Hasta La Gadget!

In a weekly employee Q&A session, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said the company is experiencing “one of the worst downturns [it has seen] in recent history.” According to Reuters, the executive has revealed that Meta has slashed its target number for new engineers hires this year by about 30 percent. Meta previously said that it’s slowing its hiring plans due to weak revenue forecasts, but now Zuckerberg has announced more details with exact figures. Apparently, from plans to hire 10,000 new engineers this year, Meta will only hire between 6,000 and 7,000.

Further, the CEO said that Meta is raising expectations on current employees and giving them more aggressive goals so that they can decide on their own if the company isn’t for them. “[S]elf-selection is OK with me,” he said. In a memo to employees, chief product officer Chris Cox has stressed that the company “is in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce.” He also listed the company’s six investment priorities for the second half of the year, starting with its metaverse initiatives Avatars and its virtual world Horizon Worlds. 

According to the memo, published in full by The Verge, Meta is also aiming to monetize Reels as quickly as possible. Time spent on Reels has more than doubled around the world since last year, the memo reads, with 80 percent of that growth coming from Facebook. Cox called Reels, its short-form video format created as an answer to TikTok, a “bright point” for the company in the first half of 2022. Meta plans to continue improving the experience, including making changes to the home screen on Instagram and Facebook to incorporate the videos more natively.

In addition, Meta plans to focus on its AI initiatives, as well as on WhatsApp and Messenger in the second half of the year. It plans to test WhatApp communities before the feature launches around the world by the end of 2022. The company is also going to develop Instagram Creator channels and joinable chats, which are slated for rollout in the coming months.

Cox wrote in the memo:

“I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce. We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets. We must prioritize more ruthlessly, be thoughtful about measuring and understanding what drives impact, invest in developer efficiency and velocity inside the company, and operate leaner, meaner, better exciting teams.”

Google is updating its password manager to make it easier to use and more consistent across platforms. The tool could also help users make their accounts more secure following the upgrades. For one thing, Google is making the password management experience the same in Chrome and Android settings. It will automatically group together passwords for the same sites and apps.

You’ll now be able to add passwords directly to Google Password Manager on top of saving them when you log in to an account. Google suggests Android users will be able to log in to sites faster on Chrome with a touch-to-login feature, which will be available on an overlay on the bottom of the screen. This builds on biometric verification features Google added to Chrome last year.

In addition, Google says it will notify you through the Password Checkup screen if you’re using compromised credentials. Android users will see alerts about weak and reused passwords too. If you receive such a warning, it should be easy to correct the issue with the automatic password change feature. Compromised password warnings will be available for Chrome users on iOS, Windows, MacOS, Linux and Chrome OS too.

Last week, Google added the ability for iOS users to set Chrome as their autofill provider. The idea was to make it easier for people who use Google Password Manager to sign in to any app on their iPhone. Google recently introduced the option for Android users to set a home screen shortcut for Password Manager as well.

Twitch has announced a new feature for creators who want to include other streamers and even viewers on their broadcasts. Up to five guests can join a stream through Guest Star, which works on both desktop and mobile. If a viewer wants to take part in the discussion or ask a question, they can raise a virtual hand and the creator or a moderator may invite them on. This seems to work in a similar fashion to Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces.

While the feature is akin to Clubhouse, Twitter Spaces, Spotify Live, Discord Stage Channels et al, Twitch can set itself apart from those services. Guest Star supports live video as well as audio — this is Twitch, after all.

The platform says Guest Star is easy for both newcomers and experienced streamers to use and it works with software like OBS and Twitch Studio. However, streamers won’t need to use a third-party app to host a broadcast with other participants.

Until now, bringing guests on to a broadcast has required a bit of a workaround if creators don’t want to simply stream a Zoom, Skype or Discord call. If they prefer to use custom layouts, overlays and branding, it’s possible to include remote video feeds from Skype or a web app. Guest Star should streamline things.

Streamers and their moderators can swiftly remove guests at any time and for any reason. Guests will need a Twitch account, which means they can be reported for violating the platform’s rules. There are some measures in place to help weed out bad actors before they become a guest. Creators and moderators will be able to look at factors like the age of an account, if it’s in good standing and if the user has verified it with a phone number.

Guest Star seems to build on features like Squad Stream, which allows viewers to watch four livestreams simultaneously on the Twitch app or website and jump between those creators’ chats. The new feature is about bringing people together on the same channel. Creators might use Guest Star for podcasts, call-in advice streams and even game shows.

While Twitch is most commonly associated with gaming, talk-style content has long been on the rise on the platform. Just Chatting has been the most popular category since the third quarter of 2020, according to data from Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet. 

Twitch says that, in the first five months of 2022 (compared with the same period in 2020), hours watched in the Just Chatting category grew 151 percent, while revenue for streamers who create that type of content rose by 169 percent. It suggested Guest Star may encourage more creators to try their hand at talk-focused content.

At first, Guest Star will only be available to a small number of hand-picked streamers who already create talk content so that Twitch can get some feedback before a broader rollout. Twitch plans to make the feature available to all creators this fall.

With Pokémon Go, Niantic became the poster child for the power of mobile augmented reality (AR) apps. Since then, the company has struggled to recapture that glory. Yesterday’s round of layoffs and canceled projects cemented how difficult things are for Niantic, driven by the pandemic that has made it tough for people to get outside and gather in groups. But it turns out there’s another way for Niantic to double down on its AR lead: By making it easier for its existing players to communicate with each other.

Today, the company has begun rolling out Campfire, a social app that will let Niantic’s users chat with their friends, join groups of like-minded mobile wanders, and arrange major events like Pokémon Go’s raids. Up until now, Poké-addicts have used Discord and other messagings apps to arrange their gatherings. But, likely seeing a missed opportunity, Niantic has developed its own social platform, one that’ll be accessible across all of its titles (including Ingress, its first major release).

Campfire is about more than just messaging, though. It also gives players a broader glimpse at everything the company’s games have to offer. In Pokémon Go, for example, it can show you that there’s a Venusaur hanging out on the other side of town, a far wider view than you’d typically get in the game’s main app. You can also light a flare on specific events, which alerts other local players that you’d like some help tackling it. And, as you’d expect, Campfire also makes it easier to coordinate your friends, like quickly being able to DM your friends if there’s a Snorlax you want to take on.

Even if you don’t have Campfire, though, you’ll still see some benefits within the company’s apps. That expanded map view will be integrated within Pokémon Go, for one. That’s useful for all players, while also being enticing glimpse at what they can access if they sign up for Campfire.

According to Ivan Zhou, Niantic’s head of product, the company is still focused on bringing people together in the real world, rather than using Campfire to power remote events. The app’s Communities feature is also a big step forward, since it’ll let users create groups around any sort of topic. Zhou was already surprised to see groups pop up for niche local topics. There’s also room for Campfire to grow as a location-first social network, rather than using location as an afterthought (like Facebook’s Groups).

Users in the U.S. will get access to Campfire over the coming days, the company says, while international access for Pokémon Go will light up throughout the summer. There aren’t any specific launch dates yet, but the company says it will announce future updates on its social channels.

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