Twitter has finally found a VP of product — having left the executive position vacant for almost a year — thanks to its new acquisition.
The company just snapped up Yes Inc., a small San Francisco-based startup best known for its social messaging apps Frenzy and WYD. With the purchase comes the announcement that Yes founder Keith Coleman is assuming the important role.
Coleman previously spent more than ten years as director of product management at Google, where he served as the lead on offerings such as Gmail, Gchat, and other Google products.
In Coleman’s words, Yes was a “little” company, and now it is joining the ranks of a much larger organization. According to the startup’s website, its other employees helped build products like Android and PayPal. As a result of the acquisition, the company’s apps will be shutting down over the coming weeks.
“Our team has always admired Twitter, a product that brings the whole world closer,” reads a statement posted on Yes’ website. “Twitter also speaks to our love of working at a global scale.”
As head of Twitter’s product team, Coleman will be charged with developing new user experience features for the platform. It’s a tumultuous role, with five individuals having served as head of product since 2007, four of whom arrived in the wake of Twitter’s IPO in 2013.
Some will say it’s just business as usual for the company, which by now is used to its fair share of ups and downs. This year alone, Twitter cut 9 percent of its workforce, axed its once-popular video-looping app Vine, and lost a number of executives. And that’s not to mention the drama regarding its highly publicized (failed) attempt at offering itself up for a takeover or merger.
In terms of recent product changes, Twitter has pursued live video with notable broadcasting deals, and it pushed through a keyword filter aimed at combating harassment. If he can pin down the position, these are the types of consumer-oriented products Coleman will oversee. Maybe he can even put to rest the conundrum that continues to baffle onlookers: what exactly is Twitter? That’s a question that even CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly hasn’t been able to offer a concrete answer to.
Discord is trying to push more visibility on the internet for some of its biggest communities, and there's a good chance your messages could end up in a Google Search. The platform is preparing to make conversations from certain public servers searchable on the web, so there's a privacy setting you might want to check before the rollout begins.
According to Discord's official announcement, the changes will roll out in two stages. Starting November 16, qualifying servers will have public web pages featuring automated summaries of conversations. By mid-December, individual messages from eligible public channels could also appear word-for-word in Google and other search engines.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?