Important Social Media Network Updates?

In this weekly list, we compile the tweaks and changes you should know about what for a lot of us is our most common point-of-interaction with technology: social media..

From Facebook to Reddit, these platforms aren't static; they're constantly changing. We keep track of the most important and most intriguing changes here.

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This week, we see more social media players roll out improvements to their platforms.

From new apps to low-key feature testing, Facebook continues to tweak their user’s experiences whether it’s being able to share more or read less. Pinterest continues to grow and keep their users happy by adding new features, while Spotify takes on Apple Messages. Read up on this week’s updates!

Skype Now Recognizes Microsoft Family Accounts

Skype now automatically adds members of your Microsoft family account under a “My Family” group. This group and chat creation requires no setup, and you can simply leave or delete members within the messaging app without affecting the main family membership status. Microsoft family accounts allow the adults to modify child account settings, screen time, as well as share purchases.

Pinterest Celebrates its 200 Million Users With Upcoming Features

Pinterest has that it will be working on new features inspired by user suggestions. Pinners will soon be able to curate their boards even more carefully using sections. As the company says, it’s a highly requested “boards within boards” feature that will slowly roll out. They will be inviting users to test more of the upcoming features, but there are no reports yet as to what these will be.

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Instagram Continues to Share ‘Stories’

Last week, we learned that Instagram is working on publishing Stories directly to Facebook, and now there are even more ways to share them.

On September 12, Instagram announced on its blog that users can now share Stories they have viewed to friends’ and groups’ Direct Inboxes. Users may opt out by changing their account settings, while private accounts can only be shared among followers.

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Twitter Experimenting With "Tweetstorms?"

A reader/developer sent in a tip to The Next Web after seeing a possible new feature from Twitter. In this particular discovery, there are hints that Twitter may soon enable publishing tweetstorms, which are basically lengthy content (over 140 characters) published as a quick succession of tweets. A third-party app, Tweetstorm.io, will allow you to compose tweetstorms in lieu of manually doing it on your own in any given Twitter app. According to TNW, Twitter has not commented on this speculation yet.

This Week's Facebook’s Updates

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A new app from Facebook dropped on Denmark’s iOS Store this week: Bonfire. This seemingly discreet release was by Matt Navarra of The Next Web.

The social media giant announced back in July that it was creating the standalone video chat app. It’s been predicted to rival another hit app, Houseparty, that has a strong teenage user base akin to Snapchat. It’s no secret that Facebook has struggled to keep this specific demographic locked on to the mother platform, so this particular reach makes a lot of sense.

A developer tipped the same website on a possible new feature after coming across a “Create A Private Profile” button in Facebook’s latest Android Package Kit (APK). There are no definite reports yet as to what a private profile would look like for users, but currently there are already ways to fine-tune profile privacy settings.

Select users are also now able to unfollow friends, Pages, and Groups temporarily. TechCrunch reports that the snooze feature is currently being tested to allow users to opt out of seeing unwanted posts for 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days. The feature is not yet available, and we’re yet to find out whether it’s one that will stick.

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Crisis Response center is now live on Facebook as a means to put its safety features together.

Safety Check, News Links, Community Help, and Fundraisers are now conveniently accessible in one spot. This would certainly be useful to users who want to tune into the news, as well as focus on updates from their friends and communities.

Spotify is Now on iMessage

You may now send your friends 30-second song snippets from Spotify via iMessage. Unlike Apple Music in which you’d have to be listening to the song in order to share it, you can search Spotify’s entire database without accessing the app. It launches a rather large player in the conversation window with a “Play on Spotify” button. However, you can’t really listen to entire tracks through the iMessage app and will have to open Spotify to enjoy the full song.

Guest Authhored By Anne Mari Ronquillo. Anne is a Freelance Writer, Blogger, Social Media Specialist. Follow Anne on Twitter.

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“From Facebook to Reddit, these platforms aren't static..

They're constantly changing.."

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

Facebook - Beyond Social Media?

With 1.94 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the undisputed king in the social media space..

