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11 Jun
8

Facebook Targeting Other Countries with Facebook Lite

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 6-11-2015After Facebook acquired WhatsApp at the beginning of last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain about how the acquisition of WhatsApp was going to be a step towards helping to connect people in the developing world, the same way that Facebook had been doing in more tech-savvy countries. He stated that his belief was that Facebook’s future would include reaching billions of mobile users and allowing them to connect with one another.

It appears that Facebook is now pushing forward in new ways to get other countries connected. Knowing that data plans are expensive and network connections are slow in many other countries, Facebook has decided to launch a low-resolution, stripped-down version of itself called Facebook Lite. It’s specifically designed to help the developing world get involved with social media. In regards to features, Facebook Lite only offers a bare-bones experience, but this allows the application to work better in other countries, allowing Facebook to tap into untapped markets for social media.

Facebook Lite launched in Asia last week, but the app is expected to eventually make its way to parts of Africa, Europe, and Latin America. The app has been created to take up a small amount of space on a phone, use as little data as possible, and load quickly even when being used on 2G mobile connections. Overall, the app appears like it will be a great way for users in other countries to get connected through Facebook.

04 Jun
8

Facebook Finally Comes Around to Animated GIF Support

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 6-4-2015In the early days of Facebook, people were able to post animated GIFs as they pleased. However, the ability to share these types of images was removed from the social network nearly a decade ago. It is likely that they were removed because they were either too distracting or their presence slowed the site down. In any case, most other social networks have allowed animated GIFs for quite some time now and Facebook is finally rejoining them by allowing these types of images to be shared once again.

People have been clearly interested in sharing animated GIFs on Facebook for a while now. A couple of years ago, a website called Giphy (which specializes in sharing enormous amounts of animated GIFs) created a workaround that would allow people to embed animated GIFs on Facebook. The effort was promptly shut down by Facebook in an effort to keep the site from being cluttered and chaotic, but it seems that Facebook has changed their mind.

There are a few guidelines that will have to be followed with Facebook’s new support of animated GIFs. Specifically, users will not be able to upload them directly onto their Facebook page. Instead, animated GIFs only work when they have been embedded so that they are linking to an outside source. The GIFs also have to end in ‘.gif’ rather than appearing in any other type of link. Currently, the feature works on the website and on the mobile app, though GIFs only work on personal profiles and not brand pages. Though the feature has not yet been rolled out to all users, it should be available to everyone over the coming days.

28 May
10

New Touches to Twitter This Year

In Blogging News, Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 5-28-2015Just like any other social network, Twitter has been trudging along and updating its features to ensure that it remains competitive and provides its users with the best experience that they can possibly offer. Over the course of this year, Twitter has launched a number of features and services to enhance the overall Twitter experience. Earlier this year, Twitter launched a service for brands and celebrity users called TweetDeck Teams, which is intended to allow multiple people to tweet from a singular account. This service is intended to make it easier for team members to work together on Twitter.

Another service that Twitter launched back in February was an official WordPress plug-in that would allow Twitter to interact smoothly with the popular website and blog development tool. Although many Twitter-related plug-ins had been developed over the years for WordPress, this was the first official one released, intended to make it easier for visitors to tweet WordPress posts, embed tweets, and track ads for those running Twitter Ad campaigns on their WordPress blogs.

Updates to the interface of Twitter itself have also come up from time to time over the course of the year thus far. For instance, Twitter gave users the ability to easily embed Twitter videos on other websites back in March. Then, in April, Twitter began testing targeted advertisements that would appear directly on user profiles, with a ‘Suggested by Twitter’ tag. This is an effort to continue monetizing Twitter and making it profitable, while still being able to provide it to users as a free service.

21 May
8

The Social Networks and Apps You Might Have Missed

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 5-21-2015When we talk about social networks and media, we usually focus on the heavy hitters like Facebook, Twitter, Google, Snapchat, and Instagram. However, there are many other players that are trying to make a name for themselves in the game of social media. Some of them are mere clones of existing social networks, while others really aim to do something special in hopes of getting a chunk of the spotlight. Take Bindle, for instance. It’s a social media app that’s focused specifically on personal group chat, influenced by the chat rooms of old and newer social media. Its popularity seems to have arisen from its simplicity, leaving out all the fluff that many other group chat apps include.

