Latest news with #openweb
TechCrunch
30-07-2025
- TechCrunch
Germ brings end-to-end encrypted messages to Bluesky
A new startup called Germ is bringing end-to-end encrypted messaging to the Bluesky social network, allowing its users to have a more secure option for chats than Bluesky's existing DMs. After over two years of development, the service is launching its encrypted DMs for Bluesky into beta this week, with plans to gradually onboard new testers ahead of a public launch. In time, the technology that Germ is building, much of which is open sourced, could allow Bluesky itself to introduce encrypted messaging into its own app. Germ was designed to offer an alternative to existing end-to-end encrypted platforms that dominate globally, like iMessage, Signal, and WhatsApp. Germ takes advantage of newer technologies, like Messaging Layer Security (MLS), a new standard approved by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and the AT Protocol (or AT Proto), which powers Bluesky. Image Credits:Germ Image Credits:Germ However, instead of requiring a user's phone number as some messaging apps do, Germ integrates with AT Proto. This allows Germ users to securely chat with friends from Bluesky and the wider open social web, including apps like Flashes and Skylight, but with added controls over the user experience. For instance, you can choose to accept DMs from people you follow on Bluesky, or you could configure it so that only you can initiate chats with other people. Plus, when you block a user in Germ, you can choose whether you want to only block them in Germ or if you want to block them across Bluesky and other AT Proto-powered apps as well. The concept for Germ comes from co-founders Tessa Brown (CEO), a communications scholar who previously taught at Stanford, and Mark Xue, who worked as a privacy engineer at Apple on technologies like FaceTime and iMessage. Brown's studies led her to realize that access to private communications was fundamental to the health of social networks. Image Credits:Germ 'We know that, psychologically, you can't build a good relationship with people if you feel like you're being stared at and manipulated all the time. And that's really what social media is today,' Brown tells TechCrunch. 'So I came out of that work with a really strong conviction around end-to-end encrypted messaging as kind of the centerpiece of what I thought was the future of social media and the future of communication,' she adds. Xue, meanwhile, came out of Apple believing that the use of phone numbers and telephony is a dated technology to serve as the basis for secure communications, and wanted to build something new. Today, Germ's service works by way of a 'magic link,' which is generated for you and pasted into your Bluesky bio. When another Bluesky user on iOS clicks this link, they can immediately chat with you without downloading a new app from the App Store. To make this possible, Germ takes advantage of underutilized Apple technology called App Clips, which allow users to run a portion of an app's code on their device without installing the full app. Today, app clips are used for miscellaneous one-off type transactions, like paying for parking via a QR code. But in Germ's case, they allow for quick chats. While the user experience is simple enough, the technology behind it is not. The link itself is actually a cryptographic key that authenticates the user's AT Proto identity to confirm that the user is the person associated with that Bluesky handle. From the Germ app clip, you can choose to install the Germ iOS app, which offers more controls, access to your friends list, and now, Bluesky pairing. The pairing feature was somewhat finicky in our tests, but we are running the iOS 26 developer beta, which may be causing complications. (To work around the issue, we started the chat from the app clip first, before trying to authenticate from the installed app.) Tessa Brown, Germ Network CEO Image Credits:Germ Network Instagram (opens in a new window) Brown tells TechCrunch that she's excited about building within the Bluesky community, given the app's growing cultural impact, which has attracted big names in U.S. politics, like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other representatives, senators, and governors, to join. Given that Germ is ahead of the Bluesky team itself in building encrypted messaging technology, Brown is hopeful that Germ's protocol could be more broadly adopted by Bluesky and others in the future. While currently free to use, the Germ app may later introduce a premium subscription upgrade that offers more advanced services, including private AI services, personalization tools, and more. The four-person startup has raised pre-seed funding from angel investors, including a co-author of MLS and other trust and safety experts. Institutional investors include K5 Global and Mozilla Ventures. The company hopes to raise additional funds for an Android version in the future.
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is Taboola Poised to Weather Challenges Posed by Walled Gardens?
Inc. TBLA operates in a digital advertising environment that is mostly dominated by 'walled gardens', such as Google, Meta, and Amazon, which control vast amounts of user data and advertising inventory within closed ecosystems. This concentration limits independent ad tech companies' ability to access premium audiences and advertising budgets. Taboola positions itself as a key open-web alternative, helping publishers and advertisers reach audiences outside these closed networks. Its specialization in content recommendations and native advertising provides a distinct offering that does not directly compete with search or display ads controlled by walled address these competitive pressures, Taboola has implemented several strategic initiatives. One major focus is expanding into performance-based advertising through its Realize platform, which allows advertisers to target measurable outcomes such as conversions and customer acquisition. This aligns with broader industry trends prioritizing ROI-driven marketing and helps capture budgets that might otherwise be directed toward walled garden has significantly expanded its scale through a 30-year exclusive commercial partnership with Yahoo, strengthening its native advertising presence and solidifying its role across the open web. The company has also invested heavily in AI and personalization, enhancing its recommendation engine to deliver more relevant ads and content, boosting publisher engagement and further differentiates itself through a publisher-first approach, emphasizing transparency and revenue-sharing models. By maintaining close relationships with thousands of publishers and growing its content discovery ecosystem, Taboola builds resilience against the dominance of major tech platforms while offering a scalable, independent advertising solution. The Trade Desk TTD remains a leading independent demand-side platform, offering advertisers open-web access beyond walled gardens. The Trade Desk drives growth through transparent, data-driven strategies. Through continuous innovation and strategic partnerships, The Trade Desk strengthens its competitive position against dominant closed ecosystems that control digital advertising budgets and audience Magnite MGNI positions itself as the largest independent sell-side platform, offering publishers open-web monetization beyond walled gardens. Magnite drives growth through transparent solutions across CTV, video, and display ads. Focused on innovation and global reach, Magnite continues strengthening its position as a key open-web alternative in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. Shares of TBLA have gained 0.3% year to date, outperforming the industry. