Lately in Social Media – 1/18/16

With 2016 officially here, it’s bound to be an exciting year for social media. So much happened in the world of social media in 2015, so let’s see how 2016 has started off.

Twitter:

No more 140-character limit – Is this even possible?! Will Twitter actually change it’s whole initial premise? Looks like it might be happening. Not sure when, but rumors are circling that Twitter will be rejecting it’s 140-character limit and will now allow up to 10,000 characters. This will allow people to say A LOT more on Twitter. This can be a good and bad thing. Good because businesses can increase their customer service engagement with more characters for interaction. Bad because it can allow for more extensive negative content. Let’s see if Twitter will follow through.

Periscope:

Periscope broadcasts on Twitter – Periscope launched early last year and now offers users something new nearly a year later. Videos on Periscope, both live and replays, can now be broadcast on Twitter timelines. We think this partnership is great for both Periscope and Twitter because now Periscope gets access to even more users through Twitter’s massive network. It’s convenient for Twitter users because it can expand what users can show on their timelines, and it also connects the two apps for easier broadcasting of videos to personal networks. Right now this option is only available for iOS users, but hopefully Android users will be able to join in soon.

Snapchat:

Snapchat is working on its own API – In order for Snapchat to grow its digital ad business, it has decided to start work on it’s own API, or application programming interface. If Snapchat is successful with their API development, it can increase ad usage tremendously. Not only will the ads be different and more engaging, it will allow more companies to start advertising with Snapchat. Having an API also allows more people to advertise because it will make it much easier to do so. Since the API is still in development, there aren’t many details on what it will look like now. However, it is something we will hopefully get to see soon in 2016.

What’s New?

The new app, Peach: The beginning of the new year brought us a new app called Peach, that was released on January 7th and raced to the top of the iTunes app store over that weekend. Peach allows users to post status updates, images, and drawings and then allows friends to comment on these posts. What makes Peach unique are it’s “Magic Words” that allow you to post GIFs, drawings, or large text based off words you type like “Draw” or “Shout” or “GIF”. Even though this new app blew up over the weekend it was released, it has since died down. Some people are even saying it’s officially dead. I guess we’ll see if Peach manages to stay relevant in 2016.