Online journal trendingbytes.com shares the latest digital, web and user insights, as well as social media news, with Communicate Levant.

YouTube will let your fans donate to you

Hello YouTubers! Are you ready to make some money outside of advertising?
After upsetting users by announcing a subscription-based service for musicians, YouTube wants to help its content creators make more money. The company is testing a feature in the US, Australia, Japan and Mexico, called ‘Tip Jar’, which lets viewers donate money directly to their most beloved YouTubers. Read More…

iCloud hacker leaks celebrity nude pictures

Millions of Internet folk look for celebrity nude pictures, daily and ferociously. These people now have a champion.
A hacker posted a thread on 4chan with hundreds of revealing, nude and semi-nude pictures of actresses, pop stars and other female celebrities that he apparently hacked from the iCloud servers. Read more…

Yo and Motorola screw up their contest

Winning a contest is an exciting and rewarding event, and the most enjoyable part is receiving your prize. Unless the contest we’re talking about is Motorola’s, in which case the prize is the most disappointing part. The idea is simple: Add Motorola to your Yo contacts, send them a Yo and you’ll automatically enter the giveaway. The problem here is that lots of people received notifications saying they’d won. Read more…

Samsung’s Gear S Smartwatch is a game changer

There is a war raging in the wearable tech kingdom and Samsung is leading the attack.
Case and point: On August 27, it announced its new Smartwatch, which is, quite frankly, almost a phone. It features a two-inch curved display, Wi-Fi, phone call service, pedestrian navigation, built-in GPS and runs Samsung’s Tizen OS. Read more…

Facebook replies to Messenger backlash

A couple of weeks ago, Facebook forced mobile users to download the Messenger app to keep chatting.
The problem? First of all, people don’t like being forced to download an app when its function worked perfectly well in another one. Second, authorizations requested by Facebook’s software are quite worrisome: Use your camera, microphone, SMS and call service (‘charges may apply’, seriously?) and more. Read more…

Apple to replace faulty iPhone 5 batteries

If you have an iPhone 5 and the battery life seems to drop for no reason whatsoever, you might be in for a treat, courtesy of Apple. If you listen to Apple’s latest statement, you will learn that a ‘very small percentage of iPhone 5 devices may suddenly experience shorter battery life or need to be charged more frequently’. Read more…

PlayStation Network under attack by hackers

Security breaches are everywhere these days. Only gaming platforms were left alone, but their time has come. A group of hackers, called LizardSquad, launched a massive raid on the PlayStation Network (PSN). It stayed down over the weekend, a couple of days that most PS4 gamers probably spent of the floor in fetal position eating cheese puffs. Read more…

DERP, the research partnership

What do Reddit, Twitch, Imgur, Fark and StackExchange have in common?
A while ago you could have said ‘not much’, but they’re creating a research collaboration called Digital Ecologies Research Partnership, or DERP for short. Its goal: supporting the academic exploration of communities online for the betterment of the Internet at large (according to its website). Read more…

Tumblr now scans content for brand affiliation

There is nothing like the refreshing smell of advertising in the morning.
Tumblr knows that and is now inking a deal with Ditto Labs, a firm that analyzes photos posted on social media for brand-related data. The blogging platform announced it was not for advertising targeting purposes, but to sell brands info about how consumers interact with their products. Read more…

Girl strikes record deal through Tinder

Hey, do you know that new pop sensation, Ryn Weaver? No? Oh yeah, she’s not famous yet…
When she moved to Los Angeles some four years ago, she met producer Benny Blanco – who has worked with artists such as Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and Wiz Khalifa – and then lost touch with him. Then months later, her friend found him randomly on Tinder and Ryn seized the occasion. Read more…