Social Media Saturday: WhatsApp Hits 600 Million, Twitter Opens Analytics to Everyone, and Facebook's Expanding Graph Search
This week in social media, we learned that messaging giant WhatsApp has hit a new milestone in active monthly users. Meanwhile, Twitter opened its analytics to everyone, Snapchat might officially be worth $10 billion, Facebook is expanding Graph Search, and Instagram unleashed an amazing app.
It's time for Social Media Saturday!
More Graph Search on Mobile
Facebook is testing an expanded version of Graph Search -- its improved contextual search engine that lets users find not just other users, but their social media content as well -- on mobile. The tool is only available to a limited test group of Facebook users currently, but according to Bloomberg, some users are reporting that their Graph Search is now allowing them to find old posts, follows and likes from friends just by looking up keywords. Facebook only confirmed to Bloomberg via email that the feature is "an improvement to search on mobile."
The expansion could become a threat to Google's dominance in Internet search, but it comes at a time after Google hit the EU's "right to be forgotten" wall. And now some European users are suing Facebook over privacy violations as well.
WhatsApp Hits 600 Million Milestone
Facebook's recently acquired messaging service WhatsApp announced to Forbes that the service hit 600 million active users recently. In February that number was 450 million, indicating a huge growth per month over the past few months in active users of the messaging service.
"WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said when he filed to buy the company for a record $19 billion, and now it looks like he knew what he was talking about.
Twitter Analytics for Everyone
(Screenshot : Twitter)
Super social media geeks will love the fact that Twitter's analytics dashboard is now available for any user -- not just businesses and select power users.
Absolutely thrilled to open up access to https://t.co/wcU6oj9hFM to EVERYONE. Check it out, and let us know what you think!
— Ian Chan (@chanian) August 27, 2014
The tool is available at analytics.twitter.com, and provides measurements of users' engagement with your tweets, a breakdown on your followers, and other detailed information for the stats junky in everyone. Now everyone can obsess over their own personal follow-to-click-through ratios -- hurray!
Snapchat: Really Worth $10 Billion Now?
We previously reported that a private round of fund raising for the immensely popular ephemeral messaging service Snapchat might lead to the startup being valued in the range of $10 billion -- an incredible accomplishment for such a young company.
Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, it's pretty much official: An investment in Snapchat from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers has valued the messaging service at $10 billion, even though Snapchat makes basically zero revenue right now.
That figure is five times more than the (still impressive) $2 billion valuation that the teen-magnet company earned just a year ago. Zuckerberg must really be feeling the "snap" of his failed acquisition bid now.
Instagram's Hyperlapse Video App Kills Smartphone Shakey-Cam
Instagram released an app this week for iPhone users (Android is on its way) that allows for real-time or timelapse smartphone videos without the usual jostling effect inherent to capturing movement with a smartphone camera.
The app is free, and, in a pleasant surprise move, free of Instagram/Facebook tie-ins, meaning you can take incredibly good looking video timelapses without signing up for, or signing in with, either social media service.
Follow us on Twitter and look for a full hands-on "Tap That App" review this Tuesday on Latin Post Tech for more details!