Instagram story recently added Boomerang and Mentions in a bid to move ahead of its rival Snapchat.
All users can now tag friends or add a Boomerang clip to their Instagram Story. However, the features are only available to verified accounts at the moment.
With this new update, users can now add navigable links to their story updates, which will allow people to open them without leaving the app. The link address, however, will not appear on the photo/video, rather it would be accessible from a ‘See More’ tab on the screen. Instagram is still testing out this feature and would be monitoring it for any inappropriate content.
Instagram’s rival Snapchat, on the other hand, does not allow any links within its stories which can prove useful in attracting more users, and brands as well.
Boomerang — earlier a standalone app by Instagram — has also been added as a feature within Instagram Story. Users can swipe between the normal mode and Boomerang mode to edit their Story as needed.
The other new feature, Mentions, allows users to tag other handles in the Story just as you tag Instagram photos. Tagged user accounts can then be opened directly from the Story.
Instagram Story, which was launched in August this year, has more than 100 million daily users today.
Brand Buzz
Affordable Video Calls Facebook’s mobile messaging app WhatsApp has finally introduced video calling for its over 1 billion users across iOS, Android and Windows phones. This new feature is an attempt to take a share out of FaceTime’s pie of mobile video calling. The company said in a blog post, “”We are introducing this feature because we know that sometimes voice and text just aren’t enough. We want to make these features available to everyone, not just those who can afford the most expensive new phones or live in countries with the best cellular networks.”
Dig The Data
The Waning Trust According to a recent study by SocialTimes, 96 per cent of the 1,017 American adults surveyed this year said they didn’t have a lot of trust in the ability of social networks to protect their privacy — which is 3 percentage points worse than a similar survey conducted in 2014. Millennials are significantly less trusting than they were two years ago, and those aged 65 and above are the least trusting group of all.
Shopping Trends An infographic by Twitter shows that 73 per cent of Twitter shoppers follow businesses to find special deals, and 43 per cent are likely to visit a store after seeing a deal on Twitter. And as many as 84 per cent Twitter users use Twitter in the planning phase.
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Jeff Bezos @JeffBezos
CEO, Amazon
“Congratulations to @ realDonaldTrump. I for one give him my most open mind and wish him great success in his service to the country.”
Anand Mahindra @anandmahindra
Chairman & MD, Mahindra Group
“Demonetisation,apart from attacking black money, is a significant move against counterfeiting & terror financing. It deserves citizen support.”
