Facebook have just announced their latest update for chat application Messenger which aims to change the way they do advertisements. Back in April the social network launched chatbots, and today they aim to integrate these chatbots with sponsored advertisements through the networks messaging platform Messenger.

The new update titled 1.3 was announced by Messenger’s VP of product David Marcus at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon. In a blog post on the Messenger blog a Facebook representative stated “All advertisers on Facebook now have the ability to reach people in News Feed and direct them to Messenger. This is an ad destination we began testing a few months ago and we are happy to announce that this is now available to all Facebook advertisers.”

Upon installing the latest update, which is expected to launch sometime in the coming days, users that click on special sponsored content on the Facebook App will be able to open that content in Messenger where they will be able to talk to the chatbot about the product.

Some users will understandably be worried about these chatbots possibly contacting them out of the blue, but Facebook has aimed to address this by giving users control of the chats. Users will only receive messages from sponsored advertisers that they have chosen to engage with, and users have control of the chats, even being able to block advertisers.

The update comes days after it was rumoured that Facebook was bringing out in-chat games (similar to those found through Apple’s Messages Application) to the Messenger platform. Continue reading this post ->

Apple is giving Facebook and various other companies access to the Apple Watch ahead of its Monday unveil, according to Bloomberg. The report says Facebook, airliner United Continental Holdings Inc. and others have “spent weeks” on Apple’s campus working hard on developing apps for the watch.

Bloomberg says developers have been given special access in a top-secret lab inside of Apple’s headquarters. Whomever enters must sign a non-disclosure agreement and follow extreme guidelines to prevent unknown details to be leaked about the wearable device.

“The companies, sometimes sharing a room, must bring in source code for their apps on a computer hard drive that can’t leave Apple’s headquarters,” Bloomberg writes. Furthermore, Apple is storing the code and will share it closer to the Apple Watch’s availability.

Secrecy shouldn’t surprise anyone. Since it’s first unveiling last September, the company has yet to mention key details such as battery life, upper tier pricing, and band/case interchangeability. Continue reading this post ->

On Thursday, Facebook introduced a new feature to its platform, Legacy Contact. This feature allows another user to manage your account after you’ve passed away. “Until now, when someone passed away, we offered a basic memorialized account which was viewable, but could not be managed by anyone,” Facebook explains.

This new features allows your Legacy Contact to pin a post on your Timeline, respond to new friend requests and update your profile picture, but they won’t be allowed to post as you nor will they be permitted to access and read your messages on the service. Now, you’re able to visit the Memorialization Request page. This page allows anyone to send a report to Facebook, letting them know someone has passed away.

After filing the request, you’ll be asked to provide an optional proof of death in the form of a link or other documents that may help Facebook memorialization team fill the request.

You can optionally give your Legacy Contact permission to download and archive all of your photos, posts, and profile information. Everything else is sanctioned off from your Legacy Contact, and will remain intact.

“Alternatively, people can let us know if they’d prefer to have their Facebook account permanently deleted after death,” says the social networking giant.

To choose a legacy contact in Facebook’s mobile app, open your Facebook settings within the app, tap on Security and then Legacy Contact at the bottom of the page. Continue reading this post ->

AppHeads is a new Cydia tweak by sharedRoutine that enjoyed a decent amount of hype in the jailbreak community. The original teaser post from 3 months ago had almost two hundred upvotes and a little over fifty comments with everyone wondering when they could get their hands on it. The post was this little teaser image in his alpha stage and people ate it up like the next best thing since sliced bread. A little while went by with no updates on it and then just under two weeks ago this post on Reddit popped up and teased it again with a video. It saw over two hundred upvotes and nearly one hundred comments with the same feeling from Redditors, they were basically frothing at the mouth and screaming, “TAKE MY MONEY!!”. It’s now on the BigBoss repo for $4.99 and worth every cent.

Taking queue’s from MessageHeads by Ian Burns, which is a quick reply and quick compose tweak inspired by Facebook’s ChatHeads for Android; AppHeads takes this a few steps further, essentially bringing the same functionality for all apps. It’s almost completely usable as a quick compose tweak and since there aren’t a lot of these types of tweaks updated for iOS 8, I’ll take what I can get for now. That being said, InteractiveMessageNotifications has been updated to work for iOS 8 as a separate paid package, however, the general impression from the community is it leaves a lot to be desired. Continue reading this post ->

Those who work in public relations have a lot to juggle. On the whole, the role of a public relations professional is to create and uphold the image of a company, both publicly and within the ranks of the workforce. To do this they will need to control every piece of information pertaining to the company they work for. So if you happen to be a PR pro, you know that your job can include all kinds of activities, such as penning press releases, engineering the company’s presence at conferences and public events, disseminating information to employees, and of course, managing the brand image within the online arena. This means that you will have to embrace technology and learn to make your many mobile devices work for you. In your business, an iPad stocked with the right apps can make a big difference in what you can get done on the PR front and the impact you have. And here are just a few apps that can help you immensely.

1. Social media. Interacting with the public via social media outlets is an essential part of any PR effort moving into the future. While you have probably already targeted known platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ (just for example), you should also try to think outside the box by creating a presence on popular sharing sites like Instagram and Pinterest while staying abreast of any new social media platforms that could start trending and grow overnight. Having foresight in this area isn’t easy, but with your ear to the ground you may be able to get a jump on the next big thing, securing a major coupe for your company.
2. E-reader. Part of the job of a PR specialist is to monitor and track the press regarding your company or clients. This means reading newspapers, blogs, and trade publications. Since most tablets start their lives as e-readers anyway, getting the software you need shouldn’t be too difficult. But of course some programs are better than others. Pulse is a good option for just about any type of online print, while Kindle for the iPad has been optimized to make usage on this tablet look just as good as the original.
3. Storage and sharing. Your job will require you to compile all kinds of information from a variety of sources, and you may have to access it and share it on the go. For these purposes, the Dropbox app is ideal. It’s simple functionality will meet all of your storage and sharing needs. On the other hand, Google Drive offers you 5GB of space (handy for video files) and links up with Google Docs. In a pinch you could download both for different purposes.
4. Organization. Staying on top of your many tasks could leave your head spinning, and after a while stuff could start to slip through the cracks. So consider a task manager like Remember the Milk (a classic at this point, it syncs with Outlook, Gmail, Twitter, and even Siri) or a simple calendar and listing program like TeuxDeux.
5. Communication. Keeping in touch with your many contacts at the office, in the industry, and in the media can be tedious and time consuming without the right apps to get you through. Evernote provides you with an easy way to jot down lines to send to the press release service, Viber lets you make calls via WiFi or 3G (for those times when you can’t get cell service), WhatsApp works the same.