wanted to visit the city to collect donations for his school. Omer, born and brought up in Krishna district, came in contact with one Abu Qahafa Al-Hindi Waseem, a resident of Saudi Arabia, through an app. He also contacted Abu Muhammad of Pakistan, Abudl Jaleel Oyelese of Nigeria, Aidi Sumaili of Johannesburg and Ismail Sha Sahil of Pakistan on Facebook.

The investigators have obtained Omers Facebook messenger details from his mobile phone in which he had conversation with one Ismail of Pakistan on June 7, 2016 regarding Moulana Masood Azhar, dreaded Pak terrorist, said sources.

Read more here:
Hyderabad youth worked for Islamic State via social networking - The New Indian Express

By CodaStory

A bill has been submitted to the Russian parliament which would require social networks and messenger services to remove defamatory statements or comments deemed to promote war or national, racial and religious strife.

If passed, the law would come into force on January 1, 2018 and would compel social networking sites to remove incendiary comments within 24 hours of receiving a complaint or face a fine of 30 to 50 million roubles ($495,000 to $825,000).

The draft bill, submitted by members of the ruling United Russia party, also stipulates that all social networks and messaging services with over 2 million registered users in Russia open a representative office in the country.

In recent years the Russian parliament has passed a number of restrictions on social media and online publishers including a 2016 law commonly referred to as Yarovaya law (named after one of its authors) which requires telecommunications and internet companies to retain copies of all content and communications for six months, including text messages, voice, data and images.

Freedom of expression advocates have described these raft of laws as draconian attempts to limit free speech online.

Dozens of Russians are believed to have been arrested and even imprisoned for their posts on social media.

An explanatory note submitted with the current bill states that it seeks to preserve the informational function of social networking sites, but prevent them from being used for illegal means.

By CodaStory

See the article here:
Social Networking Sites to Remove Incendiary Comments or Face Hefty Fines Under New Russian Legal Proposals - StopFake.org

Facebook has a new addition to its Marketplace where people post bicycles, guitars, and other goods for sale.

The social networking titan said Friday that it is now testing online ads for the Craigslist-like service, similar to what they would see in Facebook's core newsfeed.

Currently, only a small percentage of U.S. users will see the ads, which resemble the product listings in Marketplace, said Mike Manning, a Facebook spokesperson about the companys monetization efforts. The ads are labeled with the advertisers name along with the word sponsored to distinguish them from other Marketplace postings, he said.

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The ads will only be shown in the mobile version of Facebook and not on the desktop computer version, said Manning.

Facebook ( fb ) debuted Marketplace in October as a way to expand beyond the companys primary social networking service. Facebook does not handle transactions via Marketplace, and instead acts as a facilitator between buyers and sellers who handle the transactions and delivery of items themselves.

By testing ads on Marketplace, Facebook is attempting to expand its multi-billion dollar advertising business, which had $7.9 billion in sales in its latest quarter . People posted over 18 million items on Marketplace in May alone, Manning said, which indicates that many people are using the service.

Manning declined to say which third-party advertisers are part of the trial, but he said they currently run advertising campaigns across other Facebook services, like the core service and the photo-sharing app Instagram.

Facebook is not charging advertisers during the test, which is intended to see how successful the ads are. Manning said the test will run for the foreseeable future, and that it's too early to tell if ads will become a permanent addition to Marketplace.

Link:
Facebook Is Testing Something New For its Craigslist Challenger - Fortune

Some Facebook users will now be able to create their own GIFs using the camera function in the social networking giant's app.

Facebook is testing a built-in GIF creator in its iOS app with some users. The website The Next Web was the first to spot the app update on Friday, noting that the function lets you create short, looping GIFs that last just a few seconds.

Users can access the feature in the app's camera mode, where they have the choice between a "normal" or "GIF" tab at the top of the screen. The GIF function will also offer access to Facebook's wide range of effects (such as augmented reality masks and animations) and filters that were already available in the normal camera function. The new function follows last month's full rollout of a GIF comment button on Facebook that allows users to search an online library of existing GIFs and post them directly in Facebook's comments sections.

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Facebook-owned Instagram already has the two-year-old Boomerang feature, which allows users to create short, looping videos. Earlier this year, rival Snapchat introduced its own Loop feature for creating looping videos up to 10 seconds long. That new feature from Snapchat was the rare example of parent Snap Inc.'s ephemeral messaging service rolling out a copy-cat of something already available from either Instagram or Facebook, rather than the other way around .

Either way, now Facebook has joined the build-your-own GIF party, but its new feature does have limits. Notably, The Verge points out that Facebook's new GIF creations are primarily for use within Facebook's own platform, as they are only available to share on users' Facebook pagesor in Facebook's Stories feature for sharing feeds of photos and videosand they can only be saved as videos.

Excerpt from:
Facebook's New Camera Feature Lets You Create Your Own GIFs - Fortune