Digital Week in Review: Twitter Founder’s New Start-Up, Facebook Adding New Chat Feature and Google Developing Game Console

In this week’s Digital Week in Review Biz Stone of Twitter reveals his new start-up, Facebook is adding a new chat feature and Google is putting out an Android game console.

Jelly, Biz Stone’s New Start Up

Biz Stone, founder of Twitter, has released information that they are developing a new app called Jelly.  Jelly will be an app for mobile devices which will incorporate aspects of another app Stone was involved with called Fluther.  Fluther is a Q&A app, not unlike Quora, ChaCha and Aardvark, which act as a crowd sourced information platform and search engine for answers from people in real time. Both Fluther and Jelly use jellyfish as their logo and is said to also both use the power of groups, connections, and the ability to do good.  Since April 1^st, when Biz Stone posted on his Twitter page “What is Jelly?” there has been a lot of buzz surrounding this mysterious app, however Stone has said that it won’t be ready for a while. Read more here.

Rumours of a New Chat Room Feature on Facebook

Facebook will be allegedly implementing a new chat room feature called “Host Chat”. Host Chat lets users set up chat rooms that their friends can join without an invitation. A host can then name the room or announce a specific topic for it such as an interest/hobby, events or working on projects. Host Chat is an attempt to keep up with the many other unique messaging programs such as Snap Chat, Google Hangouts, Apple’s iMessage, Whatsapp, Japan’s Line and SMS.

A host chat button will appear in the status update composer, with the “update status” and “add photos/video” options. The feature is not yet live and still in the testing phase.  Below is a mock-up of what the host chat option is expected to look like.

To learn more about Host Chat, click here.

Google to Develop Android Game Console

Google is developing a video game console which will be powered by its Android operating system. Google wants to use their software for products beyond tablets and mobile devices. By developing a game system this will bring the company into competition with Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo. Games that currently run on Android software are already growing faster than games made by its competitors. It is rumored that Google is reacting to the expectations that Apple will be launching a video game console as a part of its next Apple TV product release. Google hopes to be able to release the console by fall.

Read more here.