Applications
Twitter boss unveils new social app venture
MUMBAI: Social media entrepreneur Biz Stone, known for his
micro-blogging site Twitter, has announced his next venture: a new social app called Lift.
In a blog post titled Unlocking Potential on the Obvious Corporation website, Stone has been reported to have said, “Tony Stubblebine and Jon Crosby have created an interesting new application for unlocking human potential through positive reinforcement.”
Not wanting to go into details, he just said that he and partners Stubblebine and Crosby have ‘tried it and it works’.
According to Lift CEO Stubblebine, the venture is being funded through investments from Twitter‘s Evan Williams and Jason Goldman besides Stone. He said Lift is “a long way from opening the doors” and that the new company was currently seeking a user-experience design lead.
Though social productivity is not a new field, Lift appears to be more broadly targeted at encouraging any kind of activity, business or personal.
All the three co-founders come with deep social media pedigrees, with Stubblebine having recently created the events-based social network Crowdvine and Crosby coming from companies like Path, Songbird and EngineYard.
Applications
With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
