Social Media Sunday: Facebook's 'Dislike' Button, Pinterest Hits Milestone, & Snapchat's Replay (for a Price)
This week in social media, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he's actually decided to create a "dislike" button, but it's not what you think. Meanwhile, Snapchat added a replay feature for snaps you might have missed (for a price) and in Facebook's new "Signal" feature, Twitter has something big to worry about from the top social media platform on the planet.
It's time for Social Media Sunday!
'Dislike' Button Is On the Way
But if you were hoping for a way to express negativity or "downvote" a post, you're probably going to wish you could "dislike" it.
As we previously reported, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that the social media giant was working on a "dislike" button, an addition to the site that Facebookers have been requesting for years.
However, when the feature is introduced to Facebook, it's not going to function as a "dislike" to posts, but instead as a way to avoid that awkward practice of "liking" someone's misery.
Speaking at a Facebook Q&A, Zuckerberg clarified, "We don't want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on peoples' posts," he said, with a sidelong glance at Reddit. "That isn't what we're here to build in the world."
"People aren't looking for an ability to downvote other peoples' posts," said Zuckerberg. "Not every moment is a good moment," he continued, giving examples of bad news, like the refugee crisis in Europe or a death in the family, that Facebook users may want to post and express sympathy for, but not with a thumbs up.
"It may not feel comfortable to 'Like' that post, but your friends and people want to be able to express they understand and relate to you," Zuckerberg said.
So when will the softer "dislike" button be available? Zuckerberg answered that question, but in a vague way. "We have an idea that we think we're going to be ready to test soon," referring to the "dislike" or "empathy" button that's on its way to a News Feed near you.
360 Video App... for VR?
This week, the Wall Street Journal (via Mashable) reported that Facebook is getting ready for the VR era, beyond acquiring the leading VR hardware firm, Oculus.
According to the report, Facebook is working on a new stand-alone video app that would support 360-degree videos, creating a "spherical" view from multipule cameras that would change perspective depending on where you're pointing your smartphone.
The app is still in the "early stages," according to the WSJ's unnamed sources, but one could easily see the same concept applied much more immersive on an Oculus Rift headset, someday in the future.
Hits 100M Milestone
On Wednesday this week, Pinterest announced the fast growing social scrapbooking platform had surpassed 100 million monthly active members, according to CNBC.
This marks the first time the Silicon Valley startup, valued at $11 billion after several successful funding rounds, publically disclosed user numbers, likely to shore up investors' confidence in the valuation as it builds its advertising services.
Snapchat
Introducing Replay (for only $0.99)
This week Snapchat finally offered something that its users have wanted for a while: the ability to replay more than one snap per day. Previously, the ephemeral social media messages on Snapchat disappeared and users could only request one to be replayed per day.
The bad news is that, according to Snapchat's announcement on its blog, it's going to cost users to get those extra replays:
"Today, U.S. Snapchatters can purchase extra Replays, starting at 3 for $0.99. You can use a Replay on any Snap you receive, but you can only Replay any Snap once. They're a little pricey - but time is money! ;)"
But according to Mashable, Snapchat also threw in some goodies in the update to entice users (or smooth over the fact that it's charging you to see messages already sent to you), including "Lenses," which adds silly effects to Snaps like the "rainbow tongue."
Watch Out for Facebook's New 'Signal'
If there's one thing Twitter could count on, it's the fact that journalists love the 140-character social media platform to express themselves and publicize their work (see me @Rkschoon or follow us @LatinPostTech.)
But Twitter is also a great tool for journalism, helping us tune into the national conversation, access real-time information on developing stories, and find trending topics.
Now Facebook wants to move in on one of Twitter's longest-held territories with "Signal," a new -- and free -- newsgathering tool for Facebook.
"Social newsgathering has been happening for a while," said Andy Mitchell, director of news and global media partnerships at Facebook, to Wired. "Given the scale of Facebook, there clearly is a wealth of content available, so we wanted to build a tool to make it easier for journalists to discover new content that's shared."
(Photo : Facebook)
The platform looks a lot like Twitter's TweetDeck, which every journalist worth her salt has at least used at some point in her career, and even includes Instagram search for related images to trending stories. Watch out Twitter!