What happened to Social Media in April?
April was a big month for social media. Facebook held their 10th F8 developer conference and there were some very big announcements. Facebook sort of stole the show, however in doing so they did announce a lot of new features. Let’s take a look.
So, Facebook has announced a redesign of its platform which will be the biggest redesign that Facebook has seen for 5 years! Facebook is planning to redesign the website to coincide with their plans to become a “privacy-focused communications platform”.
With the redesign, Zuckerberg has revealed that the news feed will not be as important as it once was and this could lead to the news feed being completely removed in the future.
- Messenger
In the F8 Keynote, Facebook has announced that they plan to make their popular messaging app, Messenger, the “fastest private communications app on the entire planet”.
Figures that were unveiled show that the app’s size has been reduced from 120mb to only 30mb with a 1.3s cold start. This basically means that the app is now ¼ of the size it was and will start up in only 1.3 seconds.
- Hidden Like Counter
As you may have heard, Instagram is planning to remove the like count so that other users cannot see how many people have liked your photo/video.
Instagram claims to be doing this so users are more focused on the content itself rather than how many likes it has. Although you will not be able to see the like count on other user’s content, you will still be able to see how many people have liked your photos/videos.
This feature is currently being tested in Canada and should be released to the rest of the world throughout 2019.
- Away Mode
Away mode is my personal favourite feature that was announced at F8 2019. The Instagram team are pushing the focus on mental health from social media. Away mode allows you to take a break from the app when you are in a vulnerable position. The best way I can explain it is that it is similar to deactivating your Facebook account. If you’re in a tough spot, then you can activate away mode and you will disappear from the app until you’re ready to pick it back up.
- Shopping
Yes, the title is correct. Instagram is releasing a feature that allows you to shop through the app itself.
Users have been able to tag products in their posts for a while now, however, this would redirect you to another website. With Instagram shopping, users are able to check out straight through Instagram.
Getting tired of random accounts following and unfollowing you? Say goodbye to this annoying behaviour because Twitter is trying to crack down on spammers. To do this they have limited the number of accounts you can follow in a single day from 1000 to 400. Yes, following 400 people per day is still a lot of users, however, with a 600 follow difference this should limit the amount of spam on the platform.
Conclusion
There were a lot of big announcements at Facebook F8 2019 and here at Blue Whale Media, we can’t wait to test out the new features. What was your favourite feature announcement from F8 2019? Are you looking forward to testing it out?
