‘True social’ offering, Vero, has caught the attention of Instagram’s faithful. Launched in 2015, it has gone from 600K lifetime users to an uplift of 500K users in one day, causing a server meltdown over the weekend.
On top of pictures, users are able to share text, URLs, as well as recommendations for books, TV shows, and movies to their profiles. The platform’s point of difference, is that it serves content chronologically – a major sticking point for Instagram users.
The first version of this new social player is touted as ‘ad and algorithm free’ but as were Instagram in their infancy. If it is to be successful, there are certain business model realities that could open Vero’s doors to brand content in the not so distant future. Social platforms have come and go, so, whether it’s here to stay or not, time will tell.
Facebook is integrating their AR, VR and News Feed with 3D posts. This new feature will now support industry-standard gITF 2.0 file formats. What this means is better support in terms of textures, lighting and realistic rendering techniques. With richer and higher-quality 3D content on the platform, 3D models and art can now come to life more vividly and realistically.
Facebook is also introducing new Graph API endpoints alongside their 3D Post support that will allow seamless sharing of 3D content into any app, as well as the ability to ‘take’ them into Facebook Spaces, their social VR hangout platform.
If these features work out seamlessly, it could pave the way for more exciting opportunities – not just for Facebook, but for outside creators – in the near future.
Facebook announced that from July 2018 onwards, the platform will remove a number of reporting metrics that they have found redundant. The soon to be removed metrics include Actions, Amount Spent Today, Canvas Component Time Percentage, Carousel Card for conversion metrics, Page Tab view and Social reach, Social metrics.
YouTube announced a number of new features to improve Live Stream viewing experience for users which will roll out in the coming weeks.. YouTube will now add automatic English captions to live streams that utilises live automatic speech recognition (LASR) technology.
YouTube is also going to allow replay of live chats that occurred during the live stream so users are able to read reactions in sync as the video plays. Last but not least, YouTube will allow live stream creators to geotag the location of where these videos are being filmed and tie “Super Chat” feature to IFTTT and smart home gadgets.
