Social Media Notes
Here’s this week’s round-up of social media (& sometimes tech) news. Come back weekly for what I hope to be a fun & informative blog post on social stories that caught my eye throughout the week!
- The iMEDIA social media conference was held over the weekend! I had an awesome time emceeing and also co-presenting with MacEwan’s Tyler Butler. We did Snapchat for Beginners/Brands – it was interactive and fun, we used our differing approaches to MacEwan and NAIT as examples, and got people to try out snapping themselves. One hour is not enough time! I’m looking forward to doing more Snapchat workshops moving forward. Check out our OH SNAP! iMEDIA slide deck here.
- Also: Things are heating up between Facebook and Snapchat. That’ll happen when the platform rejected Facebook’s $3 billion buy-out offer and is now valued at $16 billion.
- Facebook has just acquired an app that lets you add live face effects to your videos, or swap your face with other faces, so you can expect to see more of that on your feed soon. (I feel like Snapchat beat them to this with their face swapping selfie lenses that’s been making rounds the last couple weeks).
- And: Snapchat’s added social news publisher NowThis to their Discover feed. I really think the way NowThis’ ‘reports’ their news videos through Facebook is really effective (caption/subtitle driven).
- Plus: Snapchat is looking to hire a bunch of wearable technology experts. Maybe do what Google Glass could not?
- As Apple fights the FBI over encryption, Facebook, Google, and WhatsApp are all working to increase/improve their privacy technology.
- Remember Bing? Who actually uses Bing as a search engine over Google can anyone tell me? lol anyway, they’re launching some search engine stuff timed with March Madness.
- Google+ is still kicking around (despite reducing/eliminating some features), and are now rewarding users who are still actively using the platform by offering verified profiles and granting early access to some features.
- Also, the founder of 4chan has just been hired by Google. Maybe this means Google’s future social networks won’t fail as hard, lol.
- You hear a lot about how kids these days spend too much time on devices, but this new study has some interesting (though unsurprising) stats about social media-addicted parents who increasingly neglect their children.
- Despite controversy and bad press a few months ago, Peeple, the Yelp-like app that lets you rate people, has gone ahead and launched. Interestingly it is a Calgary-based company.
- Introducing Nom: a new livestreaming video platform for foodies, created by YouTube’s co-founder. Home cooks, professional chefs and anyone interested in culinary, can share their kitchen adventures in real-time!
- Nothing lite about this: Facebook Lite is growing father than actual Facebook – reaching 100 million monthly active users.
- Here’s the week’s Cat Saturday photos! My favourites are 6, 7, 17, 19, and 20!
Thoughts on these stories? Tweet @ me or leave a comment below!
Linda