The Latest Social Media Updates

When it comes to social media, there are constant changes in algorithms, updates to the interface, as well as new sites popping up every day. The big players are continuously tweaking their platform to make it more user friendly, which basically means more controlling, and they are all trying to monetize their site. That has been an elusive task for many social media sites, but you can’t blame them for trying.

This article from Social Media Today by Andrew Hutchinson provides the most recent social media updates with the headliner sites:

5 New Social Platform Features That You Need to Know About | Social Media Today

The social media landscape is constantly changing, everyday there are new options and tools being announced and introduced, some major and some less significant. And in that, there are also some of those smaller, minor updates or tests that are important to specific groups but can go under the radar because they’re not widely announced.

As part of our ongoing effort to provide our readers with the best coverage of the latest social media news and insights, we feel it’s important to cover all of these, but sometimes they’re not worthy of a their own individual post. So to keep you up to date on these smaller changes and features, here’s a rundown of five upcoming or “in test mode” features that are currently being trialed by some of the major platforms – starting with Facebook, which has several interesting new options in the works.

1. Hiding Mature Content

Policing offensive material on social is always a challenge, and one that’s been made even more difficult with the advent of live-streaming – when the content is coming through in real-time, how can you censor it? For their part, Facebook has a whole team of people who scan through potentially offensive material on the platform and flag or remove as necessary – but even with such processes in place, The Social Network still receives many complaints from users about confronting material everyday coming up in their feeds.

As part of a new effort to combat the problem, Facebook is trialing a new ‘Mature Content’ filter option for users.

Image from Facebook

As shown in the image sequence, selected users are being shown the first message in their News Feed, giving them the option to remove mature content from their feed. If you do opt to remove mature posts, you’re then able to either filter them out completely, or to appear with a warning cover which gives you the option on whether you view the flagged material or not. Facebook told Business Insider that machine learning is being used to determine if something in a post violates the platform’s Community Standards, leading to it being potentially censored.

It’s an interesting option, giving users more control over what they see, and potentially could have some impact on brand content, depending on the products/services you offer.

2. Donations During Live-Stream

Facebook’s also reportedly looking to trial a new system which would enable people to donate money during a Live stream, with those donations – and donators – displayed during the broadcast.

The discovery is based on currently dormant back-end settings within Facebook Live, discovered by Moshe Isaacian (and shared by The Next Web’s Matt Navarra) earlier this week.

Facebook’s been investigating ‘tip jar’ type options for a while – back in April The Verge got access to a Facebook survey which had been sent out to verified users posing a range of questions around how they use Facebook, including whether they might find a tip jar option useful. If introduced, it could give Live broadcasters a new way to monetize their streams, and a new incentive to provide more value to their viewers, to whom they could directly appeal for funding to keep doing what they do. And worth noting, both YouNow and Twitch, which Facebook is now competing with in the live-streaming space, have donation options which, in YouNow’s case, enable a sort of digital busking option for artists.

That’s very likely the type of activity Facebook’s looking to encourage, giving broadcasters more reason to create content on the platform.

There’s no word as yet as to when, or even if, the tip jar system will ever be activated, but given it’s already built into the code, it’s likely we’ll see the tool announced some time soon.

3. Facebook Crossposting

Another recent Facebook Page addition is a ‘Crossposting’ tool, enabling admins to submit one video post that can be shared across multiple Pages to which they’re connected.

Crossposting has been available within Business Manager since April, but the option has now also been added to the general Facebook Page options – Facebook’s main use case for crossposting video is explained like this:

“A media company might want to post a video on their main Page, their international Page, and one of their topical Pages. Then they might also want to repost that same video a few weeks later.”

So if you manage multiple Pages and are looking to more easily share your video content across them, there’s now a simplified tool to do so.

Read the rest of the updates here:  5 New Social Platform Features That You Need to Know About | Social Media Today

So, the fact that Facebook updates are highlighted in the first three sections is no surprise. They are one of the few social media platforms that are profitable.  Plus they seem to find a way to regularly be in the news. Not many of the social sites can boast about their bottom line, including Twitter.

This Statistica infographic shows how Twitter rates against Facebook after ten years of existence. Even with its celebrity status, Twitter is still struggling to be in the black. There are numerous reasons, but time will tell whether Twitter can please their stockholders.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Facebook plays a big part in many businesses social media campaigns. There are numerous other platforms that are used to promote brand and products or services. We use Facebook, but we also use YouTube regularly as a promotional tool.

