iWorld
Facebook adds LiveRail to its kitty
MUMBAI: The news of Facebook acquiring video advertising company, LiveRail didn’t really come as a surprise.
It was in March when Facebook first began offering 15-second video ads for a limited number of companies on its website. The company has moved cautiously in introducing video ads on its social network to prevent a backlash from users who might find the ads annoying.
This acquisition is the social media company’s latest step to make video ads a bigger part of its business.
According to Reuters, Facebook has not disclosed the price for the San Francisco-based company, which was founded in 2007 and has offices in several countries.
It can be noted that LiveRail’s technology automatically pairs video ads with the videos that appear on many websites, such as Major League Baseball, ABC and A&E Networks website.
The report on Reuters also states that video ads command higher prices than other forms of online advertising such as banner ads. Facebook and other internet rivals like Google are increasingly trying to grab a slice of lucrative TV-marketing budgets as they try to sustain rapid growth.
For records, it was early last year that Facebook bought Whatsapp for US$19.5 billon.
It will be interesting to see how Facebook ropes in brands to scale its video advertising inventory in the coming days.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
