New social websites

___ Social media hammered by mounting questions over advertising SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Social media has had a rough 2022 with lingering questions about advertising spending and a $44 billion takeover of Twitter that may or may not be happening, depending on which Elon Musk tweet you read. And late Monday, Snap issued a rather dire profit warning, saying that “the macroeconomic environment has deteriorated further and faster than anticipated,” since just last month. All social media competes for advertising money, which is increasingly under threat from spiking inflation and also changes at Apple Inc. that can restrict the information social media platforms can collect on users, a big selling point for advertisers. Shares of Snap plunged 43% Tuesday and shares of Meta Platforms, Twitter and Alphabet all slumped alongside it. ___ Stock market slump unsettling Americans eying retirement NEW YORK (AP) — Americans on the cusp of retiring are facing a tough choice as they watch … [Read more...] about Business Highlights: Social media’s slump, retirement woes

This live blog is now closed. For the latest updates please check here . Russia has opened a long-anticipated new phase of the war in Ukraine , launching its eastern offensive in a bid to seize the country's industrial heartland. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed the move Tuesday , saying the Kremlin's goal was to achieve the “full liberation of the Donetsk and Luhansk republics,” which together make up the Donbas region. The full-scale assault on Ukraine's east came as the last fighters in Mariupol, the besieged port city that is crucial to Moscow's goals, continued to hold out despite a new Russian deadline to surrender. It also followed Russian strikes across the country, hitting supply lines and military infrastructure and killing at least seven people in the western city of Lviv . The United States is expected to announce another package of military aid, which is expected to be similar in size to the $800 million one the administration … [Read more...] about Moscow launches a new phase of the conflict

China’s longest-running gay pride festival in the eastern city of Shanghai has been canceled indefinitely, the Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) reported on Friday. ShanghaiPRIDE, which organizes the event each summer, said in a statement posted to its official WeChat social media account on Thursday that it was “canceling all upcoming activities and taking a break from scheduling any future events.” “[T]he decision was difficult to make but we have to protect the safety of all involved,” co-founder Charlene Liu said in a separate statement. “It’s been a great 12-year-ride and we are honored and proud to have traveled this journey of raising awareness and promoting diversity for the LGBTQ community.” Though the exact reason for the event’s cancellation remains unclear, HKFP says that ShanghaiPRIDE had previously postponed a series of events this year due to the ongoing Chinese coronavirus pandemic, suggesting that the pandemic may have been a factor. Shanghai recorded 16 new … [Read more...] about China’s Oldest Gay Pride Parade in Shanghai Canceled

OneWeb, a satellite internet company partly owned by the British government, has canceled an upcoming satellite launch using a Russian rocket and suspended all future launches that relied on Russia, the company announced Thursday after a tense public standoff with Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency. Also Thursday, Roscosmos announced that it would stop selling rocket engines to US companies. The moves, fallout from Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, stand to further isolate the Russian space agency from its Western space partners and limit Russia’s private space activities dramatically. OneWeb’s loss of a reliable rocket provider for launches also poses novel challenges for the company as it had aimed to complete its constellation of 648 satellites in orbit later this year. ALSO READ: Russia-Ukraine War: Elon Musk Warns Starlink Users In Ukraine About Possibility Of Being Targeted OneWeb was rescued from bankruptcy in 2020 by the British government and other investors. It was … [Read more...] about Russia Ukraine War: Russia’s Isolation on Earth Moves Up Into Space

Facebook (now Meta) CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently changed the company’s name to Meta in an attempt to be able to project it at the forefront of the up and coming digital frontier called the metaverse. As Zuckerberg celebrates his birthday today, let’s re-examine the metaverse and what his vision for the same is. It all started in June 2021, when Zuckerberg announced that the future of his company would go far beyond the current setup. He claimed that Facebook would strive to build a set of interconnected experiences straight out of the sci-fi world — which was dubbed as metaverse. To simplify, the metaverse is a lot more digital stuff that will just be parallel to a person’s physical life. A collection of virtual worlds, the metaverse will allow users to meet, play, talk and buy stuff. While the idea sounds tempting, in an era where most people are said to have a ‘social media problem’ this can also be a terrifying idea and Zuckerberg’s vision for the same seems to be on an abysmal … [Read more...] about So Close, Yet So Far: Mark Zuckerberg’s Vision For Metaverse and Growing Distances