Here is another article that highlights social media updates. In this case, I chose to display the “other” platform updates, although this article by Debbie Miller of Search Engine Journal also started with Facebook news:

10 Social Media Updates from April 2016 | SEJ

Google +

Google has loosened its restrictions on who can leave reviews. Once requiring a Google+ account, now reviews can be left whether signed in to a Google+ account or not.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn released an app with the potential to bring in more young people to its social network. The new app, appropriately titled “LinkedIn Students”, is made specifically for helping college students in their efforts to find jobs after graduation.

Reddit

Reddit finally has its own self-produced mobile app for the iOS and Android platforms. Its presenting a completely different user experience on its mobile app than what people are accustomed to on desktop.

Twitter

Twitter is set to be the destination for sports fans on Thursday nights; the signing of a partnership with the NFL gives the social network exclusive streaming rights of NFL Thursday Night Football.

YouTube

Google is rolling out a new ad format for YouTube which will be short and unskippable. Google is calling me these ad units “Bumper” ads and they will appear just before videos that you watch on your phone or tablet.

See the other updates here:  10 Social Media Updates from April 2016 | SEJ

I know many people see social media as a way to stay connected with family and friends. Even though I enjoy it, it is also part of my job and my daily routine. In this day and age, a business can’t ignore the number of eyeballs that view the different platforms every day and use that to their advantage.

 Originally seen on S&S Pro Blog

The Differences Between Vine and Giphy

Twitter’s six-second looping video app, Vine, is going to be shutting down soon. The reason is partially that Twitter is struggling to be in the black with their revenue, but also that Twitter is still trying to find itself.  Additionally, other companies jumped into the same video space and moved ahead of Vine in popularity, such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Giphy.

Vine was bought by Twitter in 2012 and was initially an online hit. However, with Vine’s headquarters in New York and Twitter’s in California, this apparently caused a disconnect. They also struggled to keep the leadership role at Vine consistent, with people leaving to take other positions, which didn’t help the situation. In this article by The Verge, more detail about the situation are explained:

Why Vine died – The Verge

The thing about Vine becoming the internet’s premier tool for making short-form videos is that it happened almost completely by accident. Its founders had envisioned their tool for making 6-second clips as a way to help people capture casual moments in their lives and share them with friends. It was

Image from Flickr

part of their pitch to Twitter, which bought the company for a reported $30 million in October 2012, seeing it as a near-perfect video analog to its flagship app’s short-form text posts.

And yet even before the app launched, users had taken the 6-second constraint as a creative challenge. Something about that loop — the way a Vine endlessly rewound itself after completing, like a GIF with audio — encouraged people to put the app to strange uses. “It was surprising,” said Dom Hofmann, who founded Vine with Rus Yusupov and Colin Kroll four months before Twitter bought it. “Our original beta had something like 10 or 15 people on it, and even with that small group we started to see experimentation pretty early on.”

Within weeks, it appeared that Vine probably would never become the everyday video sharing tool its founders had envisioned. Instead it became something wilder — and much more culturally interesting. “It became pretty clear as soon after we launched,” Hofmann said. “Watching the community and the tool push on each other was exciting and unreal, and almost immediately it became clear that Vine’s culture was going to shift towards creativity and experimentation.”

On Thursday, the experimentation came to an end. With its own future increasingly uncertain, Twitter said it would shut down Vine’s mobile app some time in the next few months. And while existing Vines will remain on the web, a media format that had become beloved for its versatility now appears headed the way of Betamax.

Read the original post here:  Why Vine died – The Verge

Giphy, another looping video app, is extremely popular right now. It has a lot of similarities to Vine, and is now allowing Vine users to import their videos to their service. Ironically, this post is from Giphy’s Twitter account:

 Follow

GIPHY ✔@GIPHY

Long Live The Loop 
How to Import All of Your Vines to GIPHY: http://medium.com/@giphy/giphy-loves-vine-bca7be54fcde#.cvavijom7 …

3:19 PM - 29 Oct 2016

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So what are the differences between Vine and Giphy? They both have difficulty monetizing their product, but Giphy is valued at $600 million dollars. This type of platform with short looping video clips that are entertaining and invoke emotions, like a moving emoticon, might be the future of media.  Could it have something to do with our attention span? Probably so, but this article from Fortune explains further why the company is valued so high:

Animated GIF Company Giphy Has No Revenue But Is Worth $600 Million

Whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook, or in your company’s Slack inter-office chat threads, you’ve probably seen hundreds of them—animated GIFs of Donald Trump making faces, or of popular Internet “memes,” like the little girl doing the rock salute while four-wheel drifting in her toy Corvette.

