Twitter pulls its Spaces group audio feature after Musk run-in with banned journalists

Twitter has apparently pulled its Spaces group audio feature, at least temporarily, after Elon Musk joined a group conversation that included journalists that had been banned from the platform.

The latest drama comes after Twitter suspended several prominent journalists who had covered an earlier story about the Elon Jet Twitter account that was banned for using publicly-available data to track Elon Musk’s private jet.

As it turns out, Twitter seemingly has a quirk that allows banned users to still participate in Twitter Spaces and converse with other members, and some of those who had been banned did just that. BuzzFeed reporter Katie Notopoulos started a group chat yesterday evening, and was joined by a number of journalists whose accounts had been suspended by Twitter, including the Washington Post’s Drew Harwell and Mashable’s Matt Binder, as well as Jack Sweeney, the creator of the Elon Jet Twitter account who had his own personal account suspended too.

Elon Musk joined the conversation, where he continued to criticize those who not only shared real-time location data of his private jet, but those who reported on it. The exchange is available in various places online, including YouTube here:

After being pressed by journalists over some of his inconsistencies, Musk abruptly left the conversation, and shortly after the entire Spaces feature itself started playing up.

At the time of writing, it’s not possible to start a new Spaces conversation or join an existing one, certainly based on the various tests TechCrunch has done internally. In response to one Twitter user wondering what was going on with Spaces, Musk replied that it was “fixing a legacy bug,” and that it should be working again tomorrow.

Whether Spaces returns tomorrow or not, Twitter’s recent grand proclamations around Twitter 2.0 and its “continued commitment to the public conversation” could not look any more out of kilter with the events of the past 24 hours.

Twitter pulls its Spaces group audio feature after Musk run-in with banned journalists by Paul Sawers originally published on TechCrunch

Google Chrome to give price drop alerts

Users don’t need to refresh the page every day to see the price of any product. They can opt-in to receive an email or mobile notification from Chrome if there is a price drop, the tech giant said in a blog post.

With Bling, the fintech startup revolution spreads even to pocket money

Today, banks and fintech startups tend not to provide products dedicated to families, specifically, and this has appeared as something of a gap in the market. Meanwhile the general lack of financial education and financial literacy means families are missing out on securing financial prosperity for their families.

GoHenry (which raised $121.2M), which bills itself as “smart banking for kids” has attempted to crack part of this market, but is aimed at kids not families, per say. Meanwhile others chew away at Gen-Zs and parents, such as Greenlight (USA), Spriggy (AUS), Ruuky (DE), Step (US), Current (US), Nosso (UK), Unest (US).

Into this fray has stepped Bling, a startup founded by a 20-year-old, that offers a finance platform aimed specifically at families, which is designed so that parents can do financial planning for their children, from pocket money to first investments.

It’s now raised a €3.5M Seed round of financing from Peak (based out of Amsterdam); La Famiglia
; angels such as Lea-Sophie Cramer, Verena Pausder, Felix Haas (co-founder IDnow), Jakob Schreyer (Co-Founder Orderbird), former ING-Diba CEO Ben Tellings, football world cup winner Andre Schürrle, family ‘influencer’ Carmen Kroll, Angel Invest and Prediction Capital
.

The startup says it is is addressing the estimated €3.3B in pocket money given out in Germany every year, just for children aged six to 13 years, along with the €35B spent in the home market in Germany alone (German census).

The Bling product has educational modules for parents, offers a child payment card, can can cover allowances via chores, for instance.

Founder Nils Feigenwinter start Bling at only 20 years old, and created it because, he says, he was frustrated during his high school years by seeing classmates already getting into personal debt: “After twelve years of school, I looked back and realized: Nice, I can now recognize the Pythagorean theorem and mountain stones, but I have no idea about saving or handling money responsibly,” he said in a statement.

With Bling, parents sign up, but no KYC is necessary because it only operates in a first sub-€150 amount. They create a family account, receive a card, and set up their child’s account. Children learn via modules, set up savings pots, can earn money via errands and chores, and customize their cards.

After that, family members and the community join Bling via links, thus contributing to savings pots and investment plans, managing household spending and prepping for critical financial events.

Bling claims it now has 10,000+ children using a Bling Card as their first personal payment experience 6 months after launch, because it eventually taps into like grandparents, godparents, and friends, using network effects for growth.

The business model for Bling is direct subscription, transactions and fees from financial products, partnerships (first mobile phone plans, insurance etc).

Prior to Bling, Feigenwinter founded three other companies in the youth segment, including Switzerland’s largest student magazine, family merchandise and licensing house, as well as a consultancy agency specialized in young adult topics, leading him to be described as the ‘fintech wunderkind’ by German media. He’s joined by CTO and co-founder Leon Stephan.

With Bling, the fintech startup revolution spreads even to pocket money by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch

Instagram Guides: How to group your posts in one place

Instagram Guides offers users the ability to create guides for places, products, and posts. You can create a thread of Instagram posts using the Posts format, complete with eye-catching titles and descriptions. Further, you can promote products that are listed in the Instagram Shop by curating them using the Products format.

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