Social Media News – Week of 7/27
Is Google+ on its last legs? Has Instagram finally realized the benefit of a functional desktop view? Will Facebook and Twitter ever stop updating? Find out all that and more in this week’s social media roundup!
1. We’ve touched on the fact that Facebook is becoming an ecommerce-capable platform multiple times. It looks as though Facebook doesn’t have plans to stop developing this any time soon. The platform is currently testing out shops within pages – this means, next time you visit a brand’s Facebook page, you may be prompted to shop for said brand’s items.
1. You may have noticed that Tweets containing links are appearing differently in your mobile timeline. This is because Twitter has updated the way these links display – now, instead of normal links, users will see “cards” which display more info about a link before users open it. Say farewell to the days of blindly clicking a link with an interesting title, and say hello to links with more info!
2. Want to see something interesting? Open up Twitter, go to your settings, and check out your brand new data dashboard. This dashboard shows you all sorts of interesting info, like when you first started your account, when you last logged in, and what devices you’ve used to access the platform.
3. Tragic news! Twitter has made a change that you’ve probably noticed if you’ve visited the desktop version of the platform in the past few days. Your homepage wallpaper is now gone. Why? Twitter hasn’t explicitly stated its reasoning behind this yet, but the rumor is that this change has occurred to make more space for ads. Only time will tell.
1. Woohoo! Instagram has finally, FINALLY updated its desktop website to include search capabilities. This is a small change, but a very exciting one. Does this mean that Instagram is taking user feedback into account? Because, if so, we’d like to remind Instagram that giving users more ad capabilities and analytics in general would be great. In the meantime, we’ll settle with being happy about this new functionality.
Google+
1. Could the end be near for Google+? The platform has just removed the Google+ requirement from using Google’s services. Users can now comment on YouTube videos without having a Google+ account. Google+ is also allowing people to delete old, unused profiles, and will be deleting profiles that have been abandoned. We’ve been speculating on the demise of Google+ for months; we’re not sure if this is truly the end, but it appears that Google+ may be dying a slow, drawn-out death.
We hope that you’ve enjoyed our social media roundup for the week of July 27th. Each week, we take a look at what’s new in the world of social media and write about all of the changes in a blog post. To stay in the loop with all of the latest updates, check back in each week!