Platform 5: This week’s most important social media changes (edition 61)
This week’s 5 most important social media changes
What’s changed in the last seven days? What does it mean?
Facebook’s Canvas now available for organic posts, Instagram announces on-the-fly translation and adds topic-based channels to Explore, Twitter extends video length to 140 seconds and Tumblr launches a streaming platform.
Let’s take a look at these changes in more detail.
Tumblr launches live streaming aggregator
Tumblr has announced the launch of a live streaming component to their social platform. Live streaming won’t actually occur on Tumblr, rather it will form an aggregation of streams on partner platforms. Users will be able to start streams on sites like YouTube and select to share them with their Tumblr followers. Tumblr is working to increase the number of partner sites capable of streaming to their platform.
Instagram adds topic-based channels to Explore
The popular moment sharing platform has added topic-based video channels within the Explore section. Channels are automatically picked for users based on their possible interests. The new channels will cover a variety of topics, both specific and of general interest. Instagram itself will algorithmically generate and curate the channels then serve them to users.
Twitter extends video length to 140 seconds
Twitter announced that it will be increasing the length of videos posted on their platform from 30 seconds to 140, matching the same number of characters available in tweets. Twitter will also be making it easier to find video content with a new viewing mode, releasing soon on Android and iOS. This feature also works with Vine videos, keeping in line with the trend of increasing video content across the net.
Facebook’s Canvas now available for posts
Facebook’s Canvas immersive mobile ad product is now available for organic page posts. Once a Canvas has been created, the option to Create Page Post will become available to send that content directly to the page. Once a Canvas has been created the Composer menu will feature a ‘Create a Canvas’ option in its drop-down menu.
Instagram announces instant text translation options
Instagram will soon implement instantaneous translation of text in its mobile applications. The update will give users the ability to read any comment or caption in their native language, automatically done within the app itself. A ‘see translation’ button will appear, similar to those that appear on Facebook’s news feed. The default language will be accessed within the settings area and can be enabled for use across the app.
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