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research TBLA is currently affordable. It is trading at a price-to-earnings multiple of 20.2, lower than the industry average of 28.1. It has a Value Score of A. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The Zacks Consensus Estimate for TBLA's second-quarter 2025 EPS and third quarter witnessed no movement over the past 30 days. The same holds true for full-year 2025 and 2026 estimates. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The consensus estimates for TBLA's 2025 and 2026 EPS and revenues indicate year-over-year increases. TBLA stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report The Trade Desk (TTD) : Free Stock Analysis Report Magnite, Inc. (MGNI) : Free Stock Analysis Report Ltd. (TBLA) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Gizmodo
12-06-2025
- Gizmodo
Wikipedia Tries to Calm Fury Over New AI-Generated Summaries Proposal
The denizens of the open web don't want anything to do with AI. The Wikimedia Foundation, the organization behind Wikipedia, made the unfortunate decision to announce the trial of a new AI-fueled article generator this week. The backlash from the site's editors was so swift and so vengeful that the organization quickly walked back its idea, announcing a temporary 'pause' of the new feature. A spokesperson on behalf of the Foundation—which is largely separate from the decentralized community of editors that populate the site with articles—explained last week that, in an effort to make wikis 'more accessible to readers globally through different projects around content discovery,' the organization planned to trial 'machine-generated, but editor moderated, simple summaries for readers.' Like many other organizations that have been plagued by new automated features, Wikipedia's rank and file were quick to anger over the experimental new tool. The responses, which are posted to the open web, are truly something to behold. 'What the hell? No, absolutely not,' said one editor. 'Not in any form or shape. Not on any device. Not on any version. I don't even know where to begin with everything that is wrong with this mindless PR hype stunt.' 'This will destroy whatever reputation for accuracy we currently have,' another editor said. 'People aren't going to read past the AI fluff to see what we really meant.' Yet another editor was even more vehement: 'Keep AI out of Wikipedia. That is all. WMF staffers looking to pad their resumes with AI-related projects need to be looking for new employers.' 'A truly ghastly idea,' said another. 'Since all WMF proposals steamroller on despite what the actual community says, I hope I will at least see the survey and that—unlike some WMF surveys—it includes one or more options to answer 'NO'.' 'Are y'all (by that, I mean WMF) trying to kill Wikipedia? Because this is a good step in that way,' another editor said. 'We're trying to keep AI out of Wikipedia, not have the powers that be force it on us and tell us we like it.' The forum is littered with countless other negative responses from editors who expressed a categorical rejection of the tool. Not long afterward, the organization paused the feature, 404 Media reported. 'The Wikimedia Foundation has been exploring ways to make Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects more accessible to readers globally,' a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson told 404 Media. 'This two-week, opt-in experiment was focused on making complex Wikipedia articles more accessible to people with different reading levels. For the purposes of this experiment, the summaries were generated by an open-weight Aya model by Cohere. It was meant to gauge interest in a feature like this, and to help us think about the right kind of community moderation systems to ensure humans remain central to deciding what information is shown on Wikipedia.'
The Verge
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Verge
Ghost's official ActivityPub integration is set to launch with Ghost 6.0, which is coming in the next month,
Federated Ghost. Ghost says: We're excited, but nervous. You never get everything done that you hope to, before launching a first version, but launch you must. This launch, though, feels bigger than most, because ActivityPub is more than a protocol or a fancy feature; it's a statement that the open web still matters.'
The Verge
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Verge
Here are three new apps building out the open social web
For the past couple of years, the virtual FediForum conference has offered a glimpse at what's new in the open social web, with last year's big news being Threads' foray into the fediverse. This year's presentation was no different, with several developers showing off new apps that will help to expand the ecosystem of decentralized social networks. Bonfire Social, one of the new apps, is meant to serve as a framework for creating digital communities, each with their own governance and style. During FediForum, Bonfire announced that they're releasing Bonfire Social 1.0 as the first 'flavor' of the platform. Bonfire Social comes with a 'a pre-configured bundle of Bonfire extensions that defines which features are included,' like custom feeds, profiles, and threaded discussions, along with the ability to share posts and follow other users. The makers of Bonfire are working on other 'flavors' of the platform, including Bonfire Community, which is geared toward private groups and organizations, as well as Open Science, a platform designed for collaboration between academic communities. Bonfire Social federates with Mastodon, Peertube, Mobilizon, and others. You can install Bonfire Social now or check out the demo. Another new service announced at FediForum is which is designed to help you curate the content you see across the open social web. Users can tailor their feed by tracking specific hashtags and users, including bridged Bluesky accounts and RSS parrots. Other users can follow the channels you create, which are distributed across the Fediverse, Bluesky, and over RSS. You can filter out certain keywords and mute accounts not related to the topics you want to follow, and there are also built-in filters that block NSFW content and hate speech. is built on a customized Mastodon server run by the Newsmast Foundation, a fediverse-focused charity based in the UK, and it sounds like a neat way to create an ultra-curated social feed. The service is currently available in an invite-only beta, but you can sign up for the waitlist to receive updates. You can check out some examples of channels from website. One of the other notable services highlighted today was Bounce, an app that allows you to move your Bluesky account to Mastodon, all without losing any of your followers. The app is built by A New Social, the creators of the Bridgy Fed tool that Bounce uses to connect your Bluesky account to Mastodon. Once your account is bridged, Bounce can then transfer personal data servers using the 'move' capability offered by ActivityPub and the AT Protocol, letting you retain your Bluesky followers — and the people you follow — when heading to Mastodon.
