After months in development, Facebook has launched Snapchat-inspired features, camera and stories on its app. The new in-app camera comes with interactive effects, filters and emojis and two additional ways to share the photos and videos.
In a Facebook post, company COO Sheryl Sandberg said, “Photos and videos help us share things that words can’t quite express. Today, we launched new tools to make it easier to share what you want, with who you want. Starting this week, when you open Facebook, you’ll see a new in-app camera loaded with masks, filters and interactive effects, and two new ways to share: Facebook Stories and Direct. Let the camera do the talking…”
The camera icon now sits on the top left corner of the app and can also be used by swiping right on the News Feed. “Reactive effects let you interact with dynamic objects — like falling snow — and style effects apply an artistic filter to your video in real time, letting you turn your everyday selfie into a Picasso-style work of art,” said Facebook in a blog post.
Following the success of Stories on Instagram, the feature was brought to the Facebook app. Just like Instagram, the Stories feature lets users share multiple photos and videos which appear atop News Feed and are available only for 24 hours. The Stories will not come up on users Timeline or News Feed unless they post them there too.
Dig The Data
People Watching More Cable News According to Nielsen’s new fourth-quarter 2016 Total Audience Report, news consumers — viewers who watch at least one minute of TV news each year — spent nearly an hour and half more each week watching cable TV news in 2016 than they did a year earlier. The study found that adults spent more than 72.5 billion minutes on average consuming news overall each week in 2016, which is 11.2 billion minutes (and 18 per cent) more than 2015. Much of that increase came from national cable news networks, which jumped from 18.8 billion minutes viewed each week in 2015 to 27.1 billion minutes weekly in 2016.
Brand Buzz
Limit Extended Twitter now allows its users to say more in their replies by not counting the username in the 140-character count. The new feature comes after the company announced last year that it would stop counting photos, videos and other multimedia in its 140 character limit. With this move, Twitter kept the ethos of its 140-character limit alive, while giving users more room to talk. “The updates we’re making today are based on feedback from all of you as well as research and experimentation,” a company blog post explained.
LEADER
Harsh Goenka
@hvgoenka Chairman, RPG Enterprises “This govt is hard working, honest, progressive, believes in ‘sabka saath sabka vikas’. A wee bit more of tolerance and we’d be in Ram Rajya.”
Suhel Seth @suhelseth
Author “Courts in our country must stop treating citizens as petulant children. We are a democracy and not an Orwellian world with its Big Brother.”
