Christmas has come early this week for Instagram users, with St Nick *ahem* Mark Zuckerberg delivering new features across the app.
Instagram’s status feature, Notes, now allows users to post video Notes, rather than just text or emojis. The new feature allows users to post two-second looping videos to mutual followers or Close Friends for 24 hours. Plus, mutual friends can now reply to a Note using audio, photo, video, gifs and stickers. Instagram is also testing adding Notes to Feed posts.
Instagram has also launched a new “Add Yours” feature on Stories. Users can create customised templates with GIFs, images and text, to make their own meme-able Stories for followers to participate in. The custom templates are a fun addition to the interactive Add Yours sticker, now allowing users add their own spin to it.
Can’t wait to use the new feature to show off my Christmas dinner next week.
Meta reveals AI that clones voices and generates sounds
Meta has released its free voice cloning program, Audiobox, which generates voices and sound effects using voice inputs and text prompts. Users type a sentence they want a cloned voice to say, or a description of a sound they want to generate, and Audiobox will do the rest. Users can also record their own voice and have it cloned by Audiobox.
Users can also generate new voices from text descriptions of what they would like to sound like, such as a “deep feminine voice” or a “high-pitched masculine voice.” Meta also revealed it created a “family of models,” including one for speech mimicry and another for generating sound effects.
Snapchat now lets subscribers share AI-generated snaps
Snapchat is expanding its AI features, now letting Snapchat Plus subscribers create AI images based on text prompts. Users tap the “AI” button from the toolbar to open a window to type their text prompt. Snapchat’s AI will then create the image ready to be edited and sent to friends on the app.
Snapchat Plus subscribers can now also ‘extend’ a photo by using AI to fill in the surrounding environment.
Influencer Updates
YouTube will enable creators to give away ten free subscriptions per month
YouTube is helping creators boost their channel membership counts with a new program that will enable creators to gift ten memberships per month to their audience. These will be one-month memberships and are currently only available to channels that offer a membership tier below $5.
This will ideally see the test subscribers go on to become fully-fledged paying members, with the initial offer designed to give them a taste of what they can expect from a paid membership.
