YouTube has brought a bunch of new livestreaming features to
its platform. These include the option to limit chats to subscribers only,
creating polls within chats, and creating clips from popular gaming streams.
What’s interesting about this group of features is that
these are all part of Twitch already and are used by Twitch streamers to engage
with the community, so it looks like YouTube has “borrowed” them from Twitch.
Let’s talk about these features in relation to YouTube. The option to limit chats to subscribers only is a useful one, as it can be used as a moderation tool to filter out irrelevant users and can be a good way for streamers to convince their viewers for paying. The in-chat polls can provide a simpler way for streamers to take their viewers opinions on different things in relation to the content they make and put out.
Facebook has announced a couple of new features, including
the option to schedule Stories on both Facebook and Instagram, a new business
discovery process from the News Feed, and new options for ads.
The option to schedule a Story after composing it on
Instagram or Facebook is part of Facebook’s Business Suite, which is its latest
business management platform. After scheduling a Story, you will find it displayed
on the content calendar in the Business Suite app.
This feature is likely going to be one of social managers’ favorite,
as there was no option on Facebook to schedule Stories before; something that
social managers have always wanted. By scheduling Stories, you can plan out
your complete content strategy in a better way using the help of the calendar
tool.
As the Stories format is becoming more widely used now,
Facebook is therefore, making more efforts to enhance the feature with tools
that can help brands maximize their Stories approach.
Secondly, users can also now save their Facebook and
Instagram posts as drafts in the Business Suite app, which will further
contribute to a better and more flexible planning of content.
The business discovery feature that Facebook plans to bring to the app will be linked to Page recommendations and displayed below posts in the News Feed. Related content from Pages will be highlighted below posts that users can then explore in the form of a new feed listing of images from Pages that may be similar to their interests. The topics of interest would include beauty, fitness, clothing, restaurants, etc.
The Google Assistant app is reportedly getting an update
with a new feature called Memory. This feature will include a bunch of tools,
such as a to-do list, a notes app, a Pocket-like reading list, and a Pinterest-style
collection board.
Using Memory, users can save a large variety of content like
articles, books, contacts, events, flights, hotels, images, movies, music,
notes, photos, places, playlists, products, recipes, reminders, restaurants,
screenshots, shipments, TV shows, videos, and websites.
Google Assistant already has a Memory feature that saves information, but Google has enhanced it and has integrated the Collections feature into Memory. Moreover, the sorts of things that you can save in Memory are now almost unlimited. You can then easily search for your saved items, sort, and revisit them.
YouTube is introducing a new tool on its platform, called
Checks, which is meant to make the video uploading process easier for creators
and will also assist them in the process of receiving ad revenue. With this
tool, the creator will be informed about copyrighted content present in their
video, if any, before they upload it.
The tool is going to be quite useful since previously,
creators were notified of copyright issues only after they would post their
video, as a consequence of which, their videos would be taken down or the ad
revenue would be paid to copyright holders.
Checks will use YouTube’s content ID system that will scan the video and detect a violation, after which the rights holder’s policy will be automatically applied to the video. If Content ID matches content in the video to another rights holder, the creator uploading the video will be notified through Checks to remove the copyrighted part of the video prior to its posting.
Instagram is introducing some new tools in an effort to
ensure better safety for its young user community. The company has published a
new Parents Guide after collaborating with The Child Mind Institute and
ConnectSafely in the US. The guide includes latest safety tools, privacy
settings, and conversation starters to navigate discussions between parents and
teens.
Another step that Instagram has taken is to understand its
users’ real age, as a lot of times young people lie about their date of birth
when signing up for an account. To prevent this from happening, the company is developing
new artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to help keep teens
safer.
With one of its new age-safety related features, Instagram is attempting to protect teens from unwanted contact from adults by preventing adults from sending messages to people under 18 who don’t follow them. When an adult tries to message a teen who doesn’t follow them, they will get a notification saying that DM’ing them isn’t an option.
To encourage taking the COVID-19 vaccine and promote
vaccination around the globe, Facebook has launched a bunch of tools, including
one that shows users in the US where they can get vaccinated. Users will also
be provided with links, so they can make an appointment at their local provider
in a fast and easy manner. Providers will be highlighted on a map and relevant
information will be shown to book an appointment.
To ensure more awareness among people about vaccines,
Facebook is also expanding its COVID-19 info center to Instagram. The info
center will be displayed at the top of the Instagram feed. Moreover, Instagram
is getting new stickers for Stories that will help raise awareness about
vaccines, such as the “Let’s get vaccinated” sticker.
Google has introduced a bunch of new features for Chrome OS,
including a very useful one for Android and Chromebook users, called Phone Hub. The
feature is meant to connect an Android phone to a Chromebook and will allow you
access to a number of options such as responding to text messages, checking your
phone’s battery life, setting up Wi-Fi hotspot, and locating a device.
Phone Hub will be displayed as a taskbar widget, that you can expand to view your recent Chrome tabs that you have been browsing.
In addition to that, Google is making its Wi-Fi Sync feature available on more devices. This means that you can connect to already configured Wi-Fi networks on your Android phone and other Chrome OS devices.
When Twitter first launched its version of Stories called Fleets,
the feature was simple with no additional tools or effects, unlike what
Instagram or Snapchat offer with Stories. However, Twitter recently decided to
add a new option to Fleets called Twemoji stickers, available to users
in Japan only for now.
In the Fleets composer, a new stickers tray can be found by
tapping on the smiley face icon. You can then use the search option to look for
the sticker of your choice to add to your photo or video. With the Twemoji
stickers, you can express your feelings or mood.