These little mini-clips may be fun, but does that justify giving one of the companies that create them a market value of $600 million? By way of comparison, that’s more than twice what Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos paid for the Washington Post.

Giphy, which was created in 2013 as part of the New York-based venture fund/incubator Betaworks, got this valuation by raising a Series D funding round of $75 million from a series of venture capital investors. That doubled the amount the company has raised so far, and coincidentally also doubled its valuation to $600 million.

If you’re wondering what Giphy’s valuation works out to as a multiple of revenue, the answer is that it’s almost infinite — because the company doesn’t really have any revenue to speak of.

So then why should this business be worth $600 million? Giphy and its investors argue that it is essentially a model for a new kind of media company. It creates bite-sized pieces of video that can go incredibly viral in a matter of minutes, whether it’s about the election campaign or a popular TV show.

Read the full post here:  Animated GIF Company Giphy Has No Revenue But Is Worth $600 Million

A GIF, also known as graphic interchange format, is an image file that supports both still shots and animated videos, and it is where Giphy got their name. The image below is an example of a GIF from Giphy. You can see that it just keeps looping the same clip over and over.

I also thought the GIF was somewhat of a statement for how hard it is to monetize these types of platforms…the money is there but you can’t quite grasp it. Media platforms have their work cut out for them as far as discovering the best way to earn revenue through these creative communication tools. The battle for catching the viewers’ attention and dollars will prove who is the most imaginative entrepreneur.

The post was originally seen on S&S Pro Services Blog

Pros and Cons of Using Social Media at Work

As an online blogger and owner of a digital marketing agency, my day is filled with research, promotion, and making connections via social media. It's a given that I will log into several social media accounts multiple times every day. Do I ever get lost in looking at photos, watching videos, reading status updates and liking posts?  Absolutely!  Is this productive? For the most part, probably not. 

You really have to discipline yourself when getting on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn to stay on task. Even checking my emails too often can be counterproductive. As a business owner, you have to ask yourself this question:  "Does this activity have the potential to make our company money?" If the answer is "no," then you have to limit time spent gawking around when the reason you logged in was to promote a client or connect with a potential customer.

This article discusses how people are using social media on the job and the pros and cons of allowing this activity at your place of business. 

Here's What People Are Using Social Media for at Work -- The Motley Fool

Workers at Facebook's Austin, Texas, office are probably not typical when it comes to using social media at work. Image source: Facebook.

Image from Pixabay

While some companies have taken steps to ban the use of Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Twitter (NYSE:TWTR), LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD), and other social media sites from the workplace, many have have not.

In some cases that leads to positive uses of the services -- crowd-sourcing answers, making important connections, and finding ways to solve problems. More than half of the time, however, the reasons people use social media while at the office involve non-work purposes, according to recent press release from Pew Research Center based on 2014 data.

"These digital platforms offer the potential to enhance worker productivity by fostering connections with colleagues and resources around the globe," wrote Pew's Kenneth Olmstead, Cliff Lampe, and Nicole B. Ellison. "At the same time, employers might worry that employees are using these tools for non-work purposes while on the job or engaging in speech in public venues that might reflect poorly on their organization."

It's important to note that the Pew research does not make judgments about the answers given by the 2,003 American adults in the study. That means that just because the top reasons people are using social media while at work do not apply to their job does not necessarily mean their actions cause a loss of productivity. It's possible, at least in theory, that workers' using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites replaces potentially less-productive activities like taking smoke breaks or making phone calls.

The survey, according to Pew, asked Americans who are employed full- or part-time about eight different ways they might use social media while on the job and found that, in Pew's words:

• 34% use social media while at work to take a mental break from their job
• 27% to connect with friends and family while at work
• 24% to make or support professional connections
• 20% to get information that helps them solve problems at work
• 17% to build or strengthen personal relationships with coworkers
• 17% to learn about someone they work with
• 12% to ask work-related questions of people outside their organization
• 12% to ask such questions of people inside their organization

Social media has its risks

Even though 17% of people say they are using social media to build or strengthen their relationships with co-workers and the same amount use services like Facebook and Twitter to learn more about a co-worker, that can be a double-edged sword. What you learn on the the social sites may actually make you think less of a colleague.

"Some 14% of workers have found information on social media that has improved their professional opinion of a colleague; at the same time, a similar share (16%) have found information on social media that has lowered their professional opinion of a colleague," wrote the researchers.

"Some 14% of workers have found information on social media that has improved their professional opinion of a colleague; at the same time, a similar share (16%) have found information on social media that has lowered their professional opinion of a colleague," wrote the researchers.