Some newer social networking apps have a focus on anonymity, so that people can have online discussions without revealing their identity. Many of these apps have popped up, but the most interesting recent one would have to be Cloaq. While most anonymous social media apps focus on anonymously commenting on user-generated content, Cloaq actually allows you to comment on various news stories from all around the Internet without revealing any personal information. Of course, in order to be successful, Cloaq will need to have something in place to reduce potential abuse, which remains to be seen.

Yet another intriguing social network would be Nattch, which aims to purge itself from much of the nonsense and distraction that comes along with more popular social networks like Facebook. For instance, it hopes to provide its users with an ad-free interface as well as rejecting links to videos and articles that people have found on the Internet. Instead, Nattch hopes to encourage users to simply share information about their lives, which is similar to what Facebook aimed for when it first launched. All of these social networks are relatively new and could still prove to be rather successful, depending on how large of an audience each of them can pull in.

14 May
7

Meerkat vs. Periscope: The Battle for Twitter

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 5-14-2015Back in March, I discussed how Twitter was entering the world of live-streaming with a third-party video app called Meerkat. With the popularity of live-streaming video already on the rise, Meerkat immediately exploded in popularity. However, the fact remained that Meerkat was launched by a third party and Twitter already had other plans for live-streaming video. Mere weeks after the launch of Meerkat, it was revealed that Twitter was already planning to launch their own live-streaming app called Periscope.

Twitter actually acquired Periscope in January, so live-streaming is something that has long been on their mind. Periscope launched at the end of March for iOS, giving Meerkat only a brief head-start in the Twitter live-streaming business. Upon the launch of Periscope, most news sources had only positive things to say. The interface was cleaner than Meerkat, there’s more interaction available between users, and most importantly, Periscope allows users to save streams and replay them later.

In response, Meerkat has been doing what it can to differentiate itself from Periscope and ensure that it’s still got a horse in the race. The people behind Meerkat have opened up Meerkat to other developers, transforming it into a platform that can be enhanced in various ways. Developed have already changed the Meerkat experience by adding automatic uploads of streams to YouTube, analytics tools, and better discovery for other users’ streams, among other updates. Periscope is currently in the top ten US social apps, while Meerkat is around #70, but these enhancements may help to give Meerkat a push.

07 May
7

Checking Back in with Google Plus

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 5-7-2015It’s been a while since anyone has given much thought to Google Plus. Google’s attempt at a competitor to Facebook effectively crashed and burned, after not really providing users with anything that they didn’t already have from other existing social networks. It simply never offered anything that made people want to switch from one social network to the other. After Vic Gundotra, who focused largely on Google Plus during his tenure at Google, announced he was leaving the company last year, some news sources declared that Google Plus was effectively dead in the water.

However, Google has recently announced an overhaul of the Google Plus interface, which is drifting further away from a Facebook clone and actually seems to be emulating aspects of Pinterest. Google Plus’s newest feature is called the Collections tab, which allows users of Google Plus to group similar posts into sections, so that users can easily organize all of the things that they are interested in. These Collections can be shared publicly, privately, or with a specific group of people.

While Google Plus may have massively decreased in use, there were still plenty of people that were clinging to it. Roughly 6.6 million users made public posts in 2015, although that is only representative of 0.3 percent of all Google Plus accounts. However, Google was paying attention to what their loyal users were doing on the social network. These observations ultimately led to the launch of Collections, which is now available on the web and Android platforms and should be available for iOS in the near future.

16 Apr
8

What’s Facebook Letting Us Do Now?

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 4-16-2015The rate at which Facebook seems to be constantly growing and changing is truly astounding. It seems that rarely a week goes by without a new feature being rolled out by the social network. Over the course of the past couple of months, Facebook has released a number of new and interesting features, as well as separate applications that are intended to perform specific functions. One way that Facebook changed things up recently, for instance, is by allowing people to use Facebook Groups to sell things, in a way similar to Craigslist, but with less anonymity.

Another interesting thing that Facebook can now be used for is serving divorce papers via Facebook messages. In this situation, it’s not exactly a feature that was added by Facebook. It’s actually been a court ruling, which allows people to serve legal paperwork such as divorce papers via Facebook, depending on the circumstances. Whether or not this can be considered legal would have to be decided on a state-by-state basis, but New York has confirmed that it can be done.