Together with Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook has created social network strong enough to make competitors sweat. Facebook’s growth story has been impressive with its revenue rising from $7.87 billion in FY13 to $27.64 billion in FY16, and net income soaring from $1.5 billion to $10.19 billion during the same period.

The social media technology giant is growing at a healthy pace on the back of an increasing user base, advertising cost rate and merchants onboard—led by its mobile and video advertising strategy.

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Despite its phenomenal progress, Facebook is far from being complacent. It continues to invest in research and development (21% of revenue in FY16), and innovate aggressively to build new channels of potential growth for the times ahead. Here’s a close look at two of them—P2P payments and telecom infrastructure.

P2P Payments

Facebook unveiled its intent to enter the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payments market in March 2015 by introducing its convenient and secure mechanism in Messenger that allowed people to send and receive money seamlessly.

Dubbed as “easy and free,” the service by Facebook extended in April 2017 to send or receive money between groups of people on Messenger—to allow people to chip in for a common gift or a dutch party. With the expansion of its services in Europe and eventually other regions, the payments in Messenger is set to become a significant revenue source for Facebook over time.

BI Intelligence estimates that the U.S. annual P2P payments, which includes informal payments by cash, check, digital money transfer, or other means made from one person to another reached over $540 billion in 2014. A report by eMarketer anticipates mobile P2P payments transaction value to climb to $92.11 billion in 2017. These figures project immense scope for Facebook’s payment service that offers ease and security for a strongly ‘connected’ user base.

During the February Conference Call, Sheryl Sandberg said, “We're now per month at a billion messages sent between people and businesses and we think that's very promising for our ability for people to use this platform to make those connections that will ultimately drive business opportunities.”

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Telecom Infra Project

In February 2016, Facebook announced the Telecom Infra Project (TIP) with a goal to produce simple, efficient and flexible technologies that are relevant to both existing and future networks. TIP was launched to focus on three areas—access, backhaul, and core and management—applying the Open Compute Project model. 

Back in 2011, Facebook launched the Open Compute Project (OCP) aimed at “reimagining hardware, making it more efficient, flexible, and scalable” for greater choice, customization and cost savings. In 2015, Facebook reported that the project enabled it to save $2 billion in infrastructure costs over a three-year period and also helped reduce data center electric bills by as much as 20% for companies such as Fidelity Investments. OCP continues to revolutionize the $171 billion data center systems industry.

Now with TIP, Facebook is gearing to upend the billion-dollar telecom market. It is estimated that data traffic in the most advanced markets will triple in the next five years, while traffic in emerging economies is forecast to grow 9x in the same period. Thus, the next-generation networks need to be equipped to support billions of connected devices while offering flexibility at lower deployment costs and better coverage at higher bit rates.

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By working on the model of openness and disaggregation, Facebook is looking to unbundle the traditional telecom market to one that offers greater flexibility in building networks. Overall, it would reduce the huge hardware investments, thereby resulting in gains in cost and operational efficiency for both rural and urban deployments, benefiting not just Facebook but also other industry players and customers. With initial membership consisting of just five names—Facebook, Intel, Nokia, Deutsche Telekom and SK Telecom—the number has now crossed 400.

Overall, Facebook is poised to grow at a robust rate given its commitment to innovation and passion for advanced technologies. It is working to fulfill its mission—to make the world more open and connected—resting on the belief that “this journey is 1% finished.”

Guest Authored By Pableen Bajpai. Prableen is the Founding Director at FinFix; an enterprise in India, engaged in financial research, reports, training and spreading financial literacy while striving to provide counseling to the economically less privileged. Previously, she was heading the research at a wealth management company in India and has also taught business students at the Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan. Prableen is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) from ICFAI, holds a masters degree in Economics and is pursuing her CFP certification. Her work appears on various platforms including The Tribune (India), Seeking Alpha and Investopedia. Follow Pableen on Twitter.

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“Overall, Facebook is poised to grow at a robust rate given its commitment to innovation and passion for advanced technologies.

It is working to fulfill its mission—to make the world more open and connected—resting on the belief that “this journey is 1% finished.””

• 

  Authored by:

  Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)