Just over half of those surveyed (51%) said their office has rules regarding the use of social media in the office. That has some effect as workers at companies that have social media policies use those service less (30% versus 40% at companies that do not have such rules).  In addition, 20% of employees at companies with social media rules say they use social media to stay connected to family and friends while on the job, compared to 35% at offices that do not regulate its use.

Of course, Pew also reported that 77% of workers surveyed said that they use social media sites while at work regardless of their company's policies. And, companies considering regulating the use of social media services should also take note that making rules about using sites like Facebook and Twitter for personal reasons can also make it less likely that employees will use them for positive, business-related reasons.

"Only 16% of workers whose companies regulate social media at work say they use social media while working to get information that's helpful to their job, compared with 25% of those whose workplaces have no such regulations," the researchers wrote.

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Daniel Kline owns shares of Facebook. He uses social media for work all the time and often goes to Facebook to find sources for articles. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook and Twitter. The Motley Fool owns shares of LinkedIn. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Here's What People Are Using Social Media for at Work -- The Motley Fool

I have a funny feeling this person's boss might decide that being "too efficient" translates into "you need more work to do."

Not everyone feels it is a negative to use social media at work.  This article discusses the benefits of using social media to de-stress and bolster creativity.  If it helps to keep morale up, allows employees to relief some pressure and helps them think outside the box, it can be a positive thing as long as the right isn't abused. 

Light Facebook Use At Work Could Boost Your Creativity

Do you use Facebook at work? Good news, kind of: That may be the best way to cope with the grinding banality of office life. 

A team of researchers in China has published a theoretical paper that draws attention to the use of social media at work as a means of self-therapy when young workers end up in jobs that aren't right for them.

The research, which appeared in the most recent issue of the journal Employee Relations, suggests that the use of social media at work can be a positive thing, as long as it's done in moderation. A little bit of personal social media can spur creativity and give workers an outlet for their stress, the researchers say. But too much social media use, as you might guess, makes people unproductive and often signals that the person feels alienated from his or her job.

Basically, the theory goes, students who go to good schools are under the impression that they will have great, fulfilling, fascinating jobs as soon as they hit the workforce. The reality, especially for more average students, is usually quite different. When their jobs turn out not to be fulfilling, young people often turn to various coping outlets -- particularly social sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram -- to help mitigate the stress that comes with their new jobs.

The researchers suggest that this isn't necessarily a bad thing. A small amount of time spent on Facebook (or the social network of your choice) can actually reduce stress, increase creativity and make young people better at their jobs. But there's a point -- and it's hard to say where exactly -- past which Facebooking becomes a negative factor and adversely affects a person's work.

Jhony Ng, one of the authors of the paper and a professor at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, says he can't quite define that threshold, but he knows it when he sees it.

"The line should be at where one’s non-work-related social media use does not affect their job performance," Ng told The Huffington Post in an email.

In other words, if you spend some downtime on Twitter in between projects, it's probably good for you. If you spend all afternoon on Facebook instead of finishing something your boss asked you to do, that's probably bad.

In an unscientific Twitter poll conducted by this reporter, who was definitely not using social media to slack off, nearly half of the 2,028 respondents said they use social sites to cope with their jobs. Nearly one-quarter say they do not. Another 31 percent do not take Twitter polls seriously, judging by their response of "lol."

Do you use social media at work as a coping mechanism for dealing with the job that you hate?

When young people feel stressed out at their dull, unfulfilling jobs, the authors speculate, it's partly because no one ever told them when they were students about the kind of drudgery and indignity that usually permeate one's early years in the workforce. "How many advisors tell students that the glamorous banking jobs they see in Hollywood movies will not be available to most of them?" the paper asks.

The paper only looks at young workers, which is deliberate. Young workers have less experience, and are therefore more likely to be in low-paying, low-prestige jobs that aren't a good fit for them temperament- or skillwise. Plus, they simply haven't yet adjusted to the realties of adult life, which for many people include too much work and too much stress for too little pay.

But Ng speculates that social media use will probably decrease as employees get older, "when young workers have truly lowered their career expectations over time, or when they have managed to find more fulfilling jobs." Light Facebook Use At Work Could Boost Your Creativity

Read the original post on S&S Pro Blog

Twitter and Machine Learning: The Purchase of Magic Pony Technology

Another big purchase for a social media platform, as Twitter purchased Magic Pony Technology for a nice chunk of money. With this investment, Twitter is stepping up their game with machine learning.  In this case, though, it has to do with ways to compress and enhance photographs and videos.  This type of technology highlights Twitter’s focus on videos and images, but with a sci-fi twist of using neural networks and artificial intelligence to take “Photoshopping” to a new level.