Outside of the Facebook platform itself, Facebook has been launching some interesting apps that allow users to perform different functions. Riff is an app that allows friends to create collaborative videos by adding clips together; the videos that are created can be easily shared through Facebook and the contributors will automatically be tagged. Another app that Facebook just launched is called Scrapbook, which is effectively a way for children under the age of thirteen to have a Facebook presence, allowing parents to tag photos of their children. Facebook is currently looking into ways to allow a child’s Scrapbook to be upgraded to an official Facebook page once they turn thirteen.

09 Apr
8

Facebook Messenger Gets Standalone Web Platform

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 4-9-2015As I discussed last week, Facebook Messenger is going through some pretty big changes right now. With the addition of third-party support, Facebook is hoping to transform Facebook Messenger into its own platform. Yesterday, they extended this idea by launching Messenger.com, a dedicated web presence for Facebook Messenger, separating the messaging functions from the News Feed, notifications, and potentially other distracting information that usually might appear on Facebook.

Facebook users will still be able to send messages from Facebook.com as usual, but Messenger.com has been established as a chat website for those who may need to chat but don’t want to wind up endlessly clicking on the distracting social media content that can often present itself on Facebook. Currently, the features on Messenger.com are still somewhat limited. Users cannot yet send audio messages or send photos directly from their webcams, but it is likely that Messenger.com will continue to expand.

It’s also been confirmed that Messenger.com will allow users to interact via the third-party applications that were discussed last week. Though Messenger.com is only available to English-speaking users right now, Facebook plans to launch the platform internationally over the course of the next few weeks. Interestingly, Messenger.com does not presently feature any advertisements, but one can assume that this is likely to change in the future.

02 Apr
8

Third-Party Apps Now Able to Enhance Facebook Messenger

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 4-2-2015During the Facebook F8 conference last month, Facebook made a number of announcements about the future of Facebook and the ways that things will be changing throughout the year. One of the most interesting and buzzed about changes that apparently will occur is the fact that Facebook Messenger will now be able to support third-party apps and services, so that the Messenger service that Facebook has been developed can be customized in all sorts of different ways.

Facebook Messenger is used by more than 500 million people, so it’s no surprise that Facebook has made it their goal to make Messenger more useful. By opening up Messenger to third-party app creators, the possibilities are limitless. Since Facebook recently allowed friend-to-friend payments to be made in Messenger, it’s likely that there are a lot of interesting ways that Messenger can be expanded for commerce, with businesses potentially making it easier to purchase goods and services through their Messenger app.

The first third-party apps that have launched for Messenger have been simple sticker apps, as well as some small ones for audio and video clips. However, there are plenty of potential options for the future. People could send animated GIFs to their friends, have their messages sung out loud to them, play games, or make purchases all through the same Messenger app. Since the transformation is so recent, the sky is still the limit for what could come from Facebook Messenger’s evolution into a full-fledged platform.

26 Mar
8

Instagram Launches Layout for Photo Collages

In Social Bookmarking, Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking, Web 2.0 | No comment

Picture 3-26-2015Instagram has recognized that its users are very interested in making collages. There are plenty of third-party apps that allow for this very function such as Pic Stitch, PhotoGrid, InstaCollage, and more. After recognizing that one in five monthly active users on Instagram had used one of these collage apps at least once, Instagram decided that they would launch their own collage-making application, hoping to make the experience easier and more efficient for their user base.

The app that they have launched is called Layout and it’s trying to make an effort to separate itself from the herd of similar collage applications. While most of these third-party collage apps start out by offering empty grids where pictures can be arranged, Layout is different in that it has you choose the pictures that you will be using first, and then automatically arranges the photos for you, once you have selected a collage style. From there, it is easy to replace photos, resize them, or move them into different positions.

Many news sources are already comparing Layout to Hyperlapse, which quickly became the defining app for creating timelapse videos. From the way it looks, Layout could similarly become the definitive collage app, even amidst all of these other competing apps. Considering the success of Hyperlapse, it is likely that Layout will also have success, because of its direct affiliation with Instagram and its overall ease of use. The app launched for iOS on Monday and is expected to be released for Android in the coming months.

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