Platform Five: This Week’s ‘Must Know’ Social Media Changes and Updates
Each Friday on The Kamber Blog, we take a look back at the big social media changes made by the major platforms from the last seven days.
We also profile a couple of new and noteworthy social media tools worth having on your radar.
As always, the ‘big boys’ have been making tweaks to their services, including some more testing Facebook is making to the ever-evolving news feed, a potentially big change from YouTube, and a ‘secret’ service from Twitter.
1. YouTube announced a forthcoming update to the YouTube mobile app which will allow for a limited amount of offline viewing. It has been pitched as a great move for communters who dip in and out of data coverage but it will also increase the accessibility of YouTube content which is great news for marketers. A potentially visionary move by YouTube.
2. Facebook’s mobile app gets a makeover on the back of the iOS 7 update. The biggest change includes a function which allows you to tap the bottom of your home screen to get instant access to your messages and notifications. Facebook’s mobile app continues to be a movable feast that is constantly being adjusted based on user feedback and commercial objectives.
3. Facebook continues to test new features within the news feed and main home screen. Two features we spotted this week on the desktop version which weren’t ‘announced’ include increased integration from 3rd party networks including path (see below) and a new sponsored and suggested pages panel (see screen grab). It is always difficult to assess the impact of changes like this while they are still being tested, but it appears it is part of Facebook’s continuing effort to make the platform the master layer of the internet.
I’ve spotted some more #FB news feed integration w/ 3rd party sources incl. #Path and #Yelp cc @insidefacebook pic.twitter.com/CgBL3MUsSy
— Adam Vincenzini (@AdamVincenzini) September 16, 2013
4. The team over at Shift Communications spotted a ‘hidden’ feature from Twitter which is worth having on your radar. The new feature serves up notifications every time someone mentions or shares anything from your website (once you’ve completed the authentication process). This update in one word? Handy.
5. Plan your international meeting times with WorldMeetingTime.com. While this isn’t necessarily a ‘social media tool’ is is a handy tool to bookmark if you work with people in different parts of the globe. Thanks to the team at makeuseof.com for the hat tip.