Since this is the 3rd machine learning startup company Twitter has bought, it is obviously part of their future plans.  How exciting to think of the possibilities!  In this article by TechCrunch.com, the acquisition for Twitter and Machine Learning is explained in further detail.

Twitter pays up to $150M for Magic Pony Technology, which uses neural networks to improve images | TechCrunch

Twitter today is taking another step to build up its machine learning muscle, and also potentially to improve how it delivers photos and videos across its apps: the company is acquiring Magic Pony Technology (that is really the name), a company based out of London that has developed techniques of using neural networks (systems that essentially are designed to think like human brains) and machine learning to provide expanded data for images — used, for example, to enhance a picture or video taken on a mobile phone; or to help develop graphics for virtual reality or augmented reality applications.

From Pixabay

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed but we have two separate sources who tell us that Twitter is paying $150 million in all for the deal. This takes into account retention bonuses for the staff, which numbers about 11, including co-founders Zehan Wang and CEO Rob Bishop.

“Machine learning is increasingly at the core of everything we build at Twitter,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO and co-founder, in a statement. “Magic Pony’s machine learning technology will help us build strength into our deep learning teams with world-class talent, so Twitter can continue to be the best place to see what’s happening and why it matters, first. We value deep learning research to help make our world better, and we will keep doing our part to share our work and learnings with the community.”

This is the third machine learning startup Twitter has acquired, after Whetlab last year, and Madbits in 2014.

Magic Pony Technology had raised an undisclosed amount of money from investors like Octopus Ventures, Entrepreneur First and Balderton. One of Balderton’s ex-VC’s n fact, invested in the company.

We first learned about Magic Pony Technology when they caught our eye after they presented last year at a Pitch@Palace, a tech event put on at St James’ Palace in London.

It made a few further waves this year, as it further revealed the way that its technology worked to help enhance visuals with information that may not be in the picture itself, but essentially be recreated from composites of similar pictures, much like how the human eye works. In fact, one anecdote I’ve read about the origin of the name “Magic Pony” is that it’s a reference to the remarkable nature of what they do. (“It’s unbelievable, like a magic pony!”)

The company, however, by and large has remained fairly under the radar, with a website that has never offered more than a simple statement about what it does and the number of patents that it has filed. There are around 20 now, with several of them listed here, which will now belong to Twitter.

From Pixabay

As for what Twitter plans to do with the tech, it’s notable that Dorsey keeps his comments to a general statement about the place for machine learning in Twitter’s bigger business (those comments are further elaborated here, where Dorsey notes that the team will be joining Twitter’s Cortex division).

But more specifically, Magic Pony has been building out technology in the area of image processing and this has an obvious avenue into Twitter’s business. Given that a large part of Twitter’s audience posts on and reads Twitter, as well as its video apps Vine and Periscope, using mobile handsets, and given that mobile handsets sometimes produce less than perfect media, there is a clear opportunity for Twitter to use this directly in its own products.

“Twitter has gone after video in a big way and buying Magic Pony demonstrates how important video is for them. That’s the key thing,” Suranga Chandratillake, a partner at Balderton, told TechCrunch.

Less obvious, but also very interesting is that Twitter is gaining a very strong team working in still-emerging tech areas where the company has yet to lay out any intentions, like virtual and augmented reality.

“Magic Pony was already working on a pretty substantial VR and AR strategy before they were acquired and have some very interesting tech in that area,” noted Chandratillake.

“Our team has researched and developed state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for visual processing that can identify the features of imagery and use that information to process it in new ways,” said Rob Bishop, Magic Pony CEO and co-founder. “Joining forces with Twitter gives us the opportunity to bring the benefits of that research to hundreds of millions of people around the world, and allows Magic Pony to contribute to better quality viewing experiences on Twitter.”

Via techcrunch.com

This is the pitch video that Magic Pony Technology presented at an tech event last year that caught Twitter’s eye.

The news of the Magic Pony is all over social media today, but especially on Twitter. It will be interesting to see how Twitter uses this deep learning technology. Sci-fi meets reality.

 Follow

Lori Smith @lorijeansmith13

Twitter has bought a machine learning startup that can sharpen real-time video http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/20/11975894/twitter-machine-learning-magic-pony-acquisition?utm_campaign=theverge&utm_content=article&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter … via @verge

3:31 PM - 20 Jun 2016

Twitter has bought a machine learning startup that can sharpen real-time video

Twitter has bought a machine learning startup that can automatically sharpen low-resolution and blurred video in real time. The social network announced this morning that it had acquired...

theverge.com

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