79 per cent of people online in the US on Facebook
A new report from the Pew Research Center has found that 79 per cent of Americans use Facebook, more than doubling the numbers for Instagram (32 percent), Pinterest (31 percent), LinkedIn (29 percent) and Twitter (24 percent). The report also found that women use Facebook at a higher rate than men, and that 62 percent of online users aged 65 and over now on the social network, up from 48 percent in 2015.
UK adults spending more time on mobile than on desktop or laptops
eMarketer has projected that this year, mobile time will account for more than a quarter of daily media time for the average adult. Mobile time will reach 2 hours and 29 minutes per day – an 11.8% rise over last year. By 2018, the end of eMarketer’s forecast period, mobile will have a 29.5% share of total media time spent per day—just a single percentage point behind TV.
Instagram Stories now lets you tag friends and add links
Users can now tag friends, add links and even create short videos that play forwards and backwards on a loop, thanks to new Instagram Stories features. Now, if a user adds a mention in an Instagram Stories video, the viewer can click on the user that was mentioned to reveal a pop-up that leads to their profile. The updates are the biggest the platform has released since it launched the Snapchat copycat channel in August.
Facebook opens sponsored messages to all developers in newest version of Messenger
A new version of Facebook Messenger has paved the way for advertising on the platform. As part of a new update, Facebook announced it would make sponsored messages — where advertisers are able to send you messages on the platform — generally available to all advertisers. Users will be able to block unwanted messages though, and businesses won’t be able to target users they don’t have an existing chat relationship with.
WhatsApp adds GIFs to iOS app
WhatsApp users can now share GIFs in its messaging application on iOS. The new feature allows users to send and receive GIFs, including Live Photos and shorter videos. To find your GIF library, click on the photo and video library and then select the GIF option.
Facebook trials launches job listings feature
Facebook is trialling allowing job openings on business pages. The new feature could compete with LinkedIn, as well as developers like Work4, Workable and Jobscore that build “Jobs” tab applications businesses embed in their Facebook Pages. Perhaps Facebook was prepping for these new features when it tested Profile Tags last year that mimic LinkedIn’s endorsements feature.
Facebook updates its anti-discrimination policies
Facebook is beefing up its anti-discrimination protocols after a Pro Publica report criticised the platform’s “ethnic affinity” targeting. To see whether Facebook targeting could be used to discriminate, Pro Publica built an event ad for a housing meeting and excluded African Americans, Hispanics and Asians from seeing it. Or rather, it excluded Facebook’s “ethnic affinity” groups corresponding to African Americans, Hispanics and Asians. In response, Facebook said it would beef up protocols to ensure that advertisers are aware of the law and understand when targeting by ethnic attributes is appropriate and when it’s not. The new protocols will disable ethnic affinity targeting on housing, employment and credit ads.
Snapchat Spectacles for sale – but only through a travelling vending machine
Snapchat has created a robot that looks like a vending machine dressed as a Minions character, sounds like C3PO and sports a huge digital interactive eye. And the bot is the only way tech fans can get hold of Snapchat Spectacles. The bots will be going on a US tour to allow people to buy the new devices, and keen beans can monitor this site to find out where they will be dropping in on next.
Brands including the New York Stock Exchange, Mountain Dew and Sour Patch Kids candy have already been getting in on the Snapchat Spectacles act to create content – so consumers can expect plenty more ‘spectacular’ footage in the months to come.
Snapchat launches filters to make the world more interesting
Snapchat’s latest iOS app update includes a new World Lenses filter, as well as support for the company’s Spectacles. Rather than putting a filter on your own face, World Lenses allow users to add a filter to the world around them. The update comes with seven options, including a lense that overlays hearts and one that makes it look like it’s snowing inside.
Pinterest beefs up ad measurement
Pinterest is offering a wealth of new data to measurement tech companies. New York-based Moat will track viewability for advertisers, and mobile-geared AppsFlyer, Kochava, Tune, Adjust and Apsalar will also join the program. The platform is also welcoming Neustar, Krux, mParticle and Experian to help brands match their own data with Pinterest’s insights.
Michael Kors takes to WeChat for Singles Day promotion
Singles Day, the Chinese calendar date that celebrates, well, being single, is on track to generate $20 billion this year through online promotions; and handbag giant Michael Kors has got in on the action with a WeChat campaign. The brand posted GIFs and interactive games, including a casino-themed shoppable blog post, to its WeChat account that centred around the theme of ‘one’. This is the second year that Michael Kors has participated in Singles’ Day, which Alibaba started making a “thing” in 2009.
Trump says Twitter and Facebook helped him to win
We called it first. Our social analysis predicted Trump was likely to win several days before the election – not that we wanted to believe it.
But now President Elect Donald Trump is claiming that social networks were instrumental in his victory. He told CBS’ 60 Minutes on Sunday: “The fact that I have such power in terms of numbers with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc… helped me win.” He even said he spent less than Clinton on paid media, thanks to the strength of his social following – despite the fact his social privileges were reportedly frozen prior to the election.
Trump has now pledged to become ‘restrained’ on social now that he’s President Elect, to be more in line with outgoing president Barack Obama’s strategy — the detached, careful style of the first tweeting president of the United States.
But the Clinton camp aren’t the only people feeling the aftershocks of the election. Facebook has been levied with multiple accusations that false news stories on the platform helped Trump to win. The company was accused of shirking its responsibility to clamp down on fake news stories within days of the result. After initially stalling on the issue, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be investigating the issue – although how far it will go, remains to be seen.
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