It looks like Twitter would consider bringing more of such visual tools to Fleets in order to expand the feature, which will help increase user engagement. Since other social platforms have already enhanced their Stories feature, it is likely that Twitter would do the same.
Twitter has announced some major features for its platform, including
one that will allow users to charge their followers for access to additional
content, and the other that will let them create and join groups based on their
interests. These features are meant to reinforce user engagement on the platform,
as they are based on models that have proven to be successful for other social
platforms.
Super Follows, which is Twitter’s new payment feature, will provide access to extra content like bonus tweets, community groups, newsletter subscriptions, and badges. Twitter shared a mock example for this, where a user charges $4.99 per month to obtain several benefits.
Google Photos is getting a new update for its video editing tools,
that includes new cropping options, the capacity to 'change perspective', apply
filters and enhance specific video elements such as brightness and contrast.
These new options will give users the opportunity to enhance their content on the go, update it and evolve their content process.
Instagram has rolled out a new feature called Recently
Deleted, to help users manage their content, as they will be able to review and
restore deleted content in the Instagram app. The company has also introduced protections
to help prevent hackers from compromising accounts and deleting shared posts.
Instagram says that it will ask users to verify themselves as their accounts’ rightful owners when permanently deleting or restoring content from Recently Deleted.
Google is offering a new feature for Meet that allows you to
check your appearance and audio prior to a conference in a more convenient way.
The feature is called Green Room and it appears in the form of a pop-up window,
which shows your video image and allows you to view and change your microphone,
speaker, and camera settings.
The pop-up window will open when you click on a small button below your video that says “Check your audio and video.” There is also a “Next” button on that pop-up window, by clicking on which, you can record a short video sample of 6 seconds, which will help you check how you will look and sound to participants in the meeting.
Facebook is providing a more convenient way to upload photos
in its post composing feature. The option of recent photos will be available
right below the text box now, displaying all of your photos from your gallery.
While this new addition won’t make much of a difference in
users’ overall experience on Facebook, it is still meaningful as the inclusion of
photos in posts is important to users, especially brands and businesses.
It was found out that posts that are accompanied with videos
and/or photos in contrast to just text, fetch far more reacts and interaction. There
is a 2% greater chance of reaching higher engagement with the use of photos
and/or videos in Facebook posts.
However, Facebook did get a bit late with integrating the
recent photos option in post composition. It is something that even its
subsidiary app Instagram has owned ever since it was launched. Perhaps since the
update isn’t so major after all, it is why Facebook didn’t give much importance
to it before.
The update was first spotted by social media expert Matt Navarra
and seems to be in its beta testing stage, since it’s available to only a
limited number of users for now. Facebook may officially roll it out on a
larger scale in a few months or so.
Facebook has launched its new Page layout for creators and
public figures, which has been primarily designed to focus more on Page
followings instead of Page Likes, as the Like button has been removed and the
Follow button appears more prominent now, next to the follower count. The profile
image has also been moved to the center. The new Page layout is meant to provide
more management options and engagement insights.
Shifting the focus from Page Likes to Page Followings
actually makes sense because people who simply like a Page aren’t informed much
about Page updates as compared to people who follow a Page.
Emphasis on the Follow button will also show a more accurate picture of how much of a dedicated audience a creator or celebrity has, to prove the relevance of their content on the platform. The number of Page followings indicates the number of people who’ve chosen to receive updates, which is a stronger indicator than the count of Page Likes.
Google’s Smart Selection Menu has been providing a number of
efficient features ever since it was launched. It helps you carry out small
tasks in a simple way, such as using options like ‘select all,’ ‘copy’, and ‘share,’
with just a little thumb exertion, to copy a text that you are reading on your
phone, or copying a phone number and pasting it on the dial pad to carry on
with a call without having to first write or type the number somewhere else to
dial it.
The company is now expanding Smart Selection’s functionality with a new feature called Convert. The update is available for Android 9 and all the later versions of Android.
A new feature has been added to Facebook Groups, called Affiliations,
which is meant to make Group admins stand out. Admins have a tough job of
managing Group content and are, therefore, an important part of regulation on
Facebook.
Facebook is giving credit to admins that they rightfully deserve by highlighting them on the Group display. Earlier, admins could only be found on a Group by being searched for in the members list. Now, their names will be highlighted under the cover photo of the Group managed by them, hence making it easier for people to spot them.
Microsoft has collaborated with Google to bring the option
of uninstalling Google’s desktop apps from MS Windows. Microsoft engineers have
worked to bring this change in Chrome in Windows, so that it would work like a
native app.
Reports suggest that Windows 10 users may be provided with
the option to uninstall Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) that are basically
a Java Script framework that works like a native app but is different from
traditional native apps, as they are not entirely combined with the OS and
therefore, can not be uninstalled.
With Google’s new tool, the PWAs would be able to be uninstalled like native apps on a desktop, either through the Control Panel or Settings.
Zoom saw a rise in its stock price of more than 500% due to
the corona virus pandemic that compelled people around the world to maintain
social distancing, and therefore connect with each other virtually through
video conferencing, whether for work or socializing.
According to latest reports, Zoom is now considering expanding its platform beyond its video-conferencing service, to include features like email and calendar. It has also been reported that the company is already working on its email service and may start its testing next year. It is unclear whether Zoom has started working on its calendar service, though.
Telegram is introducing a new feature of group voice chats. The
feature will not only be a part of regular text chats, but will be accessible
for bigger groups or live events as well.
The admin of a group chat can enable the voice chat option from the top of a group chat, where it is located, so anyone can join the conversation. Moreover, the feature will work for the desktop versions of Telegram for Windows and Mac as well. To use the feature for desktop, you can also use a push-to-talk key to control your microphone input.
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