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A ROUND-UP OF THE LATEST NEWS IN THE DIGITAL WORLD

TWITTER TELLS A STORY

TWITTER has finally taken the wraps off its version of Snapchat Stories.

If you don’t know what Snapchat Stories are, you might well know them as Instagram, Facebook or Messenger Stories – Facebook has its own version of the feature in all its apps.

Essentially Stories are posts that appear separately to your regular timeline and remain visible for a set amount of time – usually just 24 hours. The feature is now being tested in Brazil, with a view to rolling out across the globe once any kinks have been ironed out.

One difference is the name – Twitter is calling its Stories feature Fleets – fleeting thoughts to be shared quickly. They can be text (limited to 280 characters like regular tweets), video or photos.

You cannot like, retweet or comment on Fleets, but you can react to them with an emoji or reply to them via direct message.

JACK WON’T HIT THE ROAD...YET

MEANWHILE, Twitter HQ was abuzz this week with news that ‘activist’ investment company Elliott Management had bought a big stake in the company and was seeking to oust CEO Jack Dorsey.

An ‘activist’ investment company is one that seeks to influence the direction a company it invests in takes, rather than sit back and hope for the best.

Elliot has apparently been unhappy with Twitter’s slow growth and the fact that

Dorsey, pictured right, is CEO of another large company (payments firm Square).

In a settlement revealed this week, Twitter said Elliott was to be given three seats on Twitter’s board, and Dorsey would stay for now, but has some aggressive growth and revenue targets to hit this year.

AMAZON TO GO

AMAZON has revealed plans to sell its cashierless store technology to other companies.

The Amazon Go stores offer what Amazon calls a “just walk out experience” – once you have gained entry to the store, Amazon tracks customers using a variety of cameras, and knows what they have picked up thanks to weight-sensors fitted to shelves.

Customers are then automatically billed and sent a receipt via email.